Hey! I was wondering what the Patron major spirit was? I saw it mentioned in a post of yours recently.
.:: What is a Major Spirit? ::.
Hi, thank you for your question! As you can understand by the title of the blog, we’re trying to reconstruct the Witchcraft of the Past, precisely the X-XVIII centuries Witchcraft.
So we’re dealing with the remainings of pre-Christian characters but inserted inside a Christian-dominated society.
So the Lares, for example, which were household Gods, remained inside culture as lesser and different spirits, such as the Household Fairy, which has many names depending on which Country you’re examining, for example they became the Kobold of the Germanic area, the Monacello of Southern Italian area, the Brownie in Scotland and England, and so on.
So there were remainings of pre-Christian characters. We can distinguish between “lesser” and “greater” (or “Major”, as I call them) Spirits which remained in Christian times but are of pre-Christian origin.
The “lesser” spirits can be:
- The Household Fairy;- Fairies in general (aka spirits of nature);- Spirits of plants;- Ancestors and other dead;- Spirits of animals;- The Animal Familiar Spirit (which is the inner spirit of a witch in the shape of an animal).
The Major spirits are, instead:
- The Leaders of the Witches; - The Leaders of the Fairies; - The Leaders of the Wild Hunt;- Spirits remained in folklore which are of Pagan origins.
These Major Spirits would have been called “Gods” in pre-Christian times, but in Christian times we cannot talk about “Gods” anymore, because all the remaining characters of Paganism in Christian times were no longer considered Deities, they were just Spirits, and so Early Modern Witches weren’t Pagan, they were Animist.
.:: Why “Patron”? ::.
Ok, this is more difficult.
While until the 10th century the survivals of Paganism were just that, survivals, during the 10th century in Germany there was a union of many survivals that created the “Witchcraft complex”.
This union created a legend, according to which there was a procession of spirits which went from house to house to eat food offerings left for them by people, dance and bless the ordered and tidy houses.
This procession also had a male version, the Wild Hunt, which was composed by the Dead.
While the female version usually had a Female Major Spirit (which academics call “Domina Nocturna”) as leader, the Wild Hunt usually had a Male Major Spirit (the “Wild Hunter”) as leader.
These two processions (mostly the female one) led to the creation of the Sabbath, which, before being chiefed by the Devil, was led by the same Major Spirit which led the procession. So the Domina Nocturna usually was the chief of the Sabbath before being replaced by the Devil.
The name of the Domina Nocturna (that sometimes had a Male Consort too) and the Wild Hunter (that sometimes was replaced by a Wild Huntress) changed from Country to Country, from region to region, depending on the Pagan survivals of the place in which this legend - the legend of the two processions - was spread.
So we have many different Major Spirits that lead these two processions and the Sabbath, depending on the area.
Seen that at the time there wasn’t a pantheon but just these few Gods survived as Major Spirits, the Major Spirit which was at chief of the Sabbath of a certain area was, in fact, a Patron for the witches of that company, coven or congregation which gathered in that area.
So, if you want to take again this use, you can choose an area, searching for the possible Major Spirits of the area by researching in folklore for the Leaders of the Witches, the Leaders of the Fairies, the Leaders of the Wild Hunt and the Spirits remained in folklore which are of Pagan origins, and choose one as your “Patron” Major Spirit.
To this Patron, you’ll offer food offerings regularly [1], you’ll celebrate Sabbath in their honor [2] and you’ll go with trance [3] or dream work in Spirit [4].
Notes:
1. See: https://elegantshapeshifter.tumblr.com/post/170758896566/historically-attested-offerings-for-the-major
And: https://elegantshapeshifter.tumblr.com/post/171876985371/how-to-make-offerings-to-the-major-spirits-ie
2. See: https://elegantshapeshifter.tumblr.com/post/170947963766/the-sabbath-or-ludus-bonae-societatis
3. See (part 1): https://elegantshapeshifter.tumblr.com/post/170708590266/historically-attested-trance-techniques-and
(part 2): https://elegantshapeshifter.tumblr.com/post/170710270761/historically-attested-trance-techniques-in
(part 3): https://elegantshapeshifter.tumblr.com/post/170785729256/historically-attested-trance-techniques-in
4. See: https://elegantshapeshifter.tumblr.com/post/170926906491/dreamwork-and-the-oneiric-sabbath













