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Fire

The ancient Chinese culture utilised a tablet of red jade, called Chang, which was used in sun-related rites and simbolized the element of fire. In relation with this solar meaning of the flame, appears the fire in Egyptian hieroglyphs related with the idea of life and health. It reveals a transposition of the symbol to a spiritual concept of energy, to the idea of superiority and command. The alchemists conserve in special the meaning given for Heraclitus of Ephesus as ‘agent of change and transformation’ because all the things are born from fire and to fire they return. It’s the seed which it’s reproduced in succesive lives (associated with libido and fertility)

In this sense, Fire acts like a mediator among shapes which are dissapearing and shapes in creation, which make us think it’s a symbol of transformation and regeneration. For the most of primitive people, fire it’s a demiurge and proceeds from Sun, it’s their representation on Earth; for this reason it’s related by one side with the thunder and lightning bolt and from other,  with gold. Sir James Frazer gathered plenty rites in with torches, bonfires, ambers and even ashes are utilised and considered useful for make harvests grow and cause wellness among men and beasts. However, anthropological researches have given us two explanations about the ignic celebrations (Saint John’s Bonfires, fireworks and Christmas three): imitative magic destined to ensure the generation of ligh and heat in the Sun (Wilhelm Mannhardt) or a purificatory and destructive of the forces of Evil purpose (Eugene Mogk, Edward Westermack) but those hypothesis are not contradictory but complementary. The triumph and vitality of Sun (analogy of the Good) against the power of Evil (Darkness); the purification it’s the sacrificial way necessary for that triumph.

The notion of Fire as agent of destruction and renovation it’s depicted in the Puranas from India and in the Apocalypsis while in Paracelsus works we can find the comparation among Fire and Life. Both need comsumpt lives for exist. The Fire makes the Good (vital heat) and Evil (destruction, fires), it suggest the yearning of destroy the Time and ends everything.

          -Adapted from Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, Mircea Eliade; Dictionary of Symbols J. E. Cirlot and Tractate of Iconography, J. F. Esteban Lorente

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Books - Witchcraft (I)

Modern Witchcraft/Origins of Wicca

The God of  the Witches & The Witch-Cult in Western Europe - Margaret Murray; Two basics for understanding the concepts of the Horned God and the Goddess and the importance of fertility cults in it’s genesis. A bit outdated and tendentious (Mrs. Murray tended to make very forced interpretations of the information she get) but also indispensable for her contribution with her studies about the horned deities through mediterranean world.

Classic World and Western Witchcraft (especially interesting for those interested in Spainsh Witchcraft between Middle Ages and XVIII century)

The witches and their world - Julio Caro Baroja; A little but wonderfully written and easy to read study about the influence of greco-roman magic in Western witchcraft, aside of the references to witchcraft related trials, which can offer an interesting view of the practices of those witches and their relation with other social staments. The main and only negative point I have of this book it’s it does some references in classic greek and latin.

Fertility Cults and Pre-Christian religions

The Holy Mushroom and the Cross - John Marco Allegro; FUNDAMENTAL for understand the weight of fertility cults and their practices in the genesis of Christianism, especially in the years before to the 313 b.C (Milan’s Edict and legalization of Christianism in Roman Empire). A wonderful read, believe me.

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Air

From the Four Elements, Air and Fire are considered active and masculine; water and earth, passive and feminine. In elemental cosmogonies, sometimes it’s given to Fire the priority as origin of life (In some way, this thought it’s still alive in popular speech and sayings, like in the expression life’s spark), but it’s more generalised the belief of air as fundament. The concentration of this can generate the ignition, from where all forms of life are born.

Air it’s traditionally related with three factors: the vital breath, (We can see it in Near Orient mythologies, with gods and goddesses like Shu, Tefnut or Amon) maker and, in consequence, with the word (in monotheisms we can see it related with the idea of the God’s Word, with the power of create); stormy wind, attached in many mythologies to the idea of creation and finally, the Air as ambit for movement and production of vital actions. Light, flying, lightness also the odor/scent and parfume (like in the case of the egyptian god Nefertum), are elements related to air symbolism.

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Abraxas

According to the christian apologist Tertulianus, the Gnosticism taught the supreme deity was called Abraxas, a name, according to the popular numerologic code from that time, summed 365. Abraxas created 365 sucessive heavens, each one of them were different and had like model the world inmediatly superior to it. The lowest was the kingdom of Jehova, the god from Old Testament, who wasn’t considered an almighty deity but a corrupt angel. In this vision, Jehova didn’t sent Christ but Abraxas and he returned to this one kingdom in the last moments of crucifixion.

This name can be found both in gnostic texts and the Egyptian’s Gospel. Abraxas can be God and Satan in one entity, a concept in tune with the gnostic vision of world. According to Leisegang, Abraxas can be related with Mithra and acts like a mediator between humankind and god, the Sol Invictus.

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Abracadabra

Many words and phrases from rituals, talismans and pentacles have symbolic meanings, because of their uses or by the word itself, by phonetic meaning and mostly, graphic. This word was used frecuently during the Middle Age with magical uses and their origin it’s in the hebrew oration ‘abreq ad hâbra’, which means ‘hurl your fire/thunderbolt even unto death’

It was usually inscribed inside an inverted triangle, or was set out so that it formed a triangle. This word was related too with the Abraxas from the Gnostics, which was really a name from the sun-god Mithra.

                                 - Adapted from ‘A dictionary of symbols’, from J. E. Cirlot.