- Reconstructionist pagan/polytheist - Adult - Kemetic; devotee of Sutekh and Tutu - exploring nondual Śaiva Tantra - -------- Nazi's, TERFs and other bigots are not welcome here. -
There are no longer any gods whom we can invoke to help us. The great religions of the world suffer from anemia, because the helpful numina have fled from the woods, rivers, and mountains, and from animals, and the god-men have disappeared underground into the unconscious. There we fool ourselves that they lead an ignominious existence among the relics of our past. Our present lives are dominated by the goddess Reason, who is our greatest and most tragic illusion. By the aid of reason, so we assure ourselves, we have “conquered nature.”
So, how do we reinvigorate the mythical and the exciting within and without us? I cannot think of something more imperative if we want to see some balance in today’s chaotic world. If we want our lives to matter and our wills to thrive that is, presence, substance, meaning, true connections.
“If the Daemon is first encountered as a guardian and guide, it can also be understood at a higher level as the integrated Self.
In this sense, the Daemon is a coherent alignment of previously fragmented elements. What was divided becomes ordered. What conflicted begins to harmonise. The many tendencies that once pulled in different directions are gathered into a more unified orientation.
This corresponds to what is often called individuation. Not the creation of a new self, but the integration of what was already present in dispersed form. The Daemon here represents a point at which:
Opposing tendencies are no longer in constant conflict.
Recurring patterns are recognised and brought into relation.
Symbolic, emotional, and cognitive elements begin to align.
Identity stabilises without becoming rigid.
The result is not a static unity, but a dynamic coherence. The integrated self can respond to different situations without fragmenting. It has continuity without being confined to a single narrow pattern.
In this view, the Daemon becomes a kind of inner centre of organisation. It no longer merely guards or directs from within a partial configuration. It reflects a broader integration of the psyche. It can mediate between different tendencies rather than being dominated by one.
At times it feels deeply personal, as though it defines one’s identity. At other times it appears almost impersonal, as though it exceeds the individual and operates through them. It feels like a truer orientation, not because it is something added, but because it is less divided.
Individuation brings coherence, but it does not eliminate structure. The integrated self is still a formation that appears, stabilises, and operates within the field of awareness.
This gives it a dual status. It is a culmination of integration at the level of identity, yet it is not what one fundamentally is.
Here, individuation is not merely psychological integration. It is the emergence of a Self that knows itself in its true nature. The Daemon is this knowing centre. It is not constructed from thought alone, but is the point at which thought, identity, and awareness come into alignment.
The Daemon here is not simply a structure within experience. It is the self recognising itself as awareness.
This recognition does not abolish form. Rather, it brings form into transparency. Thoughts continue to arise, patterns continue to express themselves, but they are no longer taken as separate or binding. They are understood as expressions within a unified field.
The integrated self is therefore not limited by its configurations. It includes them. It is not confined to any single pattern, because it knows itself as that within which all patterns appear.
In this sense, the Daemon becomes both centre and field. A centre, because it organises and integrates. A field, because it is not bounded by what it organises.
It is experienced as a stable presence, yet not as a fixed identity. It is continuous, but not rigid. It is personal in expression, yet not limited to the personal.
This is why it can be described as both Self and Awareness. The distinction between the two begins to dissolve. The Self is no longer something separate that possesses awareness. It is Awareness knowing itself.
The many become one, not by suppression, but by integration. And the one is not a closed unity, but an open, unlimited presence in which all forms arise.
The Daemon, in this sense, is the culmination of individuation: a unified Self that is no longer divided within itself, and that recognises its own nature as pure, unlimited awareness.”
From “Le Livre de Sable” (Vol. XVI, No. 21).
Image: From “A Goodly Company" by Ethel Le Rossignol.
"It is believed by witches that by acting a part you really take on the nature of the thing you imitate. [...] By acting the part of the goddess the priestess is thought to be in communion with her; so the priest, acting as the god, becomes at one with him [...]" _Witchcraft Today_ Gerald Gardner
Dunno how to put it properly into words but lately I find myself thinking more about that particular innocence of fairy tales, for lack of better word. Where a traveller in the middle of a field comes across an old woman with a scythe who is very clearly Death, but he treats her as any other auntie from the village. Or meeting a strange green-skinned man by the lake and sharing your loaf of bread with him when he asks because even though he's clearly not human, your mother's last words before you left home were to be kind to everyone. Where the old man in the forest rewards you for your help with nothing but a dove feather, and when you accept even such a seemingly useless reward with gratitude, on your way home you learn that it's turned to solid gold. Where supernatural beings never harm a person directly and every action against humans is a test of character, and every supernatural punishment is the result of a person bringing on their own demise through their own actions they could have avoided had they changed their ways. Where the hero wins for no other reason than that they were a good person. I don't have the braincells to describe this better right now but I wish modern fairy tales did this more instead of trying to be fantasy action movies.
"In [fairy tales], power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness - from beehives that were not raided, birds that were not killed but set free or fed, old women who were saluted with respect. Kindness sown among the meek is harvested in crisis."
Yesterday I came across the post of a cultured person where he said that the Sabbat does not exist, but a few lines below he tells us that his friends do not accept elite denominations (like wheel of the year).
If it doesn't exist, why do we still write about it??
It is one of the most sought-after things, if not desired by a person who enters a magical-witch path with both hands.
It is curious that academically a possible study has not continued on those who speak of the Sabbat as an unattainable goal or as a place reachable in an altered state. Will it be the scarcity of declared witches or sorcerers that makes us desist from the deepening?
I admit that compared to shamanisms there is a lack of a community structure that gives a sense of community and that makes it think of it as a phenomenon linked to a collective mass hysteria or linked to the phenomenon of the stakes. The fact is that as scholars or practitioners we are still here longing for a test or a narrated experience.
If you look for it, you can read the writings of practitioners like me who have spent time and years talking about it.
The Sabbat is always occurring, it is we who join in the dance.
It is both a physical and a non-physical event. Whenever witches gather, even a gathering of One, and dance and work magic and call up spirits, they are joining the Sabbat. When they fly out of their bodies and have visions of a witch gathering, they are joining the Sabbat.
It is not some unobtainable or secret hidden thing.
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