A Wiccan Bible

425 Pages·2006·5.19 MB·English

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Exploring the Mysteries of the Craft
from Birth to Summerland
A.J. DREW
New Page Books
A division of The Career Press, Inc.
Franklin Lakes, NJ
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Copyright © 2003 by A.J. Drew
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permis-
sion from the publisher, The Career Press.
A WICCAN BIBLE
EDITED BY LAUREN MANOY
TYPESET BY STACEY A. FARKAS
Cover design by Cheryl Cohan Finbow
Printed in the U.S.A. by Book-mart Press
To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-848-
0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from
Career Press.
The Career Press, Inc., 3 Tice Road, PO Box 687,
Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417
www.careerpress.com
www.newpagebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Drew, A. J.
A wiccan Bible : exploring the mysteries of the craft from birth to summerland / by A.J. Drew.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-56414-666-9 (pbk.)
1. Witchcraft. I. Title.
BF1571.D74 2003
299—dc21 2003053998
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Dedication
For Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin;
you have not been forgotten.
For Steven Branch, Christopher Byers, and (James) Michael Moore;
you have not been forgotten.
For the seated Governor of the State of Arkansas, I beg
that the principles founding this great nation not be
forgotten by your state’s legal system.
Acknowledgments
Normally, I would have a much longer list of acknowledgments. It
took a great many people for this book to manifest, but two people stood
out so much, that their names have to appear by themselves. Thank you,
Mother, for your eternal love. Thank you, Paula ‘Ravensfyre’ Newman,
for your eternal friendship. Thank you both for the months of time you
dedicated to the creation of this book.
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Contents
Preface..............................................................................................................7
Introduction....................................................................................................11
Section One: The Beauty of the World,
17
Liber ab Nomen (Book of Name).................................................................21
Liber ab Genesis (Book of Creation) ............................................................40
Liber ab Tres I (Book of Three, Part I).......................................................52
Liber ab Exodus (Book of Departure) .........................................................65
Liber ab Quattor (Book of Four) ..................................................................79
Liber ab Tres II (Book of Three, Part II) .....................................................97
Liber ab Planta (Book of Plants, Condensed)............................................108
Section Two: The Paragon of Animals,
113
Liber ab Matrimonium (Book of Marriage)................................................115
Liber ab Sol (Book of the Sun)....................................................................129
Liber ab Luna (Book of the Moon).............................................................155
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Liber ab Solemnitas (Book of Holidays).....................................................171
Liber ab Anima (Book of Soul)..................................................................202
Liber ab Familia (Book of Familiars, Condensed)......................................209
Section Three: In Apprehension, How Like a God,
227
Liber ab Gens (Book of Tribe)....................................................................229
Liber ab Arma (Book of Arms)...................................................................243
Liber ab Mentis (Book of Mind) .................................................................252
Liber ab Mortuus (Book of the Dead) ........................................................260
Liber ab Clementia (Book of Humanity) ....................................................270
Final Word...................................................................................................411
Endnotes.......................................................................................................415
Bibliography .................................................................................................419
Index.............................................................................................................425
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Preface 7
Preface
(Otherwise Known as My Last Ritual)
I
am a creature of habit. I find things in this world that I like, and I do those
things again and again because they make me feel good. These regular rituals
are usually simple things. I meditate with my iguana on my lap or let my
ferret run around my bedroom, her little butt running faster than her front
end until she trips over herself again and again. At night, I watch the O’Reilly
Factor at 11 p.m. with my mother, and in the morning I buy a bottle of
Mountain Dew on my way to work.
In the course of writing this book, almost all of this has changed. My iguana and
ferret died within days of each other, despite every effort to save them. It felt as if my
heart had been ripped from my chest. I had fed my iguana Fred some grapes from
Chili, and the next morning she was horribly ill. Then I fed a grape to Thumper never
thinking that grapes from a grocery store could be poison. Shortly thereafter, she took
ill. In my attempts to save them, each of these friends took their final breath after days
of being stuck with needles and IVs. So not only did I kill them, but in my great effort to
save them I caused them to leave this world thinking I was a monster.
Right when I thought my heart couldn’t feel any more pain, the war in Iraq began.
At the time, I assured my mother that the people of this great nation would rise to
support its brave men and women. I was confident that despite politics and party lines,

7
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8 A Wiccan Bible
despite opinions on the war itself, folks would realize combatants do not determine
politics, and that in the United States military our soldiers follow the orders of the
Commander In Chief without respect to political parties or leanings.
I was wrong. In trying to extend the lives of Fred and Thumper, I extended their
suffering. In assuring my mother that Americans would all rally and show support for
their soldiers, I set her up for a fall. Now there is no more Fred to meditate with, there
is no more Thumper to run around and make me laugh, and there is no more O’Reilly
at 11 p.m.; he has been pre-empted for reports on the war. We all make mistakes and
those mistakes are part of the people that we are. We make mistakes, we learn from
them, and we move forward. We manage this because we cling to the good things in
life. Even when we might not see those good things in the moment, we know that they
are just right around the corner. I can deal with this because I still have my morning
Mountain Dew.
But it isn’t just soda that starts my day; it is the smiling face of the young lady who
sells me that soda. It is all part of the ritual. We never really talk much, but one can
begin to see the nature of someone’s soul, even from the smallest of exchanges. One
day after I asked her how she was, she told me she was in pain because she thought her
foot was broken. She laughed as she told me she called her father and he said if it was
still broken when she got off work, that he would take her to the hospital. The next
morning I asked her if her foot was still ‘broken’ and she said no. I told her that her
father loves her a great deal. She said, “I know.”
I think my morning breath of optimism is a high school student. If she is in college,
I imagine she hasn’t been there long. I hate to admit it, but I have become old and
jaded. So this last ritual—my morning Mountain Dew—does my heart good. It re-
minds me of when I was young, before I became as jaded as I am. It is a good thing
because if you believe in magick, then you know that this morning ritual marked me
younger and less jaded. It reminds me that there is hope and that some children do
continue to love their parents, even though it sometimes seems as if none do.
Recently, she asked me what I do for a living. I refused to say. So what was origi-
nally asked the way one might ask “How ya doing” has turned into a game. I am afraid
that if I answer, I might not have that last daily ritual anymore, and right now I need it
more than ever. I need the youthful optimism. I need something, anything, to tell me
there is hope for this world. It doesn’t take much, just a cheerful face now and then,
just one person who still loves the world no matter how ugly it seems at the moment. If
I were to answer her question and end the game, she might misunderstand my answer.
It is so easy to misunderstand and so hard to find the words that appropriately express
my job. Should I tell her what I do for a living?
In a broader sense of the question, should I tell you what I do for a living? If I tell
her, she might think I am insane. Maybe she would rebuke me in the name of her god.
It has happened so often that I have come to expect the occasional rebuking. If I tell
you, you might also think I am a bit loopy. Pagan leaders might come out and say I am
dangerous and ask the gods to protect the community from the likes of me. That, too,
has happened.
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Preface 9
You see, the status quo doesn’t like people like me. The status quo wants you to
just accept what you have been told and not question the world in which you live. Fol-
low the standard operating procedure. Conduct business as usual. Oh, I am not always
right, and sometimes it takes me far to long to admit when I am wrong. But that which
drives my spirit, the Ka that motivates my Ba, the Yang that rocks my Yin, the Yo that
completes my In, and the mind that guides my soul, leaves me with no choice but to put
forth to this world the many things that it has seen and the many questions that it has
formed.
So what do I do for a living? I am a professional Witch. “Professional” because
such is my love of Witchcraft that I have worked it into not only my personal life, but
into that which I do to fund that personal life, my work. “Witch” because I question the
world in which I live. Oh, I know some folk have heard stories that Witchcraft involves
the worship of Satan or other boogiemen. Others have been convinced that Witchcraft
is the oldest religion the world has ever known. But the truth is where it is often found—
someplace in the middle.
Witchcraft is not the world’s oldest religion by any stretch of the imagination. Should
one insist that words have specific meaning, then Witchcraft is much too diverse to be
called a religion. While one might say that Witchcraft is a religion, one would be in
error if they put a period at the end of that definition because it is so much more. It
would be better to say Witchcraft can be a religion.
While definitions come and go, when I think of a Witch I think of someone whose
spirit has a certain quality. Half of that spirit is a zest for life and all things living. The
other half asks why there is this zest for life and why there are all things living. So when
I think of one who is a Witch, I do not think of one who follows one religion or the next.
Instead, I think of someone whose soul gives one no alternative but to love life as well
as to identify why it is that we live. A Witch is one who, in determining what is what and
who is who, allows his or her Spirit to decide, rather than simply believing what one is
told.
Is Witchcraft the worship of Satan? Well, what is Satan? When we consider the
word satan, we see that its original meaning was nothing more than ‘to accuse’ or to ‘act
as adversary.’ With this understanding of the word satan, the next step in answering the
question is obvious: What is it that you are asking if Witches are averse to? If you are
asking if Witches are averse to being told what to think, then you probably think you
know my answer. Chances are you are wrong. You see, while Witches are definitely
averse to being told what to think without being allowed to think for themselves, they
do not worship that aversion. Their Spirit is that aversion.
Witches are averse to the standard operating procedure that has caused this world
to slip into the place where it now rests. Not only does the potential for World War III
loom over our heads, but even if we survive man’s inhumanity to man, the rate at which
plants and animals are becoming extinct has now reached a point not even rivaled by
the global extinction rate that destroyed the dinosaurs. Our world is dying, and the folk
who refuse to accept the standard operating procedure that has brought this on are
called extremists. Like Witches, they are taunted, laughed at, and vilified. Like Witches
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10 A Wiccan Bible
they are rebuked, and the gods are called upon to protect the world from their alarm.
It should not come as a surprise, because although these so called alarmists might not
all call themselves Witches, they are the very Spirit of Witchcraft.
You may have heard of a religion that has become popular that is often confused
with Witchcraft. That religion is Wicca. It has been all the rage. You can find its name
in movies and on TV. Recently, it has become rather fashionable to call oneself Wiccan—
so fashionable that a great many people have come forth in an effort to squash this new
religion. They have claimed it was invented by a man named Gerald Gardner, even
though what Gardner called Wicca has very little resemblance to what it is today. It is
said that the worship of the personification of evil, even though Wiccans do not so
much as believe in the existence of that personification.
In response to these allegations, many of the folk who have flocked to Wicca be-
cause it is all the rage have fought back, defending their fashion statement with great
amounts of energy. Recognizing an opportunity to profit, an industry has risen to meet
the demand of these many people. Unfortunately, the majority of books that the indus-
try offers to these folk who have rushed forth are lacking in many secrets, without
which Wicca can be little more than a fashion statement. You see, if those secrets were
told to the uninitiated, they might no longer seek Initiation. They fear that letting those
secrets loose would result in a dramatic loss of book sales and the great ride that folk
have had capitalizing on the popularity of Wicca would come to an end.
Fewer people would rush forth to sound that alarm if they knew that it came with
horror and dread. Now to the initiated, to those who have received the secret names of
our Lord and Lady along with their great lore, that knowledge is known. To the initi-
ated, the name of that alarm is Pemphredo, who is accompanied by Enyo (Horror) and
Deino (Dread), who are collectively known as the Graiae, three daughters born by
Ceto whose husband is Phorcys.
Now, what do most people do when they see horror and dread? Do they turn away
or do they sound the alarm? Although it is sad, the truth is that most people don’t even
see the horror and dread, much less sound the alarm. Most people look at that accident
on the side of the road, but they do not see. They do not say to themselves, “My gods,”
and they do not cry.
So in writing a book for the few folk that do feel, for the few that do cry, one might
think I am taking a great chance. But I have faith in humanity, and I believe Wicca is
the religion that will prove that faith is well-placed. I believe there are enough people
out there who will hear what I (and other so-called alarmists) say: We can still prevent
our world from becoming that accident by the side of the road.
So for you sweet child, my goddess Caffeina, I answer your question thus:
I am a professional Witch. My profession is reminding people that their Mother
and Father love them. If that scares you, I am sorry. But these are scary times.
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