A Collection of Magical Secrets, etc., A CORNISH BOOK OF WAYS Gemma Gary, Troy Books, 2008 isbn 978-0-9561043-0-4
This is one of a number of books I've read that claims to represent a tradition of Pagan Witchcraft older and '"more authentic"' than that of Gardner and his Wiccan inheritors. In this case the system of witchcraft presented draws on Cornish countryside spirit lore, folkloric spellcraft and remnants of the cunning-folk traditions to construct a modern form. An interesting thing about this system is that it attempts to provide a Pagan context inside which a folkloric magical tradition could operate.
The author describes a devotion to a nature-power, androgynous, summer-winter sort of goat or stag spirit, the Bucca (WHICH MEANS, ROUGHLY, "GOAT" in Celtic languages.). Along with this cross-roads deity the system focuses on the spirits of the Dead in the land and in the Otherworld, which are identified with the '"pisgies"' of Cornish lore. The book provides outlines and some spoken text for rites of worship that have a nicely Pagan feel to them, including an emphasis on the witch's hearth as a key magical center. The central rite of '"worship"' is essentially a sacrificial feast in which bread and mead are shared with the spirits. Throughout this material there's a kind of imagined countryside devil-worship - as long as we remember that the Devil is really the Bucca. Aesthetically it treads a line between homespun and gothic.
The author makes an effort to associate this '"Traditional Witchcraft"' or '"cunning craft"' with the practices of famous Cornish cunning folks and reputed witches. She drops the names of undoubtedly historical modern figures, and freely uses the term cunning folk interchangeably with '"witches"'. This is where the scholasticism of the book breaks down, in my opinion, and becomes the very same sort of Neopagan romanticism we all know and love. What we're seeing here seems, to me, very unlikely to be an actual remnant of folk paganism from the 18th and 19th centuries, but rather a nicely done reconstruction. The author (OR HER GROUP - SHE'S PART OF A CIRCLE WORKING THE SYSTEM, IT SEEMS) has done a good job of cobbling bits of folklore into workable rites - a skill I admire.
More than half the book is taken up with its grimoire, which is plainly based on the same sort of cunning-person's Book of Secrets that we see in the above review. The author is interested in herbs and oils, and gives extensive recipes for incenses and various anointing oils. There is an effort made to devise a system of categories for magical intention (OR 'ENERGIES') and support them with corresponding substances - so we find Toad Smoke and Hare Smoke recipes along with Serpent and Crow. There is a system of making talismans in the form of '"sachets"', small, square-sewn packets, and the usual variety of practical spells for love, healing, protection, turning away ill and cursing. The spells are influenced by the same literary tradition that produces the Book of Secrets - countryside lore mixed with elements of scholastic magical traditions. They retain the seven planets symbol system, and give planetary number-squares and sigils for each, derived from scholastic magic. However where an 18th century system would have called on angels and demons of late Judeo-Christian provenance, this grimoire offers spirit communication with the '"piskies"' - the crowd of the Dead - instead.
The book concludes with chapters on group worship rites. Full Moon and New Moon rites are described (THOUGH NOT SCRIPTED). The seasonal ritual days are the four Celtic feasts along with the solstices, the equinoxes having no customs given. These days are given their Cornish folk names but are quite recognizable as the modern Pagan holy days.
All in all a good effort, with a lot of workable material for a solitary Pagan magic user. I remain bemused at the effort to turn the '"cunning-man"' into the '"witch"', but I understand the impulse. Incidentally also a pretty and romantic treatment for this book - I love it when magical authors illustrate their own ideas.
Voudon Gnosis David Beth, Scarlet Imprint, 2008
Hang on to your wangas, now we're going somewhere different. Where the first two books are themselves grimoires, instructions for personal magical practice, this small book is instead a comment on a much larger modern grimoire. The Voudon Gnostic Workbook, by Michael Bertiaux, is a book with a lot of buzz among Thelemites and chaos magicians. It's a huge book that takes the reader on a labyrinthine journey, starting with being a Big Lucky Hoodoo and ending up somewhere-weird of Atlantis. In fact Atlantis plays a big part in its mythology, along with Zothyrius, Lemuria and Lovecraft's Yuggoth. It may have been the Lovecraftian element in Bertiaux's work that attracted Kenneth Grant, who profiled him in Cults of the Shadow. One of the most notable characteristics of the VGW is its impenetrability to casual study. This small book, Voudon Gnosis, is by one of the only other occultists to write on the system, a student of Bertiaux. It attempts to offer an eighty-page introduction to some of the book's key ideas and practices. It rather succeeds, but the author admits at the outset that the VGW material is "...ABSTRACT AND VERY COMPLEX", and so it really only succeeds so well. I bought this book on the recommendation of a review of it by Freya Aswynn, who suggested that is was relevant to any magician interested in working with the spirits. I don't disagree. Within the delightful gobbledeguk of the occultism is a serious approach not only to working with the spirits, but to empowering the individual and enabling wild explorations of little-known spiritual spaces. The VGW system is based somewhat on Haitian Voudon, and some of the terminology is retained. The Prise des Yeux - divine vision or second sight, the points chauds - hot points, which are conceptually related to the chakras and marmas of eastern systems and the use of spirit bottles and fetishes all have roots in traditional Voudon. From that basis the system appears to intend to create a system of mysticism that allows the student to transcend common reality and construct their own magical universe in which to dwell. That's the gnostic part of Voudon Gnosis. Along the way the system intends to produce magical '"powers"' of the usual sort. I bought this micro-press item because I decided I'd start actually getting some of this good stuff before it only was available as a rare book. It's a very nice hardback edition with embossed cover, but quite slim. I thank Scarlet Imprint for not making the price ridiculous, even with overseas shipping. Is this book worthwhile for students of a northern occultism? It could be, but it will be of far more use to experienced practitioners with multi-cultural sensibilities. The material on fetishes (UMMM, THAT IS, EMPOWERED IMAGES...), on body-based mysticism and on work with the Dead could all be instructive, though the complex mythologies of the system make even this simplified introduction pretty opaque.
Also read these ebooks:Friedrich Max Muller - The Sacred Books Of The East
Aleister Crowley - The Book Of Lies
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