Towards A Thelemic Witchcraft

The Irish landscape often calls on us to find forms that resonate with the land, and in the esoteric community in Ireland there is a large presence of Witchcraft traditions and practitioners. In Thelema there are also streams of witchcraft, both implied and expressed more explicitly. There has been work on the Island to form a thelemic Witchcraft that continues. But what are the origins and impulses of a thelemic tradition of Witchcraft? The following hopes to begin to explore this question.

Aleister Crowley and the Paganising of Magick

One of the first hurdles we encounter in forming a Thelemic Witchcraft is the bad reputation Aleister Crowley has in Pagan circles. This ‘reputation’ is often based on misunderstanding and rumour though in the world beyond Paganism Aleister Crowleys star seems to be very much on the rise. Many people in the esoteric community were surprised to see Aleister Crowleys name on the BBCs list of the 100 most influential Britons (nestled, at number 73, between King Henry V and Robert the Bruce). He is (to my eyes) the only obvious occultist on the list, overlooking such British bright stars as Gerald Gardner and John Dee. It may seem easy as a pagan to write off Aleister Crowley as a stuffy ritual magician, but the dynamic evolution of his work during his life sees it become ever more ‘Pagan’. Though the method of science was applied, Crowleys ritual becomes ever more ecstatic, wild and improvised over the years.

Elements of Crowleys work (work with sun and earth, polar deities as Nuit and Hadit, sex magick) are reflected in much of contemporary Paganism and in his own lifetime Crowley indicated a need for a ‘new pagan cult’. In writing to Charles Stansfield Jones (Fr. Achad) he said the following:

“I hope you will arrange to repeat this all the time, say every new moon or every full moon, so as to build up a regular force. You should also have a solar ritual to balance it, to be done at each time the Sun enters a new sign, with special festivity at the Equinoxes and solstices. In this way you can establish a regular cult; and if you do them in a truly magical manner, you create a vortex of force which will suck in all the people you want. The time is just ripe for a natural religion. People like rites and ceremonies, and they are tired of hypothetical gods. Insist on the real benefits of the Sun, the Mother-force, the Father-force, and so on, and show that by celebrating these benefits worthily the worshippers unite themselves more fully with the current of life. Let the religion be Joy, but with a worthy and dignified sorrow in death itself, and treat death as an ordeal, an initiation… In short, be the founder of a new and greater Pagan cult”.

Wicca

I see a lot of resonances in the words above with Witchcraft as it exists today. As we know, the founder of Wicca, Gerald Gardner, was a thelemite and incorporated many elements of Crowleys writings into his rituals. Perhaps Wicca, in its very beginnings, was a real effort to reflect some of these values.

From the Charge of the Goddess, who calls on us to ‘Hear ye the words of the Star Goddess’, to the Wiccan rede, which seems to be very strongly derived from the law of thelema, there are many diverse and hidden elements of Crowleys Thelema in Wicca.

One element which has seemingly been removed is the more biblical/ gnostic mythology. This stream, and the potential for its expression in Thelemic Witchcraft is to be found in the less popularised witchcraft tradition of ‘Traditional Witchcraft’.

Traditional Witchcraft

Wicca has had huge exposure since the 1970’s on through books and media. Less well known, but very important is the stream of traditional witchcraft. Traditional Witchcraft includes, but not exclusive to, the work of the Clan of Tubal Cain, Cultus Sabbati, Hedge Witchery, Sabbatic Witchcraft, Cunning Craft and more.. Michael Howard describes traditional witchcraft as “any non-Gardnerian, non-Alexandrian, non-Wiccan or pre-modern form of the Craft, especially if it has been inspired by historical forms of witchcraft and folk magic”.

The stream of cunning folk quite naturally draws in Crowleys work as a natural progression of an existent way of working. Cunning men were rural or small town magicians who provided magickal services and often worked with traditional manuals of magick including Agrippa’s Three Books Of Occult Philosophy and Barrett’s The Magus. It is conceivable that with such comprehensive books as Crowleys Magick being published, that Cunning Folk also drew on these sources. The Cultus Sabbati draws links to cunning craft and expresses particular links to the impulses of the OTO:

Although the lineal descent of the Cultus Sabbati from sources, which are defined as belonging to Traditional Witchcraft, is herein - given the present context - the moot point of interest, it is also pertinent for the reader to bear in mind that our lineal descent by other roots has affiliations with a catena of High Magicians dating back many centuries, namely the O.T.O, and has established links upon the inner with various other bodies of transmission and thus the contexts in which the nature and functions of the Cultus Sabbati may be interpreted are many and diverse (The Cauldron #74)

Another element of Traditional Witchcraft that is important and different from Wicca and the idea of nature religion is the idea of transmissions of civilisation, or cultivation. This is found strongly in classical Paganisms also. In traditional witchcraft there is the important figure of Tubal Cain (akin with Weyland and Gobniu), the primitive smith who bends fire to his will. This is intimately connected with the idea of gnostic, awakened wisdom, and a breaking point in human evolution. Another element of this is the so called witches mark, also identified as the mark of quain (or Cain). Crowley identifies this mark as being one and the same as the mark of the beast in Revelations. This stream of divergent, gnostic knowledge and the idea of the mark can be found in both Thelema and traditional witchcraft.

The work with entheogens is also to be found in the Craft, and is at least implied in Liber Al, though I feel this subject needs wider context if it is to be understood properly.

Many more elements are strongly correlated here, and though there are several traditions, the underlying compatibility is very promising for future developments.

The Rocket Man And The Witchcraft

Jack Parsons, rocket scientist and thelemite was a pioneering mind, and had a unique vision of thelema and witchcraft. Only fragments of his corpus of work exist, but from what we can piece together he was developing a system he called ‘the Witchcraft’. It drew both on the gnostic thelemic stream, and those nature based elements found in Wicca. He left us a fragment of writing called WeAre the Witchcraft, showing admirably the seeds of what could have unfolded into a thriving and unique tradition. Here, for a feel for this work, is an extract from We Are The Witchcraft:

WE ARE THE WITCHCRAFT. We are the oldest organization in the world. When man was born, we were. We sang the first cradle song. We healed the first wound, we comforted the first terror. We were the Guardians against the Darkness, the Helpers on the Left Hand Side. Rock drawings in the Pyrenees remember us, and little clay images, made for an old purpose when the world was new. Our hand was on the old stone circles, the monolith, the dolmen, and the druid oak. We sang the first hunting songs, we made the first crops to grow; when man stood naked before the Powers that made him, we sang the first chant of terror and wonder. We wooed among the Pyramids, watched Egypt rise and fall, ruled for a space in Chaldea and Babylon, the Magian Kings. We sat among the secret assemblies of Israel, and danced the wild and stately dances in the sacred groves of Greece. In China and Yucatan, in Kansas and Kurdistan we are one. All organizations have known us, no organization is of us; when there is too much organization we depart. We are on the side of man, of life, and of the individual. Therefore we are against religion, morality and government. Therefore our name is Lucifer. We are on the side of freedom, of love, of joy and laughter and divine drunkenness. Therefore our name is Babalon….Our way is the secret way, the unknown direction. Our way is the way of the serpent in the underbrush, our knowledge is in the eyes of goats and of women.

Some very gnostic images arise in these words. In recent years certain strands of this work have been picked up by the author Peter Grey whose two books, The Red Goddess and Apocalyptic Witchcraft develop threads compatible with this manifesto.

Rosaleen Norton: The Witch of Kings Cross

From the traditions of Britain, and the new thinking of Parsons in America, we go even further afield to Australia to find our next source – Rosaleen Norton, known in Australian media as the Witch of Kings Cross. Norton was an artist whose work often depicted esoteric themes including Pan, Lucifer, kundalini and Hecate amongst others.

Early on in her career Norton self-identified as a Witch, claiming that she was born as one, and was essentially self-taught.

Norton worked with a series of deities, but in her Witchcraft work had two primary deities, Pan and Hecate.

We know Pan well in Thelema from the formula of N.O.X., or the night of pan, as well as the ecstatic Hymn to Pan by Crowley, which arose from his sex magickal work with Victor Nurnburg. This said, the rise of Pan far predates Crowley or Norton and arises in the beginning of the Industrial age. Poets, writers and philosophers suddenly become aware of Pan, God of the wilderness of Arcady. In her own way Norton felt drawn to the wilderness, the unknown and the chthonic. A certain dark stream runs through Nortons work, and rather than engaging in the politically correct Witchcraft of today, she actively promoted the idea of the witch as the dangerous and the unknown. The upright and the averse are an important polarity in thelemic initiation, and the underworld currents form an important stream in the western tradition.

Her identification with the Horned God Pan was for her an expression of all the other Gods and attributes. She identified with Panthiesm (Pan = all; theism= god) and with Pan as the entire being of nature.

On the polarity to Pan she placed Hecate, Goddess of night, and the hidden mysteries, the hidden face of nature. She was also the gatekeeper to Hades, the underworld and thus to death. In very recent years the cult of Hecate has seen a major revival, but Norton was a pioneer in working with this queen of witcheries. Norton also worked with Lilith as associated with night.

Norton also related to Lucifer as the giver of hidden knowledge – this is significant in its similarity to the gnostic transmissions found in both traditional Witchcraft and Thelema. It is also evident from what we know of Norton that she had a long and abiding interest in Crowley, though how this expressed itself in her Witchcraft work is only partially clear.

Beyond the interesting deities used by Norton, she also worked with a lot of traditional methods – trance work, the astral sabbat and flying ointments (entheogens) and developed new methods of sex magick, including more woman friendly, and sado masochistic forms, but substantially based in the ideas of Aleister Crowley.

The Obeah And The Wanga

In Liber Al vel Legis, the Book of the Law, there is a reference to the Obeah and the Wanga. Though Crowley obviously had no clue what these were, and made some contrived interpretations in some of his commentaries. The words obeah and wanga are from African Diasporic religions, which are by all accounts Witchcrafts. Into this category fall Quimbanda, Palo, Voodoun, Hoodoo, Santeria, Rootwork and more. This is a vibrant tradition and way of working, but very far from all of the other Witchcrafts described. How can we turn to these expressions of Witchcraft, particularly in our culture. Are there ways of working that will transfer to our work here, on the island of Ireland? Only time will tell.

One thing that becomes clear for me is that here in Ireland, and in many places around the world, the work of Witchcraft is stirring.

As it has stirred before, the seeds of the Witchcraft are stirring and calling, deep within the earth. Some of us hear this call. Fewer still will answer. May this work begin anew.

FURTHER READING

Ginzburg, Carlo Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath

Gwen (Michael Howard) Light From The Shadows

Chumbley, Andrew Azoetia: A Grimoire of the Sabbatic Craft

Rankine, David & d’Este, Sorita Wicca: Magickal Beginnings

Gray, Peter The Red Goddess

Gray, Peter Apocalyptic Witchcraft

Drury, Neville Rosaleen Norton’s Contribution to the Western Esoteric Tradition (dissertation – available online)

Originally published in Fortified Island #1