Author: A Solitary Pagan
The Hedge – Ritual to Enter the World of the Hedge Witches Craft
This rite can be used to dedicate yourself to The Hedge Witches Craft, to walking between the worlds. If you can, begin your work by standing in or near a hedgerow itself, looking away from civilization. If this is not possible, you can create a hedgerow by standing between two plants. Many potted trees will do well indoors, so you can research their properties and see what kind would be suited to...
Hedgewitch: Dollars and Cents Aren’t Always Required
Your response to my sofa story may have been, why didn’t you just go out and buy one? Except the kind of sofa I wanted was a large purchase, and that costs money, doesn’t it? In a marriage, you usually agree on large purchases, or maybe we just didn’t have the money for a new sofa whenever we pleased. At the time, a new sofa was a luxury item, not a necessity (well, I thought it was necessary, but...
The Hedge – Boundaries and Walking Between the Worlds
The term “hedge” in relation to a spiritual path often simply means that one is not dedicated to any particular path or organisation. However, in an earth-based tradition, the word also takes on a deeper meaning. In a community, there were certain boundaries between the human world and the rest of the natural world. Though we know that we cannot ever be truly separate, still there were and are phy...
Hedgewitch: Your Key to the Universe
Consider your life as a fertile patch of ground, ready for planting your personal den of potential. Take a few moments, and think of what you’d like to grow there. Success? Good health? Financial gain? Happiness in relationships? All of what I’ve just listed and more? Every moment of your life is that fertile piece of ground, capable of producing exactly , what you desire. Now let’s grow it! Wheth...
Personal Empowerment for the Hedgewitch
The HedgeWitch guide is separated into fourteen segments, each segment entitled a “night” because that is the time normally scheduled for the rite. Begin in the morning by reading the affirmation and the focus for the day. For example, the first-night segment concentrates on wind, associating this energy with that of Spirit. Close your eyes, quiet your mind, smile, and allow Spirit to fully enter ...
Rite of the Enchanted Woods
There are two ways in which you can perform this rite. You can visit the physical woods (with a friend) in a safe area sometime throughout the day or afternoon, or you can use the magickal wood chosen under the “herbs for today” category and creatively visualize, in quiet surroundings, a trip to the woods while holding that representation. Your goal is to reach a magickal clearing and find a gift ...
Clutterbuck, Old Dorothy (1880–1951)
Dorothy Clutterbuck remains an enigmatic character in the annals of Wicca and witchcraft. She was born in Bengal on January 19, 1880, and later relocated to England, where she enjoyed a prosperous life. For many years, little was known about Clutterbuck, prompting some to believe she was a creation of Gerald Gardner. In 1980, Doreen Valiente, one of Gardner’s early coven members, embarked on a mis...
CROWLEY, ALEISTER: An Opinion from Doreen Valiente
Aleister Crowley earns a place in witchcraft, not because he was a witch, but because he was not ! This, of course, does not stop Crowley’s name being dragged into every Sunday newspaper’s latest “Exposure of Witchcraft and Black Magic” (they seldom know the difference). But perhaps if a brief sketch of Crowley’s life is given here, it may help to a better understanding of what this very remarkabl...
Alex Sanders. A Magic Childhood
Left to himself, Alex might have ended his foray into witchcraft there and then, but family circumstances forced him into contact with his grandmother almost daily and before long he found himself becoming interested and then totally absorbed in the secret teachings. A quick learner-he had been able to read at the age of three-he was never fully extended by his school work and had no difficulty ma...
Margaret Murray (1863 – 1963) Part Two
Murray, drawing connections to her Egyptology background, began examining documents, and in 1917 she released “Organizations of Witches in Great Britain” in the Folklore Journal. That seemingly mundane paper evolved into her book, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, sparking a line of research that would dramatically alter the perception of witchcraft. At that period, academic literature on witches ...
Doctor John (19th century Witch)
Renowned American witch doctor, Doctor John, also known as Bayou John and Jean Montaigne, was a free black man who owned slaves in pre-Civil War New Orleans. A towering figure, Doctor John claimed to be a prince from Senegal, captured by Spaniards and taken to Cuba. In Cuba, he became a skilled cook and persuaded his master to grant him freedom. He then worked as a sailor, return...
Alex Sanders- The Haunted Hill
In 1939 David was born, the sixth and last of Alex’s brothers and sisters, and soon afterward war broke out. Alex, with most of the other children in Manchester, was evacuated to the country to escape air raids. It was a wrench leaving his parents, and his sisters and brothers, who were sent to separate foster homes, but most of all he hated leaving his grandmother. ‘Remember your vows,’ she told ...