#the devils dozen

This is a fantastic book on traditional witchcraft (not based on Gardner and his interpretation of the old ways). This book looks in depth at the cult of the horned one (old nick, the man in Black, Cernnunos) or as Gemma refers to him, the Devil. She makes an important distinction between the devil and Satan. the devil being something very different and separate from the Satan of the Christian church. Something more powerful, mysterious, and old. In the words of Gemma Gary “whilst the survival into the present day of a ‘pagan cult of the horned god’, guarded and kindled by witches, and totally uninfluenced by centuries of Christian and Church domination, Is a highly unlikely thing, something of his spirit and presence would appear to have lingered in regional Faery lore, seasonal custom and folk tradition. Yet ironically, it may perhaps be the Church, in its keenness to eradicate adherence to pagan divinity by grafting and projecting it into the diabolical, that has, unwittingly, most thoroughly preserved the potency, liberation and illumination of the ‘Old One’ and handed him back to the witches as the ‘Devil’

A bearer of forbidden gifts was he; possessed of the ability to bestow power upon those who dared to stray from the conforming flock and enter upon the hidden path. In rejecting normative restriction, helplessness and impotence, the powers of the old way of the Devil offered the possibility to seize some control over ones life and fate and to divert the course of circumstance in accordance with ones own will.”

GEMMA GARY “The Devil’s Dozen. Thirteen Craft Rites of The Old One”

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The operations of magic and witchcraft deal with the hidden worlds of spirit and the powers innate within the natural world; within plant, stone and magical loci. The ‘Old One’, who in folk tradition is often named ‘The Devil’ embodies both the ‘rend in the veil’ and the spanning bridge between the worlds of the material and spiritual, the revealed and the hidden. It is through union with this entity that witches and folk magicians gained access to the powers that reside within the hidden realms and the natural world, and could awaken the potent fire within.

In traditional folk belief, the Devil existed also as an embodiment of the chaotic forces of nature; a belief quite distinct and separate from that of the Church with its ‘Satan’ figure. To the witch, he might also represent the ‘darker’ aspects of the divine; the keeper and the revealer of the divine light, the psychopomp guide of souls, and the sentinel at the threshold unto the mysteries of death and the Otherworld.

Something, it would seem, of the ‘elder divinity’ and the old ‘spirit of the wild’ has lingered through to the present; permeating regional faery lore, the calendar of ritualistic seasonal folk-customs, and traditions attached to ancient landscape features. The themes of untamed, wild nature; its freedom, its spirits, its power and its magic, so repugnant and threatening to the Church, were grafted onto the diabolical; affording yet greater preservation of the Old One for those who sought to stray from the path of limitation and conformity, and tread instead the hidden ways of the witch and magician.

Historical witch-lore records varied rites of initiatory contact, via which the worker of magic and witchcraft entered into a close, working relationship and union with the Old One and the spirit world. Via such union, would the ways unto curing ailments, exorcising ill influence, the attainment of desires, and the destruction of the oppressive be known, and the old artes of the circle, the spirits, the knotted cord, the pierced candle, the witch-bottle, the magical image and the spoken, inscribed and herbal charms be mastered.

From this wellspring of inspiration ‘The Devil’s Dozen’; a modern ‘gramarye’, or ‘black book’ of thirteen Craft rites of the Old One has been created and is offered by a present day initiate of the ‘Old Craft’

Within its pages there are to be found thirteen rites – for both the ‘lone’ practitioner and the assembled companie – of vision, sacred compact, dedication, initiation, consecration, empowerment, protection, illumination, union, transformation and devotion.

‘They are my own creations all; given in hope that they may provide usefulness or inspiration, and each a personal offering of devotion unto the starlit and smoking altar of the Old One’ (from the introduction).

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Gemma Gary lives in the South-West of England, and is an artist and writer whose work focuses upon the traditions and practices of folk magic and witchcraft; in particular the rites and charms of operative magic.

For those of you who have read either of these books, you will understand that with too much control, insanity may follow. The power these killers think they have over their victims get to them and they get out of control with their actions. For example, in The Devils Dozen, on page 58, it starts the Albert Fish case. Albert Fish was a man who kidnapped a girl under a secret identity. Since no one knew who he was with his fake name, he decided to send letters to the girl's parents. He would tell them that their daughter was still alive. However, she was as dead as dead can be. Since he signed the letters with an unknown name, the parents would never really know who took their daughter and whether or not she was alive.