'You girls watch out for those weirdos...'

To the moot I go to this week. This notice was in the pub. Perhaps it's just my sick and twisted mind, but is it just to me it sounds incredibly filthy?

Then on the way to the bus I found this sign in an underpass. Of course it is merely that some wit has left it there, but i thought how good it would be if the continual road works in Birmingham had actually moved St Chad's way over from St Chad's Queensway to the other side of the city!

Living the divine game

I solemnly swore I would not post about the Olympics. So here is my post about the Olympics.
Actually it was prompted by this picture that a friend sent me of the Olympian Bjorn Barrefors. Normally he wouldn't be my type, but he is really rather scrumptious, isn't he? In fact, when I got the picture I was so distracted by the beauty of his...eyes, I had to ask my friend what country he represents, completely failing to notice the acres of blue and yellow, and the word 'Sweden' in large letters across his chest. In fact his... eyes still draw me so much that I should probably apologise in advance in case this post is more incoherent than usual.
I called him an Olympian for a purpose. it has come to mean someone who completes in the modern Olympic games, but originally the Olympians were the main deities of the ancient Greek pantheon. In mythology they lived on Mount Olympus, hence the name. What I love about the divinities in polytheistic systems is that they are much more like us than the single deity of monotheism. It must be a very lonely life being a single God, with no-one to argue with, be married to, have children with! Perhaps this explains why monotheistic deities so often take it out on humans, since they don't have any other Gods to argue with.
Of course this also means that we are more like our Gods than monotheists are. I mean, you only have to look at Mr Barrefors to see that we can be gods, divine, and any other attribute you care to use. In fact one of the marvels of the pagan new religious movements of the twentieth century is that not only are our Gods more like us than those of the monotheists, but the line between divine and human is blurred slightly. One of Pindar's odes about Medea refers to her lips as divine, and this is one of the aspects of the traditional witch figure which is most happily drawn on in today's movement: the traditional witch figure continually crosses the boundary (the hedge?) between divine and human.
The implications of this for our daily life are quite astounding: if I can start off the day by looking in the mirror and seeing the divine looking back at me, that can only have a major impact on all my actions! It also influences my interactions with others: if I look around and see other people (and some would say things) as participating in the divine economy that must change how I look on other people. I would venture to give an opinion that this is why codes of ethics are more public relations exercises than actualy valid codes for witches. Witches don't - should not - need codes of ethics because they are attuned to the divine cycles of life. Yes, I know: this means that people are going to die and bad things are going to happen, but we don't have the difficulty explaining these things that you have in a system where there is only one all-good divinity (this is why they have to project bad stuff onto a figure of evil, because it doesn't make sense that bad things could happen): they just do. Shit happens. Of course this also has the potential to go extremely wrong where a witch things they are so part of natural cycles that they lose their balance, end up with too much credit, as it were, and end up being part of the cycle of destruction. I will certainly return to the discomfort monism gives me in future posts!

I also love the way the ancient Olympic games were actually part of the worship of the Gods, since doesn't our Goddess say, 'All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals'? I certainly would place the modern revival of the Olympic games in the same melting pot of things which led to the creation/revival of our modern pagan religions. The modern triad of mind, body and spirit is not quite as the ancients would have envisaged it. However our divine mature means that acts of pleasure (for ourselves and others) do genuinely pay homage to divinity. This is not quite the way the non-theistic Satanists would see it, since they see themselves as the only entity really, and then everything else is opposed in duality (how anyone can not see that this is not Christianity turned upside down escapes me, and Isaac Bonewits used to say, 'I get almost as much hate mail from Satanists as I do from the other fundamentalist Christians.'). Although I do like the idea of keeping your own birthday as a major feast day of your religion! Witchcraft and most other modern traditions in the same vein differ from this in that while we are not dualists, we are not totally immanent monists, since in that system you actually end up with no God, as God is indistinguishable from everything else. We are more panentheists, since while the divine is in everything, it/he/she/they can still be differentiated from everything else.

Pilgrimage

 Yesterday I had a reason to be out of town so I spent the day in Leamington Spa. I found my way to this unassuming street of mixed owner-occupied and council flats. No seriously, this is Royal Leamington Spa after all, and they don't let you forget it. Although after lunchtime the streets began to fill with chavs - I really felt quite at home. I came to Clarendon Square to find a house associated with a great man. Across the square I spotted a blue plaque and rushed over to find that it was merely that Napoleon III had lived in that house.

 Instead this was the house I was looking for, no. 30. Please note that I did not go to the library and ask whether the road has ever been renumbered: my relative confidence on this is based purely on the fact that the numbers on all the doors look as if they have been there for a good long time, and may even be original. Assuming I've got it right, it was in this house, on 12th October 1875, that Edward Alexander Crowley was born. He is better to known to us magical people as Aleister Crowley, and his name wasn't the only thing to change as he got older. When he was naughty as a child, his mother used to say to him, 'You beast!', and he came to think of himself as The Beast. When I was nuaghty as a child, my mother used to say to me, 'You're a holy terror.' And we know how that has influenced me!

Incidentally this collecting box for guide dogs is at the railway station at Leamington. I hadn't thought before I saw this that the Goddess could have a soft spot for blind people in particular. But the dog Goddess definitely likes this, and they've unwittingly put three dogs on it: she loves things in threes! The last time I was in Leamington someone had dumped an empty coffee cup on it, which she thought was hilarious. She is enemy of the sun, and friend and companion of darkness, so no wonder if she would have a love of those with difficulty seeing (on any level). May she grant us the light of her torches where we have difficulty seeing the way ahead.

God's wife: a case of deliberate obfuscation?

It's true: not only did God have a wife, but she just loves gay men

A colleague asked me whether it is true that God used to have a wife, and I'm afraid he started me off because she is one of my pet subjects. Anyone with any idea of the background to the Hebrew Bible (remember it is not the old testament to the Jews) knows that the whole Judaeo-Christian tradition gestated in a melting pot of various competing divinities, of whom Yah ultimately became the single deity.

His wife was called Asherah, and if you know what to look for her presence is everywhere in the bible. The translation in which it is least apparent to us us the 'Authorised'/King James Bible where you really have to look hard for it. This is part of the account of King Josiah's setting up of the worship of Yah over Asherah in 2 Kings 23:

³ And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

⁴ And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.

⁵ And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.

⁶ And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.

⁷ And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

Yup, these are definitely poles

This seems so casual but unless you know what you're looking for, all is not being told. For a start he doesn't just stand by a pole, just casual like, because the pole was the ritual object in the temple for the worship of Asherah. He is taking this oath in the temple because he is consecrating himself, the people, and the temple to the worship of the one God. He then commands the people to remove from the temple the paraphernalia and personnel of the worship of other divinities. But hold on, what can 'the vessels...for the grove' mean? After he tells them to bring out the priests who burned incense in high places (high places occur so frequently in the Hebrew Bible that the people can not have been wholeheartedly monotheistic, because they are a sure sign of the worship of other Gods) he then has the grove actually brought out from the temple. A grove is a small wood without dense undergrowth. I know, I had to look it up. I suppose you could conceivably have a small wood growing in a temple, but the actual Hebrew words translated here indicates what is actually  happening. You've got it, thte word is Asherah. It was actually the Asherah pole that was being removed. This is the development of monotheism in action: while the victors' record defines it as a commitment to pure and correct worship of only one divinity, it can also be phrased as the total extirpation of others' divinities.

I particularly like the next bit, where he breaks down the houses of the sodomites. A dictionary definition of sodomite is 'one who engages in sodomy', and we all know what that is. But once again all is not being told. It wasn't by chance that an absolute busload of Mary-Anns were camping (literally) in the temple. Once again the Hebrew word shows the real situation: the word is kedeshim and its root meaning is 'consecrated ones'. They were ritual male prostitutes, and this was the worship of Asherah. Bear in mind, though, that at most periods of time the word prostitute has not had the relatively low-life meaning it has now, the kedeshims' prostitution was a sacred thing.

What makes me mad about the King James Bible is that although the words are translated using perfectly possible translations, it has succeeded in completely hiding what is actually happening! Modern versions of the Bible tend to be better, but this is an example of the victors rewriting history to write out the vanquished. A story of the imposition of monotheism on a people who weren't really interested becomes the triumph of the worship of the one, true, only revealed God.

Incidentally I love the Vulgate's version of the bit about the kedeshim:

Destruxit quoque aediculas effeminatorum quae erant in domo Domini

The Douai Bible (always screamingly  funny) has translated this way too literally and come out with the wonderful:

He destroyed also the pavilions of the effeminate, which were in the house of the Lord

In the interests of fairness, perhaps I'd better show how a modern version reveals more of what is actually happening: this is the New Revised Standard Version:

The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. All the people joined in the covenant.  The king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the constellations, and all the host of the heavens. He brought out the image of Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem, to the Wadi Kidron, burned it at the Wadi Kidron, beat it to dust and threw the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. He broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord, where the women did weaving for Asherah. 

Tattoos

This isn't me; I wish it was, or at least that it was waking up next to me... It's the lovely Mr Philipp Tanzer. And you may ask what someone who looks like this could possibly do for a living, and the answer is: DJ and porn star!

I have tattoos. I haven't had one for a little while, you have to have a certain relationship with your tattooist and I'm between tattooists at the moment. I started having them after I was quite majorly ill a few years ago, and also had some moles removed from my back. It started to distract attention from the scars!
Are all of my tattoos exactly as I would like them to be? No. But I don't regret them. I will never regret them. They all have special significance to me personally, some as souvenirs and some as reminders. People always ask the what if question: what if you regret it?
And that's the key: to make damn well sure you don't regret what you do. Think it out beforehand and act with a certain assurance. Too often people post on forums that they've cast a spell and now regret it and how do they change it. Tattoos are another example of this kind of action: it isn't literally permanent for eternity, but it's very difficult to undo. If you walk into the studio, point at the wall, and say, 'I'll have that one,' you get what you deserve. Just as you do with a spell.

Because mums (and witches) go to Iceland

What you find around you can be used for magic as long as it has an effect on you: if it is quaint or picturesque and this helps you, more power to your wand. (Picture courtesy of TranKmasT on flickr)

To work magic it is not necessary to have access to incredibly exotic or expensive ingredients, unless you want access to a particular magical current that requires silver, lambskin and parchment. To work 'low' magic, of which the basic principle is that you can use your inner world to influence your outer world, it is much more important to use the materials that press the right buttons in both worlds. Of course it is possible to work magic in a completely mental manner, with no 'props' at all. However it took me ages to realise the purpose of the tables of correspondences you find in the magical books, that is, collections of things which have links to each other in the greater picture, and which can therefore be used to influence each other by manipulation of something in the smaller picture. Similarly I had difficulty understanding 'as above, so below,' but of course this is a seemingly more hierarchical way of expressing the same thing.
Similarly, because it is important that the materia magica make an impact on your inner world, this will be related to your personal hedge, the source of your personal magic. Different things mean different things to different people, however it is also notable how magical traditions adapt to their environment. Hoodoo (African American folk magic) is a prime example of this. African slaves transported to the Americas didn't have access to the plants they'd used in Africa, so began to use local plants for magic. As they came into contact with Native Americans, they integrated aspects of their folk magic, folk elements of Catholicism were also incorporated from their captors, and even elements of Kabbalah or Solomonic magic were incorporated from contact with Jewish pharmacists, whom white people didn't want serving them. Similarly modern witchcraft uses a greater paraphernalia of ritual equipment because of its availability. Our predecessors (that is, those who have always done what we do now, even though they wouldn't usually call themselves witches) used many fewer 'tranklements', and the props of magic do change with time.
For witches who live in urban areas, without access or understanding of the ancient herbs and weird substances prescribed by many of the books, our hedge is formed by the things we find around us each day, and these things can be turned into our own correspondences and used in magic.
For example I'm very fond of bottle spells because they are so adaptable and can be kept so that someone like me who tends to scratch can come back to it and have another go without bringing back the spell. Finding an object  link of the person is not as hard as it seems: people leave bits of themselves all over the place unwittingly. Once I have it I often speak to it, I usually keep it on the altar for some days until its identification with that purpose (person, intention, institution) is complete in my mind. I usually use large coffee jars, and will put the object link in it, doing this more or less ceremonially depending on my mood, remembering that the important bit is the total identification of the object link with the person in my mind. What I then do with it depends on the purpose of the spell. I will pour vinegar over it if I want to make things unpleasant for them, again because I hate vinegar myself, and I will visualise the unpleasantness happening to them. If I want to make it sweet I pour over runny honey. For them to have pangs of conscience I use nails. To stick someone in a situation of their own creation glue is wonderful...you get the idea.
A lemon can be used to embitter a person or thing. The hair from a cat and a dog can have marvellous effects in starting rows. I was astounded to discover that the ingredients in many Hot Foot Powder recipes are the same as the ingredients in chilli powder, so that's what I use. You can steep herbs in oil to make it for different purposes. To cleanse? Jolly old sage. In higher amounts this can also be used as Essence of Bend Over because it's so overpowering (and usually overdone in shop-bought stuffing). You get the idea.
Even if I can't get an object link I usually don't have any trouble creating one. I often use things bought from charity shops, just being careful that they remind me of the person or thing the spell is for. I have used a letterhead to cast a spell on an institution. I love what Dorothy Morrison has to say in her book Curses, Hexes and Other Unsavoury Notions about using Barbie dolls as poppets. She suggests ways of personalising them to the person. The only thing I've never been able to work is her idea of stuffing the doll's cavities with things for the spell, for example cotton wool in the head to induce confusion. Perhaps it's just that I don't take them off gently enough, but I can never get the bits bask on (they make a nice popping sound when you pull them apart, though). Nails are surprisingly difficult to get through them. I once nailed one to the bedroom floor without meaning to, using a mallet and masonry nails. I have bought china ornaments that have reminded me of the target of the spell. As a general rule, if I've thought about the spell for long enough, suddenly the materials for it will appear, the time will feel right, and the spell will almost do itself. Perhaps this explains why the effect of a spell is often noticed just before you've actually done the action: you've already made the necessary changes elsewhere and things are starting to fell into place. That said, when I once turned a pig's ear into my problem and fed it to a friend's dog who shat it out all over the house, it didn't take that much turning!

Commentary on the Charge of the Goddess 4: Listen to the words

Sources and Influences

Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical: Listen to the words

Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical (BAM) is clearly the source of the preliminaries of the Charge. This article will speculate somewhat on its origin as a literary genre, however since there is no obvious single source for the BAM version of the Charge, this section is treated as an original composition by Gardner.

Thealogy and the ritual use of the Charge

Both Valiente and Gardner describe the Charge as something that is used at initiations (Gerald Gardner: Witchcraft Today. Arrow Books, London, 1975), and Valiente comments that the ‘Charge’ being read to a ‘properly prepared’ candidate for initiation is very reminiscent of Freemasonry (Doreen Valiente: The Rebirth of Witchcraft. Robert Hale, London, 2007).  Although the word ‘charge’ used as a noun does not often have this sense now, records of the use of the word to indicate a task or duty, or a precept or injunction, date back to the fourteenth century (J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner (editors): The Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition). Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989, volume 3.).
    Harry Carr describes two different things as ‘Charges’ in Freemasonry (Harry Carr (revised by Frederick Smyth): The Freemason at Work. Lewis Masonic, London, 2004.).  The ‘Old Charges’ were histories and rulebooks of the craft, of which there are many versions dating from between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries; they begin with a history of masonry, and then continue to both ‘operative’ regulations for working masons, and moral advices to prevent masonry coming into disrepute, such as not to steal, to keep the master’s secrets, fidelity to church and craft, and avoidance of lechery.
    The modern ‘Charge to the Initiate’ is purely a moral exhortation, with no element of history, intended only for Speculative and not Operative masons, and containing different matter from the earlier Charges. It is read to the candidate after first degree initiation by the Worshipful Master, a Past Master, or a Warden. This quote gives a taste of how it differs from the Charge of the Goddess:

‘Bro. A. B. As you have passed through the ceremony of your initiation, let me congratulate you on being admitted a member of our ancient and honourable institution. Ancient, no doubt it is, as having subsisted from time immemorial, and honourable it must be acknowledged to be, as by a natural tendency it conduces to make those so who are obedient to its precepts. Indeed no institution can boast a more solid foundation than that on which Freemasonry rests, the practice of every moral and social virtue. And to so high an eminence has its credit been advanced that in every age monarchs themselves have been promoters of the art; have not thought it derogatory to their dignity to exchange the sceptre for the trowel; have patronised our mysteries and joined in our assemblies.
‘As a Freemason, let me recommend to your most serious contemplation the Volume of the Sacred Law, charging you to consider it as the unerring standard of truth and justice, and to regulate your actions by the divine precepts it contains. Therein you will be taught the important duties you owe to God, to your neighbour, and to yourself. To God, by never mentioning His name but with that awe and reverence which are due from the creature to his Creator, by imploring His aid in all you lawful undertakings, and by looking up to Him in every emergency for comfort and support....
‘As an individual, let me recommend the practice of every domestic as well as public virtue: let Prudence direct you, Temperance chasten you, Fortitude support you, and Justice be the guide of all your actions....
‘...Secrecy consists in an inviolable adherence to the Obligation you have entered into, never improperly to disclose any of those Masonic secrets which have now been, or may, at any future period, be entrusted to your keeping, and cautiously to avoid all occasions which may inadvertently lead you to do so...
‘And as a last general recommendation, let me exhort you to dedicate yourself to such pursuits as may at once enable you to be respectable in life, useful to mankind, and an ornament to the society of which you have this day become a member. To study more especially such of the liberal arts and sciences as may lie within the compass of your attainment, and without neglecting the ordinary duties of your station, to endeavour to make a daily advancement in Masonic knowledge...’ (Walton Hannah: Darkness Visible. Augustine Publishing Company, Chulmleigh, 1984, pp. 107-109.)

This ‘Charge to the Initiate’ differs both in content and use from the Charge of the Goddess as used in Wicca today. The only similarity is in that Valiente and Gardner both report its use at initiations in the early days of Wicca; its use differs today.
    The Masonic Charge quoted above is wholly different in tone from that of Wicca, which does not feel the need to comment on the social standing of its members in the Craft’s past. The tone of the Gardner/Valiente Charge's admonitions as to the witches' behaviour feels also quite different.
    Another context in which an address in made to the initiate at his initiation is found in the Neophyte Ritual of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , in which after the initiation the hierophant gives the hierus the duty of making a short address to the new initiate (Israel Regardie: The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic. Falcon Publications, Phoenix Arizona, 1984, Vol. 6.). This is obviously the same use as the Charge has in Masonry and in the early days of Wicca, although it is not called a Charge. Its form and content is also more similar to that of the Masonic charge above than to the Wiccan Charge, and its purpose is given as advice on how to cultivate a mental condition appropriate to the Order.
    Its contents are more similar to the Masonic Charge in feel, consisting of short advices and instructions, including to revere the Lord of the universe, never to ridicule another’s religion, to remember to keep the seal of secrecy of the Order, to study the proper balance of mercy and severity, and not to be daunted by the difficulties found in the study of occultism (Ibid, vol. 6, pp. 19-20.).
    The main difference from the charge in Masonic initiations and from the address in Golden Dawn initiations is found in the person speaking. In Masonry the Charge is read to the initiate by one of the officers of the lodge in his own person. In Wicca the Charge is spoken in the person of the Goddess, with exhortations to listen from the High Priest; the writings of Crowley which Gardner quoted in his original text are mostly Crowley’s own quotations from his channelled Book of the Law. Similarly the passages quoted from Aradia are passages in which Aradia is speaking to the witches before she leaves this world. (From Valiente’s comments on the difficulty the members of the coven experienced in pronouncing the Goddess names in the verse version of the Charge, rather than merely the High Priestess having difficulty pronouncing them, perhaps that version was used differently and sung by all, perhaps as part of a ritual dance.)
    Which leads to the difference in use of the Charge in Wicca today, as opposed to how Gardner himself used it at Valiente’s initiation in the 1950s: as part of the ceremony of ‘Drawing Down the Moon,’ in which the Goddess is invoked into the High Priestess so that she is literally speaking in the person of the Goddess (For more on Drawing Down the Moon, see Janet and Stuart Farrar, A Witches’ Bible. Robert Hale, London, 1984.).  Some people may find this calling-into or possession strange, but it actually has parallels in many religious and spiritual traditions: Vodou is the one that springs to mind, but it is also found in some of the more charismatic forms of Christianity, and in acting in the person of the divinity, the High Priestess is only doing what Catholic priests do on a daily basis (although perhaps it should be noted that I am interpreting Catholic theology from a Pagan perspective, and this is not how Catholics would understand this action), as witness this passage:

‘It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.’ (St John Chrysostom, cited in The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1994, paragraph 1375.)

In doing this, witches are actually in a great and ancient magico-religious tradition. This cannot come from the mediaeval Judaeo-Christian grimoire tradition, from which Gardner also drew for ritual material, because in that spirits are evoked by the magician into a triangle drawn outside of the circle. The magician stays inside the circle as a protection, whereas in Wicca it also has the purpose of a container for the energy built up by the witches. Neither does it come from the legends of witches of classical antiquity, although the name ‘Drawing Down the Moon’ is a reference to this mythology. It was believed that the notorious witches of Thessaly were powerful enough to – literally – draw down the moon from the sky, and this belief is referred to by Aristophanes in his comedy The Clouds:

‘Suppose I bought a Thessalian slave, a witch, and got her to draw down the moon one night, and then put it in a box like they do mirrors and kept a close watch on it.’ (Aristophanes (translated by Alan Sommerstein): Lysistrata, The Acharnians, The Clouds. Penguin Books, London, 1973, p. 143.)

Virgil also refers to the possibility of doing this:

‘Spells can pull down the Moon herself from heaven. Circe with spells transformed Odysseus’ men. Sing the right spell and you can blast the clammy snakes that live in the fields.’ (Virgil (translated by E.V. Rieu): The Pastoral Poems. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1954, Eclogue 8.69-71, p. 97.)

Rather, the invocation of divinities and spirits into a person has a venerable magical pedigree, since it is also found in the ancient Greek Magical Papyri from Egypt, which were published piecemeal through the twentieth century, but the available texts only published as a collection after Gardner’s death. In these magical texts a spirit or divinity is invoked into a person, usually a man or a boy, in whom it can be commanded to perform actions or give information. For example:

‘...Hear me, that is, my holy voice, because I call upon your holy names, and reveal to me concerning the thing I want, through the NN man or little boy, for otherwise I will not defend your holy and undefiled names. Come to me, you who became Hesies and were carried away by a river; inspire the NN man or boy concerning that which I ask you.’ (Hans Dieter Betz: The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (Second Edition) Volume One: Texts. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996, p. 55.)

From its already established place in the Greek Magical Papyri of antiquity the principle of invocation, as opposed to evocation, has been found in magical traditions through the ages, including those created or inspired by Aleister Crowley.
This physical presence and closeness of the divinity in Wicca may be one of the elements inspired, in part, by Murray’s ‘Witch Cult.’ She writes of the witches’ love for their God, their joy at his presence:

‘This was undoubtedly the great appeal of the Old Religion; the god was there present with his worshippers, they could see him, they could speak to him as friend to friend, whereas the Christian God was unseen and far away in Heaven, and the petitioner could never be sure that his prayer would reach the divine ear.’ (Margaret Murray: The God of the Witches. Sampson Low, Marston and Co., London, 1933, p. 128.)

Ritually, the Charge equates to the second stage of Bonewits’s fundamental pattern of ritual: following supplication-introduction, it is the Reply from the Deity (Philip Bonewits: Real Magic. Sphere Books, London, 1974.),  which actually places Wiccan ritual in a universal pattern of religious ritual. As early as the publication of High Magic’s Aid, in 1949, the witch ‘maiden’, Morven, speaks to the assembled witches at the meeting, and they eagerly hear her words (Gerald Gardner: High Magic’s Aid. I-H-O Books, Louth, 1999.). However, there is no indication that she is considered to have invoked any entity, nor that she is speaking some set piece of ritual.
In most religions, especially those with canonised Scriptures, this usually takes the form of a reading from those Scriptures. In Wicca, which does not have revealed Scriptures, it seems strange that the text under consideration here, the Charge, should therefore be an invariable part of the ritual. Even if it used as a set piece, its delivery can differ from occasion to occasion; Janet Farrar writes that she is never sure how the Charge is going to come out (Janet and Stewart Farrar: A Witches’ Bible.  Robert Hale, London, 1984.).  Frederic Lamond counters this ‘liturgical’ use of the Book of Shadows rituals with his own experience in the early days of Wicca, indicating that the way the rituals are used has changed over the years:

‘The spirit in which we performed the BoS rituals was, however, different from that of many contemporary covens. For us, rituals – whether taken from the BoS or improvised – were strictly means to the end of putting us into an altered state of consciousness and then raise a cone of power to heal or improve the life of one of our members or one of our friends. Today many covens, especially in North America, seem to practise them for their own sake, and thus have turned a spellcasting magical tradition into a liturgy.’ (Frederic Lamond: Then and Now. Witchcraft and Wicca, Issue 15, Lammas 2007, p. 56.)

He suggests elsewhere that

‘...the high priestess should then channel the Goddess and give on Her behalf specific advice to the coven as a whole or to individual members. The Charge of the Goddess is a standby to be recited if the Goddess doesn’t come through.’ (Frederic Lamond: Fifty Years of Wicca. Green Magic, Sutton Mallett, 2004, p. 134.)

In addition to disquiet expressed at the use of the Charge as a set piece of liturgy, rather than the inspiration of the invoked Goddess inspiring the High Priestess to say the Goddess’s words at the time, dissatisfaction is also felt within the Wiccan community at the nature of the sources used in the Charge, particularly the Aleister Crowley quotes. Sorita d’Este is one Wiccan High Priestess who has publicly queried the appropriateness of the words of the Charge as representative of the deity of Wicca, both because they come from Crowley, and because they were originally spoken by other divinities. She comments on the growing awareness of the Charge’s origins and growing dissatisfaction with them, but also on the Wiccan community’s reluctance to change this ritual text (Sorita d’Este: Speaking for the Goddess... <http://www.sorita.co.uk/?p=469> updated 2009, accessed 22.3.10.).
One further use of the Charge should be mentioned: as a well-loved piece of inspired (that is God/dess-breathed) poetry in the Wiccan and witchcraft movement, which has inspired songs, and even the titles of a series of novels. The section sometimes called the ‘Eight Wiccan Virtues’ has been used as a Wiccan equivalent of the Buddhist loving kindness meditation (Runewolf: Eight Virtues of the Craft. <http://www.witchvox.com>  Accessed 16.6.08. This excellent meditation unfortunately seems to have vanished from the internet.).