It probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I do a lot of reading - mostly on magical topics. Generally I prefer more scholarly works, because as the wider occult community has been discovering for the past however many years they've gone in this direction, magic is best when understood from within its historical context. For too long though, we've had this strange kind of dichotomy between the bookish types and those who are more experiential in basis. I consider this to be a completely false dichotomy in practice. There is a perception there that the book-readers do not experience (and in some cases are prevented from having experiences by their bookishness), and an equally insulting practice that those who do experience do not read. It's all ridiculous. While there are undoubtedly those who do just read and are, to quote Diana Paxson, 'cement heads', those who do just experience and do not read, in my experience this is not the whole picture. There are a whole lot of people in between.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but for those of us who straddle this false dichotomy in the most extreme way (being both very bookish, and very experiential), our process is a game of two halves.
First comes the research, the hours upon hours of reading obscure texts and endless analysis of those texts. As individuals with a magical worldview, we probably don't take the same from those texts as the purely bookish do. Because there's a certain way that things 'work' when it comes to magic. A certain 'feel' that magic has in its working and turning that helps you to 'smell' it when you come across it and get a feel for how it works. This perspective and feel for magic is the basis of translating what is on the page into practice. It's what allows us to deconstruct a 1000+ year old account in terms of the magical tech used to make whatever occurred, occur.
At first glance, this process can look somewhat static, but it's really not as static as it may seem. Perhaps the best way of looking at this is to think of the pursuit for older methods as a way of looking for a way to get one's foot in the door with whichever spirit, god, or wight you're hoping to initiation a reciprocal relationship.You learn to make contact in the old way, you look to the myths for those ways because those are the ways the gods themselves set down in illo tempore. We do best to imitate them, to create that connection and begin that relationship. Because once you've done it, and you're under no illusions that you *have* made contact, it's generally easier to do so again.
However, once that contact has been made, the field opens up somewhat as the relationship between human and wight progresses. Omens are taken, divination performed, and dreams monitored for direction. Over time, everything from how you conduct ritual while working with that being, to the kind of incense preferred may become subject to change in accordance with the preference of the being with whom you are working. From this point on, it's best described as being spirit-led, and not in the BS way that term is often used nowadays.
So at this point, you may be wondering why even bother with the more formal introduction phase if there is the potential for things to open up somewhat after that point?
In my opinion, there are a few good reasons for this.
The first and biggest reason is that it's polite and demonstrates respect for the spirit in question. We all have points of etiquette that we observe in society. Imagine you were to be called to someone's house to help them out with something and they didn't do anything to accommodate you or look to your needs. Imagine if they didn't even greet you at the door, using the formulaic greetings we all subconsciously observe. Imagine if their house smelled terrible, or in a way that set your allergies off (and they knew about those allergies). Imagine if they didn't even offer you hospitality, or the kind of foods or drinks you're known to like. This is basic *ghosti, and yes, sure it's different from what we would give to another human, but that's the point here. These are non-human intelligences, but the scenario of the bad host works here. In some of the grimoires, some spirits are noted as being really finicky about those details. They care. By observing that ritual etiquette, you are are starting the relationship off right.
The second reason is one of identification and making sure you have made contact with the actual spirit you were looking to contact. The methodologies and formulas are there for a reason - and that's largely because they worked as they were supposed to for people back in the day. They ensure that you deal with what you're supposed to be dealing with and remove the unknown quantity of encroachment by a random spirit from the equation. This is a protective measure for you and one you should observe.
Lastly, I believe that by carrying out a ritual as intended, you're adding to the weight of tradition in that ritual and helping to increase the chances of its efficacy. If there's one thing I've learned from working with old charms and rituals, it's that the formulae, the methodology, and the nomina magica have a weightiness about them that you just don't get with more modern creations.
There are other reasons, but those are the main ones for me.
So as you might imagine, when it comes to coming up with liturgy for high rites (or indeed anything else really), including aspects of older magical tech and invocations is something that I consider important.
Recently, I've been reading Jake Stratton-Kent's Geosophia, and in it, he writes about how the Goens of old would use dirges as invocations to the dead. The entirety of Stratton-Kent's 'Encyclopedia Goetica', an extremely wide-ranging work spanning five books (including volumes I &II of Geosophia) is focused on proving that Goetic magic has its origins in the pre-Classical ritual specialists known as the Goens. These were practitioners who concerned themselves predominantly with an older, more chthonic form of religion - a form of religion that was very much concerned with the Dead and the underworld.
As someone who grew up with a spiritualist parent, the Dead have always played a part in my rites and beliefs, and so unsurprisingly this work on Goetia is very appealing to me. But where as my devotion has never been lacking, I never really got along with the ways of interacting with them that I learned as a younger person (largely from my dad, during countless sessions of one on one teaching and exercises). His path is not mine. However, short of actual mound sitting, I never found the more Pagan and Heathen ways of interacting to be particularly effective either. At least not in the way I wanted - it's kind of hard to be satisfied with getting the feeling that they're there and listening (maybe) after having things like physical-feeling touches, shoves, poltergeist phenomena, and other more visceral effects happen to you. It seems to be like there's making contact and there's making contact.
And I'm not saying that I've got it down yet - I don't think I do. But I think I have at least one more piece of the puzzle.
When we were planning our Samhain rite, as we're based in Gettysburg - a place inextricably linked with the Dead - we wanted it to be something extra special. We wanted to give the wandering Dead of the place a chance to find peace if they wished it.
So, as the Goens of old, we adapted the A Lyke Wake dirge into an invocation for the Dead, replacing the more Christian aspects of afterlife cosmology contained in the song with ones that were more reflective of Pagan ideas. The dirge in its original form, is guiding the recently departed to the Underworld, and could very easily be used in psychopomp work. Because of our location, I also changed the dialect the song was written in. While it is close to my own native dialect (and I originally learned the song that way), it's maybe not so appropriate for the Dead of this place.
We also included a few period-specific aspects in our rite too, because when it comes to the Dead, I've found it's often best to meet them at least half-way. As a part of this, we included funerary cookies - a tradition from the Victorian period - with a two minute period of remembrance. We also baked a bread man to serve as a stand-in for a sin eater.
The sin eater was was a despised figure back in the day despite providing an important service to his community and surrounding area. As the name suggests, it was his task to 'eat' the sin from the deceased thus allowing them to pass into heaven unhindered. By ingesting the sin though, he became hateful to the community, and so his treatment at their hands reflected this. We obviously didn't want to subject anyone to becoming that, and so we created a bread sin eater to introduce to the dead during the rite. The sin eater would be passed from attendee to attendee, named as the sin eater, then spat on or insulted before being offered up to the Dead for their use should they wish to move on but don't feel as though they can. My husband was a soldier, I've met soldiers who've come back from war convinced that their god was angry at them for the things they had to do. I wanted to give the Dead that felt like that a chance for some peace using a method they would hopefully recognize.
We found the use of the dirge a very effective way of calling the Dead to the rite. One of the participants began a low, slow drumbeat on his drum that was just perfect for the mood of the darkening skies and blazing fire. The air became expectant and charged.
We'd set a seat, a table, some clothes, paper shoe representations (burning actual shoes would have been pretty noxious), and food out for the Dead as offerings. The silence was poignant.
By the time we announced the sin eater, and had passed him around, I began to feel a cold column moving past me as though in single file, around the circle, and moving towards where we'd set the sin eater by the fire. It felt as though it was working but that there were just so many.
Unfortunately, for all these pluses to the rite, there were also some minuses too.
We discovered the necessity of having a Y/N system for asking if the offerings were accepted as we received an omen which (I believe) had more to do with the results of the then-upcoming US election. Because of this, we then went into making more offerings of praise and goods, which wasn't a bad thing, until one first time attendee who was there got down on his knees and gave this long improvised prayer to Jesus.
On the one hand, I can understand why he did it. Jesus was the god of most of the Dead with whom we were dealing. I believe that in his heart he was trying to do a good thing and coming from a good place.
However, when he did that, it felt to me as though all the energy went out of the rite. Not in a peaceful way, but in the same kind of a way as when you go to places that are just 'dead'. Like the wights have fled and there's nothing left but a yawning emptiness not unlike Ginnungagap. My stomach churned, I felt angry despite understanding on an intellectual level why. This land was where my kindred also met - what of the wights with whom we have ties? Had those ties been fouled up by that invocation of the carpenter? What of the Dead who'd been filing to the sin eater? Will they find peace?
I sat there in a mixture of shock and horror. The priest stood up and promptly sacrificed the rest of our offerings to the fires in honor of the Kindreds. Other people did the same.
When I left the rite, I felt dead and drained. Although all the energy I'd put in during the gifting phase of the ritual had just been ripped out. I didn't feel a return flow.
That was disappointing, and I'm ashamed to say that I avoided that individual afterwards because I could not trust myself to stay silent around him. The priest had words with him and explained that we do not invoke Jesus in ADF rites. I think I would like to have words with him if he attends the next rite to apologize for that and find some common ground.
Those troubles aside though, I found the ritual methodology was effective, and really like the use of adapted dirges as invocations/psychopomp chants (because it's only polite to guide the Dead back if you're going to wake them). It felt as though yet another puzzle piece had fallen in place, and for that, I am extremely thankful.
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