Hunger Moon

Closet Witch Tip

Prayers for High Priestess Dawn

Please would like to ask for Prayers for High Priestess Dawn is having some health issues but that is all I will say. I am asking for all coven members to please send out prayers, positive thoughts, healing, and love to her at this time.

“Creator, I ask you to raise Dawn and full healing. Amen”

Blessed Be,

High Priestess Raven

The Origins of Halloween by Silver RavenWolf

Harvest Moon, velvet sky, pumpkins glowing, children laughing, costumes, candy, scary stories—just where did this autumn gaiety begin? Let’s look through those cobwebby corridors of time to unearth the exciting genealogy of the American Celebration we call Halloween!

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems—especially when dealing with history. Too often events and circumstances of our past were written or re-written by people who, for whatever reason, operated under an agenda, or simply wanted history to reflect how it should have been, rather than how it was. How, then, do we determine what is fact and what is fiction? In some cases, we can’t. In other situations, we dig.

The Celts

Many historians feel that the greatest strength in the Celtic people lies in their collective mythos. Wading through the romanticism to find unmodified information can prove a tricky endeavor. The earliest archaeological evidence we have of the Celts rest in France and Western Germany. The Celtic people moved into Spain, Britain, and Switzerland between the fifth and first century BCE. They even ransacked Rome in 390 BCE.

The Celtic peoples celebrated four festivals called fire festivals–commonly know today as Samhain, Oimelc (Imbolc), Beltane, and Lughnasadh. Samhain (pronounced sow-in, sow rhymes with now) was the first and foremost a harvest festival relating to animal husbandry and preparations for the winter months. Fire is an element of cleaning, a vehicle of eradication, so it is not unlikely that fire would work itself into any type of religious celebration. Fire among the ancient peoples often represented an aspect of the divine.

What does the word Samhain mean? Well, we know what it doesn’t mean. There is no archeological or literary evidence of a Celtic god by the name of Samhain. This little slip of fact appears to have begum in the 1700s and continues in some misinformed publications today. The word Samhain actually means “summers end”.

So, where did this Lord of the Dead thing come in? Over time, Samhain took on a religious significance through ministrations of the Druids (the clergy of the Celt’s). Legends indicate that on Samhain all the hearth fires in Ireland were doused and then lit again from a central fire maintained by the Druids at Tlachtga. To the Celts, Samhain was a turning point from light into darkness, and it was thought that this break or fissure created easier access to their land of the dead, Tir nan Og.

The Druids

We need to know a little bit about the Druids to continue with our history of Halloween. The Druids were versed in all learning and were considered to have the gift of prophecy. They functioned as judge, ambassadors, healers, and religious leaders. The Druids first named the holiday Samhain.

Feast of the Dead

As the Celtic religious system solidified so did the beliefs of the Celts concerning the dead—as has occurred in all religions, before and after the Celts. Since the turning points of the year were considered fissures in time and space, the Celts believe that the dead they loved so dearly could travel through time and space and return from Tir nan Og to visit them. The custom of leaving food at the table (the birth part of the treat part of trick-or-treat) was a gesture of welcome to the departed. From these visits came the belief that those who had gone beyond the land of the living could provide information on past or future events. This is how divination became associated with Samhain.

The Celts did not believe in devils or demons, but they did believe in the Fairy Folk, whom they thought inhabited the land of the dead (the land in-between). Fairies were thought to be resentful of humankind for taking over their land. Because time and space could be conquered on Samhain, fairies were said to roam countryside creating mischief and kidnapping a human or two now and then—just for fun, you understand.—except the humans never came back. Here then is the root of the scary stuff associated with Halloween. The mischief, of course, was caused by living humans, and accepted by the Celts as a psychological release before the onset of winter gloom—though I doubt they would explain it in those terms.

Is it odd, gross, or unusual that a group of people should set aside a day for the dead? Nope. Different cultures and religions have followed such a practice for centuries. Let’s get on our broom again and check out Rome and its contributions to Halloween.

A Fly-BY of Ancient Rome

Rome had the habit of changing rulers as many times as you empty the lint trap in your dryer. Between 14 and 37 CE, Christianity had begun its rise in Rome. By 41 CE, Claudius had distinguished himself with the conquest of Britain. The Romans also had a harvest festival, so the Celts didn’t have much trouble blending the two holidays together after they came into contact with the Romans. It was around 314 CE when Constantine the Great declared the Roman Empire to be Christian, and the fate of Samhain and Druids was sealed.

The Advent of Christianity

By the fourth and fifth centuries , Celtic Christianity had oozed into Ireland. St. Patrick has his hands full, and here is where the kettle starts to boil. At, first, the Pagans openly welcomed Christianity, but as Christianity filtered into the Celtic system, church officials had a few problems—mainly the Celtics didn’t want up their holidays or folk practices. The people were not willing to throw out traditions that were ingrained into their social structure. If you can’t get someone to completely change, what do you do? Compromise. And that’s exactly what happened. Samhain was changed to All Hollow’s Eve. To make the Pagan peoples adhere more closely to this new religion of Christianity, the clergy of the day taught the peasants that fairies were really demons and devils (remember, a concept totally unknown to Celtic belief or history) and their beloved dead were horrid ghosts and ghouls. The early Christian erroneously associated the Celtic land of the dead with the Christian concept of Hell.

To help the belief in Christianity along, Druids priestess were systematically murdered. Early Christians also taught the area peasants that their Lord of the Underworld was in fact Satan, which is ridiculous, as the two mythos don’t have anything in common. It appears that Christians misunderstood what the word Samhain meant: because the peasants use this celebration to honor the dead, Christians assumed that Samhain was the incorrect pronunciation of a Pagan deity in the Bible, recorded as Samuel, from the Semitic Sammael, meaning God of the under world.

The Witches

So far, we’ve talked about the land of the dead, how the early Christians managed to superimpose Satan onto Samhain, and how fairies got zapped into demons, but there has been no mention of Witches, commonly associated in our time with Halloween. Where did Witches come from?

During the Dark Ages, the Church sought to eradicate the Pagans and wise women from the countryside so that the church could amass both power and property. First, they had to devalue women because women kept the holy days, trained the children, and provided the cohesive socialization of the culture, thus women held the power to shape society. The church taught, among other things, that women had no souls. Once this teaching had occurred, it was only a small step to make them inhuman, and the Church was able to incite the superstitious populace.

The Celtic women were the strong hold of the family environment, and although the Celts accepted Christianity at first, they did not want to give up their family traditions or their lifestyle. The Church was not into free thinking—therefore anything that did not follow the church dictates was evil. Hence, the Witches (really the women) became evil. Since Samhain was a primary festival of the Celts and the Church had already determined that Samhain was evil, the association between Witches and Halloween was born.

All Saints’ Day / All Hallow’s EVE / Halloween

All Saints’ Day and All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) were first introduced in the seventh century CE. All Saints’ Day was originally celebrated in the spring. The date was changed to November 1 to supplant Pagan beliefs because those pesky Pagans just refused to cough up their original Samhain. The day was to honor God and all his saints, known and unknown. All Saints’ Day later became Hallowmass, a mass to honor the dead. The Eve of All Hallow’s Day, October 31, became All Hallow’s Eve, which evolved into the word Hallowe’en. Although the church wished this time to be one of somber prayer and quite custom, the Celtics continued their customary bonfires and fortune telling.

All Souls’ Day is a bit different. This festival falls on November 2, a day to offer prayers and alms to assist the souls of those departed that manage to get stuck in purgatory, an in-between place that is neither heaven nor hell. Over the succeeding centuries, Halloween, like Christmas, picked up various customs and discarded others, depending on the complex socialization of the times and religious dictates.

Halloween Comes to America

Our first inkling of Halloween coming to America revolves not around a specific set of people (many indicate the Irish) but with William Penn’s motley collection of refugees from Europe. In 1663, Penn wrote a promotional tract about the Americans. As a result, fifty ships dropped the anchors in the Delaware River. They discharged persecuted souls from England, Ireland, Wales, and the Rhineland (now Germany). Collectively, the Germans and Irish shared Celtic heritage. Therefore many of the folk customs resonated together—including Halloween.

From 1684 through 1930, Halloween was more a time for tricking rather than for treating. Many of the tricks the German and Irish communities became universal, such as overturning outhouses, dismantling a wagon and putting it back together on top of a house or barn, and tying cows to church bells. The tricks often served as social function, such as mildly chastising a neighbor who exhibited antisocial behavior.

By 1910, several American manufactures were making or importing party products just for the American holiday Halloween. From noisemakers to costumes, a new holiday meant new business and an opportunity to make money.

The drawback to the new holiday came in the form of the “declared” Mischief Night, Goblin Night, or Devil’s night on October 30. Minor offenses, such as trying several garbage cans together and hanging them from a light pole, soaping windows with lard, and later, bars of hand soap, abounded. As the pranks grew to vandalism shopkeepers would bribe youngsters to ward off destruction of their property.

In an effort to stop the criminal behavior, the Boy Scouts, in conjunction with local town councils, cities, boroughs, instituted the custom of Trick-or-Treat night to help keep youngsters from naughty practices. By the 1930s the custom of trick-or-treating was well entrenched in our American culture. Halloween, like Christmas, became a holiday for children, and parents strove to make the holiday as much fun as possible for the enjoyment of their youngsters.

During he 1950s. ’60s, and ’70s our American Halloween stayed primarily the same, but in the ’70s and ’80s, with a recession coupled by a candy scare, groups and organizations once again sought to find appropriate avenues to make Halloween safe for America’s children. Halloween practices extended through the entire month of October. Haunted houses, parties, hay rides, plays, story hours, and numerous other events were held throughout the month.

In the mid-to-late 1990s certain sects of the Protestant Christian church declared war on Halloween. using the same erroneous propaganda cultivated hundreds of years ago. Other groups size Halloween for their own political agendas—hosting haunted houses showing aborted babies, drug addicts, and other modern day violent situations. This did not go over well, as the holiday had become an event primarily for children, not adult political issues. Radical Christian groups said that the holiday was Satanic—which, as we’ve seen from our research, is a bizarre and fantastic claim, based on misinformation, politicking, personal agendas and fear. With America’s policy of separation of church and state the battle for destroying Halloween in the United States is an uphill battle.

The original Samhain marked the the close of the agriculture season and functional third harvest festival. In America, Halloween has become the first holiday in our end-of-year rush for partied gaiety. Our Halloween functions as the opening of the three-month-long celebratory fest that includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, Yule, Kwanzaa, and Chanukkah, and ends with the popular American New Year.

As our children crave pumpkins with delightful chatter, adults find solace in a night when they can be whatever they want to be. We have little doubt about the joy this holiday bring to the American people. I am sure we will forever love the haunted house, the harvest Moon, the thrills and chills of a well-wrought tale—and, of course, the deliciously scary things that go EEEEK! in the night.

Llewellyn’s Witches’ Datebook1999 Pages 24 to 29

A Version of the History of Beltane

History of Beltane from beltanefire.com.au

The Beltane fire festival welcomes the abundance of the fertile earth and is celebrated with bonfires, Maypoles, burning of the Wickerman, dancing, and a feast, with its roots in European traditions, Beltane is observed by many of today’s Pagans and others as a time for performing rituals

The Celts divided the year into two main seasons. Winter, the beginning of the year fell on November 1 (Irish: Samain) and midyear and summer on May 1 (Irish: Beltaine), opposite for us here in the Southern Hemisphere.

These two junctures were thought to be critical periods when the bonds between the human and supernatural worlds were temporarily erased; on May Eve (southern hemisphere)…

Some Thoughts About Celebrating Samhain

Samhain is a day of reflection of the past year while celebrating the new. It is a day that whatever has not been harvested from gardens, fields, bushes, and trees get left for the wildlife and Fea Folk. It is also a day to communicate with those who have crossed the veil into the Summerlands. Many pagans and witches say it is the day and/or night to honor only those that have crossed in the last year but I do not go along with this way of thinking. While those who have passed since November 1, 2020 up to today do need more comforting and remembering them then those that have crossed over in other years past. The farther back in time you go to those who have crossed before the last year the more chance there is that they will be forgotten totally.

Hypothetically, if crossed the veil say 30 years ago or longer and each generation after you talk about you less and less as each year passes soon you will be forgotten completely. That one reason I have my Book of Shadows and Family Grimoire as one book that I hope keeps growing after I am gone. I have also placed pictures of ancestors at different ages as well as pictures of myself alone and with family members both ancestors and descents. In the section for ancestors I have included a picture of their headstone and where it can be found if I know.

So this Samhain when you are setting the extra place at the table, lighting a candle for each ancestors name, or however you choose to honor your ancestors (remember an ancestor does not have to be blood related they can be anyone in your life that help to mold you into the person you are today.) Set one more place, light one more candle, or whatever your tradition to remember your ancestors is for those who names have been forgotten since the first Homosapien of any branch of the human gene pool lived.

I implore you all to remember that we all can trace our lineage back to this mish mash of a gene pool and that the energy that runs through us connects us to every other living things and not just on Mother Earth. So the next time you have a negative thought about someone for any reason at all remember you are also having that negative thought about yourself.

I picked this song to be included in this post because for me it helps me to remember those, female or male or other, who otherwise might be forgotten

Grandmother

I wish all my family, which means everyone reading this post and by blood, a happy and blessed Samhain.

Lady Beltane 2018

What type of Witch are You?

I wanted to share with everyone about my witchcraft path. There are many types of witches so I wanted to spend a few minutes letting everybody know what type of witch I am.

I combine different types of witches to become the type of witch I am. So…I am Angelic witch, Shamanic Witch, Weather Witch, Lunar Witch, Blood Witch, and Eclectic Witch.

Angelic Witch: I connect to the universal vibration replacing the traditional god and goddess used in rituals and spell casting with angels.

Shamanic Witch: I am a rescue medium so I do believe in good and bad spirits. I use healing as apart of my witchcraft.

Weather Witch: I use rainwater in my rituals and I pull on the energy of storms and lightning and I am devoted to all kinds of nature and elements.

Lunar Witch: I honor the moon and uses the moon phases to influence my spells and rituals.

Blood Witch: This just means I was taught by family the way of the Craft.

Eclectic Witch: This just means I follow my own path, no set of rules I follow and I pull from many of paths.

So, I hope that explains what type of witch I am….

What type of Witch are you?

Blessed Be,

High Priestess Raven

The simple Enchanted Witches Tool Box

The following list, I feel, is a most for any enchanted witch. You may have more or fewer items but remember its what feels right to you.

Magick Wand

Pentagram

Athame

Chalice

Candles

Incense

Cauldron

Again, to me this is a must. These magical tools can assist in many ways.

Blessed Be!

High Priest Raven

Enchanted Spirit Witch

Topics from our Enchanted Witches

All of the Enchanted Witches here at Enchanted Circle of Witches would like your input. What topics would you like to see here on the website? Please just post in the comments what you would like to see here.

Also, our first ritual is coming up soon. Join today to attend our rituals and become and Enchanted Witch!

Blessed Be

High Priestess Raven

(The Enchanted Spirit Witch)

The Symbols & Substance of Magick

Symbols Of Magick

Although you can carry out rituals using absolutely anything, you may like to create a special set of
symbols for a variety of rituals. These you can keep in a separate box within your main store of magick
artefacts so they do not get scattered or broken.

You may include a thimble to symbolise domestic affairs, a tiny padlock for security at home, a
wooden toy boat for travel, a silver locket for fidelity, a key charm for a house, tiny painted wooden
eggs for fertility in any venture – just to suggest a few. You can also use small fabric dolls to represent
people, for example in a love spell.

Tarot cards also provide excellent symbols for magick: the Emperor for power, the Empress for
fertility, the Ten of Pentacles for prosperity, the Lovers for romance, the World or the Eight of Wands
for travel, Temperance for harmony, Justice for matters of law, etc. Even if you do not use Tarot cards
for divination, a brilliantly illustrated pack, such as the Rider Waite or the Morgan Greer, will by their
pictures suggest all kinds of images for your work. My book Tarot Talks to the Woman Within
(Quantum, 2000) contains many examples of Tarot spells and in spite of its title, the book is very male-
friendly. The Tarot is also very portable.

You may also find a supply of white clay useful for creating impromptu symbols and if the clay is soft
you can empower it with written words or symbols. I am not suggesting you create waxen images of
the kind you see in B-movies, and I certainly don’t want you to collect nail clippings or hair in an
attempt to harm anyone in any way; this is merely a representation of a person or desired object. It may
be possible to find a natural source of clay.

A beach near my home provides me with an abundant supply. You can also buy the natural, untreated
potters’ material. After using the clay in a ritual, you can return it to the soil. Clay is especially good in
binding spells or banishing spells when the actions to be bound or the destructive habit are to be reabsorbed by the Earth. It is also excellent in group rituals as a number of people can mould into it their collective energies.

The Substances Of Magick

The substances of magick for formal rituals are the same as those used in informal magick. I have
already described their magical associations in informal spells and in ritual magick the correspondences in colour and fragrance are exactly the same. Each is set in its own quarter of the circle and used to charge the focus of the ritual with power. They can also be used for empowering and cleansing your ritual tools.

If you make your own candles or incense for your rituals, you can endow energies by chanting the
purpose for which they are being made. Some practitioners prepare their ritual substances the day or
the evening before the ceremony, at the right planetary or angelic hour for its purpose. But you do not
need to do this – the days of apprentices and long hours devoted to a single ritual are gone and even the
most complex ceremony need take no more than an hour, many much less.

Salt
Salt rituals are among the oldest forms of magick and salt can form the focus of magick for health and
prosperity ceremonies as well as for psychic protection. The kind used is most usually sea salt and
represents the Earth element. It should be kept covered and separate from domestic salt and it must be
empowered before use.

The salt should be placed on the altar to the left of your Earth ritual tools, in a small ceramic dish with
a silver spoon. Use new salt for each ritual and tip any remaining into flowing water, watching it
carrying away your wishes to fruition.

A very simple crescent moon ritual for attracting money involves piling magically charged salt in a
central cone, surrounding this with coins and filling them all with power. Then take the empowered
coins and leave them in an open jar in the moonlight until the full moon. On the day after the full
moon, spend them on giving happiness to others.

After the ritual, dissolve the salt in sacred water and tip it into a flowing source of water to get the
money energies moving.

In a formal ritual for the same purpose, focus the energies by casting a formal circle, inviting the
guardians of the elements (see page 200) to lend their power to the endeavour. Pass the elemental
tools, incense, candles and water over the salt and money, thus concentrating the energies. Dissolve
and tip the salt away in a tub of water that has been swirled nine times to get the power flowing as the
climax of the ritual. The difference is one of degree of intensity.

Incense
Incense is placed in the East of the altar to the left of the ritual tools.

Incense is, as well as an elemental substance, an easy but powerful way of marking the boundaries
between the everyday world and the magick. Frankincense, myrrh or sandalwood is sometimes burned
on the altar before a ceremony to purify the area, especially if the room is used for other purposes, and
to raise the vibrations from the mundane to the more spiritual. If you are using the granular kind you
burn on charcoal, you will need a censer, but a bowl containing sand will serve for incense sticks or
cones.

As the incense is burned, so the energies are released.

Candles
All rituals and spells use a number of candles but they are particularly significant in formal magick. I
will repeat very briefly the basic information you need for a formal ritual, but you might like to read
through again Chapter 5, as candles are such an important part of magic.

You will need one or two altar candles in white, cream or natural beeswax. From the altar candle(s),
you will light all the other candles used in your rituals. If you have only one, it will stand in the centre.
If two, they are usually placed symmetrically to the right and left of the altar, the god candle on the left
and the goddess candle on the right.

You will also need four elemental candles, to represent Fire, Air, Water and Earth, in appropriate
colours, though if you are carrying out a ceremony in which the power of one element predominates,
you could use four candles of this same element. If you are working entirely on the altar, these can be
small candles, placed in a line nearer to the perimeter. More usually, however, the candles mark the
outer perimeter of the circle at the four compass points. You can, place these on small tables or plinths,
or have floor-standing candle-holders.

Green is for Earth, midnight, winter and the North. Place the candle at the 12 o’clock position on a
clock, aligned with magnetic North (use a compass if necessary).

Yellow is for Air, dawn, spring and the East. Place the candle at the three o’clock position.

Red, orange or gold is for Fire, noon, summer and the South. Place the candle in the six o’clock
position.

Blue is for Water, dusk, autumn and the West. Place the candle in the nine o’clock position.

Light elemental candles after the altar candles if they are within the circle, but before any wish or
astrological candles, and begin in the North. If you wish, you can light each candle as its Guardian of
the Quarter is invoked (see page 200) and thus called in the ascending flame.

You may also use a candle to represent the petitioner in the ritual. This may be yourself or the person
for whom you are performing a ritual. The candle should be in the appropriate zodiacal colour
according to the petitioner’s birth date and one the colour of the need.

In love rituals, light two candles, one for each lover, and place them slightly in front of the altar
candle(s): the male lover’s candle should be placed next to the goddess candle and the female’s by the
god candle, if applicable.

If you have a central cauldron, you can stand any candles of need or petitioners’ candles in it.

Empowering Candles
Usually candles are so powerful that they are already full of magical energies, However, in more
formal and elaborate magical ceremonies, you may wish to inscribe or anoint those candles
representing a need or person with either olive oil or a ready-prepared, fragrant, anointing.

Inscribing Candles
Carving your wishes and intentions into a candle endows the candle with your special energies and as
you etch each letter or symbol, these energies become concentrated.

If you anoint a candle, you should engrave it afterwards, although you may feel that inscribing it is
sufficient. Engraving candles is not difficult, but you must use a very light touch and choose good quality candles. Beeswax is not so easy to inscribe, but because it is very malleable, you can push tiny
symbols, such as coins, etc., into the wax or you can buy sheets of beeswax and even if you do not
fashion your own candles, you can add tiny beeswax symbols. You can also buy beeswax candles – and
some ordinary ones – in different shapes, for example entwined lovers for a love ritual, or a beehive for
abundance.

Anointing Candles With Oil
You can anoint, or dress, candles with scented oil or use candles that have fragrance already added.
When you anoint candles with oils, they become more flammable, so you need to be extra cautious
about sparks. For safety, stand your candlesticks on a fireproof tray.

Generally, the anointing is performed in silence. You can use virgin olive oil for dressing candles for
any need. Some people add a pinch of salt for purification and life-giving properties.

Before beginning, pour a small quantity of the oil into a clear glass or ceramic dish and gently swirl it
nine times deosil with a ceramic or glass spoon, visualising light pouring into it and endowing it with
healing and magical energies. You need use only a small quantity as the anointing action is symbolic.

Rub the oil into the candle in an upward motion, starting in the middle of your candle. Use a
previously unlit candle as this will not have absorbed any energies apart from those with which you
endow it. Rub in only one direction, concentrating on the purpose of your ritual. See the qualities of
your oil and your need entering the candle.

Then, starting in the middle again, rub the candle downwards, again concentrating on your goal. A few
practitioners will rub from base to top for attracting magick and from top to bottom for banishing
magick; it is also usual to use a white candle for attracting energies and a black for banishing.

By physically touching the candle with the oil, it is said that you are charging the candle with your
personal vibrations so that when it is lit, it becomes an extension of your mental power and life energy.

If the candle represents another person and they are present, ask them to anoint their own candle.
If you light a candle for a formal ritual on successive days, you should re-anoint the candle each time,
visualising the partial completion of the goal.

Water
Water represents its own element and stands in the West in a dish to the left of the chalice. See page
163 for instructions on how to make and empower sacred water. You can also use water to which rose
petals have been added or you can float lavender or rose essential oil on top (this water should not be
consumed internally).

—Practical Guide to Witchcraft and Magic Spells By Cassandra Eason