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Drawing Down The Moon (ritual)
Drawing down the Moon (also known as drawing down the Goddess) is a central ritual in many contemporary Wiccan traditions. During the ritual, a coven's High Priestess enters a trance and requests that the Goddess or Triple Goddess, symbolized by the Moon, enter her body and speak through her. The High Priestess may be aided by the High Priest, who invokes the spirit of the Goddess. During her trance, the Goddess is supposed to speak through the High Priestess. History The name most likely comes from a depiction of two women and the moon on an ancient Greek vase, believed to date from the second century BCE. It could also come from line 145 of Claudian’s First Book Against Rufinus. Megaera, one of the Erinyes, in the guise of an old man, speaks to Rufinus: In classical times, the Greek astronomer Aglaonice of Thessaly and ancient Thessalian witches were believed to control the moon, according to the tract: "If I command the moon, it will come down; and if I wish to withhold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and ritual purification, purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. Even common actions like handshake, hand-shaking and saying "hello" may be termed as ''rituals''. The field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsider's or "Emic and etic, etic" category for a set activity (o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner (1884–1964), a British civil servant and amateur scholar of magic. The term "Gardnerian" was probably coined by the founder of Cochranian Witchcraft, Robert Cochrane in the 1950s or 60s, who himself left that tradition to found his own. Gardner claimed to have learned the beliefs and practices that would later become known as Gardnerian Wicca from the New Forest coven, who allegedly initiated him into their ranks in 1939. For this reason, Gardnerian Wicca is usually considered to be the earliest created tradition of Wicca, from which most subsequent Wiccan traditions are derived. From the supposed New Forest coven, Gardner formed his own Bricket Wood coven, and in turn initiated many Witches, including a series of High Priestesses, founding further covens and continuing t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious text and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Since its conception in the 1970s, it has made its way into many pagan practices and paths. The most famous Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The Book of Shadows is also used by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrian Wicca and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how to begin following non-initiatory Wicca in the 1970s onward, the idea of the Book of Shadows was then further propagated amongst solitary practitioners unconnected to earlier, initiatory traditions. Initially, when Wicca was still dominated by covens, "only one copy f the Bookexisted for an entire coven, kept by the high priestess or high priest. That rule has pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adorcism
In the sociology of religion, Luc de Heusch coined the term adorcism for practices to placate or accommodate spiritual entities in a possessed person or place. Unlike exorcism, the relationship with the entities is potentially positive. This is sometimes used as initiation into a spirit cult. Jean-Michel Oughourlian defines adorcism as "voluntary, desired, and curative possessions".Jean-Michel Oughourlian. The Puppet of Desire: The Psychology of Hysteria, Possession, and Hypnosis ugene Webb, trans. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991 p. 97). See also * Drawing down the Goddess * Exorcism * Hausa animism Hausa animism , "Maguzanci" or Bori is a pre-Islamic traditional religion of the Hausa people of West Africa that involves magic and spirit possession. Most of the adherents of the religion accepted Islam after the 18th century Jihad by the Isla ... References Exorcism Sociology of religion {{reli-socio-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margot Adler
Margot Susanna Adler (April 16, 1946 – July 28, 2014) was an American author, journalist, lecturer, Wiccan priestess, and New York correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). Early life Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Adler grew up mostly in New York City. She attended The High School of Music & Art (later joined with The High School of Performing Arts to become The LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts) in New York City. Her grandfather, Alfred Adler, was a noted Austrian Jewish psychotherapist, collaborator with Sigmund Freud and the founder of the school of individual psychology. Education Adler received a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York in 1970. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1982. Journalism and radio During the mid-1960s, Adler worked as a volunteer reporter for KPFA-FM, the Pacif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other non-profit membership media organizations such as the Associated Press, in that it was established by an act of Congress. Most of its member stations are owned by non-profit organizations, including public school districts, colleges, and universities. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio List of NPR stations, stations in the United States. , NPR employed 840 people. NPR produces and distributes news and cultural programming. The organization's flagship shows are two drive time, drive-time news broadcasts: ''Morning Edition'' and the afternoon ''All Things Considered'', both carried by most NPR member stations, and among the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular radio p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Full Moon
The full moon is the lunar phase when the Moon appears fully illuminated from Earth's perspective. This occurs when Earth is located between the Sun and the Moon (when the ecliptic coordinate system, ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon opposition (astronomy), differ by 180°). This means that the lunar hemisphere facing Earth—the near side of the Moon, near side—is completely sunlit and appears as an approximately circular disk. The full moon occurs roughly once a month. The time interval between a full moon and the next repetition of the same phase, a Lunar month#Synodic month, synodic month, averages about 29.53 days. Therefore, in those lunar calendars in which each month begins on the day of the new moon, the full moon falls on either the 14th or 15th day of the lunar month. Because a calendar month consists of a Natural number, whole number of days, a month in a lunar calendar may be either 29 or 30 days long. Characteristics A full moon is often thought of as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mother
] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given childbirth, birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestational surrogacy. An adoptive mother is a female who has become the child's parent through the legal process of adoption. A biological mother is the female genetic contributor to the creation of the infant, through sexual intercourse or egg donation. A biological mother may have legal obligations to a child not raised by her, such as an obligation of monetary support. A putative mother is a female whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established. A stepmother is a woman who is married to a child's father and they may form a family unit, but who generally does not have the legal rights and responsibilities of a parent in relation to the child. A father is the male counterpart of a mother. Women who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente (4 January 1922 – 1 September 1999) was an English Wiccan who was responsible for writing much of the early religious liturgy within the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. An author and poet, she also published five books dealing with Wicca and related esoteric subjects. Born to a middle-class family in Surrey, Valiente began practising magic while a teenager. Working as a translator at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, she also married twice in this period. Developing her interest in occultism after the war, she began practising ceremonial magic with a friend while living in Bournemouth. Learning of Wicca, in 1953 she was initiated into the Gardnerian tradition by its founder, Gerald Gardner. Soon becoming the High Priestess of Gardner's Bricket Wood coven, she helped him to produce or adapt many important scriptural texts for Wicca, such as ''The Witches Rune'' and the ''Charge of the Goddess'', which were incorporated into the early Gardn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recension
Recension is the practice of editing or revising a text based on critical analysis. When referring to manuscripts, this may be a revision by another author. The term is derived from Latin ''recensio'' ("review, analysis"). In textual criticism (as is the case with Biblical scholarship) the count noun ''recension'' is a family of manuscripts sharing similar traits; for example, the Alexandrian text-type may be referred to as the "Alexandrian recension". The term ''recension'' may also refer to the process of collecting and analyzing source texts in order to establish a tree structure leading backward to a hypothetical original text. See also *Biblical manuscript *Categories of New Testament manuscripts *Critical apparatus A critical apparatus ( la, apparatus criticus) in textual criticism of primary source material, is an organized system of notations to represent, in a single text, the complex history of that text in a concise form useful to diligent readers and ... References ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life. Born to a wealthy family in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Crowley rejected his parents' fundamentalist Christian Plymouth Brethren faith to pursue an interest in Western esotericism. He was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he focused his attentions on mountaineering and poetry, resulting in several publications. Some biographers allege that here he was recruited into a British intelligence agency, further suggesting that he remained a spy throughout his life. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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