The Galdrabok An Icelandic Grimoire

Book: The Galdrabok An Icelandic Grimoire by Stephen Flowers

The so-called Galdrabok,' or "Book of Magic," is the single most important document for Understanding the practice of magic in late medieval Iceland. It is especially important in that it give, a unique insight into the various religio-magical elements that went into a synthetic national magical tradition in Iceland all the time of its compilation. No other document of comparable age gives so many details of the preservation of the archaic Germanic gods, cosmology, and magical practices as does this little manuscript. Here we are not dependent on folktales or indirect reports through confessions exacted by the tortures of the Inquistion or other churchly authorities to reconstruct the magicoreligious views of the galdramenn (magicians) of the day; instead, we have direct evidence of actual practices written by the magicians' own hands. In many ways the Galdrabok is to the Icelandic folktales of magic' what the runic inscriptions are to the accounts of magic recorded in the sagas. They provide factual corroboration of what otherwise might have been considered, form of fantasy.

In this volume the reader will find not only an annotated Translation of the complete Galdrabok but also a similar treatment of selections from other written sources of Germanic magical practice from all of the Germanic peoples. However, in no region did the old ways and the old Gods and goddesses survive so well as in Iceland. And because we are focusing on these texts for what is uniquely Germanic about them, leaving as secondary what is common to every European tradition, we will concentrate mainly on Icelandic sources in this study. Our two principal areas of interest will be the preservation of the old gods and the preservation of the unique forms of Germanic magical practice inherited from the heathen age.

In preparing this work for modern publication, I've made every effort to remain true to the original text of the Gaklrabok. Irregularities in capitalization and spelling are left as in the original as they may have special meaning or significance.

Buy Stephen Flowers's book: The Galdrabok An Icelandic Grimoire

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Rune Might History And Practices Of The Early 20th Century German Rune Magicians

Book: Rune Might History And Practices Of The Early 20th Century German Rune Magicians by Edred Thorsson

This work reveals, for the first time in the English language, the long-hidden secrets of the German Rune Magicians who practiced their arts in the beginning of the 20th century. Most of their work has been unavailable even in German for many decades. This book includes material by Guido von List, Friedrich Bernhard Marby, Siegfried Adolf Kummer, Karl Maria Wiligut, Peryt Shou, Karl Spiesberger and others. This text presents the best and most powerful of the runic techniques developed in the early phase of the runic revival and offers them as a coherent set of exercises. Experience rune-yoga, rune-dance, runic hand gestures (mudras), rune-signing (mantras), group rites with runes, runic healing, and two of the most powerful methods of engaging transpersonal powers~W the ritual of the Ninth Night and the Ritual of the Grail-Cup.

Magical practice dealing with runes and the use of runic lore to shape occult teachings has a long history in Germany. For almost as long as there has been a magical revival in that country, there has been a magical runic revival. In the annals of this renaissance, two names shine out above all the rest: Guido von List and Friedrich Bernhard Marby. Others would expand and adapt their ideas, but without doubt all of the significant magical innovations of the occult German runic revival can be traced to one or the other of these two men. But in this work we will be dealing not only with the teachings of these two but also with that of their followers and students, each of whom added something to the hoard of teachings that make up the German occult tradition surrounding the runes.

In the present work I want to explore the practical teachings and workings of the German rune magicians. It will be shown how the German runic tradition fits well with the Western magical tradition, for it is largely an outgrowth of it, although the runic magician would argue that it is the deepest root and basis of the Western revival itself. The second part of this book is a collection of some of the most influential and powerful workings of the German rune-magical tradition. The techniques are drawn from a wide ranger of books, mostly printed in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s. They represent the teachings of various esoteric individuals and groups working with the runes in Germany during the early part of the 20th century. The reader will be able to enact these runic workings and exercises for purposes of self-development, strengthening the will, and generally improving all phases of magical work. The runes, as taught in the Armanic system, can very easily be put into the working context of any other Western magical tradition, in contrast to the highly traditional forms of runelore expressed in the 24-rune futhark, which is fairly "intolerant" of admixture with other systems. This is simply because the 18-rune futhork as used by the Armanen (followers of Guido von list) and most other German rune magicians of this time is more a part of the so-called Western Tradition than is the 24-rune system. If one is going to work "eclectically" with the runes, it is perhaps best to work with the Armanic runes (the 18-rune futhork).

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The Complete Idiots Guide To Wicca And Witchcraft

Book: The Complete Idiots Guide To Wicca And Witchcraft by Denise Zimmermann

An invaluable resource for beginners and adepts alike, this best-selling and frequently recommended book on Wiccan magick and witchcraft has been updated and revised, now featuring a Year-and-a-Day calendar for the solitaire who is beginning to explore Wicca on his or her own.

- Loads of new spells
- New for this edition—a Year-and-a-Day calendar
- Expanded information on creating a personal grimoire and book of Shadows—the witch’s spell manual and "bible"

This guide offers a beginner's look at the history of paganism, Wicca, and witchcraft, from the Druids and Celts to the witches of today who practice an earth-based religion, cast spells, and perform natural magic. The book, written by a practicing witch, reveals details of the witches' Sabbaths, ceremonies, and altars.

Don't get me wrong, fellow pagans, I recommend Cunningham' Guide for a solitary practitioner and other well known books. But sometimes it is easy to start from the very beginning. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft, does just that. It lays the foundation for other works (such as those by Cunningham) to contiune the way. This book introduces you to concepts and theories as well as jargon and even how to lead you in circle casting and ritual work. It presents the information in an easy to understand and comprehend manner. It breaks down complex ideas and explains them to you one piece at a time. It also offers tidbits of information throughout the book that are fun and informative.

This book has gone on my top ten of books to recommend to new people. I also recommend this book to people wanting a refresher on Wiccan basics. Kudos!

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The Complete Idiots Guide To Wicca And Witchcraft

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Training The Mind For Druidry Open Meditation

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TRAINING THE MIND FOR DRUIDRY PART 1: OPEN MEDITATION

In the course of working with students I find a continuing resistance to the systematic practice of basic Open Meditation. By this term I mean the practice of concentrating attention on a single object, such as the breath, while allowing other thought and sensation to flow by the attention without attachment. This technique is basic to further trance and even to ritual work and should be a common part of any program of mental practice. Beginning students, however, do find reasons to balk.

Some seem to find the business of sitting motionless, pursuing nothing except mental activity, to be chafing. To this the only answer can be that any new skill has its basic methods, and most of them involve some inconvenience in early phases. Whether stretching the hands for the piano or lying face down for push-ups, discomfort is often part of learning. So we can only tell students that the results will justify the work of learning to sit motionless. Fortunately for these students a practicing Druid spends rather more time in the trances associated with ritual, than in motionless trance.

Some students mistake this practice for the attempt to 'stop thinking'. In some of the world's mystical systems this does seem to be a goal, with great value placed on finding and enhancing the silence between thoughts. Druidic lore doesn't suggest that the finding of motionless silence is, in itself, a core goal. It seems to occur spontaneously in some students, but it isn't central to the work.

Rather the point of this method for the system we're building is the development of a detached observer in the self - a point of observation for all that passes, within or without. The student learns to maintain her equanimity - engage her passions at need and to step away when she must. The work of Pagan spiritual practice can arouse the passions, can stir up ones mental contents. The ability to stand in a place of neutrality and peace offers a special strength in the work of magic, whether it's dealing with one's emotions, or facing the Gods.

It is common to confuse basic trance with the work of Open Meditation. They are, in fact, closely related, but there is an important distinction. Basic trance is the primary mental preparation, induced by relaxing the body, focusing the attention and suspending critical observation (or 'attachment' as some say). We have taught this state through the Fire and Water induction, and the Bone, Breath and Blood exercise. Either of those exercises, among many other similar forms, produces the focused poise that leads to other trance states.

Open Meditation can be understood as an extension of that poise into a longer experience sustained by will. By directing the concentration upon a single focus - watching the breath being our most usual method - we locate the still point. As our thoughts and impressions flow around us, we keep returning our awareness to the focus as we sit in stillness. By sustaining the relaxation, concentration and detachment of basic trance we allow the mind and emotions to relax in turn, releasing the 'knots and kinks' of daily life.

Open meditation is an excellent accompaniment to the regular work of ritual purification. The Water and Fire clear away the spiritual cobwebs and parasites of daily spiritual life in the world. Open meditation deprives your personal inner imps and larvae of their food and weakens their grip.

So we begin the formal work of mental training by learning to abide calmly among our own thoughts and feelings. If no other good were gained from the work of Druidry, the ability to stand at peace amid the swirl of life's impulses would pay for all. In order to work the system I'm presenting here the student will have to simply choose to set to it, and develop the basic skills that support all further work. We will refer often to the 'Druid's Peace" in this work - by this we mean that steady and unmoved center. In addition to this Peace, we will learn a set of active meditations, but the Peace is the basis of them all, because the Peace grants access to the management of the mind by will.

Open meditation is as basic to mental training as aerobic exercise is to training the body. Some students will take to it readily, others may find it more difficult. Its value and results speak for themselves and to neglect it in early training is to deprive yourself of future resources.

WORKING OPEN MEDITATION

First Stage:

- First find your seat, in a position that can be comfortably maintained with your spine straight.
- Begin patterned breathing. Work the Blood, Breath and Bone induction.
- If you wish to work a simple shrine opening, do so now. Practice maintaining basic trance as you speak and do the ritual gestures. Return to motionless basic trance following the work.

Second Stage:

- Choose a point of focus for your concentration. Initially you should continue to use the breath.
- With your attention focused simply sit and maintain that focus. You choose not to give attention to any specific thought that arises, whether about the object of concentration or any other thing. Each time that you notice a thought or specific impression holding your attention, return your attention to the focus. That is the entire basic technique. Like raising an arm or taking a step it is the act of will that brings the attention back to the focus.
- As you practice you will begin to notice more quickly when you have drifted, and be able to hold your concentration on the focus for longer without breaks. This is the first level of success in this practice.

Closing

- Always end the session of meditation formally, with the recitation of a closing charm and/or other formal gesture.

Stage 1: Simple Shrine Blessing and Open Meditation.

This first section can always serve as a fall-back, or minimum practice. It can be done daily, even as you add additional work during retreats or more focused workings.

The Druid seats himself in her seat, facing east if possible. If there can be hallowed Fire and Water, so much the better. The body should be kept balanced and alert, while relaxed.

Begin your breathing pattern. Find your peace, perhaps using the Bone, Breath and Blood method.

Bless the Water and Fire, as you say:

The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
In Land, Sea and Sky, Below and on High,
Let the Water be blessed and the Fire be hallowed.

"When you are ready, dip your hand in the Water and sprinkle or lave yourself, then pass your hands through the incense or Fire and bring it onto yourself, as you say:"

By the Might of the Waters and the Light of the Fire
Cleansed of ill and bane am I
By the Might of the Waters and the Light of the Fire
Blessed in Land and Sea and Sky

As you cleanse and bless yourself, feel the Water and Fire washing and searing away all that's not in your true pattern of being.

Light an additional offering of incense, and open your heart in welcome to all the Holy Beings. Say:

Gods and Dead and Mighty Sidhe
Powers of Earth and Sky and Sea
By Fire and Well, by Sacred Tree
Welcome I do give to ye.

At this time you may wish to pause in open meditation for as long as you wish. In daily practice it can be enough to do the simple cleansing, followed by open meditation.

When your meditative practice is complete, take time to return your awareness fully and completely to your body and material senses. Even as you remember what you may have gained or learned in a working, allow your awareness to return to common life and breath. Before you rise from your seat pause for a mement and return to your center in peace. Cross your hands on your chest and say:

The blessings of the Holy Ones be on me and mine
My blessings on all beings, with peace on thee and thine
The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
Thus do I remember the work of the Wise.

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A Pagan Christmas Tree

The Christian tradition of a Christmas tree has its origins in the Pagan Yule celebration. Pagan families would bring a live tree into the home so the wood spirits would have a place to keep warm during the cold winter months. Bells were hung in the limbs so you could tell when a spirit was present.

Food and treats were hung on the branches for the spirits to eat and a five-pointed star, symbol of the five elements, was placed atop the tree.

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Green Men Appear Again

There are many places where undisputed Green Men appear, and many people find him an intriguing figure. So why does he often appear in religious, and specifically Christian, settings all over Europe and even extending into parts of the Middle East and India?

The name ‘Green Man’ has been given to several different characters. Some link him with the woodwose, a wild man with a Club, possibly intended to be John the Baptist or Hercules. This figure appears on some Church fonts, e.g. at Stradbroks in Suffolk, and as a supporter (a figure at the side of the shield) in heraldry. In this form perhaps he symbolised the taming of strength. But the woodwose often appears shaggy and stupid, very different from the true Green Man.

On signs outside inns called ‘The Green Man’ he is often pictured as a kind of Robin Hood figure, sometimes alternatively named Jack-in-the-green or Jack-in-the-Tree.

Was he a Celtic fertility god, the beneficent spirit of vegetation, the tree spirit, still being built into churches after 1000 years of Christianity, and currently revived by people who love such places as Stonehenge, Tintagel, and Glastonbury with their associated legends?

On May Day, a day associated with the return of life, a Chimney Sweep sometimes became a living Green Man, being decked in a wicker frame decorated with leaves and flowers, and paraded around. Or a man was led through the fields as a token of aiding their fertility, and then symbolically drowned. By his death he was thought to make life-giving forces available to the village.

The annual Burry Man festival in the village of South Queensferry, Scotland, appears to be a living equivalent of the Green Man in much the same way as the Jack-in-the-Tree or Chimney Sweep mentioned above.

Such rites persisted well after the time many Christian churches were being built (and Green Men were being incorporated within them) for in 1540 Bishop Latimer was told in another town it was no good opening a church for a service because everybody was attending such ceremonies. Other accounts speak of the revellers entering Church to dance their rituals there, even when a service was already in progress. Priests disapproved, but people’s customs were strong and were often backed by the squire, so the parson had to keep quiet. Rogation Day Ceremonies, with their blessing of the fields, is probably a Christianisation of such activities.

He may represent the bringing of the tree spirit or spirit of nature under the guidance of Christ, in the way that many pagan ideas and rituals have been baptised into Christianity - a common practice in the attempt to lead people from Other Beliefs into the Christian Faith.

This last thought might go even further, possibly linking with the other figure in the church porch vaulting. That figure is presumably Jesus, the wreath on his brow perhaps representing the crown of thorns. But has he, too, vegetation around his head? Is this merely decoration, as often appears on vault bosses? Or is there another possibility? Christ, the Logos (the Word) has been equated with the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Also, Christian thought claims that the act of creation was performed through the pre-existent Christ. When the writer of the book quoted below was shown this face he raised the suggestion that it might be to do with the Spirit, the Creator Spirit, being revealed through created things.

The Green Man has a special meaning today. After centuries of man’s exploitation of nature for his own benefit, as if mankind is the only creature that counts, we are now beginning to realise how dependent we are upon the natural world, that we are part and parcel of the whole of G-d’s creation, and therefore must learn to work in co-operation with it. The Green Man, especially in his strange structure blending the human form and vegetation, can be taken to symbolise the unity of mankind with the natural world. Perhaps it is not surprising that he should have a place in Christian Churches of all types for when they were built mankind was much closer to nature than we are, at least in the industrialised western world.

Given that we now know for certain that Rosslyn Chapel was built by the St Clair family specifically as a Christian edifice it seems clear that the Green Men within the chapel were, by 1446, no longer pagan but had been adopted as a Christian symbol

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The Yule Log

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On the winter solstice, on the longest night of the year, people would place and set afire an entire tree, that was carefully chosen and brought into the house with great ceremony. The largest end of the log would be placed into the fire hearth while the rest of the tree stuck out into the room! The log would be lit from the remains of the previous year's log which had been carefully stored away and slowly fed into the fire through the Twelve Days of Christmas.

It was considered important that the re-lighting process was carried out by someone with clean hands.

Tradition has it that the burning of the Yule log was performed to honor the Great Mother Goddess. The log would be lit on the eve of the solstice using the remains of the log from the previous year and would be burned for twelve hours for good luck and protection. As the fire began all other lights would be extinguished and the people would gather round the fire. In thanksgiving and appreciation for the events of the past year and in bidding the year farewell each person would toss dried holly twigs into the fire.

The next phase of the burning of the Yule log commenced with people tossing oak twigs and acorns into the fire and they would shout out their hopes and resolutions for the coming New Year and sing Yuletide carols. The celebration of the Yule log fire ended with unburned pieces of the Yule log saved to start the fire of next winter's solstice Yule log.

The custom of the Yule Log spread all over Europe and different kids of wood are used in different countries. In England, Oak is traditional. The "mighty oak" was the most sacred tree of Europe, representing the waxing sun, symbolized endurance, strength, protection, and good luck to people in the coming year. In Scotland, it is Birch; while in France, it's Cherry. Also, in France, the log is sprinkled with wine, before it is burnt, so that it smells nice when it is lit.

Ashes from the Yule log are very beneficial to garden plants, however, it is considered very unlucky to throw out the ashes of the Yule log on Christmas day.

Various chemicals can be sprinkled on the log like wine to make the log burn with different coloured flames! Here's a short list. Be sure to follow safety precautions if you plan on using them!

* "Potassium Nitrate" = Violet
* "Barium Nitrate" = Apple Green
* "Borax" = Vivid Green
* "Copper Sulphate" = Blue
* "Table Salt" = Bright Yellow

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