.:: Dreamwork and the Oneiric Sabbath ::.
In 906, Regino of Prüm writes in his instructions to the bishops (that later will become the Canon Episcopi), the following:
“This also is not to be omitted, that certain wicked women, turned back toward Satan, seduced by demonic illusions and phantasms, believe of themselves and profess to ride upon certain beasts in the nighttime hours, with Diana, the Goddess of the Pagans, (or with Herodias) and an innumerable multitude of women, and to traverse great spaces of earth in the silence of the dead of night, and to be subject to her laws as of a Lady, and on fixed nights be called to her service.”
This cult, as we said several times, from the Franco-Germanic area will extend throughout the Continent, becoming so a pan-European phenomenon, characterized by nocturnal flights, transformations in animals, processions of spirits and witches gatherings.
At the beginning of the history of Traditional Witchcraft, TradCraft has almost entirely been a “dream cult”, and only later somebody physically emulated it.
The essence of witchcraft is not physical, it’s a nocturnal experience, it’s oneiric, in 906 physical meetings are not yet present as it will happen later.
Initially, witches fly or shapeshift into animals to participate in a spiritual procession, a cortège that proceeds from house to house eating and drinking the banquets that people prepared as an offering near their hearth, blessing, in turn, the inhabitants of the home: this is the procession of “the good women who go forth at night” or Dominae Nocturnae.
Gradually this horde of spirits ceases to move from house to house, and begins to gather in one single place. Even here, however, they eat, drink and make love. The Procession, the Cortège, becomes the Sabbath.
Finally, the sabbath will be “ostented”, i.e. emulated, imitated in the physical realm.
But the essence of the Sabbath, its origin, is and remains oneiric. The sabbath represents the world of the spirits, the dead and the fairies. Not surprisingly, the Queen of Fairies is often also the patron of witches: there are numerous trials in Scotland where the accused claim to have visited the Court of Fairies, their kingdom, Elphame, and to have also seen some well-knownly deceased human beings.
Also the dead, moreover, often proceed like a cortège: we are talking about the Procession of the Dead or Wild Hunt, led by the Wild Hunter or corresponding female characters who are also leaders of the Procession of the Dominae Nocturnae.
The dead and the witches are also connected to the Spirit Battles or Night Battles, oneiric fights between witchcraft practitioners (like the Mazzeri of Corsica), in which each witch represented their own village, and the loser of these fights caused more deaths for their own village, while the winner a minor number.
At other times, instead, they fought for the fertility of the fields, and it was thought that those who could participate in these battles could also see the dead and their processions (as in the case of the Benandanti of Friuli).
Therefore, the Oneiric Sabbath is not a monolith: it includes the Procession of the Dominae Nocturnae; the Sabbath; the Wild Hunt and the Night Battles.
Quoting Peter Gray (a revivalist writer, not a reconstructionist one):
“Initiation in dream is thus revealed as the birth rite of witchcraft. Our origin is embedded in the land of the dead and faery, concealed within the ringing hollow hills.”
Allright, now that we understand that the primordial Sabbath is oneiric, that all these possibilities exist … how to experience it? How did they experience it in the past?
In the past people lived very differently from us: they slept together, they ate together, worked in the same place and gathered around the same hearth; they listened to the same storytellers, witnessed the same events and the same sermons. Sharing dreams was commonplace, while today it is almost a miracle if we remember a dream when we wake up.
The world has changed, and the situational factors that led to a greater number of “witchcraft” dreams are not reproducible, if not perhaps among the Amish (but at that point it would be the Amish people to drive us out accusing us of witchcraft!).
Therefore the most useful techniques nowadays are the modern ones, which work to make us - humans of today - dream. Today we can no longer gather all around the fire to tell our dreams, and forcing our family to do so will not have the same effect of spontaneous sharing that occurred in the past. But there is no problem: we will use a notebook or a tape recorder instead. Today we no longer have storytellers telling us about the Sabbath, we can participate in storytelling events but today’s storytellers do not have the same impact on the psyche of those of the pre-television and pre-social media era. But even here, no problem, we will imagine - replacing the storytellers - the scene at the time of falling asleep and during the day.
So, schematizing, what should we do?
1 - Let’s think of the dream we want to do during the day, and let’s take some moments to imagine the scene we want to dream of at night.
2 - In the night, before falling asleep, let’s repeat the exercise but let’s totally lose ourselves in the imagination until we get into sleep without even realizing it.
3 - Upon awakening, let’s immediately report the dreams in a notebook that we will have left (together with a pen!) on the bedside table, or on a tape recorder.
Even if we had not dreamed of anything, we will still have to write (or speak, in the case of the recorder), so as to deceive our mind, which will pay attention to the dream activity the following days and will allow us to remember our dreams the next times.
So when we do not dream anything we will write: “Dear diary, today I haven’t dreamed of anything”.
Well, now that we understood the technique, we’ll apply it to the various Sabbath themes:
a) - To the Cortège of the Good Women;
b) - To the Oneiric Sabbath;
c) - To Elphame/the Sybil’s Paradise, i.e. the Otherworld;
d) - To the Wild Hunt;
e) - I avoid reporting the Night Battles because they are too dangerous, but if you are reckless and irresponsible, it will be enough to understand the mechanism and apply it here too (at your own risk!);
f) - Separate speeches will be:
* the shared dream, that is to meet one’s “Company” or “Coven” in an oneiric state, and
* the discovery of the Animal Familiar Spirit,
which will be dealt with on other occasions.
# A: The Cortège of the Dominae Nocturnae
The scene that we will imagine will be that of a night sky, where we will fly - together with other people - riding a broom, on the back of our Animal Familiar Spirit (if it has already been discovered) or turning into him in shapeshifting. At the head of this cortège will be our own Patron Familiar Spirit.
Let’s imagine, at this point, that the parade glide and land near a house. Here we will find everything neat, tidy and perfectly decorated. We will proceed all together towards the kitchen. Here we will find ourselves before a huge banquet. Everyone, therefore, starting from the Patron Major Spirit, will eat and drink something, and all together will dance in the house. Once this is done, the Major Spirit will pull out a wooden wand and, touching the house, the inhabitants sleeping in their beds and the pets, will bless them with his/her powers, making a golden light shine out in the house.
Once everything is illuminated by this light, which came from the Spirit’s wand, the cortège will proceed again in the air to get to another house where to repeat everything.
# B: The Sabbath or Game of the Good Society (Ludus Bonae Societatis)
The scene to be imagined this time will be a dark forest, the top of a mountain or a hill.
By putting the case that the forest has been chosen as landscape, we will imagine a multitude of people, completely naked, around a fire and surrounded by torches. Each of these people, ourselves included, will have a candle in their hands. In front of us there will be our own Patron Major Spirit, to which each person, in turn, will bow with the candle in their hand. Once done, everyone will sit down, eat and drink on the huge wooden tables near the bonfire, on which every wonderful food and beverage will be arranged. The candles that were previously held in hand will now rest on the table in front of us.
Once finished to eat and drink, everybody will take their own candle again, and they will dance to form a dance of lights. At the end of the dance, everyone will try to extinguish the candle of the other, but will try to avoid turning off their own, and when all the candles have blown out they will make love in honor of the Major Spirit.
The cock will then be heard to sing, the dawn appears on the horizon, and each person will bow again in front of the Major Spirit, before moving away and disappearing into the forest.
# C: The Otherworld or the Kingdom of the Fairies
The scene in this case will be that of a hill, which we will imagine hollow, with a small entry at the bottom. Once penetrated, let’s imagine going down a clumped ladder and continuing to descend, descend, descend, now let’s feel fall down and descend, descend, descend.
At the end of the descent, we find a gate. Let’s cross it. It is possible to interrupt the visualization here or imagine to arrive, after the gate, in a royal court, captained by two enchanted characters sitting on their thrones, the King and the Queen of Elphame (we can even imagine a single throne, with Patron Major Spirit), and a lot of fairy courtesans and nobles, including also deceased humans.
# D: The Wild Hunt or the Procession of the Dead
Let’s imagine a procession made up of penitents with their faces covered and dressed with a tunic carrying a torch, others on horseback but with their faces bowed, and finally a taller and more physically corpulent character, seated on a sparkling chariot filled with precious stones, to guide the procession: the Wild Hunter, who carries with him a club or a stick.
All these figures proceed at night from the forest to the streets of the city, sometimes even rising in the air.
Among them, we recognize some people that we know that are already dead, and we imagine ourselves parading with them, even us with our tunic, the hood, the face covered and the torch in hand.
The face of the Wild Hunter (or the Wild Huntress) will coincide with that of our Patron Major Spirit.
