Part 4: Appendices

A

Comparison of Wiccan Aspects with Leland's Italian Witchcraft

USE OF THE TERM: THE OLD RELIGION

From Etruscan Roman Remains, the introduction:

Among these people, stregeria, or witchcraft-or, as I have heard it called, " la vecchia religione" (or "the old religion')-exists to a degree which would even astonish many Italians.

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, appendix:

The result of it all was a vast development of rebels, outcasts, and all the discontented, who adopted witchcraft or sorcery for a religion, and wizards as their priests. They had secret meetings in desert places, among old ruins accursed by priests as the haunt of evil spirits or ancient heathen gods, or in the mountains. To this day the dweller in Italy may often find secluded spots environed by ancient chestnut forests, rocks, and walls, which suggest fit places for the Sabbat, and are sometimes still believed by tradition to be such.

FULL MOON RITUAL

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches:

When I shall have departed from this world, Whenever ye have need of anything, Once in the month, and when the moon is full, Ye shall assemble in some desert place, Or in a forest all together join To adore the potent spirit of your queen, My mother, great Diana. She who fain Would learn all sorcery yet has not won Its deepest secrets, then my mother will Teach her, in truth all things as yet unknown.

RITUAL CAKEs AND WINE

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches:

You shall make cakes of meal, wine, salt, and honey in the shape of a (crescent or horned) moon, and then put them to bake....

O Diana! In honor of thee I will hold this feast, Feast and drain the goblet deep, We will dance and wildly leap ...

And thus shall it be done: all shall sit down to the supper all naked, men and women, and the feast over, they shall dance, sing, make music....

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, appendix:

The supper of the Witches, the cakes of meal, salt, and honey, in the form of crescent moons, are known to every classical scholar. The moon or horn shaped cakes are still common. I have eaten of them this very day, and though they are known all over the world, I believe they owe their fashion to tradition.

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, chapter one:

Thus do I seek Aradia! Aradia! Aradia! At midnight, at midnight I go into afield, and with me I bear water, wine, and salt, I bear water, wine, and salt, and my talismanmy talisman, my talisman, and a red small bag which I ever hold in my hand...

SKYCLAD PRACTICE (NUDITY)

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches:

And so ye shall be free in everything; And as the sign that ye are truly free, Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men And women also....

And thus shall it be done: all shall sit down to the supper all naked, men and women, and the feast over, they shall dance, sing, make music...

A GOD AND GODDESS MYTHOS

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches:

Diana was the first created before all creation; in her were all things; our of herself, the first darkness, she divided herself,• into darkness and light she was divided. Lucifer, her brother and son, herself and her other half, was the light.

Lucifer was extremely angry; but Diana with her wiles of witchcraft so charmed him that he yielded to her love. This was the first fascination; she hummed the song, it was as the buzzing of bees (or a top spinning round), a spinning-wheel spinning life. She spun the lives of all men; all things were spun from the wheel of Diana. Lucifer turned the wheel.

(Chapter nine) The ancient myth is, to begin with, one of darkness and light, or day and night, from which are born the fifty-one (now fifty-two) weeks of the year. This is Diana, the night, and Apollo, the sun, or light in another form... .

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, appendix:

Now be it observed, that every leading point which forms the plot or center of this Vangelo, such as that Diana is Queen of the Witches; an associate of Herodius (Aradia) in her relations to sorcery; that she bore a child to her brother the Sun (here Lucifer); that as a moon-goddess she is....

GODDESS WORSHIP

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, chapter four:

Diana, beautiful Diana! Who art indeed as good as beautiful, By all the worship I have given thee, And all the joy of love which thou hast known, I do implore thee....

(Chapter ten) Why worship a deity whom you cannot see, when there is the Moon in all her splendor visible? Worship her. Invoke Diana, the goddess of the Moon, and she will grant your prayers. This shalt thou do, obeying the Gospel of (the Witches and of) Diana, who is Queen of the Fairies and of the Moon.

THE WATCHERS

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, appendix:

All things were made by Diana, the great spirits of the stars, men in their time and place, the giants which were of old, and the dwarfs who dwell in the rocks, and once a month worship her with cakes.

From Aradia; Gospel of the Witches, chapter three :

... Then Diana went to the Fathers of the Beginning, to the Mothers, the Spirits who were before the first spirit, and lamented unto them that she could not prevail with Dianus. And they praised her for her courage; they told her that to rise she must fall; to become the chief of goddesses she must become a mortal.

INITIATION

From Etruscan Roman Remains, chapter ten:

As for families in which stregheria, or a knowledge of charms, old traditions and songs is preserved ... as the children grow older, if any aptitude is observed in them for sorcery, some old grandmother or aunt takes them in hand, and initiates them into the ancient faith.

REINCARNATION

From Etruscan Roman Remains, the introduction:

Also that sorcerers and witches are sometimes born again in their descendants.

From Etruscan Roman Remains, chapter ten:

It is also believed in the Romagna that those who are specially of the strega faith die, but reappear again in human forms. This is a rather obscure esoteric doctrine, known in the witch families but not much talked about. A child is born, when, after due family consultation, some very old and wise strega detects in it a longdeparted grandfather by his smile, features, or expression.

From Etruscan Roman Remains, chapter ten:

Dr. O. W. Holmes has shrewdly observed that when a child is born, some person old enough to have triangulated the descent, can recognise very often the grandparent or great-uncle in the descendant. In the witch families, who cling together and intermarry, these triangulations lead to more frequent discoveries of palingenesis than in others. In one of the strange stories in this book relating to Benevento, a father is born again as his own child, and then marries his second mother. But the spirit of the departed wizard has at times certainly some choice in the matter, and he occasionally elects to be born again as a nobleman or prince.

From Etruscan Roman Remains, chapter ten:

Sometimes in his life a man may say, "After my death I may be born again a wizard, (for) I would like to live again!" But it is not necessary even to declare this, because if he has said such a thing, even unthinkingly to witches-senza neppure pensarvi ai stregoni-they hear and observe it. So it will come to pass that he may be born again even from the children of the children of his children, and so be his own great-great grandson, or great-grandson, or grandson.

From Etruscan Roman Remains, chapter ten:

In this we may trace the process by which the witch or sorcerer, by being re-born, becomes more powerful, and passes to the higher stage of a spirit.

ELEMENTALS

From Etruscan Roman Remains, the introduction:

Closely allied to the belief in these old deities, is a vast mass of curious tradition, such as that there is a spirit of every element.

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