Never before has a person who wrote about their own take of the witches sabbath, inspired me so much, yet I do not want to repeat a lot of his ritual actions.
Seeing his goddess, the earth, raped by the machinery of consumerism really lit a fire in Grey’s heart an this book functions mostly like a call to action, but what action? The book is encoded in references to many other authors, assuming the reader had already read every book known to man and assumed them to be well-versed in Latin and Classical Greek. This leaves the reader frequently lost. I had a whole reading group get lost while they tried to read this. Finally the constant metaphor after metaphor demands that the reader be a expert of mindfulness and poetic technique to actually follow what is being said. It was no easy feat. So if it is so easy to get lost in it what action is he actually calling people to?
Peter Grey attempts to use very poetic language to describe his practice of Witchcraft and Sabbath rites. I can only conclude that he hopes that by people losing themselves in the Sabbath rite they will then have less desire to engage in the consumerism that is destroying the world. This is quite an interesting thing to spark a fire in me because our politicians frequently talk about “progress”, but what are they trying to progress us to? Some Lost in Space end of days where the earth has no ability to recover?
While he was trying to create a defining piece of work to establish his mastery and he has done that with a book that cannot be read quickly. I wonder if he is attempting to separate the wheat from the chaff by writing something that can only be read by the worthy. I found words which were possibly invented by Peter Grey requiring my knowledge of basic Latin etymology to derive an understanding of things I hadn’t come across. Also he uses a lot of words with double meanings to hide a second interpretation in his text. It’s as those he wasn’t trying to explain something, but hide something, but still put it out there for people to seek it. One word was even an Arabic word with a hidden double meaning (majnoon which is used to be insane, but the consonants (M)JNN reveal its secret connection to the word Jinn to mean possession. This hid so much of his writing behind many layers and this is definitely a book I will come back to time and time again to discover new things. The mysteries are preserved.
Grey dares to be different from the main stream of wicca in so many ways and does so with such admirable confidence that it encourages others to deviate and find their own confidence. This is so refreshing when so many other books are simply a repeat of the same words plagiarised over and over with nothing new nothing inspirational. What makes it even more enticing for someone like me is that he does it by finding something authentic not a fantasy of a romanticised past to get lost in, which he points out that so many pagans do. Something I often see around me and feel aligned to his way of thinking when he mentions it. Is it the ideal enlightenment for a pagan to dress in medieval clothes, while reap the crops of their farm and bobbing for apples? Does this connect them with “the goddess”?
What inspires Grey is the attempt to go back to an original authentic more wild witchcraft. While his attempts take us down a dark and dangerous path so much is to be found by considering the parallels he draws. Much of his inspiration comes from ancient reports of the Sabbath written by people who wished to condemn it. So his working material is the accusations of witches rather than their presentation of themselves. As with any text trying to condemn them will naturally make their activities appear far more deviant than they actually are. Such writers will do this to conscript more comrades in the battle against witchcraft. Is this truly good source material? I suppose it IS the only source material. The Sabbath is a Jewish term showing the origin in the attempt to disfigure the view of the Jews which was later applied to pagans. Is such a disfigurement truly a good source?
Peter Grey’s reading of poetry is unlike anyone I have known, in doing so he was able to identify the goddess trying to make herself known in times where her presence was oppressed and it certainly encouraged me to read a lot of Ted Hughes. I know that when I have read even just a few of the books he mentions in the bibliography that when I return to read this book afterwards I will see whole chapters in a completely new light.
There is a hidden initiation in these pages. The author does begin in the cave like the babe in the womb. Then he presents the goddess and the god and moves on express the sabbath, which is their making and where the children of the goddess meet with her. It is almost like he symbolically hid the process of birth in there. It is also a time of feeding, like that of feeding a baby. Soon after he describes the child induction into the wolf cult where 9 months is mentioned a few times and the birth of the child as a new things … a wolf. Through the hunt the child must prove themselves and establish their manhood. The child then comes face to face with the goddess in a new form which almost resembles the meeting of a mate/spouse. Finally he finishes describing how witchcraft demands your everything. There are subtle hints of death through the last two chapters. So hidden in this book is the birth and death rite, but what is its function? It’s worth noting that Janet Farrar claims in her book “A Witches Bible” that all of the initiations have death and birth symbolism. Could it be that Peter Grey has hidden an initiation in these pages.
I struggle a lot with the rituals where the Sabbath is deliberately wilded. The problem is that the initiate has been tamed so much by society that to truly meet themselves they must break these bonds with taboo, but many of the taboos mentioned are dangerous, unlikely and impossible. Drugs derived from plant, consuming uncooked meats… They come from texts written by Christians who took the idea of the Jewish Sabbath, demonised and made it deviant and repugnant to the tamed Christian ears, then made it the space for witches and demonised it further and made it more repugnant to the culture. This sort of text is not going to be an accurate reflection of the genuine practices of witches, but Peter Grey works from this anyway. I feel that this can result in an inaccurately over-wilded craft; one where the wildness is contrived rather than natural. Although I feel this is overdone it does inspire the initiate to learn to leave more and more of their consumerist programming behind and grow into their more authentic self. This needs to be done. Too many initiates don’t know who or what they are because society has brain washed it out of them for years.
Grey presents this as his own theory on how he feels magic should be done, but then he goes and uses a lot of language that is all encompassing. “Witchcraft without drugs isn’t witchcraft at all”, “all witchcraft is dreaming” and many more that I found to be quite limiting. If one was to make sure that these phrases applied to all their practices then they are potentially missing out on a lot of potential rites, but he does begin with a disclaimer saying that this is how he does it and he doesn’t care if you follow it or not. I am to conclude that this is HIS spirituality and not mine. For example, I am not sure that the Werewolf rite is necessarily for me, but love the amount of research and different sources he has brought together to show it.
I found the view of the Sabbath incredibly well thought out and hadn’t made many of the connections that he had in terms of the meaning of the symbolism. It was incredible to see the world from his perspective and really presented new information I had never read before. It is refreshing to read an author which isn’t just a repeat of a llewellyn book with the content of a Silver Ravenwolf / Oberon Vel Ravenwolf.
This is no beginner read. This is no manual or how to guide. This is very advanced book on Magic for those well versed in literature and Witchcraft. I suggest reading half of the bibliography before reading this book. Also I wish I had made more notes as I went through to help me remember the context of the material I was reading. I think I will read this again over and over.