Lifting the Veil:
Ancestral Magic in the Faery Tradition
by Storm Faerywolf
The practice of Witchcraft is varied. While particular
traditions have formed over the years each offering their own style of working,
underneath all of the religious trappings exists a common thread that can be
viewed outside the context of the specific attitudes, eras, and even cultures
of those traditions. In my many years of studying, practicing, and teaching the
Craft I have come to identify one common element that all forms of witchcraft
share regardless of their cultural origins: working with spirits.
While these different traditions might have radically
different views on how to work with spirits, or even what they precisely are,
we can observe this one element in each and every form of witchcraft that has
graced this planet, both ancient and modern.
Consider the witches of ancient Greece who met at a crossroads in the
name of Hecate to commune with spirits who would grant favors or blight
enemies… or those witches in the modern Reclaiming tradition who may just as
easily (though not necessarily) approach the spirits and gods as psychological
aspects of the human psyche. This article will not attempt to define these
beings, but instead provide a practical way of working with them.
Faery tradition, being an American grown form of the
Craft, embraces cultural ideas from a wide variety of sources. While some
cultures fear the dead and impose taboos and restrictions on how to deal with
them, other cultures revere the dead giving rise to traditions that offer
practices on forging and maintaining relationships with the ancestors so that
they continue to be an integral part of one’s daily life. American culture
tends to put forward a rather schizophrenic version that incorporates both fear
and reverence. Faery tradition addresses this and provides a means to effectively
synthesize the two into one; by having us face our fear and then move through it into ecstatic union with the
divine. This can be seen in the symbol of the Black Heart of Innocence, burning
with the Blue Fire of creation where we are stripped bare of anything but our
own divinity.
This is presented to us in the rite of Samhain when we
open the Western Gate to the Land of the Dead; when we call to Ana and the
Arddu, who teach us how to let our fears wash over and through us, to wash us
clean, and prepare us for our own encounter with Death. We commune with the
spirits of our own dead, opening our hearts to their wisdom. Through these
practices we learn how to make death an ally; how to draw strength from the
reality of our own eventual demise.
Since much of Faery practice relies on cultural precedent
as well as individual experimentation, we can look to those systems of magic
and spirituality that pre-dated our tradition’s contemporary form to catch a
glimpse of those elements of working with the dead that inform our current
practice. Of particular interest to us here are the ancestral practices of African
and European (and specifically Celtic) cultures and their merging with Native
American ideas to become the driving force behind Conjure or “hoodoo”.
This homegrown American form of folk-magic draws from
many cultural sources to achieve its ends. It is not uncommon to see a conjure
worker utilizing objects and other materials from a diverse array of religions
and cultures, all while tying it all together within the particular style
recognizable as ‘conjure magic’. Candles dedicated to Catholic saints will burn
alongside red flannel bags containing Solomonic seals, stuffed with native
herbs and roots, prayed over with the Psalms, while standing at a crossroads.
Many magical cultures have woven their threads throughout the tapestry that is
conjure, and it is the tradition of conjure that forms a foundational basis for
our own tradition of Faery.
With this in mind, we should be looking at those elements
of pre-Faery practice that deal with the dead, and observe them from within the
framework of our own practices. Immediately we can see how elements of Conjure
that deal with the dead can help us in the formation of our own workings with
the ancestors. Consider the time-honored practice of building and maintaining
an ancestral altar.
The ancestral altar is where you will be praying and
making offerings to your Beloved Dead and also to the Mighty Dead, two terms in
traditional witchcraft that denote our personal and our spiritual ancestors,
respectively. There are no rules, only guidelines when creating an ancestral
altar. What guidelines I provide are based in the Faery tradition and what my
Faery practice has revealed to me personally over the years of my work. Take
from it what you will.
BUILDING THE ALTAR
The ancestral altar is traditionally placed in the west,
the direction associated with the land of the dead in Celtic mythology. This is
also the direction for the element of Water, and the image of the sea is a
potent visual key that grants access to the Underworld, the realm of spirits,
the Fae, and the dead. By placing the altar here we are drawing together
threads of mythic power and weaving them into a potent magical trigger that
will deepen our work as it progresses.
The altar itself may be of any material. Cases have been
made for and against nearly every conceivable material and so it is probably
best to go with what your own preference and abilities will afford you. When
you have chosen the furniture or area that is to become your ancestral altar,
and using whatever methods you feel empowered to use, you may wish to call upon
the assistance of Ana and the Arddu to bless and charge it with their presence.
If you do not have a preferred method you may use the following invocations:
Invocation of the
Arddu
Primal Lord of
Darkened land,
Sex and Death at
your command.
Scent of musk and
sight of bone
Guards the Gate to
the Unknown.
Invocation of Ana
Ancient Queen of
Death’s repose
Sharp your scythe and true your sight
Keeping secrets no one else knows
Grandmother! Queen
of Night!
Once you have decided on a dedicated space for your
altar, it should be adorned with objects and symbols that represent the dead to
you. In general terms this might become images of skulls, bones, and other
things associated with death. For specific ancestors this will likely be
photographs, drawings, or other representations of them.
Generally candles are also placed upon the altar and are
lit as part of ones devotional rites. I also tend to place a mirror here,
especially that of a curved, black scrying mirror. Regardless of how our altars
are decorated, the important part of this work is the work itself. Here we may
find simple instruction in the tales often told in Irish and Welsh mythology
where we find the practice of honoring the ancestors similar to the practice of
honoring and befriending the Fae; that is to say the practice of making
offerings.
MAKING AN OFFERING
Traditional offerings to the Fae often consisted of milk
and honey. While we can certainly use this as a basis for our own devotional
offerings, we can also draw from the personal experiences of those particular
ancestral spirits with whom we wish to relate. Favorite foods and beverages are
often given in this capacity, though incense, candles, stones, shells, and
other items are also offered in this way. If grandma was collector of stamps
who was known to have loved a shot of whiskey in her coffee, then we need look
no further for what might be appropriate offerings for her.
Specific foods, beverages, and other items might also be
associated with more specific types of workings as well. If we wanted grandma’s
help for a love spell, for example, we might want to offer her some of her
favorite flowers and perhaps some candies or dessert; something sweet to
“sweeten up” our prospective love interest. Likewise, were I to request her
assistance in healing work I might concoct a mixture of hot tea, lemon, honey,
and whiskey that she used to make as a tonic for colds and flu.
In the case of working with the Mighty Dead we might not
have first hand accounts of what an appropriate offering might be and so we
have to rely on stories and tradition. In the case of the late Faery
Grandmaster Victor Anderson we can rest in the knowledge that a favorite of his
beverages was a cup of hot buttered tea, bringing us to the point that it is
unnecessary for us to indulge in the offering ourselves lest we needlessly clog
our (still very living) arteries! His wife, the late Faery Grandmaster Cora
Anderson was well known to have loved pie and so these two items are quite
appropriate as offerings to our own Mighty Dead.
Often people will say something as they place the
offerings upon the altar, or at least address the particular ancestor in some
fashion. The most important part of all of this is the feeling of being connected to her through the act of making the
offering.
The offerings themselves are not eaten, but instead left
so that the spirits can draw forth the vital force from the food as their
nourishment. I generally recommend leaving offerings for no more than 24-48
hours, as the food will generally spoil making for a pretty nasty offering! I
often bury the remnants of offerings but feel free to follow your own
direction.
Whether we are honoring the Beloved Dead, the Mighty
Dead, or both, the purpose and the practice are basically the same. We make
offerings to them… we speak their names and tell their stories. We share their
wisdom. We ask for their help. We form a personal relationship to them and
maintain that relationship through repetition of ceremony, through practice,
though attention, and love. We devote part of our practice t honoring their
memories and keeping their spirits alive through our own works, because as the
saying goes, “What is remembered lives!”
