Music can be a part of Wiccan workings today. You might simply find appropriate pieces, selected from classical, ethnic, folk, or contemporary sources, and play these during rituals. Musically inclined Wiccans can create music before, during, or after the ritual.
My most satisfying and vivid rituals often involve music. I remember one day I hid a small tape-recorder behind a tree in the Laguna Mountains. Strangely, the music didn’t intrude on the setting of wildflowers, towering pines, and ancient oaks, but heightened my solitary ritual.
If you have proficiency with an instrument,work it into your rituals. A flute, violin, recorder, guitar, folk harp, and other small instruments can easily be introduced into ritual, as can drums, rattles, bells, or even glasses of water and a knife with which to strike them. Other less portable instruments can be recorded and played back during ritual.
Such musical interludes can be used directly
prior
to the rite to set the mood;
during,
as an offering to the Goddess and God or to rouse energy; and
afterward
in pure celebration and joy. Some Wiccans compose a song that is in actuality a rite, encompassing everything from the creation of sacred space and invoking the deities to thanking them for their presence.Music magic is truly what you decide to make it.
Four distinct types of instruments have specific powers. The drum, rattle, xylophone, and all percussion instruments (save for the sistrum) are ruled by the element of
earth.
Thus, such instruments can be used to invoke fertifity, increase money, find a job, and so on. They can also be used to invoke the Goddess in ritual, or to “drum up” energy to send to the earth.
The flute, recorder, and all wind instruments are under the dominion of
air,
the intellectual element, and so can be used to increase mental powers or visualization abilities, to discover ancient wisdom or knowledge, to improve psychic faculties, and to call upon the God.
Fire
rules stringed instruments such as the lyre, harp (full-size or folk), guitar, mandolin, ukelele, and so on. Such instruments can be used in spells or rites involving sexuality, health and bodily strength, passion and will power, change, evolution, courage, and the destruction of harmful habits.
They are also excellent tools to use before ritual to purify the area in question, and also the celebrant. Play a particular song, sing with the instrument, or just strum around the area in a clockwise circle until the place is humming with your vibrations. Strings can also be used to invoke the God.
Resonant metal such as the cymbal, sistrum, bell, and gong are symbolic of the element of
water.
Since water encompasses healing, fertility, friendship, psychic powers, spiritual love, beauty, compassion, happiness, and other similar energies—bells, gongs, or cymbals can be featured in such spells and rites. The sistrum of Isis reminds us that resonant metal invokes the Goddess.
Musical spells (as opposed to purely verbal spells) can be simple and effective. Need money? Sit quietly dressed in green and slowly thump a drum, visualizing yourself bursting with cash while invoking the Goddess in her aspect of provider-of-abundance.
If you’re depressed, find a bell with a pleasant tone and ritually strike or ring it, feeling the sound’s vibrations cleansing you of the depression and lifting your spirits. Or, wear a small bell.
When you’re afraid, play a six-string guitar or listen to pre-recorded guitar music while visualizing yourself as confident and courageous. Invoke the God in his horned, aggressive, protective aspect.
Singing, a combination of speech and music, can be readily integrated into Wiccan rituals. Some Wiccans set chants and invocations to music or sing as they feel compelled to during ritual.
Many Wiccans never pursue the subject of music magic and simply play recorded tunes as backgrounds to their rituals. This is fine, but self-created music (however simple) integrated into your rituals can be more effective, as long as you like the piece.
Today a number of pre-recorded Wiccan and pagan cassette tapes are available. While widely varying in quality, it’s worthwhile to pick up a few tapes by mail (see appendix I, “Occult Suppliers,” for mail-order information). Some songs can be used in ritual, but most are best played while preparing for ritual, or afterward when relaxing.
Appropriate music incorporated into ritual can greatly enhance the Wiccan experience.
Dance
Dance is certainly an ancient ritual practice. It’s also a magical act, for physical movement releases energy from the body, the same energy used in magic. This “secret” was discovered early, and so dance was incorporated into magic and ritual to raise energy, to alter consciousness, or simply to honor the Goddess and God with ritual performances.
Group dances, such as the spiral dance, are often performed in coven workings. In individual workings, however, you’re bound by no tradition or choreographed steps. Feel free to move in any manner you wish, no matter how child-like or wild it may seem.
In magic, many Wiccans perform a short spell or ritual manipulation of some kind (inscribing runes, tying knots, tracing pictures in sand or powdered herbs, chanting deity names) and then perform the real magic: raising and channeling magical energy. They often move in an increasingly faster clockwise circle around the altar, either alone or with a coven, watching the candles flaming on the altar, smelling the incense, overwhelming themselves with chanting and intense visualization. When the practitioner has reached the point of no return, the exact moment when the body can raise and channel no more energy, the power is released toward the magical goal. To do this, some Wicca collapse to the ground, signaling the end of what is rather peculiarly called “The Dance.”
Dancing is used to raise energy as well as to facilitate attunement with the deities of nature. Dance as the wild wind; as the stream rushing down a mountain, a flame flickering from a lightning-struck tree, as grains of sand bounding off each other in a gale, as flowers unfolding their brilliance on a sunny summer afternoon. As you dance, using whatever movements you wish, open yourself to the God and Goddess.
Think for a moment of the whirling dervishes, the untamed Gypsy dances of Europe, the sensuous belly dancing of the Middle East, and the sacred hula of old Hawaii. Dance is one of the paths to deity.
Gesture
Gestures are silent counterparts to words. Gestures can enhance Wiccan rituals when performed in conjunction with invocations or dance, or can be used alone for their real power. Pointing (as mentioned above), the use of the first and middle fingers splayed to create a “v,” and the vulgar presentation of an upraised middle finger, demonstrate the variety of messages that can be conveyed through gesture, as well as the range of our emotional responses to them.
My introduction to Wicca happened to include some of these old gestures. In 1971 I saw some photographs
*
of magical protective gestures such as the
mano figa
(a hand clenched into a fist, the thumb jutting out between the first and middle fingers) and the
mano cornuta,
a “v” formed by the first and little fingers and held upside down. Both have long been used to avert the evil eye and negativity, and the latter is used in Wicca, with points up, to represent the God in his horned aspect.
A few days later, in my first year in high school, I flashed these two gestures to a girl I’d just met. There was no logical reason to do this; it just felt right. She looked at me, smiled, and asked me if I was a Witch. I said no, but I’d like to be. She began training me.
The magical significance of gestures is complex, and stems from the powers of the hand. The hand can heal or kill, caress or stab. It is a channel through which energies are sent from the body or received from others. Our hands set up our magical altars, grasp wands and athames, and pinch out candle flames at the conclusion of magical rites.
Hands, as the means by which most of us earn our livings, are symbolic of the physical world. But in their five digits lie the pentagram, the supreme protective magical symbol; the sum of the four elements coupled with
akasha,
the spiritual power of the universe.
The lines on our hands can, to the trained, be used to link into the deep consciousnesses and reveal things to the conscious mind that we would otherwise have difficulty knowing. The palmist doesn’t read these lines as streets on a roadmap; they are a key to our souls, a fleshy mandala revealing our innermost depths.
Hands were used as the first counting devices. They were seen to have both male and female qualities and symbolism, and images of hands were used around the world as amulets.
Gestures in Wiccan ritual can easily become second nature. When invoking the Goddess and God, the hands can be held uplifted with the fingers spread to receive their power. The Goddess can be individually invoked with the left hand, the thumb and first finger held up and curled into a half-circle, while the rest of the fingers are tucked against the palm. This represents the crescent moon. The God is invoked with the first and middle fingers of the right hand raised, or with the first and fourth fingers up, the thumb holding down the others against the palm, to represent horns.
The elements can be invoked with individual gestures when approaching the four directions: a flat hand held parallel with the ground to invoke earth at the north; an upraised hand, fingers spread wide apart, to invoke air at the east; an upraised fist for the south to invite fire, and a cupped hand to the west to invoke water.
Two gestures, together with postures, have long been used to invoke the Goddess and God, and are named after them. The Goddess position is assumed by placing the feet about two feet apart on the ground, holding the hands out, palms away from you, elbows bent slightly. This position can be used to call the Goddess or to attune with her energies.
The God position consists of the feet together on the floor, body held rigidly upright, arms crossed on the chest (right over left, usually), hands held in fists. Tools such as the wand and magic knife (athame) are sometimes held in the fists, echoing the practice of pharaohs of ancient Egypt who held a crook and flail in a similar position while trying disputes.
In coven work, the High Priestess and High Priest often assume these positions when invoking the Goddess and God. In solo workings they can be used to identify with the aspects of the Goddess and God within us, and also during separate invocatory rites.
Gestures are also used in magic. Each of the fingers relates to a specific planet as well as an ancient deity. Since pointing is a magical act and is a part of many spells, the finger can be chosen by its symbolism.
The thumb relates to Venus and to the planet Earth. Jupiter (both the planet and the god) rules the forefinger. The middle finger is ruled by the god and planet Saturn, the fourth finger the sun and Apollo, and the little finger by the planet Mercury as well as the god after which it is named.
Many spells involve pointing with the Jupiter and Saturn fingers, usually at an object to be charged or imbued with magical energy. The power is visualized as traveling straight out through the fingers and into the object.
Other ritual gestures used in Wiccan rites include the “cutting” of pentagrams at the four quarters by drawing them in the air with the magic knife, wand, or index finger. This is done to alternately banish or invoke elemental powers. It is, of course, performed with visualization.
The hand can be seen as a cauldron, since it can cup and contain water; an athame, since it is used to direct magical energy, and a wand, since it can also invoke.
Gestures are magical tools as potent as any other, ones we can always take with us, to be used when needed.
*
Music is, technically speaking, comprised of sound waves that are physically measureable. We can’t hold music in our hands, however, merely the instruments that produce it.
†
See Doreen Valiente’s
Witchcraft For Tomorrow
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978), page 182.
*
A fine (if fictional) account of music magic can be found in chapter xi of Gerald Gardner’s novel
High Magic’s Aid
(New York:Weiser, 1975).
*
Included in Douglas Hill and Pat William’s
The Supernatural
(New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965), page 200.
6
Ritual and Preparation for Ritual
I HAVE DEFINED
ritual as “a specific form of movement, manipulation of objects, or series of inner processes designed to produce desired effects” (see glossary). In Wicca, rituals are ceremonies that celebrate and strengthen our relationships with the Goddess, the God, and the earth.
These rituals need not be preplanned, rehearsed, or traditional, nor must they slavishly adhere to one particular pattern or form. Indeed, Wiccans I’ve spoken with on the subject agree that spontaneously created rituals can be the most powerful and effective.
A Wiccan rite may consist of a lone celebrant lighting a fire, chanting sacred names, and watching the moonrise. Or it may involve ten or more people, some of whom assume various roles in mythic plays, or speak long passages in honor of the Gods. The rite may be ancient or newly written. Its outer form isn’t important as long as it is successful in achieving an awareness of the deities within the Wiccan.
Wiccan ritual usually occurs on the nights of the full moon and the eight days of power, the old agricultural and seasonal festivals of Europe. Rituals are usually spiritual in nature but may also include magical workings.
In section III you’ll find a complete book of rituals,
The Standing
Stones Book of Shadows.
The best way to learn Wicca is to practice it; thus through the course of time, by performing rituals such as those in this book or the ones you write yourself, you’ll gain an understanding of the true nature of Wicca.
Many people say they want to practice Wicca, but sit back and tell themselves that they can’t observe the full moon with ritual because they don’t have a teacher, aren’t initiated, or don’t know what to do. These are merely excuses. If you’re interested in practicing Wicca, simply do so.