We of the Old Religion have our own particular compact with our deities that charges simply"An it harm none, do as ye will." And our gods do not despise us for being human but delight in our celebrations of life and love. We are ageless sould, only for a while whithin bodies, merely visitiors upon this plane. We are brothers to the gods and only temprrarily cousins to the ape, and our lives belong to us, not to this world nor to its earthly governors. We are not doomed to shame and decay; not lost; not indentured to perish with earthly manifestations; not disposed to eternal misery for any past or present lapses of courage or wisdom. We are as children in the school of life who must learn our lessons, on life at a time, before we graduate. Our lives span the march o time, striving upward, subordinate only to our individuality probity and growth.
But in this mortal life, greedy, trivial heirohants and mundane rlers have perpetrated a fraud upon humanity. They have purloined for profit and for temporal power, our legitimate heritage, and that of all society, and have substituted for it sahme, despait, and fear, inventing evil deities to terrify and to constrain mankind from the exercise of his own native conscience.
Still we take our uncertain portion time and again, joining with the species on this palne, only to meet with earthly disunity and distress; only to be told by bogus, uncelestial sheperds that we are deficient and fundamentally iniquitous; constantly rebuked that our natural birthright is insubstantial or even sinful, and that we must cleave to the pious injunctions of reigning mortals, no atter how oppresive, or suffer beyond measurable time, yearning for some myhtical golden glory just out of reach, but somehow never qite worthy of it.
That is the apocryphal hell and the fabled satan; they are of mortal creation; they are now, not in some remote bye and bye; and those who choose to beleive in them perpetuate them in this earth. But nevertheless, by sblime design, despite narrowness, folly or fear, we all, each and everyone, possess this wondrous legacy:
that each of us sustains a singualr covenant with teh cosmic, in that the soul is and ever was, onw with the universe, conducting itself in concordance with the absolute. And whatever paths it may walk, o whichever fairth it may follow, on sojourn at a time, each shall as a consequence of that onenes, and attuning with its destiny, eventually return on its own to its source to again be part of that totality, atoned, aware, and unshackled.
Hear now the words of the witches, The secrets we hid in the night, When dark was our destiny's pathway, That now we bring forth into light.
Mysterious water and fire, The earth and the wide-ranging air, By hidden quintessence we know them, And will and keep silent and dare.
The birth and rebirth of all nature, The passing of winter and spring, We share with the life universal, Rejoice in the magical ring.
Four times in the year the Great Sabbat returns, and the witches are seen at Lammas and Candlemas dancing, On May Eve and old Halloween.
Whe nday tie and night time are equal, when sun is at greatest and least, The four lesser Sabbats are summoned, And Witches gather in feast.
Thirteen silver moon in a year are, thirteen is the coven's array. Thirteen times at Esbat make merry, for each golden year and a day.
The power that was passed dow he age, Each time between woman and man, each century unto the other, ere time and the ages began. When drawn is the magical circle, by sword or athame of power, its compass between two world lies, in land of he shades for that hour. This world has no right then to know it,
And world of beyond will tell naught. The oldest of Gods are invoked there, the Great Work of magic is wrought.
For the ttwo are mystical pillars, that stand at he gate of the shrine, and two are the powers of nature, the forms and the forces divine.
The dark and the light in succession, the opposites each unto each, shown forth as a God and a Godeess: Of this our ancestors teach.
By night he's the wild wind's rider, the Horned One, the Lord of the Shades, by day he's the King of the Woodland, the dweller in green forest glades.
She is youthful or old as she pleases, she sails the torn clouds in her barque, the bright silver lady of midnight, the crone who weaves spells in the dark.
The master and mistress of magic, that dwell in the deeps of the mind, immortal and ever renewing, with the power to free or to bind.
So drink the good wine to the Old Gods, and dance and make love in their praise, till Elphame's fair land shall recieve us, in peace at the end of our days.
And Do What You Will be the challenge, so be it Love that harms none, for this is the only commandment. By Magic of old, be it done!
