{"id":5127,"date":"2011-05-01T01:10:44","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T06:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=5225"},"modified":"2011-04-26T21:33:34","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T02:33:34","slug":"prunings-from-the-hedge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2011\/05\/01\/prunings-from-the-hedge\/","title":{"rendered":"Prunings from the Hedge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Kinds of Knowledge in the Craft<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three kinds of knowledge concern us in the Craft.\u00a0 These may be called knowing about, knowing by acquaintance, and knowing without words.\u00a0 They belong to the Maiden, Mother and Crone, respectively.\u00a0 There is also nescience, the sublimation of knowing, which belongs to the Goddess in her dark aspect.\u00a0 Although the power to know is assigned to the eastern quarter of Air, each element involves a form of knowing, and these are quite distinct.<\/p>\n

Knowing about is what we commonly consider knowing.\u00a0 It is knowing a subject, knowing something from the outside.\u00a0 It is the only type of knowing considered scientifically viable, for it falls in the public domain and is independently verifiable, at least within the limits of its subject matter.\u00a0 In this it resembles the Maiden, who in her virginity (ever renewed) remains aloof from the objects of knowledge, inviolable.\u00a0 She provides purification to set aside old, stale knowledge and thus make room for the new.\u00a0 Her purity and diffidence are reflected in the rules of scientific method restricting subjectivity.<\/p>\n

Every process begins in the East with knowledge of this sort.\u00a0 If we want to get close to a particular god or goddess, we must begin by studying the myths concerning that deity, together with what lore remains concerning his or her rites, tastes, ritual occasions, and sphere of activity.<\/p>\n

So long as we are only concerned to know about a particular deity, knowing about is sufficient.\u00a0 When we want to erect a shrine to him or her, whether indoor or outdoor, and begin offering, worshipping, and meditating on that god or goddess, a different sort of knowledge comes into play.\u00a0 Now we are committing a portion of our time, our life, to interacting with the deity in a religious manner.\u00a0 These acts of piety become part of our subjective experience, and hence part of ourselves.\u00a0 Science does not deny subjective experience, for the most part, but considers it relatively unimportant as a component of knowledge.\u00a0 Scientific materialists deny any independent reality to subjectivity, considering it an epiphenomenon of the brain, a \u2018fever of matter\u2019, as Thomas Mann described it.<\/p>\n

Idealist philosophers like Berkeley point out that all we can know directly is our own subjective experience, and all scientific propositions extrapolate from such and are analyzable, ultimately, into statements like \u201cat such and such a time I observed x, y and z under conditions q,\u201d and then predict the circumstances under which these will reappear to an independent observer.\u00a0 All the contents of the scientific proposition in question derive from subjective experiences of observers and are simply cast into an abstract form that subtracts out those parts of subjective experience considered irrelevant to the matter under discussion.<\/p>\n

As witches we are not required to take part in such philosophical controversies.\u00a0 We can be content to note the value of both sorts of knowledge, and cultivate them both in their proper quarter.\u00a0 A responsible parent will learn as much as possible about childbirth and early infancy, and will defer to the superior knowledge of the doctor; but the bonding between parent and child is a real subjective experience, and provides numerous instances of transfer of thoughts and feelings deemed questionable by scientific materialists.\u00a0 The scientific materialist who is a father, though, when he has locked up his laboratory and gone home to his newborn, will enjoy telepathic bonding with his child as much as the most convinced Berkeleyan.<\/p>\n

It is easy to see how knowing by acquaintance belongs to the Mother; it is a knowledge involving the interpenetration of two subjectivities, and from the two a third subjectivity is born, the ongoing relationship between them.\u00a0 As with all relationships, more is involved than mere knowing.\u00a0 There are promises, compromises, commitments, personal sacrifices to make; for these all involve the will, and the proper field of action of knowing by acquaintance is the quarter of Fire and will.<\/p>\n

A witch, my HPS, recently learned that the Watchers\u2019 names from a book of Celtic witchcraft originated in ceremonial magic.\u00a0 At the suggestion that she substitute names of the four directional powers derived from Celtic folklore instead, she declined, saying that she had already built up a history of devotion with the ceremonial names.\u00a0 This shows that in the practice of the Craft, knowing by acquaintance is at least as important as knowing about, and once certain relationships are established, it is better to continue in them and let one\u2019s pantheon remain somewhat eclectic.<\/p>\n

One can also see from the foregoing that the practice of spellcraft is personal and religious, and in fact cannot be separated from religious piety.\u00a0 The most effective spells are heartfelt prayers.\u00a0 Witchcraft, unlike ceremonial magic, is not a mechanical, instrumental affair of manipulation but is every whit as personal as the other interactions that enter into a witch\u2019s life.\u00a0 Even the magical tools, the wand, athame, cup and pentacle, in some traditions are experienced as providing homes to individual elementals of the four types: sylphs, salamanders, undines and gnomes.\u00a0 In such traditions, the witch at initiation enters or re-enters on a multi-lifetime commitment and relationship as a pupil to the four Watchers, and receives from each of them an elemental helper who enters into its respective tool.\u00a0 Thus, the circle is cast not so much by the athame as by the salamander resident in the athame, co-operating with the witch\u2019s will.\u00a0 It is this sort of knowledge, belonging to the Mother, which allows the witch to consecrate to a specific purpose.<\/p>\n

The third sort of knowledge relates to the other two much as one\u2019s shadow relates to one\u2019s body.\u00a0 The first knowledge studies the body from outside and the second knowledge studies it from the inside.\u00a0 Knowing without words involves placing the attention on peripheral experience, experience that is, in its details, unrepeatable, and which is thus not expressible in words.\u00a0 This knowing is generally denied the status of knowledge by materialists and idealists alike, both of whom insist that if it cannot be put into words, it either doesn\u2019t exist or else is too trivial for consideration as a type of knowledge.\u00a0 It nevertheless lies at the limits of knowledge, the limits of perception, and is as essential to a full survey of knowledge (which we are here examining in the mode of knowing about) as the outline of a body is essential to a knowledge of that body, or as the outer edge of a picture must be included in any complete view of the picture.<\/p>\n

Attending to the edge of the visual field is an example of knowing without words, as is listening to background sounds along with foreground sounds.\u00a0 Watching one\u2019s phosphenes, the lights and squiggles we can see when we close our eyes, is another example that comes into play when our eyes are shut.\u00a0 Maintaining sensory awareness of our apparent headlessness, in the absence of a reflecting surface, and keeping one\u2019s eyeglass frames in view are variations on the same theme.\u00a0 Keeping a slight memory of recent dreams in the background of one\u2019s present waking experience can lead to its mirror opposite, lucid dreaming, in which one wakes up in the dream and realizes one is dreaming.\u00a0 This last is important to a witch as preparation for astral traveling, the fifth power of the magus (\u201cto go\u201d), associated with the element of aether. \u00a0All of these examples of wordless knowing belong to the Crone and the western quarter of Water, whose elemental power is the power to dare; that is, to dare the unknown, to dare to go beyond the limits of the ordinary.\u00a0 Cultivation of wordless knowing opens the witch to altered states of awareness and provides the strong jolt of power needed to charge a spell.<\/p>\n

After the spell is cast, it must be forgotten.\u00a0 This is done through the northern quarter of Earth and keeping still (keeping silence in the body as well as speech).\u00a0 Even the negation of knowledge is a sort of knowledge.\u00a0 If knowing without words explores the penumbra of experience, the half-shadow, the act of earthing and sublimating the spell uses the full shadow.\u00a0 Knowing about examines the witch from the outside, and knowing by acquaintance from the inside looking out, that is, looking out directly where the eyes are pointing.\u00a0 If knowing without words looks out obliquely where the eyes are not pointing, at the limits of perception, then this final non-knowing concerns what cannot be seen because it is behind the witch\u2019s head, and moves with the head as it turns.\u00a0 We are aware that there are things in back of us that we cannot see, and we know in general what they are from turning our heads.\u00a0 But how if there were things that remained in back of us, that turned with our heads and stayed in the shadows?\u00a0 The witch cultivates this feeling that there is something else, and hurls the cast spell into that feeling upon releasing the Cone of Power and dropping to her knees in the circle to ground excess energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three Kinds of Knowledge in the Craft Three kinds of knowledge concern us in the Craft.\u00a0 These may be called knowing about, knowing by acquaintance, and knowing without words.\u00a0 They belong to the Maiden, Mother and Crone, respectively.\u00a0 There is also nescience, the sublimation of knowing, which belongs to the Goddess in her dark aspect.\u00a0 Although the power to know is assigned to the eastern quarter of Air, each element involves a form of knowing, and these are quite distinct. Knowing about is what we commonly consider knowing.\u00a0 It is knowing a subject, knowing something from the outside.\u00a0 It is the only type of knowing considered scientifically viable, for it falls in the public domain and is independently verifiable, at least within the limits of its subject matter.\u00a0 In this it resembles the Maiden, who in her virginity (ever renewed) remains aloof from the objects of knowledge, inviolable.\u00a0 She provides purification to set aside old, stale knowledge and thus make room for the new.\u00a0 Her purity and diffidence are reflected in the rules of scientific method restricting subjectivity. Every process begins in the East with knowledge of this sort.\u00a0 If we want to get close to a particular god or goddess, we must begin by studying the myths concerning that deity, together with what lore remains concerning his or her rites, tastes, ritual occasions, and sphere of activity. So long as we are only concerned to know about a particular deity, knowing about is sufficient.\u00a0 When we want to erect a shrine to him or her, whether indoor or outdoor, and begin offering, worshipping, and meditating on that god or goddess, a different sort of knowledge comes into play.\u00a0 Now we are committing a portion of our time, our life, to interacting with the deity in a religious manner.\u00a0 These acts of piety become part of our subjective experience, and hence part of ourselves.\u00a0 Science does not deny subjective experience, for the most part, but considers it relatively unimportant as a component of knowledge.\u00a0 Scientific materialists deny any independent reality to subjectivity, considering it an epiphenomenon of the brain, a \u2018fever of matter\u2019, as Thomas Mann described it. Idealist philosophers like Berkeley point out that all we can know directly is our own subjective experience, and all scientific propositions extrapolate from such and are analyzable, ultimately, into statements like \u201cat such and such a time I observed x, y and z under conditions q,\u201d and then predict the circumstances under which these will reappear to an independent observer.\u00a0 All the contents of the scientific proposition in question derive from subjective experiences of observers and are simply cast into an abstract form that subtracts out those parts of subjective experience considered irrelevant to the matter under discussion. As witches we are not required to take part in such philosophical controversies.\u00a0 We can be content to note the value of both sorts of knowledge, and cultivate them both in their proper quarter.\u00a0 A responsible parent will learn as much as possible about childbirth and early infancy, and will defer to the superior knowledge of the doctor; but the bonding between parent and child is a real subjective experience, and provides numerous instances of transfer of thoughts and feelings deemed questionable by scientific materialists.\u00a0 The scientific materialist who is a father, though, when he has locked up his laboratory and gone home to his newborn, will enjoy telepathic bonding with his child as much as the most convinced Berkeleyan. It is easy to see how knowing by acquaintance belongs to the Mother; it is a knowledge involving the interpenetration of two subjectivities, and from the two a third subjectivity is born, the ongoing relationship between them.\u00a0 As with all relationships, more is involved than mere knowing.\u00a0 There are promises, compromises, commitments, personal sacrifices to make; for these all involve the will, and the proper field of action of knowing by acquaintance is the quarter of Fire and will. A witch, my HPS, recently learned that the Watchers\u2019 names from a book of Celtic witchcraft originated in ceremonial magic.\u00a0 At the suggestion that she substitute names of the four directional powers derived from Celtic folklore instead, she declined, saying that she had already built up a history of devotion with the ceremonial names.\u00a0 This shows that in the practice of the Craft, knowing by acquaintance is at least as important as knowing about, and once certain relationships are established, it is better to continue in them and let one\u2019s pantheon remain somewhat eclectic. One can also see from the foregoing that the practice of spellcraft is personal and religious, and in fact cannot be separated from religious piety.\u00a0 The most effective spells are heartfelt prayers.\u00a0 Witchcraft, unlike ceremonial magic, is not a mechanical, instrumental affair of manipulation but is every whit as personal as the other interactions that enter into a witch\u2019s life.\u00a0 Even the magical tools, the wand, athame, cup and pentacle, in some traditions are experienced as providing homes to individual elementals of the four types: sylphs, salamanders, undines and gnomes.\u00a0 In such traditions, the witch at initiation enters or re-enters on a multi-lifetime commitment and relationship as a pupil to the four Watchers, and receives from each of them an elemental helper who enters into its respective tool.\u00a0 Thus, the circle is cast not so much by the athame as by the salamander resident in the athame, co-operating with the witch\u2019s will.\u00a0 It is this sort of knowledge, belonging to the Mother, which allows the witch to consecrate to a specific purpose. The third sort of knowledge relates to the other two much as one\u2019s shadow relates to one\u2019s body.\u00a0 The first knowledge studies the body from outside and the second knowledge studies it from the inside.\u00a0 Knowing without words involves placing the attention on peripheral experience, experience that is, in its details, unrepeatable, and which is thus not expressible in words.\u00a0 This knowing is generally denied the status of knowledge by materialists and idealists alike, both of whom insist that if it cannot be put into words, it either doesn\u2019t exist or else is too trivial for consideration as a type of knowledge.\u00a0 It nevertheless lies at the limits of knowledge, the limits of perception, and is as essential to a full survey of knowledge (which we are here examining in the mode of knowing about) as the outline of a body is essential to a knowledge of that body, or as the outer edge of a picture must be included in any complete view of the picture. Attending to the edge of the visual field is an example of knowing without words, as is listening to background sounds along with foreground sounds.\u00a0 Watching one\u2019s phosphenes, the lights and squiggles we can see when we close our eyes, is another example that comes into play when our eyes are shut.\u00a0 Maintaining sensory awareness of our apparent headlessness, in the absence of a reflecting surface, and keeping one\u2019s eyeglass frames in view are variations on the same theme.\u00a0 Keeping a slight memory of recent dreams in the background of one\u2019s present waking experience can lead to its mirror opposite, lucid dreaming, in which one wakes up in the dream and realizes one is dreaming.\u00a0 This last is important to a witch as preparation for astral traveling, the fifth power of the magus (\u201cto go\u201d), associated with the element of aether. \u00a0All of these examples of wordless knowing belong to the Crone and the western quarter of Water, whose elemental power is the power to dare; that is, to dare the unknown, to dare to go beyond the limits of the ordinary.\u00a0 Cultivation of wordless knowing opens the witch to altered states of awareness and provides the strong jolt of power needed to charge a spell. After the spell is cast, it must be forgotten.\u00a0 This is done through the northern quarter of Earth and keeping still (keeping silence in the body as well as speech).\u00a0 Even the negation of knowledge is a sort of knowledge.\u00a0 If knowing without words explores the penumbra of experience, the half-shadow, the act of earthing and sublimating the spell uses the full shadow.\u00a0 Knowing about examines the witch from the outside, and knowing by acquaintance from the inside looking out, that is, looking out directly where the eyes are pointing.\u00a0 If knowing without words looks out obliquely where the eyes are not pointing, at the limits of perception, then this final non-knowing concerns what cannot be seen because it is behind the witch\u2019s head, and moves with the head as it turns.\u00a0 We are aware that there are things in back of us that we cannot see, and we know in general what they are from turning our heads.\u00a0 But how if there were things that remained in back of us, that turned with our heads and stayed in the shadows?\u00a0 The witch cultivates this feeling that there is something else, and hurls the cast spell into that feeling upon releasing the Cone of Power and dropping to her knees in the circle to ground excess energy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}