A Witches Bible - Janet Farrar, Stewar Farrar 1981

A Seashore Ritual
More Wiccan Rituals
Principles, Rituals and Beliefs of Modern Witchcraft

As we pointed out in Eight Sabbats for Witches, Dion Fortune’s novel The Sea Priestess is a goldmine of material for devised rituals. There, we used a passage from it as part of our Handfasting ritual, and many people have found it moving and very appropriate.

Here is a Seashore Ritual which we have based on several incidents in The Sea Priestess. The novel is available in two editions, the full-text hardback and an abridged paperback (see Bibliography for details). The passages we have drawn on for our ritual will be found on pages 189-90, 214, 217-20 and 315 of the hardback, or on pages 102-3, 118, 121-4 and 173 of the paperback. But every witch should study the whole book, which has had a profound effect on many people.

As with our Handfasting ritual, we use this material by kind permission of the Society of the Inner Light, who hold the copyright of Dion Fortune’s works — and we repeat what we said there: ’Responsibility for the context in which they have been used is, of course, entirely ours and not the Society’s; but we like to think that, if the late Miss Fortune had been able to be present, we would have had her blessing.’

In their letter of permission, the Society asked us to say ’that Dion Fortune was not a Witch and did not have any connection with a coven, and that this Society is not in any way associated with the Craft of Witches’. We accede to their request; and when this book is published, we shall send them a copy with our compliments, in the hope that it may give them second thoughts about whether Wiccan philosophy is as alien to that of Dion Fortune (whom witches hold in great respect) as they seem to imagine. In all friendliness, we must admit that we sometimes wonder if the Society have not departed farther from the mainstream of Dion Fortune’s teaching than the witches have. But that, of course, is their own affair.

Central to this ritual is the Fire of Azrael, which consists of three woods — cedar, sandalwood and juniper. Azrael is the Angel of Death, but in the kindly aspect of ’the Consoler, the Comforter’ — the Psychopompos who smoothes the transition from bodily incarnation to the Summerlands. But his Fire is not a funereal one; it is rather a means of clairvoyance into the past, in particular the past of the place in which it is burned. Vivian Le Fay Morgan explains its purpose to Wilfred Maxwell in The Sea Priestess (hardback p. 133, paperback p. 66): ’She asked me if one day I would like to look in the coals of the Fire of Azrael, and I asked her what it meant; and she said that one made a fire of certain woods, and gazed into the embers as it died down and saw therein the past that was dead. We would do this, she said, one day, and then we would see all the past of the high sea-down and the hollow land of the marshes reconstructing itself.’

Clairvoyant reaction to the Fire of Azrael depends on the individual, so to discuss it here might put preconceptions into the experimenter’s mind. But the Fire can also be used as a focus of invocation, as both Morgan and later Molly used it in The Sea Priestess; and it is with this emphasis that we have assembled our ritual.

Incidentally, we have often made an incense based on the Fire of Azrael, by blending sandalwood chips, cedar oil and mashed juniper berries. We have found it very rewarding — but again, we leave experiment to the reader.

There is no reason, of course, why this Seashore Ritual should not be enacted with a fire of other woods, if you have difficulty in laying your hands on sufficient quantities of cedar, sandalwood and juniper. The meaning of the invocation is the same, and the setting should have the same effect on the psyche. But there is something special about the Fire of Azrael which is worth discovering for yourself, so we put it forward as the ideal.

Information on the Fire of Azrael, and its materials and use, will be found in The Sea Priestess on pages 136-40, 143-7, 154, 185-6, 288-9, 302-3 and 311 of the hardback, and pages 68-70, 75, 99-100 and 155-7 of the paperback.

But to return to ’the meaning of the invocation', with or without the Fire of Azrael. Its purpose is to call on Isis Unveiled by way of Isis Veiled. Isis Veiled is manifested Nature, which is the clothing of the Goddess; Isis Unveiled is the keeper of the Inner Mysteries. In the Tarot, Isis Veiled is the Empress, and Isis Unveiled is the High Priestess. Moon and sea evoke the overlap between the two aspects; in a sense this borderland is symbolized in the Tarot by the Star, who is always shown as being herself unrobed and yet at one with both Nature and Heaven — and, significantly, kneeling upon a shore and pouring her influence on both water and land. So by holding our ritual on a seashore by moonlight we attune ourselves to this same borderland and enter it psychically and reach beyond it.

We would say again: the ritual as we give it is the ideal one, and it will not always be possible to achieve all its elements — a lonely beach with a coincidence of full moon reflected on the water and a rising tide, not to mention a warm night. So we do not insert ’preferably’ or ’if possible’ in every sentence. The more of the ideal elements that can be achieved, the better; but every witch knows that even a makeshift ritual (if the makeshift is unavoidable and not mere laziness) can have heartening results if undertaken in the right spirit.

One thing can always be done, and it is worth doing: that everyone should learn his or her words by heart — all the more so because reading in the open by moonlight is hardly practicable. To make it easier (and also to give everyone an active part, however small), we have divided up the prose declamations among several coven members.

A slightly cynical note of warning: those witches who have a horror of ’contaminating’ themselves with Cabalistic or Egyptian names (see note 3) had better skip this ritual, because Dion Fortune uses both! But we find them perfectly in tune with the style of the rite, and with the spirit of the Old Religion.

The Preparation

Find a stretch of beach, as lonely as possible, where the tide comes in steadily and not in a rush. Study the tide tables and observe the tides on the beach, so that you know just when the tide will come up and cover your chosen spot for the fire. This spot may be either on the sand or on a convenient ledge of rock, provided the latter is not too heavily sprayed by the waves.

Choose a night when the tide will be rising at a convenient time, and arrange to start your ritual an hour or more before the tide will reach your fire. The moon should be as close as possible to the full.

It is somewhat unlikely that a skyclad ritual will be possible even with a fire, unless your beach is very private indeed, and the night very warm. (Swimsuits, swimming-trunks or bikinis may be practicable.) So the High Priestess, like the others, will probably be robed. Appropriate colours are a silver robe with a dark blue cloak.

Apart from wood for the fire and means of lighting it, the only materials or tools required are a chalice for the wine, some ’moon-food', white in colour, and an athame to consecrate both. Dion Fortune’s moon-food menu was: ’Almond-curd such as the Chinese make; and scallops in their shells; and little crescent honey-cakes like marzipan for dessert — all white things. And this curious pallid dinner-table was relieved by a great pile of pomegranates.’ (The Sea Priestess) But your own moon-food depends on your taste, resources and imagination.

Finally — dogs are sacred to the Moon Goddess, so if you have dogs who can be relied upon to stay close at hand, by all means take them (and their food). And never demand rigid discipline from animals at a ritual, because the Goddess certainly will not!

The Ritual

The High Priestess withdraws as far from the coven as she reasonably can, while still seeing and hearing what is going on. If she can conceal herself behind a rock or a turn of a cliff or a sand-dune, so much the better; but in any case the coven ignore her until the time comes for her to approach them.

The coven prepare the Fire of Azrael at the chosen spot. When all is ready, the High Priest and the Maiden face each other across the unlit fire, on a line parallel to the edge of the sea. The rest of the coven arrange themselves in a semicircle between them, facing the fire and the sea.

The Maiden says:

’Be ye far from us, O ye profane, for we are about to invoke the descent of the power of Isis. Enter her temple with clean hands and a pure heart, lest we defile the source of life.’

A male witch says:

’Learn now the secret of the web that is woven between the light and the darkness; whose warp is life evolving in time and space, and whose weft is spun of the lives of men.’

A female witch says:

’Behold we arise with the dawn of time from the grey and misty sea, and with the dusk we sink into the western ocean, and the lives of a man are strung like pearls on the thread of his spirit; and never in all his journey goes he alone, for that which is solitary is barren.’

A male witch says:

’Learn now the mystery of the ebbing and flowing tides. That which is dynamic in the outer is latent in the inner, for that which is above is as that which is below, but after another manner.’

A female witch says:

’In the heavens our Lady Isis is the Moon, and the moon-powers are hers. She is also the priestess of the silver star that rises from the twilight sea. Hers are the magnetic moon-tides ruling the hearts of men.’

A male witch says:

’In the inner she is all-potent. She is queen of the kingdom of sleep. All the invisible workings are hers, and she rules all things ere they come to birth.’

A female witch says:

’Even as through Osiris her mate the earth grows green, so the mind of man conceives through her power.’

The High Priest says:

’Let us show forth in a rite the dynamic nature of the Goddess, that the minds of men may be as fertile as their fields.’

The Maiden turns to face the land, and raises her arms high. She says:

’Be ye far from us, O ye profane, for the unveiling of the Goddess is at hand.’

The Maiden then walks deosil round the fire and joins the High Priest. The Fire of Azrael is then lit. When it is burning satisfactorily, the coven and the Maiden sit down in their semicircle. The High Priest remains standing.

’O thou that was before the earth was formed —

Rhea, Binah, Ge.¹

O tideless, soundless, boundless, bitter sea,

I am thy priest; O answer unto me.

’O arching sky above and earth beneath,

Giver of life and bringer-in of death,

Persephone, Astarte, Ashtoreth,

I am thy priest; O answer unto me.

’O golden Aphrodite, come to me!

Flower of the foam, rise from the bitter sea.

The hour of the full moon-tide draws near,

Hear the invoking words, hear and appear —

Isis Unveiled, and Rhea, Bina, Ge.

I am thy priest; 0 answer unto me.

’O Isis, veiled on earth, but shining clear

In the high heaven now the full moon draws near,

Hear the invoking words, hear and appear —

Shaddai el Chai,² and Rhea, Binah, Ge.

On the last line, the High Priest raises his arms high and wide.

The High Priestess emerges from her hiding-place and walks to the edge of the sea opposite the fire, continuing until the water actually laps her feet.³ She raises her arms high and wide for a moment as she faces the sea; then she lowers them and turns, and walks in a slow and stately manner up to the fire. When she reaches it, she stands facing the High Priest across it.

The High Priest lowers his arms and bows to her.

The High Priestess raises her arms in a curve like the Horns of Isis (which can also represent the crescent Moon) with the palms of her hand inwards. She holds them like this while she sings:

’I am she who ere the earth was formed

Was Rhea, Binah, Ge.

I am that soundless, boundless, bitter sea,

Out of whose depths life wells eternally.

’Astarte, Aphrodite, Ashtoreth —

Giver of life and bringer-in of death;

Hera in Heaven, on earth, Persephone;

Levanah of the tides and Hecate —

All these am I, and they are seen in me.

’I am that soundless, boundless, bitter sea.

All tides are mine, and answer unto me.

Tides of the airs, tides of the inner earth,

The secret, silent tides of death and birth.

Tides of men’s souls, and dreams, and destiny —

Isis Veiled, and Rhea, Binah, Ge.

’The hour of the high full moon draws near;

I hear the invoking words, hear and appear —

Isis Unveiled and Rhea, Binah, Ge.

I come unto the priest that calleth me.’

The song over, without haste the High Priest kneels, and the High Priestess lowers her arms. The seated coven change to a kneeling position. Proceeding deosil, the High Priestess walks round and lays her two hands on each head in turn, starting with that of the High Priest. As she leaves each person, he or she resumes a sitting position. (If there are any dogs with the coven, she blesses them in the same way, but also fondling or patting them to put them at ease.) Finally she sits down facing the High Priest across the fire.

The High Priest says:

’Let us now commune with the secrets of the fire.’

The whole coven, including the High Priestess, now gaze into the fire and speak of what they see. The High Priestess guides this part of the ritual, encouraging and calming as necessary.

When she feels that it has gone on long enough, she calls for the moon-food, which is brought forward and shared, as is the wine — both being consecrated in the normal manner by herself and the High Priest. A little of the food is kept aside.

The coven stay with the fire until the incoming tide quenches it. When the quenching is complete, the High Priestess says:

’Consummatum est. Those who have received the Touch of Isis have received the opening of the gates of the inner life. For them the tides of the moon shall flow and ebb and flow and never cease in their cosmic rhythm.’

The High Priest then brings her the food which has been kept aside, and she throws it onto the water as an offering to the sea.

Finally she stretches her arms out over the sea. After a moment she lowers them again and turns, and she and the High Priest lead the coven away.