Self Initiation Rite/Ritual

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Oak Keeper

Self Initiation Rite/Ritual

Post by Oak Keeper »

Been doing a lot of research on this subject for solitary practitioners this is one of the best rituals i have been able to come up with, with borrowed info hacked and chopped this is the best version i came up with. if anyone has any additions/subtractions please let me know this is a while in the making and can use any input thanks and blessed are those who are ready to join the craft !!
-OK

*Do it once you know what you have learned the basics and are most sure*
1. Set up your temporary altar and quarter points. The quarters can be stones or candles but stones have the advantage of not blowing out if there's a breeze.
2.Cast a circle of protection
3. Undress-remove all jewelry watches etc. (This is only if you feel comfortable with this some prefer to, and others do not it is all up to your comfort level)
4.Consecrate the circle.
5.Summon the guardians with these words, and don't forget to pause to visualize the element for your self dedication:
"Guardians of the North, sacred spirit of the Earth. Into the stillness of your cold dark womb shall you except my death, the death of my former self. I shall bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the East, sacred spirits of the air. As the sun rises in the east so shall you guide my rebirth into my new life as a witch. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the South, sacred spirits of Fire. you shall be my protector as I go forth from here along my new path. I bid you hail and welcome.
Guardians of the West, sacred spirits of Water. Cleanse my spirit and keep it ever pure from now and into the future."
6. Now for your symbolic death:
Lie on the floor on your back. you can lie with your head to the altar(North) if you wish to be close to the God and Goddess or to the East if the principle of rebirth is more important to you.
Recite the words again:
"I am entering the stillness before creation
I am entering the ground of the God and Goddess
May my body be still
May my mind be peaceful
May by heart be ready"
7. Now be at peace; feel the peace of the Goddess flow into you. Feel yourself merge with the cold earth beneath you. Chant this slowly and quietly:
" *God's name, Goddess name*
Dark Mother and Father take me in
*God's name, Goddess name*
Let me be reborn."
Keep chanting until you feel yourself melting into the Goddess.
8. When you feel the time is right get up and begin to walk around the circle chanting the God and Goddess chant:
"We all come from the God and Goddess,
And to them we shall return,
Like a drop of rain,
Flowing to the ocean."
Walk gradually faster and chant faster round and round the circle. Faster and faster until you get dizzy. Don't stop even then. After a while you'll get tired, but don't stop. Go on the same time again until you drop exhausted to the floor. Why? Because chanting and dancing raise power.
9. Lay again on your back as you regain your breath. As soon as you have your breath back stand in front of the altar and anoint yourself thus:
Dip a finger in the oil and mark a cross on the left breast (male or female) then on the right breast then just above the pubic hair. This is the sigil of the first degree, the downward pointing triangle. Say:
"I anoint myself priest/ess of the old religion, and I take the name (speak your magical name quietly)"
Then say:
"I (real name) in the presence of the forces of the Universe and the Divine, do of my own free will and mind most solemnly swear that I will ever abide by the religion and science of the Craft of the Wise.
I shall neither harm my fellow humans with the secrets that I learn nor shall I flaunt my beliefs or powers before them.
From this day on I shall be reborn as (magical name) and shall honor, respect and cherish the oath I have taken."
10. Kneel up in front of the altar. Pour a little wine into the goblet and place it at the front of the altar. Now take your athame and holding it with both hands, pointing down and arms outstretched plunge the blade into the wine.
Say:
"As the cup is to the female so the blade is to the male."
"And so conjoined bring blessedness."
11. Now say to yourself:
" I am reborn. I am a Witch. I am a priest/ess"
Rise to your feet and say as loud as is safe bearing in mind that sound travels "I AM A WITCH!"
12. Now consecrate the wine and cakes as you have already learned. Take some wine and eat a cake. Close the circle and dismiss the quarters, remembering to thank them. Get dressed (if need be) and eat and drink some more and remember to keep some back for the libation which you make on the very site of your self initiation before you leave.
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Re: Self Initiation Rite/Ritual

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Re: Self Initiation Rite/Ritual

Post by Black Cloud »

I recently read an article about this subject. I'll see if I can find it and post it here.
"People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done." -Stephen King
“For every woman is at heart a witch.” -Charles Leland
“Men argue, nature acts.” -Voltaire
“Our life is the creation of our mind.” -Buddha
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.” -Epictetus
“Facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.” -Aldous Huxley
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Re: Self Initiation Rite/Ritual

Post by Black Cloud »

The Path of Initiation: The Fivefold Pattern of the Witching Way
Copyright © 2005 by Robin Artisson
From “The Witching Way of the Hollow Hill”

Most people have the understanding that to claim to belong to a traditional witch “group”, one must go through a period of learning, join a group, be vouched for, and be initiated. This is how many modern groups do work.

I think this is a very problematic formula, however, because most people fail to see beyond it. They seek out groups or join them for the sake of membership- but groups don’t make witches or mystics; Fate makes witches and mystics.

This standard formula of “joining the group” fails to take into account that the true purpose of "Traditional Groups" is not to build membership and share rituals. The purpose of a serious spiritual grouping is to achieve Wisdom and Illumination. No wise, thinking person would ever make the claim that Illumination and Wisdom ONLY come
from membership in a special group.

In truth, Illumination and Wisdom come from the Soul of the World itself, from the Unseen worlds, from Spiritual Beings, from other mysterious forces, and from within. What "groups" do, is merely speak a symbolic language, hoping to channel these very things. "Groups" do not and cannot originate these things, nor make them happen in their members with any certainty. Groups may serve some useful purposes, but without members coming to them already aware of the deeper origin of Wisdom, they are doomed to fail as groups, for the same reason exoteric churches all gradually fail.

There is a period of learning involved in becoming a Traditional Witch or Mystery Initiate. There are vouches, initiations. But they do not come only from groups. To understand how we all partake of these things, we have to understand the deeper pattern.

The Period of learning can occur totally between a person and the Land itself; the group you join are the Pale People, or Hidden People, the dwellers in the Underworld; you are vouched for by your own devotion to the Unseen and by your own heart’s weight, and the heart of authentic initiation occurs totally within the Underworld, which is
simultaneously inside the individual.

Some organizations try to take control of this process, act as "guardians" of it, teachers of it, but I believe that this is haphazard at best; it leads often to a certain abuse of power and a harmful egocentrism that does more harm than good. No group is supposed to be about its members, titles, leaders, or their activities, but about the Greater Fate of
Illumination. All members of a true grouping of the Old Rite will seek to cast away identity and worldly titles and powers to the great Darkness of Wisdom below, and all are submerged in the singular desire for the dark and light Illumination of the Mysteries, and for kinship with the potencies in the Land.

The true “group” is a group of people who know a certain humbleness, and who seek a common spring of eternity, driven by a common thirst- a thirst for the Other and for Illumination, not thirst for temporal powers and offices that are far less. They protect the Land and the true keys to Wisdom because they have given up all for them, and received all back in return, not because they jealously desire to secret up power in some vault.

They know the disastrous consequences of egocentrism- they know how the ego-centered, power hungry human destroys the Land and abuses power and other people; this is why the path is kept shaded with secrecy, and for no other reason. When those of pure heart, ready to cast away all for the wisdom born of the Underworld and ready to sacrifice for Love of the Land show themselves, they are taken into the group and introduced to its mysteries. There is no other qualification. It is a strange love, a strange desire that the Old Ones use to lure people to the ways of the Hidden Craft. Human witches cannot and should not stand in the way of this, for in so doing, they fail in their
true role as guardians.

The "outward" initiations that people in groups perform are supposed to be mere representations of a great and timeless pattern of Transformation, great and timeless realities that no human being or group can claim a monopoly on, as they underlie all works of art, culture, and inspiration.

The Path of Initiation, in Traditional Folklore, as well as (more generally) in the Western Mystery Tradition, has several stages, that manifest in outward events, but are primarily Inner world realities:

1. The "reaching out" to the powers of the unseen world; the "petition" at the Hollow Hill or the Faery Mound, a stage by which the limitations of the human being are defined through perception and understanding, and the "leap of faith" or the "longing for the beyond" is felt and expressed, from human to what is beyond human; this is the “earth” or Land experience.

2. The 'year and a day' period (or a set period of a fixed time) of internal growth, or the "spiritual hermitage", or the trial-time; also, at times, instruction by Otherworldly beings or their representatives; This is the station of the circling airs, that communicate knowledge.

3. The descent into the Cavern of the Black Water and the Two Torches, or the Initiatory Chamber below, (The chamber or cavern of Enody or Zerinthia) to the source, or to the presence of the Initiatrix in the Innerworld/Underworld, the Pale Woman under the Hill, Queen in the Meadows of Elfhame, who brings about (a normally traumatic) ego death in
the candidate, and bestows the Innerworld birth, purification, and regeneration, (which at this stage is largely unconscious in immediate depth and effect, but which is necessary to further transformations, and which grows on its own into new, long term understandings). This represents the first "intrusion" or "appearance" of the outside forces that were called to the initiate in stage one. Their veryappearance turns all things "upside down", and destroys and transforms all things. Nothing can ever be the same again after this initial contact with trans-personal forces. This is the Underworld Initiation in which old patterns of thinking and living are destroyed and newer, better patterns are regenerated and the personality of the initiate is altered forever, and made better, wiser, capable of experiencing life in a new way. This is the descent into the dark waters below.

4. The meeting of the Devil or the Otherworldly Guardian and the Trial, followed by the bestowal of a first stage Transformation. This stage is the fetch-awakening, at the threshold of the soul, wherein the Puckril, the Familiar or 'Fetch Beast', is identified or bestowed. This is the merging of the human nature and the animal nature; this is also a
further "arrival" of outside forces that were called by the soul of the initiate. This is the kindling of the Cunning Fire.

5. The meeting with the Fetch Mate, or Otherworldly Lover- the Congress of the Incubi/Succubi, the Faery Marriage between the mortal and the immortal, this world and the next, soul and spirit, or the "Wedding Chamber" sacrament of the Gnostics; This is the final culmination of the divine chain of events set into motion by the call of the
initiate, the merging and union of the balanced human nature (a balance achieved by the merging with the Puckril) and the divine nature. This is the “invisible mystery” or the spirit-essence of all.

It is strange but true that even though the initiate "travels" or journeys to the locations where these forces interact with him or her, their original call set into motion a chain of events that led seemingly inescapably to those beings or forces- and thus, what looks like personal quest is anything but- it is not even a summoning; it is actually those forces coming TO the initiate.

Only the ego of the outsider or the half-wise views it as effort on the part of the initiate to "reach" them- in reality, when the initiate travels to reality, reality is traveling to the initiate.

The Great Forces answer. The purpose of the "time of learning" is to show the initiate how to be aware of their answer- this is why trance techniques and other consciousness alteration methods are taught at this time. After that point, everything that happens to the initiate is in reality an answer from the Otherworld, and this is what the initiate comes to
understand, eventually.

After these five stages are achieved, The Witch or Initiate's "Fate" is transformed; altered into a new path of internal growth that causes a unknowable route into a new condition, beyond this life (and beyond the death of the candidate).

The route of this new condition is the Third Road to Elfland, the destination is Mastery, the Faery/Fetch Metamorphosis or the Deathless Transformation into the ranks of the Hidden Company, or the Grand Array.

During the remains of an initiate's life, the affects of these five experiences, and the further attendant transformations, cause Wisdom to blossom in the soul of the candidate (as the soul is now united with the Spirit) and it causes the special modes of perception and understanding to open in the candidate (gradually) that are the source of many mythical seership abilities and the like.

"Magical" abilities (and I hate to use that term) are also sometimes gained, though this is a far more poetic idea than the term "magic" expresses. Knowledge and real Wisdom, direct experience of the Unseen world, and the ability to "reach into" the self, or the depths, to directly experience and mediate extra-sensory reality, causes what seem to be like "powers" or abilities to understand and influence some events in life. But this is only a tiny matter of a greater growth.

The five-fold initiatory pattern leads to internal transformation, a "road change" from the straight road of the common person, moving slowly through Fated time, onto the Crooked Path, or the Third Hidden Road, which is the attainment of a "Second Destiny" of types. It's very subtle, and does not happen overnight.

This pattern is embedded in the workings of the cosmos itself; we can see it in ourselves and in Nature- the acorn, pulled by the draw of Fate and Nature away from the origin tree falls into the underworld, where after a time, and when outer forces reach it- (light, and water from above) it sprouts and grows into a new being- the fertilization in the seed occurring within, but spurred on by outside forces.

In reality, even the "outside" forces are part of a whole reality, of which the seed may ignorantly think of itself as "apart" from- but the truth is found in Holism. Did the acorn go the ground, or did the ground go to the acorn? Both occurred. There is only one reality, one system, one chain of Fate. Did the sunlight and water reach the acorn, or did it reach them? Both occurred. Do not let false divisions impede your ability to see the truth of Holism.

One might wisely then ask- "did the whole chain begin when an initiate decided to make the original petition to the forces beyond him or herself, or did that decision and petition come from another place make the initiate?

When you can answer that question, then you will see how Fate calls all things to initiation and transformation, eventually, and without exception.

This entire pattern can be realized through working groups that have the means and understanding to REALLY bring about these five transformations, but at heart, all of these transformations (and whatever symbols people use to represent them in the outer world) are not physical, blunt realities; they are internal, otherworldly mysteries that emerge through all things.

They come from the Unseen. A group is very unique and special indeed if it can really bring about these transformations in a systematic, direct way- most groups cannot, because 99% of people have not gone past the first one or two "steps" on the initiatory path. Most people who call themselves occultists have not even gone past the first.

Luckily, a person can walk this entire path alone. In fact, even before you realize it, you are on this path, whether you belong to a group or to no group.

Groups that tell you otherwise are just trying to get your obedience or money, or both. I'm not saying that a good group of humble, like- minded people, poets and mystics, shouldn't be worked with if you find them; but good luck finding them. The wise would do well to look to themselves, within and beyond, for the emergence of this pattern. The simple act of looking shows that it is occurring.
"People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done." -Stephen King
“For every woman is at heart a witch.” -Charles Leland
“Men argue, nature acts.” -Voltaire
“Our life is the creation of our mind.” -Buddha
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.” -Epictetus
“Facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.” -Aldous Huxley
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Re: Self Initiation Rite/Ritual

Post by SpiritTalker »

Timelessly stated. 😊
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