Charge of the Goddess
Encyclopedia
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Book of Shadows
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek
or Roman mythology
, others from Celtic
or Arthurian
legend
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
:
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Isis
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
's The Golden Ass
, Isis
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
. Doreen Valiente
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
and adapted it into verse
, and later into another prose
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
}- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
}- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers. The most well known version is that written by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, and rewritten by his High Priestess Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
in the mid 1950s, which is contained within the traditional Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
Several different versions of a Wiccan Charge of the God have since been created to mirror and accompany the Charge of the Goddess.
Themes
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
or Roman mythology
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, others from Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
or Arthurian
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
:
- Listen to the words of the Great Mother; she who of old was also called among men ArtemisArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Astarte, Athene, DioneDione (mythology)Dione was a Greek goddess primarily known as the mother of Aphrodite in Book V of Homer's Iliad. Aphrodite journeys to Dione's side after she has been wounded in battle protecting her favorite son Aeneas. In this episode, Dione seems to be the equivalent of the earth goddess Gaia, whom Homer also...
, MelusineMelusineMelusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
, AphroditeAphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Cerridwen, DanaDanu (Irish goddess)In Irish mythology, Danu is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann . Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.-Name:...
, ArianrhodArianrhodArianrhod is a figure in Welsh mythology who plays her most important role in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. She is the daughter of Dôn and the sister of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy; the Welsh Triads give her father as Beli Mawr...
, IsisIsisIsis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, BrideBrigidIn Irish mythology, Brigit or Brighid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was the wife of Bres of the Fomorians, with whom she had a son, Ruadán....
, and by many other names.
This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
was known by ten thousand names.
The second paragraph is largely derived and paraphrased from the words that Aradia, the messianic daughter of Diana, speaks to her followers in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. The third paragraph is largely written by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, with some phrases adapted from The Book of the Law
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. Its full title is Liber AL vel Legis, sub figura CCXX, as delivered by XCIII=418 to DCLXVI, and it is commonly referred to as The Book of the Law.Liber AL vel Legis contains three...
and The Gnostic Mass by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
The charge affirms that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred to the Goddess.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices,
for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.
Therefore, let there be beauty and strength,
power and compassion, honor and humility,
mirth and reverence within you.
Ancient Precedents
In book eleven, chapter 47 of ApuleiusApuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
's The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess". This is rather different to the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.
Wiccan Charge
The earliest known Wiccan version is found in a document dating from the late 1940s, and draws extensively from Charles Godfrey LelandCharles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
and other modern sources, particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The oldest identifiable source is the 17th century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili
Ali Puli
Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical and hermetic texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E...
(or Ali Puli).
It is believed to have been compiled by Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
or possibly another member of the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a student of Gardner, took his version from his Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
and adapted it into verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, and later into another prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
version.
The initial verse version by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
consisted of eight verses, the second of which was :
- Bow before My spirit bright
- Aphrodite, Arianrhod
- Lover of the Hornéd God
- Queen of witchery and night
Valiente was unhappy with this version, saying that "people seemed to have some difficulty with this, because of the various goddess-names which they found hard to pronounce", and so she rewrote it as a prose version, much of which differs from her initial version, and is more akin to Gardner's version. This prose version has since been modified and reproduced widely by other authors.
External links
- "The Sources of the Charge of the Goddess" an analysis by Ceisiwr Serith
-