Shadowplay Pagan Journal

The Witch in the Realm of Faerie

by Caroline Tully

We are between the worlds,
Beyond the bounds of time,
Where night and day,
Birth and death,
Joy and sorrow,
Meet as one.
- Starhawk

Witches work their magic in a special place between the worlds, a time outside of time. It is this technique which makes us supremely capable, above almost all other mortals, of entering into the Faerie Realm. The realm of Faerie is the place of enchantment and magic, and throughout history Witches have been frequent visitors to this world. Consorting with Faeries was even one of the many accusations levelled against them during the Witchcraze. According to Margaret Murray, author of The Witch Cult in Western Europe and The God of the Witches, in almost every case of Witchcraft from Joan of Arc in 1431 down to the end of the 17th century, the most damning evidence against the accused was aquaintance with the Faeries.

But what exactly are Faeries?

What do they look like? Where do they live? And most importantly, can a modern Witch still visit them. What are Faeries When we hear the word Faerie most people think of little winged beings belonging to children’s story books, supernatural creatures who work magic and indulge in mischief. As we will soon see however, there is a lot more to them than this simple description.

There are many theories about the origin of Faeries, one of the most popular ones being David McRitchie’s famous ‘pygmy theory’ which was prevalent in the 1890’s. This was also subscribed to by Margaret Murray, who suggests in God of the Witches that Faeries were once real human beings. The Faeries, she says, were the descendants of the early people of Northern Europe. These dark-skinned survivors of the Stone Age were smaller than ‘mortals’ and lived in the wild, uncultivated areas of the country, they were herders of animals and unacquainted with agriculture. As civilisation advanced the Faerie population mingled more with the settled people until many of them entered the villages and became indistinguishable from other humans This euhemerising explanation for Faeries explains why they are small, fear iron (which they had not yet developed) and live in hillocks (round turf houses sunk in the ground).

‘Euhemerism’ is the idea that supernatural beings can be traced back to historical, factual people. This particular Faerie theory appears in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s novels about the Arthurian Legend, the popular Mists of Avalon series Many Folklorists of the early 20th century suggested that Faeries were the Pagan Gods, reduced in stature. As Christianity made inroads into Pagan societies the native deities lessened in importance, power and function. For example, the Faerie Queen Mab has much in common with the Celtic Goddess/Queen Maeve. The Green Knight (from the story of Gawain and the Green Knight) is often seen as a Pagan god, the Green Man. Celtic history records that the famous Irish deities, the Tuatha de Dannan, after the coming of Christianity, left the Earth’s surface and dwelt underground in hills or Neolithic graves and became known as the ‘Aes Sidhe’ the ‘People of the Hills’ or Faeries.

Traditional Witch, Nigel Jackson, suggests that Faeries are beings from the Underworld and that humans become Faeries after death. He explains that “the soul descends into the Faerie realm, sojourning as a Faerie in the Otherworld while awaiting the right cyclical patterns which will enable its Earthly rebirth to occur. The ‘human’ and the ‘Faerie’ are two poles of our own being, between which we oscillate back and forth through our cycle of rebirths. In other words, Faeries are ourselves awaiting birth and we are the Faeries awaiting our return to the Enchanted Realm Irish peasants believed something similar to this up until around fifty years ago; women that died in chidlbirth, people that died young or children that became sicky and turned into ‘changelings’ were ‘away with the Faeries’. They were not dead however, they could be expected to return at any time and sometimes did.

Theosophy recognises the world of Faerie as a part of a hidden spiritual world that coexists with our physical world. Theosophists, and consequently New Agers, see the function of Faeries as being to absorb vitality from the sun and distribute it to the physical. For example, the flower Faeries are nature spirits who provide the vital link between the sun’s energy and the soil’s minerals. Certain Faeries are responsible for the structure and colour of flowers, others work under ground around the roots, some work on a molecular level and are concerned with cell growth, and other Faerie species aid the development of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdom. These Faeries, or ‘Devas’, work as personific- ations of natural energies.

Yet another popular contemporary theory based on Jungian psychology is that Faeries are archetypal images created by a shared, common concern, they are personifications of birth, sex, fertility and death and are a way of approaching these subjects in symbolic form Perhaps Faeries are actually a combination of all of these ideas.

English Witchcraft author, Doreen Valiente, suggests that Faeries might very well be composed of several factors: spirits of nature, Pagan deities, souls of the Pagan dead, folk memories of aboriginal races, and the widespread belief in an Underworld under the earth. No matter what these creatures are, Faeries exist in the realm between the worlds along with Elementals, Spirits, Angels and Gods and thus can be contacted by magickal practitioners who journey into such territory.

The Faeries’ appearance will often reflect our own preconceptions of them, their forms are both manifold and varied. Sometimes they cannot be told apart from humans, at other times they resemble animals. They can be extremely beautiful or hideously ugly.

In northern Scotland, Ireland, Brittany and France, the Faerie is the size of a human being and has all the characteristics of one. An Irish eyewitness from the 11th century recorded that “fifty Faerie women were seen with purple tunics and green hoods, and silver bracelets around their arms... All the women were of a like age and like shape, and like loveliness and like beauty and like straightness and like figure, in the dress of Faerie women, so that there was no telling one from the other.” There is no mention of whether they are human-sized or smaller which would suggest that they did not look particularly different to mortal women.

However, according to author/illustrators Brian Froud and Alan Lee, much of their external appearance is in fact glamour. Glamour is the magical garment of the Faerie and without it they appear as a shimmering light, it is a protective coverage and is often designed to make mortals believe they are dealing with one of their own kind. When inspected very closely, most Faeries are characterised by a physical deformity of some kind which marks them out as different. Such tell-tale signs include webbed feet, back-to-front feet, or even goat’s hooves, noseless nostrils, squint eyes, pointed ears and cow’s tails.

There are special areas on Earth where the Faerie world and the mortal world meet, at these sites travel between the worlds can be experienced. Places such as trees, mounds, hills, caves, rivers, pools, wells, crossroads, boundaries, hedges, the bottom of the garden and of course Faerie Rings are all doorways to Faerie.

Probably the most well-known entrance to Faerie, the Faerie Ring, is a dark green circle on a lawn or in a field caused by the presence of fungi in the soil and the rings are often also outlined with mushrooms. These sites have long been reputed as magical places where occult power is concentrated and are therefore, favourite places for performing spells. Faerie Rings can apparently live for hundreds of years and some have been proved by modern science to be over 600 years old.

Like the Norse Yggdrasil, certain other trees which have their roots in the Underworld, are also entrances to Faerie. Three Hawthorn trees growing close together are thought to be especially potent. Other trees most favoured by them are the Blackthorn, Hazel, Alder, Elder and Oak, hence the saying: Turn your cloaks, for Faerie folks live in old oaks. Combinations of trees, especially if twisted together, are also powerful sites; two Thorns and an Elder for example or a group of Oak, Ash and Thorn.

The Irish believe that a single tree in a field, or a group of trees on top of a Faerie hill belong to the Faeries and that it would be inviting disaster to chop them down The Irish word for Faerie is ‘Sidhe’ (Shee), meaning people of the hills. The actual Faerie Hill is also called a ‘Sidhe’ or a ‘Rath’. These are barrows or hillocks, each being a door to an underground realm of splendour and delight. The ancient Celts believed for example, that in the Faerie Realm there were apple trees always in fruit, one pig alive and another being roasted, and a supply of ale which never ran out.

In The Book of the Dun Cow, the Faerie Queen describes her realm as the land of the ever-living, a place where there is neither death, nor sin, nor transgression. “We have continual feasts, we practice every benevolent work without contention. We dwell in large Sidhe and hence we are called the people of the faerie mound Fairy mounds are entrances to the Pagan paradise, which might be located underground, under water, or under hills on distant islands across the western sea. An anonymous Irish author of the 11th century describes a visit to a Sidhe: ‘[A]s I gazed around me I saw a faerie hill, brightly lit, with many drinking horns and bowls and cups of glass and of pale gold in it, and I was staring at it for a long time at the doorway of the faery hill... I went across to the hill and sat down ... in a crystal chair on the floor and gazed at the house all around me, and I saw twenty-eight warriors on one side of the house with a lovely fair headed woman beside every man of them, and six gentle, youthful yellow-haired girls on the other side of the house, with shaggy cloaks around their shoulders; and a gentle yellow-haired girl in a chair on the floor of the house, with a harp in her hand which she was playing and continually thrumming. And every time she sang a song a horn was given to her to drink out of it, and she would give the horn into the hand of the man who gave it to her; and they were sporting and amusing themselves all around her.’

Irish people interviewed by Folklorists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries expressed the belief that the Faeries were ‘Fallen Angels’ who accompanied Lucifer out of Heaven, thus showing how Christianity eventually influenced, but did not destroy, Pagan belief In the past Witches and Faeries were commonly thought to be the same thing and they often shared similar attributes such as the practice of magic, the ability to appear and disappear, shapeshifting, the preparation of magical ointments, dancing in circles and having wild night time revels.

The Faerie Godmother in fairytales has many of the characteristics of the Witch and she often comes in a group of three sisters like the Witches’ Triple Goddess. Witches’ deities can interchange with Faerie royalty, examples being Puck, Robin Goodfellow, Robin Hood, Gwyn ap Nudd, Oberon, Morgan Le Fay, Dame Abundia, Habondia, Aradia, Diana, Venus, Hecate, Sybil and Titania.

Doreen Valiente says that the leading female witch in a Scottish Coven was called the ‘Queen of Elphame’, a word which is the Scottish version of the Old Norse ‘Alfheim’, the country of the Elves or Faeries. Nigel Jackson tells us that ‘The traditional metaphysics of Elfland lie at the heart of true Witchcraft, a body of ancestral Faerie teachings and arts which formed a hidden tradition transmitted down the centuries across Europe and the British Isles.’ English Witches, Agnes Hancock in 1438 and John Walsh in 1566, said that they treated wounds made by fairy magic. John Walsh said that he consulted the ‘little people’ for advice between the hours of twelve and one in the afternoon and at midnight.

Scottish Witch, Bessie Dunlop, in 1576 saw eight women and four men “the men were clad in gentleman’s clothing, and the women had plaids round them and were very seemly-like to see’. She was informed that they were ‘from the Court of Elfame’, and said that she had previously received a visit from the Queen of Elfame though without knowing at the time who her visitor was, she described the Queen as ‘a stout woman who came into her and sat down on the form beside her and asked a drink and at her and she gave it’. Bessie related how she was initiated and instructed by a Faerie man called Thom Reid who had originally died at the Battle of Pinkie and was now one of the Sidhe. He appeared in the form of ‘an honest well elderly man, grey bearded, and had a grey coat with Lombard sleeves of the old fashion; a pair of grey breeks and white shanks, gertered above the knee; a black bonnet upon his head... and a white wand in his hand.’

Alesoun Peirsoun in 1588 was ‘convict for haunting and repairing with the good neighbours and Queen of Elphane, and she had many good friends at that court which were of her own blood, who had good acquaintance with the Queen of Elphane’. Alesoun had been healed of a sickness and had become a healer herself through the agency of a green-clad Faerie man who came to her.

Christine Livingstone said that ‘her daughter was taken away with the Faerie folk and that all the occult knowledge that she had was by her daughter who met with the Faeries’. One woman told the judges that ‘what skill so ever she has, she had it of her mother and her mother learned it at an Elf-man’.

A Wizard called Andro Man said that he was the husband of the Queen of Elphane, with whom he lived for thirty-two years and by whom he had several children In 1623 Isable Haldane gave an account of how ten years earlier she had been caried out of her bed to a Faerie Hill which opened before her and that she spent three days in Elfland. She was brought out by a ‘man with a grey beard’ who was her Faerie teacher and companion and who aided her in divination, healing and cursing thereafter.

An unnamed Yorkshireman, accused of witchcraft in 1653 said that a Faerie had taken pity on his poverty-stricken condition and had admitted him to the Faerie Kingdom. There he had been shown how to administer a special Faerie powder to treat the sick and was thus enabled to make a living. In 1670 the witch Jean Weir described how the Queen of Faerie laid a spell upon her so that she could magically produce large amounts of yarn in a short space of time

The most famous Witchcraft case dealing with Faeries was that of the Scottish Witch, Isobel Gowdie (d.1662), who confessed without torture (very unusual in Scotland) that she had been initiated as a Witch in 1647 by a ‘man in grey’. She described how she placed one palm on her head and the other under her feet and promised him everything in between. She then received the Witch name, Janet, and a Witches’ Mark on her shoulder. Isobel told of flying to the Sabbat on a bean stalk by putting it between her legs and saying ‘Horse and Hattock, horse and ho, horse and pellatis, ho, ho’ She also described how she entered the Faerie Realm, ‘I was in the Downie Hills... the hills opened, and we came to a fair and large braw room in the day time... and I got meat there from the Queen of Faerie, more than I could eat. The Queen of Faerie is brawly clothed in white linen, and white and brown clothes: and the King of Faerie is a braw man, well favoured and broad faced. There were elf-bulls, routing and skoyling up and down there, and affrighted me.’

Up to as late as 1895 in Ireland, Bridget Cleary was attacked and burned to death by her deranged(?) husband because he thought she had been exchanged for a changeling by the Faeries of nearby Kylenagrangh Hill. The children of the district still sing the skipping chant: ‘Are you a Witch or are you a Faerie, or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?’ Evidently some other humans, not Witches, but those especially favoured by the Faeries are also allowed access to the Faerie Realm.

Faeries are thought to especially favour gifted poets and bards, lactating women, young men and children. Thomas the Rhymer, a 13th century poet experienced enchantment of Faerie. One day, as he lay down on a river bank, the Queen of Elphame dressed in green rode past him on a horse whose mane was plaited with fifty-nine silver bells. Thomas was trapped by a kiss and taken on the back of the horse across deserts and rivers of blood to a green garden in Faerieland. An apple gave him the gift of prophecy and a tongue that could not lie. He lived with the Queen for seven years before he returned to earth to write poetry and make true prophecies. Some say he eventually went back and still lives on as an advisor to the Faerie court.

Seasonal Altars

by Rhea

Seasonal altars are about homage to the season, and incorporate multiple elements that are found in nature, as well as concepts that relate to the month of the year, the agricultural cycle, and color elements. The idea is to make a representation of the season in a small space, usually as part of a ritual observance.

Some people create seasonal altars and then photograph them so they can be enjoyed year round, and by more people than those who were present when these were created. Some are part of community events, and others are more personal reflections on the energies and influences of the season.

Adding seasonal elements

I often incorporate seasonal elements into existing altars in one of the following ways

Leaves from my garden

Flowers, sticks and twigs

Fruits (must remember to remove after a few days or they get icky)

Candles with the seasonal colors - start with any of the following options, or make your own 
-  based on nature's colors
-  on the elements (red-fire-summer)
-  taken from mythology
-  from lists of color correspondences
-  astrological colors

Altar cloth of a seasonal color, at least when I don't stick to basic black

I have a nearby store - costume and display - that often inspires me with fabrics and decorations, but mostly I go for a walk in the woods, and in my own garden, to find elements that are personally meaningful. And that's the trick, right there. 

Summer

Think of walks on the beach, picking up shells, gathering driftwood and sand, and bright blossoms from the garden. The candles are white, because, for me, it's just about the light at this time of year. In other years the candles have been blue/green for the sea, especially when I've spent a lot of time down the beach. The votives are nearly always white, and unscented.  There are votives, in candle lanterns, a pillar candle or two, and a resin sandcastle. A scattering of glass beads to catch the light, and an orange - oranges are a childhood memory of summer, and the color is golden. 

Fall

The swoosh scritch of leaves underfoot, slanting light through the blazing reds, golds and greens of the trees, wind and rain, punctuated by amazingly clear days. If the deck hasn't been painted yet, it's time to slap a coat of sealer on it, and to take down the shade umbrellas in the yard. The altar is covered in brightly colored leaves, late blooming roses, red and gold and yellow candles, and a pomegranate is in place. Squashes, root vegetables, colorful red peppers round out the colors of the season.

Winter

Green, silver and white appear to be the colors here. White and clear for the ice crystals, cinnamon for the hot drinks to warm us, green boughs and decorative small hand-made masks. There are spices and herbs, wrapped playful bonbons, tangles of twigs and feathers of birds picked up from walking in the woods in the dark and quiet.

Spring

Everything is new again. Early daffodils and crocuses are blooming - in Sydney the wattle blooms, and in Seattle, we have forsythia everywhere. Golden blossoms to remind us that even though it is still cold, the first signs of the sun are here. White altar cloths, early blooming blossoms, pale green and gold candles (for me at least) and floating bowl of candles as well. We have a terrific magnolia tree that buds at the beginning of spring and then is in full bloom mid-spring. The blossoms are all over our path, and we bring some inside as well. Painted eggs are a good element to incorporate on the altar, and also tied to trees as a reminder of the season.

Related Articles

Creating Altars

Submitting Articles

This is the post where we'll track ideas for Articles and the like. Here's a random sample of the kind of thing we're looking for:

• Personal magickal experiences

• Rituals you have written - small and personal, or large and public

• Creating sacred space

• Personal altars (and pictures)

• Making mandalas

• Magickal living

• Divination techniques

• Energy work

• Healing

• Sacred Sexuality

• Making connection with nature spirits

• Making magickal tools

• Resources for pagans and wanderers

• Reviews of cool books and movies

Respond in the comments section with a brief summary of what you'd like to write about, and if you are a writer for the print zine, or have articles already in the archive, send Rhea an email (link on the archive site) and she will make you a guest writer on the blog.

Cheers - Rhea

Creating Altars

by Rhea

An altar is a surface / place that is defined by intent to be a sacred space. It may be temporary, occasional, or a permanent object (stone) or exist as a piece of a building such as a temple. The important thing is that it is intended to be a place where the hidden or sacred world intersects with the world of form. An altar may be a flat bit of rock or wood,  just flat enough and big enough for a piece of bread and a cup of mead, or it could be the size of a conference table. All are defined by intent, and by the things we put on the altar to express the mysteries as we know them.

(Left: TV Tray Altar)

There are altars for specific deities, for spirit of place, for seasonal celebrations, and altars that are specific to a path or mystery tradition. There are also community altars, ancestor altars, ones for household gods, and forest altars that are sacred to powers who are more at home in the wild.

When we create an altar, we are speaking to the spirit world. The attitudes and materials we bring to the work of creation make a covenant between macrocosm and microcosm, a place of intersection between worlds.

Where to put an altar

There are a lot of choices for where to put an altar, but essentially it depends on where you live, and whether you have privacy. Most of us have at least a dressing-table, the top of a bookcase, or a piece of wall to call our own, even when we have room-mates or live at home. An altar can even live inside a (milk) crate you line with fabric, or inside a make-up case.  For me, I have altars in every room of the house, and keep key bits and bobs of stuff in my car, on my desk at work, and in the handbag, not to mention in a tattoo that is with me everywhere. But that's not where I started.

I recall thinking that my first altar needed to be "right" in a traditional sense. And the first one/s were sure to have the key classic tools included, though I must mention that I had my own digs, and could pretty much decorate as I liked. The classics included a knife, a wand, a pentacle and a cup, a couple of candles in holders, and a pretty cloth to put them all on. I variously added cords, crystals, shells from the beach, and random bits of vegetation, depending on the season. I fancied postcards for embellishment, and was always looking for deity images that matched in size, and scale, if not in style. There were early feelings of needing to exercise restraint, as though the "ritual police" whoever they are, might look askance at too much excess. That went by the wayside pretty quickly, as I embraced expansiveness with some abandon. Soon, there were statues of all sizes, proliferations of tools, branches, hanging gems, hand-beading on altarcloths, multiple necklaces, a hand-lettered book or two, altar stones, runes, stacks of clay tablets, inscribing tools, incense burners, dishes of sand, collections of oils and pretty gewgaws of all kinds. And one altar was hardly enough to contain the blossoming magickal world it described. The nearby walls collected mandalas I'd painted, postcards and memorabilia from fabulous places, colorful feathers and the like.

I think as I studied different traditions, I learned to have sets of tools for each one, just to keep the worldview from drifting awry; and became somewhat of a "hardwarian". Periodically, I'd gift knives and cups to other folks in need of them, and made sets of tools along the way for chums who were from the Golden Dawn (including sets of Enochian tablets), which likely profited me more than it did them, and not just in terms of dollars. There's a connection you make to the energy current of a path when you make your own tools, and a meditation on what each tool means in context of the path; on the whole I recommend that everyone make their own tools if they can, or at least find them in cool shops, and dedicate them to your purpose. But that's an aside. Back to the altar, what I'm getting at is that a personal altar needs to be somethine that resonates with you, something that speaks to your understanding of your own magickal path.

Traditional altars

Traditional altars are those that are set up for particular rites and workings, usually within a group. A group (or tradition) may have specific tools, props, colors, and placement for each thing that goes on the altar for a group ritual. In this case, the well-prepared mage learns the local practices as quickly as possible, in order to be useful in setting up. Think of it like learning how to set the table. The order of spoons helps newcomers to table know how to consume the meal while being comfortable using the right spoon for the circumstances; remember, in setting a table, start from the outside, and work your way in. For setting up an altar, start with the base, and only add things that have meaning for the purpose you are setting the space for. In magickal terms, the altar is a microcosm of the universe as seen by the group, and may give you valuable hints about the stuff they think is related to the directions, if any.

Visitors Etiquette

The first rule is "don't touch the toys". If it is someone else's altar, and you are a visitor, it is best to look at things with hands behind the back. Much like musical instruments, most mage types are attached to their tools and will take it amiss if you get your grubby paws on them without permission. Also, depending on the person who owns the stuff, you might not want to mingle energies, so take a pause, do the polite thing, and if you like something, express admiration from a bit of a distance.

If you are a visitor, watching how things are set up can help get you oriented quickly; if you are wanting to become an initiate, asking whether you can ask questions about the setup will let you know how open they are to expressions of curiosity (and if you ARE an initiate of another group in the same tradition, you'll see quickly what the local style is for things you ought to find familiar:)) This goes for most groups, except for the super-secretive ones, and at least you'll know where they stand if you're a curious kind of cat. For many "traditional" groups, the placement of items such as a wand or knife aligned with a particular element can be something they are very particular about. Knives are variously associated with either fire or air, and likewise wands are associated with the opposite one of fire or air, depending on the tradition; finding out where folks like things put in advance, and asking if your personal wand can be put down on the altar, and if so, where, will help avoid unpleasant surprises.

Altars for Deities

My deities rarely like to share, for full altars that is; and that was something I learned about them along the way. I get the impression (internal sense) that they'd like their own space, no matter how small a corner of a bookcase. In small, cramped circumstances, they seem to be okay with it - on the dashboard of the car, a symbol for each can co-exist happily. But when there is room, they like to spread out and have their own stuff about them. A couple of them have their own floor-to-ceiling spaces with shelves, masks, hangings and so on, much like Santeria altars, but those are Feri deitites, and ones that influence most aspects of my life.

When starting to put deities together, try to put like ones together, or ones from the same pantheons, or ones that are different faces of similar powers. Just as I call my friends by the names they prefer, I treat deities similarly, and don't think they are all aspects of the one god/dess, even if they share qualities. Think of altar spaces as though it were a room in a small house, and you're having a party; think about who you want to invite, and whether they'll get along with each other. And you'll do fine.

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Seasonal altars

Shadowplay Year by Year - Part 1

The First Fourteen Issues: 1984 - 1987

by Cyfrin

Warning. Warning. Ahwoogah, ahwoogah. And so on. This little two-piece article exists pretty much solely for those who either produced or used to buy ye olde hard copy version of SHADOWPLAY which flourished like a perky young gladiolus from 1984 to 1995. Anyone else is more than welcome to have a peruse but will probably find it about as rivetting as going to a high school reunion for a school you didn't actually go to. Sorry 'bout that.

1984

Well, call me a sedimentary old fluff, but it seems to me that the first issue of the ole comic wasn't at all a bad start as starts go. Rhea began a series on Stone Casting that became popular enough to get her a book contract in time, and Peter Bowden got our tradition for magical fiction going with a perverse little parable called The Secret Life of Lester Tuckwell. Looking at the first issue today though you can't help feeling it had quite a way to grow. This it then did.

Admittedly, the second issue didn't break a huge amount of new ground but neither did it lose any. Rhea (at that time, the sole editor) is, however, well known as a fast learner so after 1984 the magazine took off like Granny Weatherwax in a high wind.

1985

By the third issue, things began to coalesce agreeably, partly due to the magazine's initial international input. Circa that time, a large contingency of Church of All Worlds people from the US were in Australia after enjoying several weeks hunting for mermaids in the Pacific. As one does.

Discussions with some of the people responsible for Green Egg, one of the most influential, innovative and downright spiffy of Pagan magazines (even before its renaissance), fired up our imaginations more than somewhat. Lots-what, in fact.

The third issue was the first to feature artwork by our good chum, Paul Stevens. To put Paul's artwork into context, consider the role Jimi Hendrix played in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I mean, the other guys in the band were awfully good musicians but the lead guitarist was the guvnor, let's face it. (I may even have suggested changing the magazine's title to The Paul Stevens Experience. But then the mead wore off and everything was back to normal.) In any case, Paul was - and still is - an gobsmackingly fine artist. Make sure you have time to rummage in the Gallery section to have your very own gob smacked in the privacy of your own home or place of employment.

Issue three also contained the first published piece on the great CAW mermaid hunt by a very talented artist and poet, Daniel Blair. Eat your heart out, Rupert Murdoch.

It was circa then I signed on as an official Editor, rather than cheer leader. Je ne regrette rien. Well, almost rien.

By the fourth issue we'd begun a sort of Wiccan/Occult Media Watch (we should probably have called it 'Medium Witch' I suppose). Much harmless fun was to be had over ensuing years pulling the work of more financially successful journalists to pieces. I strongly recommend it as an amusing hobby.

Sticking with the media watching motif, the fifth issue devoted space to one of the more impressive and entertaining Australian achievements in the occult field in the 1980s: a documentary masterminded by author Nevill Drury called The Occult Experience.

It was while watching this prime-time television film that many Australians would have heard the word 'Wicca' for the first time. That they heard it coming from the mouths of people like Margot Adler, Selene Fox, and Janet and Stewart Farrar was a very good thing.

The film also contains what must have been one of the illustrious Alex Sanders's last media appearances.

Though clearly frail, Sanders is in fine form and his superb sang-froid while dealing with an unexpected fire in his loincloth during an invocation of an Aztec spirit has to be seen to be believed. You can't help thinking that anyone else would have been jumping into a pond or at least giving a quick chorus of 'Great Balls of Fire'.

Tying in with the show, we also published a piece by Nevill on the remarkable, if slightly worrying, HR Giger - the first of many pieces on major occult artists and authors we were to present.

By this time we were consciously nudging the magazine into the areas where mainstream art and the magical arts converged (see Paul's issue six cover to see that sentence much more elegantly expressed in pen and ink). Ever one for thematic unity, Rhea began working for the Sydney Biennale round that time too.

1986

Unable to draw a straight line - or even a convincing wobbly one - I was forced instead to up the fictional content in the magazine from issue seven, beginning with a six-part story called The Visitor. This may yet turn up in a radically mutated form in a bookstore near you, though probably under yet another nom de keyboard.

By issue eight, we'd a busy working grove-type thingo going and were being encouraged to have a stab at organising the Third Australian Wiccan Festival. We used Rhea's spiffy little Print Gocco machine (a sort of screen-print making gizmo with a very bright flashing thingy in it) to whip up a little coloured ad for the event to plop into the centre pages of the issue. We felt totally, unassailably 'state of the art'. Sweet in a way.

We also veered recklessly into the convoluted art of Esoteric Filk with a team effort called Can't Help Loving That Pan of Mine. I ended up with an unhealthy addiction to the form, as a browse through the rest of this site will tragically verify.

In a similar vein, issue nine included Part One of The Magical Diary of Damien Vole, a tribute to Sue Townsend's superlative Adrian Mole books.

A rather more substantial literary tribute was made by the commencement of a four-part series called HP Lovecraft as 'Occultist' by a geezer I worked with at the time, name of Leigh Blackmore. Having been a closet Lovecraftophile (well, it's not the sort of thing you talk about loudly in buses, is it?) since I was twelve, I was utterly chuffed to find out that not only was I working alongside one of the world's leading authorities on HPL but the said authority was happy to let us publish his thoughts on the Rhode Island Recluse.

Our home-grown stable of artists and writers (no, that doesn't sound at all right - you don't 'grow stables' and … oh,work it for yourself) had by now been enriched by Rowan, whose Blodeuwedd in issue ten was a knockout. (Hopefully, she's reading this and will email to say we can plop it up online for the rest of y'all). Paul's summery cover for that issue was a delight too (back to the Gallery with you.)

1987

The aforesaid Rowan was also one of the co-authors writing as the Android Sisters who gave us a eminently good piece on the implausibility of psychic attack in issue eleven. The other 'sister' was Rhea who, in (Australian) Autumn 1987, chuffed off for a holiday esoterically schmoozing in the US.

We gather she liked it, since after a bit of bouncing about between continents over the next couple of years she eventually settled in Seattle (say that five times quickly with a mouthful of potato chips) with her longtime love, Raven. This in turn suggests it wasn't just the splendiferous Seattle climate that attracted her to the place.

Issue twelve contained a good little 'What I Did on My Vacation' piece by Rhea. I suggested a sequel about 'Who She Did on Her Vacation'. I don't recall her response but it was probably a tad Rabelaisian.

Rowan was also in fine form for issue thirteen (with its very appropriate Danse Macabre cover by Paul) giving us another fine illustrated poem called Bella Donna, while I had a stab at a reasonably comprehensive critique of Stewart Farrar's fiction - mainly because no one else had done it. A revamped, updated version of that piece will be on this site sooner or later.

By popular demand, Damien Vole returned in issue fourteen. Wanting to take a slightly different approach to Herr Vole, I had a stab at doing one of those 'Choose Your Own Adventures' type things which were extremely popular with kids back then (they still might be - I've lost touch). Extremely silly. We should probably bung that up online too some day.

Less daft by a long shot was Leigh Blackmore's myth-popping piece on the Golden Dawn and supernatural fiction writers, aptly called Hermetic Horrors.

We also gained another exceptional artist round this time, one Gavin O'Keefe, who not only supplied us with his own wondrous work but began to work on collaborative pieces with Rhea. Rhea's own artwork was flourishing too. All those illustrations for the magazine had honed up her already fine drawing skills nicely and by this point she was exhausting her life drawing models left, right and sideways. Her living room began to look like a sort of skyclad Madame Tussaud's - frozen bodies everywhere.

To Part Two.

Shadowplay Year by Year - part 2

The Second Fourteen Issues (and Beyond): 1988 - Today Sometime

by Cyfrin

1988

Issue fifteen was an anomaly even for a magazine that might reasonably have been called Anomalies R Us.

Most of the issue was devoted to a short story of mine called In Love In Absence (illustrated entirely splendidly by the Gavin/Rhea team). Gratifyingly, no one complained about this outburst of self-indulgence. Well, not within my earshot anyway.

I dropped out of the editor's role for issue sixteen. Shame, it's a really nice little issue with another ace Paul Stevens cover, a piece by Nevill Drury about the remarkable and highly Witchy Australian artist Rosaleen Norton, and a well written obituary for Alex Sanders by Tuan. Startled to discover I wasn't a vital necessity to a good issue, I immediately signed back up as Editor on the next issue and hoped that nobody else had noticed.

Chris Scott's astrological series began in issue seventeen and we published our first pieces on Pagan parenting and a Wiccaning, which suggested we were all getting older.

1989

Hawkeye's nifty borders and artwork became a feature of the magazine with issue eighteen, and Rhea and Gavin collaborated on illustrations for another short story of mine called The Ghost in The Machine, which became the first of three stories given a much wider readership through reprints in the revamped Green Egg magazine. Which was nice.

The first forum section appeared in issue nineteen, on the subject of Group and Solitary Work. In retrospect, perhaps we should have left a blank page in the forum for subscribers to write their own contributions in if they didn't meet our copy deadline. Proto-interactivity. Not a problem with our new improved, cyberforums, folks - see the Your Bit pages.

Gavin and Rhea collaborated on artwork for a short story again in this issue, this time for a Witchy historical romance piece called In Return for her Soul by Stephanie du Barry. Paul's cover was a winner too - a gently deflating comment on some of the darker magical traditions around at the time. Nice wombat too. I had it made into a T-shirt. The cover, not the wombat.

The twentieth issue contained the Initiation forum and, it being the (Australian) winter, a verse by Martin O'Connor called Nuclear Winter, a small wintry story of mine, and a Yule-ish cover by Rhea. Must've been a chilly winter. We weren't generally that topical.

For our twenty-first issue, Paul gave us a party cover, hosted by a Mr A Crowley; Julia Phillips gave is some thoughts on Margaret Murray; David and Fiona began a very popular series of Sabbat rituals; and the forum was about Polarity Magic and Sacred Sexuality (seemingly a topic much loved by our readers since we needed two issues to let everyone have their say).

We also included a piece of mine called The Very Model of a Modern Esotericist which I really should have issued as a single, since it became the most widely reproduced thing I've written to date. Too bad I sing like a cross between an inebriated Bob Dylan impersonator and a seriously injured elk. Where was Fiona Horne when we needed her? (Then again maybe Gilbert and Sullivan parodies wouldn't have gone down a treat with Def FX techno-thrash audiences.)

1990

Issue twenty-two was the last of the pocket-sized Shadowplays and the last produced wholly in Australia. After that, Rhea relocated to the US and the magazine took on a larger format because in the US you have a lot of competition for people's attention and, in the immortal words of professional Goddess Tori Amos: 'It's gotta be big.'

Amanda R began a two-parter on Tolkien; Alan Moyse gave us a very nice verse called Moonlight; the magical nookie forum continued; and my beluft, Antonia, made her first contribution to the magazine, illustrating a story called Convents and Cloisters, about the secret life of nuns.

1991

Paul gave issue twenty-three and the new look magazine a fine start with a brilliant Kali image, a favourite of many readers. Georgiana Bowley wrote on the magic of pure sound; Julia Phillips looked at novelist Charles Williams (not literally, him being dead and all - then again, you never know with that girl); and I spilled the beans on a collaboration between Cole Porter and Aleister Crowley on a version of You're the Top (caution: may not really have happened).

1992

Anyone noticing a slight drop in productivity by now? One issue a year. Whoo bleeding hoo. Ah well, in our defense, trying to put the magazine together between Sydney and Seattle without handy little creations like email (or even home faxes) proved a trial compared to the earlier, rather more casual approach to editorial meetings we enjoyed in the 80s.

Still we kept both the magazine and the post offices of our respective countries going for a few more issues.

Issue twenty-four had a forum on Talent and Training in the Craft, an early example of Wiccan hip hop by someone professing to be called MC Spiced Mead, and more spilled beans on Cole Porter's co-writers - this time it was the Anton La Vey version of My Heart Belongs to Daddy (caution: almost certainly a fabrication).

1993

Issue twenty-five contained a fine piece on channeling called Ecstasis by Ted Gill and Rhea which is well worth reading so I'll just sneak off for a cup of tea while you get into it.

That's better. Now, where were we? Ah yes, ish twenty-five. For my main chunk that time round, not content with nun stories, I had a whack at revealing what really happened when Joseph of Arimathea visited England in And Did Those Feet, illustrated by Antonia in her best mediaeval hand.

Tane Bwca's Trance and Meditation and Kallista's Digging for Divinity were highlights of issue twenty-six, along with the beginning of a series by Helen of Greenleaf on matters herbal to complement the earlier pieces on herbie matters by Cazz Tully. A series? This late in the day? She only has two more issues to go! Pushing your luck, I'd call that. Good articles though.

1994

The twenty-seventh issue had a cover drawn by Nevill Drury in 1968. Talk about getting your copy ready well in advance. Worra trouper. On top of that, he gave us his piece on Three Magical Artists.

Raven wrote about Total Recall and we asked a few experts about the state of Paganism in Germany which is the sort of thing we'd like to have done more of. If anyone reading this is an authority on the Wiccan communities in countries other than the US, Canada, the UK, Eire, Australia and New Zealand, we'd love to hear from you.

1995

The last hurrah - issue twenty-eight.

Paul's memorial on the front and back covers to all things Shadowplay-ish couldn't have been bettered. We'd been working on a whole pot of interviews prior to this issue and weren't about to put the magazine to bed without tucking every last scrap of hard work in there with it. Hence, chats with Paul Hume on Thelema, Hawkeye on magical metallurgy and Nevill Drury on occultism in Australia in the 60s.

A quick look back of a decade of magic by seventeen people who took the trip, a bunch of thank yous and we all rode off into the sunset (really hard to do organise when some of you are in Australia and some in the US).

1999

They're ba-ack ...

Yup, www.shadowplayzine.com - which, quite literally, is where you came in.

Planetary Magick I

Working with planetary energy is a particular ken of mine. At one stage I spent some six months recreating the kameas (planetary number boxes), tracing the paths on a vector drawing program, and assembling the results into a series of cards. I'm going to share some of that information in this series of articles, so stay tuned for PDFs to download.

In the meantime, if you haven't already visited the Shadowplay magickal calculator, go here as there's a handy tool for calculating planetary hours. Just put in the city and date for which you want the hours, and it will calculate sunrise, sunset, and the number of minutes in each planetary hour for you. Another related article on Timing the Ritual can also be found in the Shadowplay archive. The efficacy of planetary work is in aligning yourself with the energies, using as many ways of doing so as possible. Those ways may include using herbs, colors, candles and metals associated with that particular planet, all with the goal of using the Law of Similarity to leverage the work.

Street Magicks: A Sense of Magick

A Sense of Magick

by Rhea Shemazi and Raven Erling

Magick is as natural as breathing. It is something we are born knowing, but many of us are trained out of that knowledge in the process of growing up and becoming socialized. All children come equipped with a sense of wonder, an ability to learn, and a desire for information. One of the first things we learn is to use our senses to explore the world. We learn that there are expected ways of interpreting the information from our senses, and that there are five senses that we categorize. When we are learning Magick, we revisit our senses, and learn to interpret the data we usually ignore. Our worldview shifts to one where Magick is taken for granted.

The Sense of Touch

Our kinesthetic sense is not limited to physical touch. It extends from the physical through to the extra-physical, and includes a sense of the touch and feeling of different energies. Just like a child, who knows what it feels like to walk into a room where an argument has taken place, we reactivate that awareness of residual energies. In a highly developed state, this can lead to an ability to psychometrize, to read the energies from physical objects we touch with our hands, or hold against our skin (forehead, inner arm, throat, or some other part of our body that is more sensitive to extra-physical energy).

Our kinesthetic sense also extends to the skill for finding things that are not physically present. We reach out with phantom limbs to touch things that are distant to us in time and space, to feel texture, heat and cold, judge weight and inertia. If we are also able to move objects that we are not physically in touch with, this is called telekinesis (kinesis from the kinesthetic sense). There is thought that the act of perception makes a connection between an object and ourselves and that distance then becomes an illusion.

The Sense of Smell

Our sense of smell is little understood by researchers. We do know that it acts directly on the limbic part of the brain, the primal instincts, and may be how we recognize family. Certainly, it is a direct route to our emotions, and bypasses conscious thought in most cases. Smells summon memory, reminding us of times long gone, and alerting us to danger. A fear smell in a crowd instantly spreads, turning it into a mob. Coupled with our sense of hearing, it might be called a primal survival sense.

The Aromancy Guild (Australia and America) explores the deliberate use of aroma for ritual purposes. Incenses, essential oils, wood resins and pheromones are combined to heighten and change perception, enriching and enhancing experiences.

It is good to be conscious of the way smell affects you, and to identify the classes of aroma that make you feel most balanced and aware.
      

The Sense of Taste

We taste a variety of substances, among them salt, sweet, savory and bitter. Taste deteriorates over time, which is why older people tolerate spicy food better. Smoking also changes the sense of taste, as does any pervading smell. We can extend our sense of taste to energy, experiencing different kinds of energy like different kinds of food. While it is a rare skill, it is a useful one.

The Sense of Hearing

Sound vibrates our whole body. Chanting, pure ringing tones, the sounds of water, wind and life are all around us. We learn the skill of selective inattention as we mature, shutting down our awareness of the cacophony of unpleasant sounds that make up our environment. Very few places are actually quiet, so we need to work at it to balance the sounds, and mask them with sounds that are more pleasing to us.

Hearing needs to be relearned if you are to be a mage. You will need to be consciously aware of the sounds around you, and make a new conscious balance. By re-activating your sense of hearing, it is possible to have extrasensory hearing, up to and including distant hearing without a radio. Exquisite hearing is best practiced away from electronic “white noise” and out of the city.
      

The Sense of Sight

In the West, our sense of sight is the sense we use most often. We are so sure we know how it works that I’ve heard people tell me that they cannot “visualize” (a technique for holding an image in the mind). All sight is visualization. All we actually perceive are wavelengths of light that hit the back of the retina. We translate these patterns of light into recognizable pictures, all unconsciously.

Trained artists are aware that each of them sees color differently. We mix colors from a limited palette, and then combine them to make 256 basic colors. Many discover that their range is limited to fewer colors, while some few find that they can identify all these hues plus their tints (adding white) and shades (adding black). In printing, we either use pre-mixed inks, or use a four-color process that uses CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) on white paper. For the Internet, we use RGB (red, green, blue), and that gives a different quality to the image.

Most people will feel comfortable interpreting colors as reddish, greenish or bluish, and some will add brownish. These are the colors of the earth, sea and sky, the colors of the forest and rivers, colors that reflect and refract.

The physical sense of sight can be easily extended. Often called “the sight” or second sight, this refers to deliberately seeing things that others around you are not aware of. It might be tracers of light, shadows, colors of an aura, or seeing into the realm of phantasm. This is called clairvoyance, though it might as easily be called far-vision.

Vision is also a phenomenon of conscious dreaming, and is shared by artists and visionaries, mages and dreamers alike.
      

Making Connections

In various ways, we seek to use our enlarged and numerous senses, to become more connected with the world of spirit, as well as the world of form. Natural mages are joined to the world, creatively interacting with the enlarged world of perception, and celebrating the world of the senses.

We find connections in nature by watching the seasons unfold, seeing significance in the flight of clouds across the sky, the play of light and shadow, and the movement of the wind and stars. To the mage, all things are important, and none more so that knowing and recognizing their own place in the natural world. Begin your journey into Magick by exploring your senses, and by following the message of the Oracle of Delphi: “Know Yourself.”

Know Yourself: Being Real

Raven’s rule of magick states that Magick comes from two sources: inside the body and outside the body. The corollary is that if you cannot work with the energy and the magick within your body, then you will not be able to tap into an outside source of magick or energy. In the words of the Charge of the Goddess:

… If that which you seek you find not within you,
You will never find it without you;
For behold, I have been with you from the beginning
And I am that which is attained at the end of desire.

As you progress in your magical explorations and over time, your definitions of Self and Other may change. For the purposes of this chapter, we are referring to magicks of the Self as those energies generated within your own energy field. Our primary focus is on energy created through breathing, manipulating inner energies, harnessing sound, visualization and movement. Later, we extend that energy by using tools and making connections with outside forces and powers.

The first things we concentrate on are ways of working with the energy of your body, of knowing where the boundaries are between the Self and what is outside the Self.

In working with our bodies, first we take a really good look at ourselves. Who are we? What color is our hair, eyes, skin. What is our ethnic background? How does that inform our ideas about who we are in the world? If you are a Caucasian person living in America, England, Europe or Australia, you will have certain assumptions about how your body should look. Society will have values related to whether you are male or female, what your body weight should be, how you ought to dress for your place/job in society, what kind of friendships and romantic and sexual relationships you should have, and what your leisure activities are allowed to be.

There will be a list of assumptions about what kind of chemicals it is all right to use – alkaloids such as coffee or chocolate, tea, sugar, salt, preservatives, flavor enhancers and colorings, alcohol, tobacco, prescribed drugs of various types, over-the-counter prescriptions like aspirin, cough and cold medicine, things to help you go to sleep and to stay awake, and so on. There will also be a whole list of things it is not all right to use, mostly herbs and their refined derivatives. The kind of work you do, where you live, the kind of house you live in, the car you drive and where your children (if any) go to school will also be part of your personal identification.

However, if you were a Caucasian living in Japan, China or the Middle East, those cultural markers would all be different from the people around you. Likewise if you are Chinese and living in America, Japanese and living in Africa, Martian and living in Afghanistan, all these are factors you must take into account. No one lives in a vacuum and in beginning any new endeavor, it is important to realize not only who you are, but who other people think you are, or expect you to be.

Biases

Who do you think you are? Start by answering a few of these basic questions, and explore your biases and cultural assumptions.

1. What country are you from?
2. What is your ethnicity? Include parents and grandparents too.
3. What is your coloring?
4. How acute are your senses? Hearing? Touch? Taste? Smell? Vision?
5. How important is education to you? Why?
6. Do you notice your environment? Are the weather patterns around you the same as those where you grew up? What does the difference, or similarity, tell you about the world?
7. What is your personal ethical code? Is it okay to lie? Under what circumstances? Is it okay to kill? To maim? To defend yourself? To take revenge? Is it okay to run away? Is it important to keep your word? Is it important to do the things you say you will do? Do you make promises? If so, do you keep them? Are you a good friend? Are you good at relationships? How good are your communication skills? Can you debate? Can you think clearly? Are you passionate about things? Do you have a temper? If so, is it under your control? Do you love easily? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Do you feel your actions have an impact on the world? Why? Will you stand up for yourself? Will you defend principles? Do you know what principles are? What are the personal things you are willing to live for? Are you a deist (belief in deity – one or many)?
8. Have you ever learned a meditation discipline? For how long?
9. Have you ever learned a martial art? Which one? What did it teach you about yourself?
10. Are you a dancer? What kind?
11. Have you done any kind of movement work? Any kind of body work that teaches you about balance, center, orienting yourself in space?
12. Are manners important to you?
13. Do you learn easily?
14. What is your learning mode? How do you learn? By listening? By writing things down? By reading about things and then trying them? By watching someone do something and learning from modeling their behavior? By having someone talk you through a skill? By reciting things out loud and hearing them? Do you learn from a combination of these things? Which combination best suits your learning patterns?
15. What are your goals for the next year of your life? What are your goals for the next five years?
16. What talents do you possess? Include everything, including all life skills – shopping, cleaning, cooking – plus creative talents. Can you draw? Can you dance? Can you balance a checkbook?
17. Do you consider yourself to be psychic? In what way? How does that work for you?
18. Have you ever had an “out of body” experience?
19. Have you ever known who was calling you on the phone before picking up the receiver?
20. Have you ever had a mind-altering experience? What was it?
21. Are you healthy? What physical or genetic health conditions do you have, or do you expect to develop? What are you doing to minimize the change of getting those? What is your family health background?
22. What are you allergic to?
23. What are your favorite foods?
24. What are your least favorite foods?
25. Do you like yourself? Do you enjoy your own company? Do you consider yourself to be a whole person?
26. What kind of emotional relationships are you drawn to?
27. Are you monogamous? Are you serially monogamous?
28. Are you polyamorous? Do you have more than one relationship at a time?
29. How important is honesty to you in a relationship?
30. Where on the Kinsey scale would you place yourself? The far left is heterosexual and the far right is homosexual – bisexual is in the middle. Are you right of center or left of center?
31. How do you feel about sexual expression?
32. Are you a romantic person? What does that mean to you?
33. Are you good at organizing? What lets you know that?
34. Are you generally a leader or a follower?
35. Do you have an adventurous spirit?
36. Do you prefer safety and comfortable known circumstances?

This is just a start of questions you might ask yourself. Know the answers to these questions and, from time to time, answer them again to learn how the answers change.

Shadowplay Blog

This is the beginning for a Shadowplay blog. We have the facility to add multiple authors, so I'll be adding regular contributors to the list as time goes on. This will help Cyfrin and I maintain some fresh content around here, as well as giving you all the opportunity to make comments on the posts.

Upcoming topics: Street Magicks, Beginning Magick, Sound Magick