Cast a circle, go into trance, and orient yourself in your Place of Power. Face in the direction that feels most comfortable to you.

In front of you, you see a path. Search for the path, and find it. Now follow it, looking around you, noticing what you see and hear and feel and sense. Follow it along, further and further.

The path leads over a ridge. Climb the ridge, and begin to descend, going down . . . down . . . down . . . circling down the hillside.

On your way down, you will see the entrance to a cave that leads deep . . . deep into the hill. Find the cave, and stand before the entrance.

Within the cave are all of your memories, from this life, and from all previous lifetimes. In a moment, you will enter the cave. You will be able to go as deep as you wish, to explore any branching tunnel, any cavern that you wish. If you have a particular memory you want to experience, hold it in your mind, and you will be led to the proper place. If there is a memory you are not ready to face, the path to it will be blocked.

Take a deep breath, inhale, exhale, and, as you count to three, enter the cave of your memories. Take as much time as you need to explore. (Allow at least ten minutes.) Now prepare to come back from your memory. Take time to end it. Come back to the entrance of the cave.

Take a deep breath - inhale, and as you exhale count to three and come out of the cave. Exhale- count one, two, three.

Come out of the cave, and climb back up the hillside. Return up the hill, over the ridge, following the path back to your own Place of Power.

Bid farewell to the four directions, and come out of trance.

EXERCISE 60: TRANCE INTO A DREAM.

Cast a circle, go into trance, and orient yourself in your Place of Power. Face in the direction that fees most comfortable to you.

You see a new path -a winding, secret path that leads down to a river. Look for the path, and find it. Follow it.

Look around you, noticing what you see and hear and feel and sense along the way.

Stop on the riverbank. Across the river is the dream realm. When you enter it, you can expore or change your dreams at will. You can confront and defeat your enemies, and can learn from your friends. Now picture the dream you wish to enter, and see its landscape form across the river.

Take a deep breath. Inhale. As you exhale, step down into the river. Feel the cold water on your feet, and notice it moving and sparkling.

Take another deep breath. Inhale. As you exhale, wade across the river. Feel the stones under your feet; hear the river.

Take another deep breath. Inhale. As you exhale, step up on the far sh.o.r.e, into the dream realm. Exhale. Feel the firm ground under your feet again.

You are now in the dream realm. Take as much time as you need to explore, change, and discover your dreams.

Now prepare to leave the dream realm. Say farewell to any beings you have met, and complete your exploration.

Come back to the river.

Again, taking three deep breaths, and three steps, cross the river. Step down into it, wade across, and emerge on the other side. Feel the stones under your feet; hear and see the water.

Follow the path back into your own Place of Power. Bid farewell to the four directions, and come out of trance.

Dreams can also be explored through scrying. A group can visualize a dream image in a crystal or water bowl and can explore it. For example, here is a partial record of a group trance into an image from Holly's dream, in which a group of old women were looking at a picture of a seal in a newspaper, and one said, "The seal will bring perpetual youth."

We are on a beach-waves-faint music plays from a carnival merry-go-round- Holly is in the lake-her father says she swims like a fish. . . .

Now there is a lighthouse-a foghorn, foam sprays on rocks-the sound of seals. . . .

Holly is in the water, her hair floating behind like a mermaid's hair-we are all swimming under the rocks, the water is crystal blue-the rocks are made of crystal.

There is a cave under the rocks-Valeric recognizes it from a dream she had long ago-there were people who wanted to dive into the cave; she warned them not to go, but they did. They couldn't get out. The cave is filled with bones.

We move through it and emerge into a city of gla.s.s. Towers and turrets of shining crystal rise under the sea ...

colored fish swim in the clear gla.s.s walls . . . we move down a long corridor, through Gothic halls with clear arches...

The city is spinning-we are flung with it, spun around, spun back into the cave.

In the cave is a seal. The seal guards a fountain. "The seal will bring perpetual youth." We drink from the fountain.

Once you become familiar with trance techniques, you can create your own imagery and use the trance state for many kinds of experience. You can call up a negative part of yourself, as Valeric did at the opening of this chapter, or you can call your Deep Self into your Place of Power and receive help, teaching, and advice. You can search for answers to questions, drink from the fountain of inspiration, die, and be reborn.

In rituals, all elements of trance induction (excepting, hopefully, boredom) are present. The release of energy with the Cone of Power creates relaxation. The s.p.a.ce is dark, and attention can be focused on candle flames or a central cauldron. Chants, invocations, and movements are rhythmic and repet.i.tive. Trance inductions are a natural and beautiful element of the ritual itself. Often they involve multiple voices, an effect difficult to reproduce on the printed page. In the following, imagine the grouped lines read simultaneously, like a musical score.

EXERCISE 61 : RITUAL INDUCTION.

1st Voice: Your fingers are dissolving into water, and your 2nd Voice: (Pause) Your fingers are dissolving into 3rd Voice: Sle-eee-ee-eep Dee-ee-eee-ee-eep, and 1st Voice: toes are dissolving into water, and your wrists 2nd Voice: water, and your toes are dissolving into water, 3nd Voice: drea-ea-ea-earn of becoming, 1st Voice: are dissolving into water, and your ankles are 2nd Voice: and your wrists are dissolving into water, and 3rd Voice: drea-ea-earn deee-ee-ee-ee-eep, 1st Voice: dissolving into water, and your hands are dissolving 2nd Voice: your ankles are dissolving into water, and your 3rd Voice: and slee-eee-ee-ee-eep, 1st Voice: into water, and your feet are dissolving into water, 2nd Voice: hands are dissolving into water, and your feet are 3rd Voice: Slee-eee-eeee-ee-p dee-ee-ee-eep, and 1st Voice: and your forearms are dissolving into water, and 2nd Voice: dissolving into water, and your forearms are dissolving 3rd Voice: drea - ea-ea-eam of becoming, 1st Voice: your calves are dissolving into water, and your 2nd Voice: saving into water, and your caves are dissolving 3rd Voice: Brea-the dee-ee-ee-ee-p, 1st Voice: elbows are dissolving into water, and your knees 2nd Voice: into water, and your elbows are dissolving into 3nd Voice: and slee-ee-ee-ee-eep.

Continue on with this induction until the whole body is relaxed. Another voice may then pick up and continue to guide the trance and later reawaken members. When coveners are comfortable working together, the guiding can also be shared by several members, who may each create part of the imagery.

Mystery rituals, such as those of Witchcraft, follow a pattern of induction and revelation. The Mysteries are teachings that cannot be grasped by the intellect alone, but only by the deep mind made accessible in trance.

They may be conveyed by an object-a shaft of wheat, as in the Eleusinian Mysteries-by a key phrase, or symbol.

The secret itself may be meaningless when out of context: only within the framework of the ritual does it take on its illuminating power.

Divination, through palmistry, Tarot cards, astrology, and reading oracles, is another method of awakening the deep mind. I don't have s.p.a.ce to even begin a discussion that would do justice to such a vast practice, except to point out that all divinatory techniques work essentially to focus awareness and engage the heightened intuition and perception that are possible in trance. Today, these techniques are used not for "fortunetelling," but as methods of spiritual and psychological counseling.

Feasting After trance, the process of returning to the world and ending the ritual begins with the sharing of food. This may actually be anything from juice and barley-flour crescents to cookies and milk. Sometimes a full meal is shared; at other times a coven will prefer organic fruit and apple juice, or champagne and caviar. The tastes and resources of members are the only limitations.

The Priestess and Priest (or other members) hold up a plate of food and a goblet, and say a blessing that is simple and often spontaneous: BLESSING OVER CAKES AND WINE.

All life is your own, All fruits of the earth Are fruits of your womb, Your union, your dance.

G.o.ddess (and G.o.d) We thank you for blessings and abundance.

Join with us, Feast with us, Enjoy with us!

Blessed be.

A small libation may be poured into the fire or cauldron. The goblet is pa.s.sed around the circle, and each member gives thanks for good things that have happened since the previous meeting. While eating, members relax, laugh, joke, and socialize, or talk about the ritual and plan future meetings. The social aspect of ritual is an integral part of strengthening and maintaining the group bond. Sharing food is sharing a tangible symbol of love and caring. It is important that this part of the ritual be fun-a reward to Younger Self for undergoing all the serious work of ritual and magic.

It is vitally important to formally end the meeting, and break the circle. Having stepped between the worlds when we began the ritual, we must deliberately and consciously step back out into ordinary s.p.a.ce and time. Only thus can we preserve the integrity of the ritual s.p.a.ce and time. People should never be allowed to drift away before the circle is opened, and the transition back to ordinary consciousness is complete.

Farewell to the G.o.ddess and G.o.d The power of the ritual should be grounded, if this has not already been done. The Priestess (or whoever performed the invocations) goes to the altar, and stands facing the coven in pentacle position. She says, G.o.ddess and G.o.d We thank you For your presence, For your circle, For light and love, For night and change, We ask for your blessing As you depart.

Hail and farewell! Blessed be.

Opening the Circle The Priestess goes to each of the four directions in turn, and draws a Banishing Pentacle, saying, Guardians of the East (South, West, North), Powers of Air (Fire, Water, Earth), we thank you For joining in our circle And we ask for your blessing As you depart.

May there be peace between us Now and forever. Blessed be.

She raises her athame to the sky and touches it to the earth, then opens her arms and says, The circle is open, but unbroken, May the peace of the G.o.ddess Go in our hearts, Merry meet, and merry part.

And merry meet again. Blessed be.

CHAPTER 10. Initiation.

Between the Worlds.

The G.o.ddess in The Kingdom of Death In this world, the G.o.ddess is seen in the moon, the light that shines in darkness, the rain bringer, mover of the tides, Mistress of mysteries. And as the moon waxes and wanes, and walks three nights of its cycle in darkness, so, it is said, the G.o.ddess once spent three nights in the Kingdom of Death.

For in love She ever seeks her other Self, and once, in the winter of the year, when He had disappeared from the green earth, She followed Him and came at last to the gates beyond which the living do not go.

The Guardian of the Gate challenged Her, and She stripped Herself of her clothing and jewels, for nothing may be brought into that land. For love, She was bound as all who enter there must be and brought before Death Himself.

He loved Her, and knelt at her feet, laying before Her his sword and crown, and gave Her the fivefold kiss, and said, "Do not return to the living world, but stay here with Me, and have peace and rest and comfort."

But She answered, "Why do you cause all things I love and delight in to die and wither away?"

"Lady," He said, "it is the fate of all that lives to die. Everything pa.s.ses; all fades away. I bring comfort and consolation to those who pa.s.s the gates, that they may grow young again. But You are my heart's desire-return not, but stay here with Me."

And She remained with him three days and three nights, and at the end of the third night She took up his crown, and it became a circlet that She placed around her neck, saying: "Here is the circle of rebirth. Through You all pa.s.ses out of life, but through Me all may be bom again. Every thing pa.s.ses; every thing changes. Even death is not eternal. Mine is the mystery of the womb, that is the cauldron of rebirth. Enter into Me and know Me, and You will be free of all fear. For as life is but a journey into death, so death is but a pa.s.sage back to life, and in Me the circle is ever turning."

In love, He entered into Her, and so was reborn into life. Yet is He known as Lord of Shadows, the comforter and consoler, opener of the gates, King of the Land of Youth, the giver of peace and rest. But She is the gracious mother of all life; from Her all things proceed and to Her they return again. In Her are the mysteries of death and birth; in Her is the fulfillment of all love.

Traditional Craft Myth An initiation is a symbolic death and rebirth, a rite of pa.s.sage that transforms each person who experiences it. In the Craft, it marks acceptance into a coven, and a deep, personal commitment to the G.o.ddess. It is a gift of power and love that coveners give each other: the experience of those inner secrets that cannot be told because they go beyond words. For the individual, it becomes a change that causes revelation and understanding and sparks further growth and change.

The timing of an initiation is important. Traditionally, apprentice Witches were required to study for "a year and a day" before they could be initiated. This rule is not always followed in present-day covens, but it is a good one.

Magical training cannot take place overnight. It is, as we have said, a process of neurological repatterning, which requires time. Unless an initiate can, at least to some extent, channel energy and move into altered states of awareness, she will not benefit deeply from the ritual.

There is another, more subtle aspect to timing. Initiation also means "beginning," and what is begun is the process of confronting the Guardian of the Threshold. A new initiate may not yet have faced the Shadow, but she* must be committed to doing so. The Guardian's injunction-"Better to fall upon my blade and perish than to make the attempt with fear in thy heart"- does not mean she must be fearless, but that she is willing, in spite of fear, to go on, not to run away, to face her defenses even though the process may be painful. "Are you willing to suffer to learn?" she is asked, because learning and growth always involve pain.

* An initiate may be female or male - in this and following chapters I use "she" inclusively to simplify questions of grammar.

When an apprentice is able to confront other people in the group, face issues, take responsibility for her own feelings and actions, and both expects and desires to influence the course of the group, she is probably ready for initiation. She must ask for initiation, because she is not ready until she realizes that she, and no one else, controls the course of her progress in the Craft. An initiation creates a strong emotional bond and a deep, astral tie between coven members, so consider very carefully whom you initiate.

Death and rebirth are the theme of initiation. Death is the root of our deepest fears, and the true face of the Shadow. It is the terror behind vulnerability, the horror of annihilation that we fear our anger or our power will provoke. As in the myth, what pulls us to risk that confrontation is desire and longing, for those split-off parts of ourselves that lie on the other side of the abyss, which alone can complete us and free us to love. Because where there is no courage, there is no love: Love demands honesty, which is frightening, or it is only pretense. It demands vulnerability, or it is hollow. It engages our deepest power, or it lacks force. It brings us to confront sorrow, loss, and death.

And so we learn the Mystery: the feared Shadow, the Guardian of the Threshold, is none other than the G.o.d, who is named Guardian of the Gates, in his aspect of Death.

We must strip ourselves of our defenses, pretensions, masks, roles, of our "clothing and jewels," all that we a.s.sume and put on, in order to cross that threshold and enter the inner kingdom. The door opens only to the naked body of truth, bound by the cords, our recognition of mortality.

Death is seductive, for once the frightening threshold is crossed there is no more fear. Fear and hope are both dissolved; all that is left are rest, repose, relief, blessed nothingness, the void. But just as the void, to physicists, is the "mother state," so the crown of death becomes the circlet of rebirth, and the cords of binding become the umbilical link to life. Death is subsumed to life, and we learn the Great Mystery-not as a doctrine, not as a philosophy, but as an experience: There is no annihilation.

Traditionally, initiation rituals are secret-if for no other reason than to preserve the element of surprise. I have somewhat mixed feelings about publishing one of our initiations, but I feel the book would not be complete without it. I have omitted secret Faery material and concentrated on many of the creative elements of the ritual, which we generally write anew for each new member. The following should not be seen as an unchangeable script, but as a blueprint for creating your own rituals.

An initiation begins with a death cycle-an enacted dissolution, symbolic annihilation, and purification. An element of testing is sometimes involved. In the country, an apprentice might be taken to an unknown path and told to find her way along it. At intervals, guides will reveal secrets, or point out the direction. At the beach, a blindfolded apprentice might be asked to find her way by scent, by sound, and finally to let go of fear and walk trustingly into the waves, where protective hands will pull her back. Indoors, an apprentice might be told to keep solemn silence and lie quietly, while a plaster face-mask is made, and then left to meditate while it dries. At Paul's initiation, he was told to close his eyes and led into the garden. At intervals, he was allowed to open his eyes; a light was flashed and revelations were made; for example, he was shown an ear of corn, and told, "Behold Kore, the Maiden." He was shown a rose, and told, "Feel the blossom and the thorn." He was shown a lacy, insect-eaten leaf, and told, "See how life feeds on life."

He was then left to meditate on the sky, while the rest of us went indoors, cast the circle, and prepared the ritual bath.

The ocean, or a running stream, is an ideal location for a ritual bath, but most of them are held in an ordinary tub.

Coveners perform their Salt-Water Purification; salt is added to the bath water and it is charged with the power to cleanse and make new. Appropriate herbs and oils are added: I use rose petals, bay leaves, mistletoe, vervain, rue, a few drops of Priestess or G.o.ddess oil, and Delphi water. Incense and candles are lit. The blindfolded apprentice is helped into the tub, washed by other coveners, and chanted over. She is told to meditate, purify herself, resolve any doubts, and look for a new name. She is then left alone.

Coveners finish any last preparations for the ritual, and invoke the G.o.ddess, G.o.d, and Mighty Ones of the Craft.

One covener, who acts as the sponsor for the apprentice, returns to her, dries her, and makes sure she is ready to enter the circle. She ties a thin cotton cord loosely around the apprentice's wrists, saying, "And She was bound as all living must be, who would enter the Kingdom of Death." She ties the cord also around one ankle, saying, "Feet neither bound nor free," recognizing that entrance into the Craft is a free choice, but that once a person steps on the path, they have set in motion currents that will impel them forward. The sponsor asks the apprentice her new name and leads her to the circle, where a gate has been cut in the east.

A covener chosen to be the Challenger steps forward with sword or athame and says, "Who comes to the gate?"

The apprentice, coached beforehand, answers, "It is I, ________ (her new name), child of earth and starry heaven."

Challenger: "Who speaks for you?"

Sponsor: "It is I, ________, who vouches for her." The Challenger holds the point of the blade up to the apprentice's heart, and says, "You are about to enter a vortex of power, a place beyond imagining, where birth and death, dark and light, joy and pain, meet and make one. You are about to step between the worlds, beyond time, outside the realm of your human life.

"You who stand on the threshold of the dread Mighty Ones, have you the courage to make the essay? For know that it is better to fall on my blade and perish than to make the attempt with fear in thy heart!"

The apprentice answers, "I enter the circle with perfect love and perfect trust."

The Challenger grounds the point of her blade to earth, kisses her, and draws her into the circle, saying, "Thus are all first brought into the circle."

The Priestess and/or Priest now lead the apprentice to each of the four quarters, sunwise, saying: "Hail, Guardians of the Watchtowers of the East (South, West, North) and all the Mighty Ones of the Craft.

Behold ________ (new name), who will now be made Priestess and Witch."

The apprentice is brought back to the altar. The Priestess kneels, and gives her the fivefold kiss, on the parts of the body named, saying: Blessed are your feet, that have brought you in these ways.

Blessed are your knees, that kneel at the sacred altar.

Blessed is your s.e.x, without which we would not be.

Blessed are your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, formed in strength and beauty.

Blessed are your lips, which shall speak the sacred names.

The apprentice is then measured with thin cord, from head to toe. The cord is cut; she is measured around the head and chest. Knots are tied to mark the measurements. The Priestess rolls up the cord, and asks the apprentice, "Are you willing to swear the oath?"

Apprentice: "I am."