I am delighted to announce that The Centre For Pagan Studies and the Doreen Valiente Foundation are publishing the revised and expanded edition of The Night Journey: Witchcraft as Transformation by me, Yvonne Aburrow.
Buy now from the Doreen Valiente Foundation Shop
The Night Journey is a follow-up to my previous book, Dark Mirror: The Inner Work of Witchcraft.
Continue readingWhen I did my post on BIPOC Pagan and occult authors, I did Google for Tarot decks, but I did not find much. The amazing @revolutionary_mystic on Instagram has compiled a list of BIPOC Tarot creators.
Continue readingI was not passed the Ardanes, so I have never recognized them as part of my Craft. However, they are of historical interest. Not because I believe them to have been written (or at least compiled) any earlier than the 20th century, but because of the light they shed upon the ideas of early Wiccans as to how the Craft could be organized.
It is fairly widely believed that Gardner wrote them, or at least compiled them from a collection of earlier ideas which he presumably picked up from the New Forest Coven, in 1957. Doreen Valiente and other members of the coven had produced a set of Craft laws in an attempt to curb Gerald Gardner’s enthusiasm for publicity, in particular his interviews with some of the more sensationalist newspapers. In response, Gerald produced the Ardanes.
Doreen Valiente et al’s Proposed Rules for the Craft (see Appendix below) are very sensible and apart from items 9, 10, 11, and 12, which would be rather impractical due to the very large number of Wiccans these days, are mostly adhered to in practice.
Continue readingThe concept of the Wiccan Rede is frequently and widely misunderstood and misquoted. The full version is “An it harm none, do what thou wilt”. (If it harms no one, do what you want / do your True Will.) I have written about this before but haven’t devoted an entire blogpost to it.
Continue readingI’m doing a series of interviews with queer magical practitioners. So far there are eight published: River Enodian, Fire Lyte, Misha Magdalene, Enfys Book, Cassandra Snow, David Dashifen Kees, Soli, and Julian Vayne.
Coming soon: Phil Hine, Matt Wisner of Trinity Tarot, Crow of the Marget Inglis School of Witchcraft, and more. Subscribe to my YouTube channel so as not to miss them.
Continue readingI have discussed the Threefold Law in several previous articles but it’s never had its own post before. Most people get the wrong idea about the Threefold Law. It does not actually say that you get back threefold what you send out.
Continue readingI have always liked the Northumbrian Futhark more than the Elder Futhark or the Anglo-Saxon Futhark. The extra runes in the Northumbrian Futhark cover some important concepts that are not dealt with in earlier futharks. My own rune set is this futhark.
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Now you can make fridge poems on the internet. Hat-tip to The Skeptic’s Kaddish.
By Enfys Book
I originally wrote this for an internal blog at work, and my colleagues and friends requested I repost it publicly to be shared more widely. I’ve …
How to use gender-inclusive language
A few years ago, I organized an event where Philip Heselton gave a talk based on his excellent multi-volume biography of Gerald Gardner. He was looking for a title and said that the talk was about the murkier aspects of Gardner’s life. I suggested calling it “He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy” which I’m sure you will recognize as a line from The Life of Brian by Monty Python. So that was the title of the talk.
Continue readingI’ve set myself the goal of 52 books this year, but I don’t know if I am going to read as many as that. Not that it matters, because this is about the joy of reading, not the quantity. And I’m very happy to have started the year with The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane, as it’s a really beautiful book.
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