Category: Secret History

From New Dawn Special Issue Vol 11 No 4 (Aug 2017)

Today the popular image of witchcraft in the mass media and in books and magazines is largely defined by ‘Wicca’, a form of neo-pagan witchcraft created by a retired English civil servant called Gerald Brosseau Gardner (1884–1964) in the 1940s. It is now established worldwide as a post-modern, ‘nature religion’ with a spiritual emphasis on Goddess worship. Modern witchcraft, however, did not begin with Gardner and it has a hidden history before Wicca. This history has connections with the famous occultist Aleister Crowley and also with Australia.

From the 1800s onwards there were several revivals of witchcraft in Britain based on historical precedents. These forms of pre-Wiccan witchcraft are variously known today as traditional witchcraft or ‘Traditional Craft’, the ‘Old Craft’ or ‘Elder Craft’, the ‘Sabbatic Craft’, ‘The Nameless Arte’, and ‘The Crooked Path’. There is also plenty of evidence from historical sources, folklore accounts, court cases and, later, newspaper reports in Britain, of the activities of ‘cunning folk’ and other practitioners of folk magic. In popular terminology and belief they were variously known as ‘white witches’, ‘wizards’, ‘sorcerers’, conjurors’, ‘pellars’, ‘planet readers’ (astrologers), and ‘hedge doctors’ (herbalists). These magical practitioners operated widely in both the rural and urban areas of the British Isles and they were consulted by all levels of society from farm labourers to the owners of large country estates.

These cunning folk or ‘white witches’ offered a wide range of services to their clients. They were popularly believed to possess the Sight (the ability to foresee the future and events at a distance, now called ‘remote viewing’ by parapsychologists), exorcise ghosts and banish spirits and poltergeists, cast spells to attract love and money, locate lost or stolen property and missing people using divination or by consulting spirits, and heal the sick using the ‘laying on of hands’ or herbal remedies. Most importantly, as far as their clients were concerned, they could counter the malefic spells cast by so-called ‘grey’ or ‘black’ witches. In some cases the cunning man or wise-woman acted for the general population and the authorities as unofficial witch-finders. However, all types of witches were believed to be able to cure and curse, hex and heal.

Although there are obvious similarities with some of the modern magical practices carried out by Wiccans, most of the methods and techniques used by the old-time witches bear little resemblance to those used by the neo-pagan witches who appear today in the press or on television. Often the cunning folk practised dual faith observance and the charms, amulets, prayers and incantations they used invoked Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Trinity and the company of saints. Psalms were used for magical purposes as spells and they still are in some modern traditional witchcraft circles. With the coming of the new religion of Christianity and the suppression of ancient paganism, objects such as the cross, saints’ medallions and even holy water were widely used by folk magicians because they were believed to possess ‘virtue’ or magical energy and had inherent healing power.

Christian symbolism was used in folk magic rituals involving psychic protection, counter-magic and healing. Many of the old pagan charms were Christianised and some of the saints took on the earlier attributes of pagan gods and goddesses. Sacred springs previously dedicated to goddesses for instance were re-dedicated either to the Virgin Mary or to female saints such as Winifrede or Bride. Healing charms replaced the names of pagan deities such as Woden, Loki and Thor with God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost. A considerable amount of the old pagan beliefs survived in faery lore. There are many historical examples of witches and cunning folk travelling into a hollow hill, or mountain or visiting a prehistoric burial mound to meet the ‘Queen of Elfane’ (Faeryland). Some mortals entered into ‘faery marriages’ with so-called demon lovers and in return were instructed in herbalism and given the Sight. These gifts were passed down the generations such as in the case of the famous ‘fairy doctors’ or physicians of Mydffai in South Wales.

This knowledge of magical charms, herbal remedies and secret plant lore was often passed down in families either orally or by the medium of written texts. Many of the cunning folk and witches of the 18^th and 19^th centuries were literate people and had been educated to a stage where they could read and write. Several of the most famous cunning men or wizards were doctors, schoolteachers, small business owners, or even clergymen. Books on magic, fortune-telling and astrology were available and could be purchased mail-order from booksellers in London who specialised in the occult and pornography. In the 19^th century several astrological and occult magazines were published and had a wide readership. There is also evidence of hand-written grimoires or magical manuals circulating among witches and magicians. These were similar to the modern Wiccan ‘Book of Shadows’, except that instead of neo-pagan seasonal rituals they contained spells, charms and recipes for herbal remedies.

Because it was widely believed that certain of the cunning folk could ‘smell out’ malefic practitioners of the magical arts, several of the famous cunning men were credited with being able to locate or even control the witches living in their neighbourhood. It was only a short step from this belief to the idea that some of these cunning men might also be ‘witch masters’ – the leaders of their local coven. According to Victorian tales, such covens or covines met in the remote countryside at full moon to worship Old Hornie (the Devil) and practise their evil spells against God-fearing folk who were tucked up in bed. These may have been romanticised accounts, but there is evidence that solitary cunning men and wise-women did meet up with others in their locality to practice magic, swap recipes for spells and exchange occult knowledge. It is logical that to avoid prying eyes such clandestine gatherings would be held at lonely spots in the countryside and on the nights that the moon gave the most light.

‘Old George’ Pickingill

One of these alleged ‘witch masters’ was the Essex cunning man ‘Old George’ Pickingill (1816–1909), who is also credited with having a role in modern Wicca.¹ Pickingill or Pickingale (his surname is uncertain) fitted the stereotyped image of a wizard and was described as “a gaunt, ragged creature, dirty, unkempt, and fierce, with piercing eyes which terrified all who saw him.”² He was widely feared and respected in the Essex village of Canewdon, where towards the end of his life he lived as a widower and worked as a farm labourer. He was said to possess the Sight, inherited from his Romany ancestors, and could find missing property and see into the future. In addition he had the magical power to summon up elemental spirits to physical manifestation and allegedly would make them cut the hay while he sat in the hedge puffing on his pipe and swigging cider.

The local farmers feared the power of the old wizard so much that they bribed him with beer and food so he would not curse their animals or farm machinery. His landlord also allowed him to stay rent-free in his cottage. It was said that if Old George pointed his blackthorn walking stick, or ‘blasting rod’, at a person they would be paralysed to the spot. They would only be released when the wizard decided. If Old George stood on the doorstep of his cottage and blew a special wooden whistle he owned, all the witches in the village would be forced to come to his bidding and dance in the churchyard. This suggests he was the Magister or master of the local coven.

People who passed Pickingill’s tumbledown cottage late at night and looked in through the dust-grimed and cobwebbed windows alleged they saw the old man dancing with his imps or familiar spirits. The ornaments and furniture also joined in the mad dance like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence starring Mickey Mouse in the Walt Disney film Fantasia. When a woman visited Pickingill when he was dying she reported seeing his imps scampering about on his bedcover in the shape of white mice.

Another source says that Old George was regarded as the ‘Devil incarnate’ by the locals and his family were feared all over eastern England as ‘a race apart’ of witches, warlocks and wizards. It was also claimed that Pickingill was so famous, or infamous, that he was visited by occultists and magicians from all over Europe who sought his advice and instruction.³ When this writer visited Canewdon in 1977 a local resident (then in her seventies) told him that her mother had been a member of George Pickingill’s coven. It apparently consisted of thirteen women with Old George as the ‘Devil’ or male leader. She added that strangers from outside the village and some from ‘far away’ came to consult him because of his occult knowledge and magical powers.

E.W. Liddell, who was initiated into Pickingill Craft in Essex in the 1950s, has alleged that George Pickingill worked in his early life as a horse dealer and used to travel all around southern England. During this period he allegedly founded nine covens led by priestesses he had specially selected because they had the ‘witch blood’ and psychic or magical powers. It is further claimed that in either 1899 or 1900, while he was a student at Cambridge University, the famous ‘black magician’ Aleister Crowley was briefly involved with one of Pickingill’s covens in Norfolk. His mentor in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Allan Bennett, allegedly introduced him to the Craft. It has been also alleged a photograph exists showing Crowley, Bennett and Pickingill together, but it has never emerged into public view.⁴ Crowley did not last long in the witch coven he joined as he failed to attend meetings. He later told Gerald Gardner, when the two men met in May 1947, that he left because he “refused to be bossed around by a woman.”⁵

Gardner further told Crowley’s literary executor and first biographer, John Symonds, that the Great Beast was “very interested in the witch cult, and had some idea of combining it with the Order [the OTO or Ordo Templis Orientis], but nothing came of it.”⁶ When the writer Francis King met Louis Umfraville Wilkinson, a close friend of Crowley’s who officiated at his funeral service in December 1947, Wilkinson told him Crowley said he had “been offered initiation into the witch cult” as a young man.⁷

It was true that Crowley had been interested for many years in establishing a popular neo-pagan nature religion and it is probable that he and Gardner discussed it when they met. Crowley certainly granted the founder of Wicca a charter to establish a lodge of the OTO, although he did nothing about it. It has even been suggested that Crowley might have considered Gardner as his possible successor as the head of the Order after his death. E.W. Liddell claims that Crowley used a technique of “magical recall” to remember the rituals of the old Norfolk coven and he then passed them on to Gardner.⁸ It is also said that the New Forest coven into which Gardner was initiated in September 1939 was a surviving remnant of one of the Nine Covens.⁹ Gardner, however, influenced by the theories of Dr. Margaret Murray, author The Witch Cult in Western Europe (1920), was more interested in promoting witchcraft publicly as a Goddess worshipping, neo-pagan, nature religion for the masses. Neither the image of Old George Pickingill as a ‘cunning man’ or the beliefs and practices of traditional or historical witchcraft, fitted with this radical and innovative concept.

Since Gerald Gardner died in 1964, Wicca, in both its Gardnerian and Alexandrian forms (named after Alex Sanders, the self-styled ‘King of the Witches’) has spread worldwide. It can now be found in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and even Brazil and Japan. In the 1970s an Australian called Simon Goodman (aka Ian Watts) claimed he had been initiated into what he called ‘Sussex Craft’. This has allegedly been brought over to Australia from a village in Sussex in England and was connected with George Pickingill. From the description of its rites and beliefs it seems to have been closer to historical or traditional witchcraft than modern Wicca. A male Magister or Master led the coven and they exclusively worshipped the Horned God (unlike modern Wiccan covens that are mostly Goddess orientated). The ritual implements used in the circle by the Sussex coven included a stang (forked staff), cauldron, a human skull, and a besom.

Wicca & Traditional Witchcraft

What of traditional witchcraft today and the differences between it and modern Wicca? Unlike the average Wiccan, the traditional witch prefers to work outdoors rather than in a cosy, centrally heated, suburban sitting room. For that reason they do not go ‘skyclad’ (naked), preferring robes or cloaks with hoods. This is why traditional groups are sometimes called ‘robed covens’. As one would expect from the fact that they usually work outdoors, the genii loci or ‘spirits of place’, the wights or earth spirits of the land, are very important in their workings.

The mystical concept of the enchanted or sacred landscape is important, because traditional witches regard themselves as the stewards or guardians of ancient sites such as stone circles, standing stones and burial mounds. They will frequently work their rites on or near the prehistoric trackways that mark the ‘spirit paths’, ‘ghost roads’ or leylines that crisscross the British countryside between these natural power centres. However, they are likely to be less sentimental about the environment than Wiccans. They recognise that nature can be ‘red in tooth and claw’ and that the natural laws are based on ‘the survival of the fittest’.

Unlike Wiccan covens that are ruled by a High Priestess with her High Priest as consort and initiation is always male to female or female to male, traditional covines are led by a male leader known as the Magister, Master or Devil, who initiates both men and women into the Craft. The female leader is known variously as the Magistra, Mistress, Maid, Lady, Dame, or Queen of the Sabbat. The Magister has a male deputy called the Summoner who is responsible for organising the dates, times and places for the meetings. Some groups also have a Verdelet or Green Man whose task is to teach the other coveners the secrets of the magical powers and healing properties of herbs and plants.

Within the operative or magical practices of traditional witchcraft one can find the concept of spirit flight (astral projection) to the Witches’ Sabbath, sometimes using the sabbati unguenti or ‘flying ointment’ made from narcotic plants. Techniques of psychic vision, trance, mediumship, ‘true dreaming’ and spirit possession are also used to contact the Otherworld in ways that are allied to ethnic forms of shamanism. Elementals and spirits are summoned and there is communion with the realm of Faerie, the use of familiars, fetches (the witch’s astral double) and spirit guides, shapeshifting into animal form, divination, necromancy, and wortcunning (herbalism).

Some traditional witches follow old-style dual faith observance using the psalms, working with the company of saints and employing Christian imagery, symbolism and liturgy in a heretical and subversive way. This is akin to similar practices found in voodoo and Santeria in North and South America. In common with the witches and cunning folk of the past, the modern traditional witch can both cure and curse as the need arises.

Traditional witches approach divinity in either a duotheistic or polytheistic way. The goddess of the witches has both a bright and a dark aspect, often associated with the waxing and waning of the moon. She can be personified mythologically as Hecate, Diana, Frau Holda, Lilith, or the Queen of Elfane (Faeryland). The witch god is also dual-faced as the Lord of the Wildwood, the Green Man and the Oak King in summer and the Lord of the Wild Hunt, Lord of Death or the Holly King in winter. In mythic terms he is represented as Herne, Wayland, Puck or Robin Goodfellow, Tubal Cain, Sylvanus, Lucifer, or the King of Elves. He also appears in animal form as a stag, bull, goat, ram or a black dog. Many traditional witches prefer not to associate their deities with any mythology. Instead they refer to them obliquely as the Old Ones, the Owd Lad and Owd Lass, the Old Man and the Old Woman, the Lord and Lady, the Horned One, the Devil, the Old Dame, or just Him and Her.

Although a few traditional and hereditary witches (those belonging to a family tradition) have come out of the shadows in recent years, they are more reluctant than Wiccans to seek publicity. They are not likely to appear on daytime television wearing crushed velvet robes, waving knifes and swords and covered in occult bling. In fact they often look surprising normal, wear ordinary clothes and blend into the background. Because they possess a fund of knowledge about the stars, trees, plants, ancient history and the weather, people may just think they have a keen interest in country matters, nature and folklore.

Wicca obviously attracts many people, especially those seeking a trendy ‘green’ form of spirituality that worships nature. Those who follow the Old Craft today do not regard themselves as ‘nature worshippers’. Many actually do not believe it is a religion per se, and certainly not a ‘nature religion’. Instead they regard it as a mystery cultus offering an ancient heritage of forbidden wisdom and occult (hidden) knowledge. It is a mystical path that leads to spiritual enlightenment and ultimately to gnosis and union with the Godhead. It represents a bright lantern shining in the dark for those dedicated seekers to follow who still seek the ancient Mysteries in the modern world.

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Footnotes

1. E.W. Liddell, The Pickingill Papers: Old George Pickingill and the Origin of Gardnerian Wicca (edited and annotated by Michael Howard), Capall Bann UK, 1994
2. Eric Maple, The Dark World of the Witches, Robert Hale Ltd UK, 1962, 185
3. Charles Lefebure, Witness to Witchcraft, Ace Publishing USA, 1970, 51-54
4. Liddell, 21
5. Jack Bracelin, Gerald Gardner: Witch, Octagon Press UK, 1960, 158
6. Letter in the Gerard Yorke Collection at the Warburg Institute, London quoted in Professor Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Neo-Pagan Witchcraft, Oxford University Press UK, 1999, 219
7. Francis King, Ritual Magic in England, Neville Spearman UK, 1970, 140-141
8. Liddell, 160
9. Liddell, 23

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Myrtle Fillmore was in desperate straits in 1886. Sick from tuberculosis and malaria, her much-younger husband had managed to bankrupt himself in both the mining and real-estate industries. She was so weak that she was incapable of caring for her children, and her aged mother-in-law was added to an already impoverished household as cheap live-in care.

One evening she went along to see a visiting faith healer, something she always did in the vain hope there might be some way of remedying her situation. Sitting in the lecture hall she heard Dr. E. B. Weeks say something that would change her life forever: “I am a child of God and therefore I do not inherit sickness.”

Her cure seemed to happen from the moment of hearing this affirmation, and she went home and spent some intense time in meditation and prayer, day after day repeating this simple sentence. Soon she was cured of her illness, and her previously agnostic husband Charles became convinced there was something in this mind-cure business. Together they would go on to form one of the most established and long-lived of the New Thought religious organisations, the Unity School of Christianity.

Charles himself had been an invalid since he was a small boy. Having fallen on the ice and dislocated his hip as a child, he had been lame ever since. The injured leg was shorter than his other leg, and his hip was frozen in place, incapable of movement. The combined injuries caused him chronic pan, which he bore with great fortitude. It wasn’t, however, until he began to follow his own wife’s lead that he managed to find some degree of relief from his lifelong physical handicaps. He set himself his own regimen of intensive prayer, meditation and affirmation, booking an appointment between himself and God every night that he observed scrupulously. This effort soon bore fruit, and Charles Fillmore could later boast of his own cure through the application of New Thought methods.

Dr. E. B. Weeks, the metaphysical lecturer who had been Myrtle Fillmore’s unexpected saviour, was a student of Emma Curtis Hopkins, one of the most influential New Thought teachers in history. Hopkins had been a close confidante of Mary Baker Eddy, but had eventually, almost inevitably, fallen out with that strong personality. She re-located to Chicago in 1886 and quietly proceeded to influence generations of writers, teachers and spiritual leaders. Even now, those in the know refer to Hopkins as “the teacher of teachers,” though her name has been eclipsed by her more famous students. The Fillmores became so enamoured of Hopkins that they frequently made the expensive trip to Chicago to study with her, and sponsored her visit to Kansas City.

While taking part in one of Hopkins’ study groups they were inspired to establish a silent prayer ministry, which was eventually to become Unity, a name also revealed to them under the auspices of Hopkins. It was she who encouraged them in their ministry, recognising in this peculiar couple the energy, curiosity and talent for organisation that would eventually see them spreading New Thought ideas across America. In June 1891 Hopkins ordained them, and later, after they had established their own religious congregation, they would have their own students re-ordain them.

In 1891 they also caught the attention of a woman who was to become their greatest student and the author of what is seen by many as the textbook of the movement. H. Emilie Cady was a student of Emma Curtis Hopkins, and she started writing pieces for the Fillmore’s journal, also called Unity (and still being published). In 1896 she compiled Lessons in Truth, A Course of Twelve Lessons in Practical Christianity, one of the great classics of the New Thought movement, and a canonical text for all Unity students.

The Fillmores, by nature open-hearted, had always seen the potential for camaraderie among the different New Thought schools and teachers, and in 1896 they hosted a meeting for like-minded groups from around the country. Charles, busy teaching and developing his new movement, waited until 1909 to publish his first book, the influential Christian Healing. Presented in twelve lessons, this book prefigures the metaphysical theory for which he would become most famous: The Twelve Powers of Man. This set of “spiritual tools” was built around a twelve-fold framework that incorporated the twelve Disciples of Christ and the twelve months of the year. It was set out in a 1930 book of the same name, and is still used by Unity groups as a handy structure of spiritual learning.

Unity was from the start characterised by its progressive ideas and openness to all people and traditions. Part of its official doctrine is that: “All the sacred scriptures from the world’s great religions can be used to discover truth.” Charles himself had read widely in Eastern religion, as well as among the Western esoteric traditions. His exhaustive knowledge of the Bible lead him to conclude that it and all other canonical scriptures should be read and interpreted metaphysically, not literally. His Metaphysical Bible Dictionary (1931) drew on a lifetime of reading and study, and remains a useful resource for anyone seeking to understand the Bible outside of conservative Christian analysis.

Even before his conversion, Charles Fillmore had been convinced by a prophetic dream to move his family to Kansas City. This would eventually become the headquarters for the Unity movement, with Fillmore purchasing 58 acres in Jackson County, Missouri, to establish Unity Village. This religious complex, that housed his family along with worship and training facilities, is still thriving today. It is symbolised by the Unity Tower, completed in 1929, which doubles as a reservoir to help supply the complex with its water.

Myrtle Fillmore, nine years older than her husband, died in 1931, after which Charles married his secretary Cora Dedrick, with whom he worked closely on his later writings.

The organisation is best known these days for its Silent Unity prayer ministry, once accessed by letter and telephone and these days by filling in an online form, and its long-lived magazine of inspirational readings and affirmations, The Daily Word. In these forms it has touched countless lives, including many people who might not necessarily identify themselves as New Thought practitioners. It also produces a very popular online radio station, all part of this group’s tradition of media engagement and forward thinking.

The Fillmores initially strengthened their ministry through the judicious publication and distribution of journals and tracts, moving with technological changes to produce well-remembered radio and TV spots which were part of the American popular cultural landscape into the 1980s. Their inspirational late-night TV talks delivered by Charles’ daughter and many other celebrities remain iconic memories for many Americans in their 40s and 50s.

The great charm and personal conviction of the Fillmores has seen their organisation in good stead, and it has continued to operate through the years more or less free from any taint of scandal. They managed to take the distinctly nineteenth century tone of their great teacher, Emma Curtis Hopkins, and usher it into the twentieth and now into another century. They taught from example, and their teachings have gone on to help countless others properly use their minds and employ the spiritual technologies of prayer and meditation.
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References

Hugh D’Andrade, Charles Fillmore: Herald of a New Age

Thomas E. Witherspoon, Myrtle Fillmore: Mother of Unity

James Gaither, The Essential Charles Fillmore

Charles Fillmore, Christian Healing; The Twelve Powers of Man; Metaphysical Bible Dictionary

H. Emilie Cady, Lessons in Truth, A Course of Twelve Lessons in Practical Christianity

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From New Dawn Special Issue Vol 10 No 3 (June 2016)

When I first started my investigation into the so-called “witches’ ointment” of the early modern period I was looking for a specific kind of ointment that caused a specific kind of experience – a “flying” experience, as recognised in contemporary popular culture.

But to delve deeper into the trial records, popular sermons, demonology texts, and medieval pharmacy one will discover not just a flying ointment, but a host of uses for these ointments. Therefore, a more neutral term, like “psyche-magical” (psychedelic + magical) is useful to convey the breadth of experiences available through these concoctions.

Such magical drug practices (veneficia) included (but were certainly not limited to) entheogenic uses (“generating the divine within”), bewitchment, prophecy, Christo-pagan medical magic, transformations, recreation, and, of course, flying. In short, to address only “flying ointments” in early modern Europe would be akin to referring to all cars in Australia as “Hondas.” Medieval veneficia was just as various as the cars we see on the roads every day. In point of fact, people didn’t even use just ointments: they also employed powerful potions, powders, and fumigations as drug delivery vectors.

To be sure, people did use these ointments as flying ointments. However, a further breakdown of even the flying ointment is possible. There is strong evidence to suggest that some magical practitioners used these flying ointments in ways that had nothing to do with entheogenic experiences and also in ways that had everything to do with entheogenic experiences! In still other cases, these magical ointments were used entheogenically that had nothing to do with flying. For example, while Dominican theologian Johannes Nider (c. 1375–1438) described a flying ointment used for entheogenic purposes, we must mark that against a report from Abraham of Worms (c. early to mid-15^th century) who tells of a Linzian witch who used her flying ointment as a way to astral project leagues away to Abraham’s home town. There is not a trace of entheogenism in Abraham’s chronicle of the event. As further evidence that mindset and drug-use went hand in hand, it is perhaps no surprise that Nider’s description of a witch using an entheogenic flying salve included magical songs and chants, while Abraham’s report of a non-entheogenic use included no magical accoutrements beyond the powerful ointment itself.

Moreover, entheogenic experiences didn’t just take the form of spiritual flying; in some instances, according to tales from Northern Germany, a salve was rubbed near the eyes to allow a person to see the “inhabitants of the lower world.”

Beyond the entheogenic practices of common people, Renaissance magicians would fumigate powerful solanaceous psychoactives like henbane and mandrake to produce visions of spirits. Such plants, we are told, were even called “spirits’ herbs,” by magicians – a testament to these substances as used as entheogens in even high culture. On other occasions necromancers, too, would prepare henbane fumigations to call upon the dead. One further case featured a man who inhaled a psychoactive powder so that his “evil spirit” would appear to him. This is not to suggest that only solanaceous plants were used as entheogens.

There is evidence of a remote bacchanalian kind of heresy in the Cottian Alps that survived into the High Middle Ages, which employed the poisons from toads in their Eucharist. The mixer of the potion, one Bilia la Castagna, would brew her potion on the eve of Epiphany, perhaps suggesting that the drink was meant to induce visions of Christ. The report of Bilia’s brew is invaluable to historians because it describes the toad potion in a way consistent with bufotenine (the active psychoactive in such toads): one man drank too much and almost died; the other congregants who drank a smaller amount revelled in their visions.

Here we can see clearly the range of spiritual uses and beliefs associated with the entheogenic state, as spiritual flying ointments, as fumigations for inviting spirits into one’s home, as snuffs, as non-flying entheogens, and as Eucharists mixed by some heretics for their ceremonies.

Beyond the realm of entheogens, the ointments (and potions, powders, and fumigations) were utilised for other forms of medieval psyche-magic as well. For example, a certain kind of mercenary sorcery (“bewitching”), found in both common sorcery and learned magic, might include the surreptitious drugging of a rival or nagging neighbour. To begin in the realm of “low” or “common” sorcery, the spell-caster might place a drug in someone’s food or drink. Then, waiting for the opportune moment for the drug to take effect, she or he would then chant incantations at their victims – the victims, believing that the true power came from the spell-caster, not the drug. Other times, elaborate magical rituals covered the use of the drug, as we see with the dealings of a physician-magician from Gelders. After performing extravagant rituals, he slipped an unfortunate woman a drug, despicably raping her as soon as she fell under its spell.

Sadly for those living at the time, some trickery didn’t involve grand magical demonstrations at all, but rather relied on only two things: the drug itself, and the gullibility of the victim. For example, Dutch physician Petrus Forestus (1521–1597) warned that charlatans, posing as dentists, would often have an ailing patient inhale the fumes of burning henbane. As the drug took effect, and the victim started to fall into a soporific stupor, the thief would fleece the prey of her or his possessions, taking off shortly thereafter. This seems to have been a common form of thievery in the early modern period.

But not all non-flying magical drug practices were so dastardly. Some were benevolent, as found in some of the Christo-pagan shamanistic medical magic (yes, that existed!) of the time. Indeed, one of the more interesting realms of this psyche-magic could be found in the private homes of an ailing villager who, unable to afford a university physician, would call upon a local healer instead. What makes this form of shamanistic medicine so unique from other practices in the worldwide entheogenic geography is that it seems it was up to the patient to ingest the drugs, not the healer. Such magical medicinal ceremonies were instrumental in protecting against supernatural disease-makers like elves and goblins. It included the patient taking the powerful hallucinogen henbane, while the healer sung chants over her or his body. It is difficult to imagine the patient not having some supernatural, otherworldly experience with these kinds of stimuli in place.

Like today, these drugs also had purely recreational uses – a paradigm that goes at least as far back into history as the Old Testament (Genesis 30:14). The word found in both legal and ecclesiastical writing is pocula amatoria, which translates literally into “love cup.” These love cups, of course, weren’t always cups (i.e., potions), but took the form of ointments and powders as well. The most (in)famous additive to these love philters was hallucinogen mandrake. Though, that is not to say that other intoxicants like cannabis, henbane, and opium weren’t also utilised. It’s really anyone’s guess, as the most common description of the ingredients in love potions only mention a venene, a “drug.” The drug was probably different from the ones found in flying ointments, as the point of a love drug wasn’t to fall into a surrealistic dream world, but rather stay awake and vibrant! Thus, drugs like mandrake were used for both lust, and anti-lust purposes, again indicating that the power of the user’s mind was sometimes (though certainly not all times!) enough to sway the magical experience one way or the other.

But this also depended on who was using the drug. In fact, in a move that turns this entire genus on its head, the same drugs were also used to alleviate sexual tensions! Two authors, Petrus Hispanus and the famous Hildegard of Bingen saw these psychoactives as a way to halt promiscuity in men (turns out, it would take more than magic to cure that!). But their records are important as they show a variety of psyche-magical uses of these drugs. In fact, Hildegard names mandrake specifically in her writings. Only she didn’t think that it served best as a sex promoter, but rather a sex inhibitor, a paradigm that some, like famous Renaissance magician Heinrich Cornelius von Nettesheim, clearly ignored. In fact, the Renaissance magus sung the praises of mandrake as the earlier pagans had: it allowed a person to achieve multiple orgasms! Others, like Cristóbal di Acosta favoured opium as the preferred drug of sexual pleasure, remarking that only stupid people should use it as it sent the imagination on fire! Intelligent and imaginative people, on the other hand, would orgasm too quickly if they took opium and therefore should avoid it.

Evidence suggests that some practitioners used these ointments for certain types of animal transformations. What that means, or why it was a part of the magical landscape, remains unknown. It has been suggested this has some shamanistic undertones, but the truth is that not every kind of animal transformation had anything to do with shamanism. Other times, perhaps it did; it is really difficult to tell sometimes. Take Finicella, a sorceress who lived in Rome during the early 1400s. A popular preacher named Bernardino of Siena railed against Finicella, not just because of her magical practices, but also that she used a hallucinogenic ointment to imagine that she turned into a cat. While such transformations can be associated with shamanistic endeavours, we really cannot say one way or the other why Finicella used powerful drugs in such a way. Perhaps it was a form of entertainment before movies, radio, and television? In any event, this act of animal transformation was a popular use of magic by at least the mid-16^th century. In fact, there are reports from both medical students of the time and common sorceresses using these drugs to imagine they were everything from geese to cows. In this latter example (turning into a cow) a young German girl named Magdalena attempted this magic and also believed that the ointment she used would also allow her to fly to a “witch dance.” Magdalena burned for persuading others to try it: a friend of hers, instead of turning into a cow and flying, experienced a “bummer,” being driven out of her senses.

Unfortunately, not a single record details why this kind of animal transformation would be a preferable use of intoxicants. Perhaps it was some kind of fertility rite, the animals representing hopeful abundance in the future? This is, of course, mere speculation. All we can say is that this kind of magic apparently was desirable for some individuals.

While the early modern “witches’ ointment” was surely invented by zealous theologians in the early 1400s as an explanation for the perceived “flight” of entheogenic fertility practices, the magical landscape ran much deeper than just a flying ointment. There were instead a host of ointments, powders, potions, and fumigations used for every kind of magical practice of which we are aware. So while the early modern flying ointment did exist, it is only the surface of a deeper reservoir of drug magical practices. Other kinds of magic, whether transformative, medicinal, mercenary, or otherwise, employed many of the same drugs found in flying ointments. However, the mindset of the person experiencing the effects of these kinds of drugs seems to have made a noticeable difference in how and why these kinds of psyche-magical substances would be interpreted.

For more on the above, read Thomas Hatsis’s book The Witches’ Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic.

[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 10 No 3.[/alert]

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From New Dawn Special Issue Vol 10 No 2 (Apr 2016)

Most forms of spirituality or religion look back to the past in some way. The past is a source of origin, tradition, revelation, and inspiration. For the medieval Cathars the most distant past was, as it is for most religions, the time in which the mythic foundation of the world was established. More recent developments, such as the coming of Jesus, brought the story forward to a new chapter. The Cathars believed that their initiation rite, the consolamentum, was the result of an unbroken tradition stretching back to Jesus himself.

Aspiring modern Cathars look back to the myths of the original spiritual realm, the fall of Satan and the angels, and the creation of the material world in which souls reincarnate until they can escape. They also look back to the historical groups and individuals who were involved with the development of this worldview in the first place. Modern esoteric lineages typically derive not from antiquity but from revivals that occurred in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus when exploring movements like the Gnostics of antiquity or the Cathars of the Middle Ages, the modern spiritual seeker is often presented with a melange of spiritually-unsympathetic popular history, obtuse scholarly research, and a revivalist esoteric tradition that often has little to do with critical history.

The Cathars are best known not for what they did but for what was done to them. The Albigensian Crusade, launched in 1209 on the authority of Pope Innocent III, laid waste to the Languedoc in the south of France. The Inquisition was subsequently founded to root out and eradicate what remained of the Cathar heresy. Books on the Cathars focus on the relentless march of the crusading army as it moves from castle to castle, siege to siege, atrocity to atrocity. Or historians weigh up the influence of the Inquisition, a ruthless bureaucracy that survived into the nineteenth century. Tourists visit the Languedoc, now branded as Cathar country, for the fairytale citadel of Carcassonne, restored in the nineteenth century, for the wild ruins of medieval castles on challenging hilltops, and for the relaxed locals, good weather, cheap food and wine.

The reader of a history of the Cathars encounters a list of atrocities so numbingly extensive she is at risk of experiencing compassion fatigue. After the crusaders ended the siege of the city of Bram, 99 men had their noses and upper lips cut off, were blinded, and were tied together with another one-eyed man at their head to lead them. This is perhaps the most colourfully brutal event of the crusade but it is merely one example and certainly did not have the highest body count. The Inquisition mopped up the survivors.

The contrast between the Cathars themselves, with their high ethical standards, kindness and deep spirituality, and the crusaders and Inquisitors, reminds me of P.D. Ouspensky’s view of esotericism and history. The history we know, the history of war and temporal power, is the history of crime. But there is another history, the history of esotericism. It is that other history that interests me. Fragments of Cathar beliefs can be dug out of the writings of the Catholic intellectuals who opposed them, like shards of tile that make up a buried mosaic. We cannot reconstruct the inner lives of the Cathars by scholarship, yet knowledge of their beliefs and practices suggest to us by analogy what their inner experiences may have been.

Although the Cathars were typically principled, enlightened and simple people, they by no means uniformly lived up to their high standards. The Italian Cathars were embroiled in turf wars and denominational disputes. William Bélibaste, the last Cathar Perfect in the Languedoc, was a murderer who bedded many women in violation of his vows and tried to cover up his shortcomings.

To the Cathars, the material world was intrinsically evil, fashioned by the devil, the god of this world. The heavenly realm of the true God existed in spirit only. Catharism really was an esoteric religion. In a pattern still demonstrated by many of the minority religions of the Middle East, such as Mandaeans, Yazidis, Alawites, and Druze, a large community of lay people support the inner circle of priests or clerics or Perfect. The rite of the consolamentum dedicated the aspirant to the austere restrictions and responsibility of the Cathar Perfect. When the spirit is said to descend on the participant during the consolamentum or when the spirit is so much part of the Cathar myth, I cannot believe this was not accompanied by some sort of transcendent mystical experience.

To some extent the Cathars have been treated by esotericists as a blank canvas onto which many different patterns are painted. Many of the extravagant claims of neo-Cathars have little to do with the remnants of the Cathars that history bequeaths us. I found myself in sympathy with these romantic esotericists but wanting to test their more fantastic claims.

The Neo-Cathars

The three most influential neo-Cathars of the twentieth century would be Antonin Gadal and Deodat Roché, both born in 1877 and from the Languedoc, and the German Otto Rahn. Both Gadal and Roché had eccentric opinions of the Cathars’ history. Gadal, in particular, became fascinated by the idea that cave systems in the Languedoc had been used as initiatory centres by the Cathars. Historically speaking, it is unlikely. But a whole system of ritual initiation was recreated and practised in the caves. To this day there are esoteric groups who use the caves for this purpose. Roché was a more reliable scholar, yet he believed the caves had connections with Mithraism. Roché lived into his 90s and was greatly respected by both esotericists and the local population.

Otto Rahn is nearly as famous as the Cathars themselves. Often billed the real ‘Indiana Jones’, Rahn was a romantic and idealistic young German who came to the Languedoc in the 1930s. He is particularly associated with connecting the Cathars with the Holy Grail. Rahn’s classic Crusade Against the Grail is neither the most original nor the most well-researched book on the Cathars. Yet somehow it epitomises the essence of romantic esotericism. As does Rahn’s life. Fleeing the Languedoc in debt, having associated himself with several dubious characters, he found himself invited to an interview with an admirer of his recently published book. That person was Heinrich Himmler and Rahn found himself invited to join the SS, an offer he could not refuse.

Rahn appreciated the resources set before him, facilitated by Himmler’s fascination with myth and the occult. He could now travel to ancient sites with a substantial budget at his disposal. Yet the impractical, romantic, raffish, homosexual Rahn was a poor fit for the SS. In 1939 he travelled to Austria, walked up a peak in the Tyrel Mountains, took sleeping pills and died of exposure.

Another influential Cathar revivalist was Maurice Magre, a well-known French novelist who became convinced the Cathars represented a form of Buddhism. The French philosopher Simone Weil (pronounced ‘Vay’) is perhaps the most admirable figure of the Cathar revival. A superb writer who lived a short and difficult yet highly principled life, she found in the Cathars an example of how to live authentically. But her historical knowledge of them was no better than that of the Languedoc neo-Cathars such as Antonin Gadal and Déodat Roché with whom she had corresponded.

Among all these eccentrics and romantics, Weil stands out in particular for the quality of her work. She was born into a middle-class secular Jewish family and attended the Sorbonne where she was in the same class as Simone de Beauvoir. Weil was a pacifist and trade unionist, fighting on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, with an anarchist militia in 1936. She worked in factories to experience the life of the working class, to the detriment of her health and her income. Often referred to as a Christian neoplatonist, Weil was in effect a Perennialist, believing that the ancients essentially shared a single esoteric tradition, Plato being its finest expression. She died in London in 1943 of turberculosis, though many considered her death an imitation of the Cathar endura, a fast to the end.

Arthur Guirdham & the Transmigration of Souls

It may surprise many people to discover that the medieval Cathars really did believe in reincarnation, and more specifically in the transmigration of souls from creature to creature, including animals as well as humans. One of the most charming stories surrounding this concerns a Cathar Perfect who remembered being a horse in a previous life, and was able to find the horseshoe that he had once shed. The Cathar understanding of reincarnation or transmigration is intimately connected with their myth of a fall from Heaven. Each spirit has fallen into the material world and is reincarnated constantly until it finds its way into a human who becomes a Cathar Perfect and, by following the Cathar path, is liberated at death and returns to the heavenly realm.

Not only did the medieval Cathars believe in reincarnation, but there are many modern people who believe or feel they were Cathars in previous lifetimes. The granddaddy of modern Cathar reincarnation was Arthur Guirdham (1905–92), Senior Consultant Psychiatrist for the clinical area of Bath, UK, for over twenty years. Highly considered by his associates and friends, his legacy was not to be in the area of psychiatry but in a series of books detailing the past life knowledge of a patient known only as Mrs Smith, who he met in the 1960s. Later another local woman known as Miss Mills also became involved. Eventually an entire group of people emerged who had reincarnated together with Guirdham into different eras.

Guirdham’s group reincarnation is commonly described as one of the most convincing cases. Yet does it survive closer scrutiny? In none of his books does Guirdham tell his story in a very methodical way. He is often very careful to state what is accurate in the past life memories and what isn’t, to reveal what facts were already known to him, and so on. But he can be so rambling in his accounts that the reader is left none the wiser.

Mrs Smith, in her Cathar incarnation, was a Catholic named Puerilia. Guirdham was Roger de Grissolles, a Cathar. The two had been lovers in the thirteenth century. Puerilia was eventually condemned and burnt as a heretic herself. Mrs Smith’s memories of this past life were dramatic and seemingly accurate in strange details. She recalled, “I didn’t know when you were burnt to death you’d bleed. I thought the blood would all dry up in the terrible heat. But I was bleeding heavily. The blood was dripping and hissing in the flames. I wished I had enough blood to put the flames out. The worst part was my eyes. I hate the thought of going blind… I tried to close my eyelids but I couldn’t. They must have been burnt off, and now those flames were going to pluck my eyes out with their evil fingers.” (The Cathars and Reincarnation by Arthur Guirdham)

Events developed rapidly as the scope of the reincarnations expanded. Miss Mills’ friend Jocelyn S. subsequently died and communicated to the group from beyond the grave as Braïda de Montserver. The group reincarnation expanded to 19, nearly all of whom were friends or relatives of Miss Mills. It is an extraordinary story.

Objective evidence for previous lives can only be assessed by comparison with historical and archaeological information. The very nature of historical evidence itself muddies the waters. If a particular facet of history has been documented and published, anyone who subsequently claims to remember this from a previous life may actually have acquired the information from a book. And yet details not backed up by historical or archaeological evidence are of no help in determining authenticity.

There is therefore a very narrow band of evidence that could constitute objective evidence (though not even proof) for reincarnation. As the stories given to Guirdham by the two women became more complex there were suggestions of fraud or that published information was being used. Yet there is an early example of evidence that might satisfy the criteria.

Mrs Smith insisted the Cathars she saw in her dreams wore dark green and dark blue robes. This was inconsistent with published information on Catharism. French scholar Jean Duvernoy discovered in the Fournier Inquisition registers that during the time of the Inquisition some Perfect wore these dark colours rather than black. It seems these colours were adopted as a compromise between the traditional black and the need to disguise their status. Duvernoy only published this information in 1965, and only in French. This tiny detail suggests authenticity.

Guirdham was a professional man of high standing. Although obviously intoxicated by the ‘far memories’ of Mrs Smith and Miss Mills, he was careful in his comparison of their statements with historical data. But it seems Guirdham was never able to successfully meet any of the reincarnation circle aside from Mrs Smith, Miss Mills and Miss Mills’ very ill father. Miss Mills, and then Guirdham, eventually channelled teachings from disembodied Cathar spirits. How convincing are these when compared to what we know historically about the Cathars? Did Guirdham have the wool pulled over his eyes, or did he knowingly suspend disbelief? If he was mistaken about the veracity of these past life memories, did this really matter if the entire process proved to be spiritually enlivening for him? Or was this strange fabric of experience, history and wool-gathering more or less what Guirdham claimed it was – the far memories of a group reincarnation?

A worldview is different from history, yet esoteric or alternative worldviews often make historical claims. These are in tension with each other. I always have mixed feelings about these claims. As something of a romantic myself, I admire and somewhat envy those who can take the ball and run with it. On the other hand, claims which are insisted on as historical should be verifiable. Esotericism is often based on the scholarship of the time. When that scholarship makes further discoveries or changes the basic understanding of an historical phenomenon, the esoteric worldview based upon it often stays crystallised in its original form.

Spirituality should be based on experience rather than on pure flights of fancy. Yet the historically fantastic has often been a better cocoon of the spiritual butterfly than the historically sound. In Lost Teachings of the Cathars I examine the teachings and the histories of both the Cathars and their aspiring modern successors.

For more on the Cathars and its modern day revival, read Andrew Phillip Smith’s book Lost Teachings of the Cathars: Their Beliefs and Practices (Watkins 2016), available from all good bookstores & online retailers.

[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 10 No 2.[/alert]

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© New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
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