The Patterns of Wiccan Ritual

(Version 2.0)

an excerpt from

Witchcraft: A Concise History

Copyright © 1989, 2001 c.e., Isaac Bonewits

The Sources of Wiccan Ritual

Regardless of the conflicting historical claims about whether there was ever a “real” coven into which Gardner was initiated, it is very clear from his own notes that he could have created the root liturgy of what was to become known as Wicca from published sources and his own experiences in other Western occult organizations (books from several of which are known to have been in his personal library). I have studied first draft materials found in a hand-bound text Gardner called Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical, which he eventually developed into the first Book of Shadows. There is nothing there that can be demonstrated to be a remnant of a surviving underground British Paleopagan religion.

There is a saying among scholars, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” and generally this is true. However, in this situation missing evidence becomes quite important. People writing rituals almost always start by reworking ceremonial materials with which they are already familiar. As one example, the liturgies of the Episcopal and Lutheran churches resemble those of the Roman Catholic Church from which they sprung. For another, the rituals that Aleister Crowley wrote for his branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis — an offshoot of the Masons that he turned into a more magically oriented group — incorporate phrases and actions found in the older rituals of the Masons, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the initiation rites of the pre-Crowlean O.T.O. For a third example (which, of course, proves all), most of the early rituals of the Druid organization I founded, Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), included segments from the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) rituals I had learned years before; some of them, at least as I perform them, still do.

The earliest versions of Gardner’s initiatory and liturgical scripts are chock-full of obvious borrowings from the Masons, the Renaissance “Goetic” grimoires (magical books), the writings of Crowley, etc. There are no prayers, incantations, ritual actions, or liturgical patterns that reflect any sources other than the (Judeo-Christian) Western mainstream of occult tradition, the then-available published materials on anthropology and folklore, some tantric methods he could easily have picked up in the Far East or through Crowley, and some poetry lifted from Kipling and Yeats. If Gardner had attended genuinely Paleopagan rites in England, even if he were forbidden to put secret words and phrases down on paper, their patterns of worship should be visible in his private notes. Yet Paleopagan liturgical patterns are invisible in those notes.

At this point, the authenticity of Gardner’s “apostolic succession” from a Secret Underground Coven becomes irrelevant. If there was a real coven that trained Gardner, the members apparently didn’t show or tell him much of anything liturgical that was genuinely ancient or Pagan.

This may not matter much. Gardner was extremely creative. He changed the Goetic magical techniques to make them usable by small groups of people instead of solitary magicians. He rewrote the first three Masonic initiations to make them applicable to both men and women. He made sensuality and eroticism a central part (at least in theory) of his new/old religion by borrowing tantric techniques and symbolism. Finally, and most importantly, early in the 1950s he added Dion Fortune’s syncretic theology of Isis and Osiris (“All gods are one God and all goddesses are one Goddess”) and other polytheistic elements to make his creation genuinely Pagan — albeit Meso-. Around 1954, all of the notes he had made during the 1940s and early 1950s were transferred to a new book which became the first official Book of Shadows, and Ye Bok was retired to the back of a file cabinet, where it would lie forgotten for twenty years.

Whatever their origins, the first versions of the Wiccan rituals (especially those for the holidays) were extremely sparse, being usually only a page or two of text. Following Gardner’s advice that “it is ever better to do too much ritual than too little,” the members of his new religion added materials to them. Over the years the rites have expanded considerably, with enormous variations in detail but with the same liturgical structure usually being more-or-less retained.

Of course, Gerald also wrote in his personal BOS, according to Lamond, “As you gain in experience you can gradually reduce the amount of ritual and eventually drop it altogether. But newcomers must always be made to experience and practice the full rituals.” So you may feel free to take the following sections with a few grains of consecrated salt…

Current Variations in Wiccan Liturgical Structure

For a variety of historical reasons, most of them having to do with (1) the secrecy of which Wiccans are so fond, and (2) the seemingly constant necessity to invent new variations to convince students that one is not really stealing Gardner and Valiente’s material, there is no universal pattern for Wiccan ritual, although the general shape is similar from group to group. Different Traditions (denominations or sects) do more or less the same ritual things but in differing orders.

Almost all Traditions start with the participants doing some sort of personal purifications (herbal baths, fasting, etc.) before the ritual actually gets underway. These purifications are not prompted by a sense of impurity or sinfulness on the part of the participants, but rather reflect a need to begin focusing consciousness, clearing away irrelevant thoughts, and showing respect for the Goddess and God, as well as fellow coveners, much as members of many other religions do before attending services.

The quality of one’s clothing (or lack of it) is another cue to one’s inner being that sacred activities are about to take place, as well as another way to show respect to the Deities. The people attending the ritual therefore either dress in ceremonial robes or else strip down to a state of ritual nudity. The latter makes them “skyclad,” from a Jain term for naked sages living in the woods who abandon all social concerns and class distinctions in their quests for enlightenments.

Almost all Wiccan groups use a circle as the shape of their sacred space. Some have this shape physically marked on the ground or floor; most do not —which is why it often turns into a “magic oval”. Most will have candles or torches set up, either just inside or just outside of the circle’s line, at the North, South, East, and West intersections of two invisible lines drawn through the center of the circle. The spots are called “Quarter Points” or often just “the Quarters.” Whether the directions are marked accurately with a compass or loosely as the room or other factors make convenient, varies considerably.

Some Traditions have the almost universally used altar outside this circle when the rite begins; others place it inside either at the center or near one of the Quarter Points.

Some groups have everyone except the presiding clergy (usually a High Priestess or “HPS,” and a High Priest or “HP,” sometimes also a Maiden and/or a Green Man as assistants) wait outside the ritual area, usually in the Northeast (for reasons having to do with Masonic initiations), while it is prepared for the ceremony, and bring them in afterwards. Others have everyone in the circle from the start.

Traditions that have the people in the circle and the altar outside of it may start with a “spiral dance” as first described by Gardner in Witchcraft Today and later in Starhawk’s wildly influential The Spiral Dance. After everyone has spiraled into the center of the circle and spiraled out again, exchanging kisses along the way, and are once more standing in a circle holding hands, the ring will be broken and the altar brought in. Unfortunately, as all too many can testify, the spiral dance often turns into a spiral “crack the whip” — and no, I’m not referring to ritual scourging here! I usually don’t recommend it except to groups composed solely of young and healthy types dancing on a smooth, flat surface.

Salt and water are usually exorcised and/or blessed by the presiding clergy, sometimes along with other substances such as incense, oil, candles, etc. These items are used, either before or after the circle is “cast” (symbolically formed) to exorcise and/or bless the circle as a whole and/or all the people in it. As with the personal purifications mentioned above, exorcisms done in Neopagan rituals have little to do with banishing evil spirits and much to do with re-tuning the spiritual energies of the objects and/or persons involved to make them appropriate for the work at hand — much as a cook who had been chopping garlic would take care to wash his or her hands and the knife before beginning to chop the apples for a pie (at least we hope so!).

The circle is cast, usually, by having the High Priestess or Priest walk around it in a clockwise direction (except for some Wiccans in the Southern Hemisphere), starting at either the East Quarter Point (most common), the North (less common), or the South or West (both rare), with a consecrated sword, knife, wand, staff, or just fingers. These may be held in the air at any of several heights, pointed up, down, forward, or outward, or else dragged point-first along the floor or ground (the original technique in Ye Bok, where it was done by a male “Magus”) along the desired circle boundaries. The term “casting,” by the way, used to mean “cutting” or “carving,” which is why the Goetic magicians used sharp swords to actually mark the ground — and why a ceremonial Wiccan sword or knife should have a sharp point.

If the congregation waited outside the circle while it was cast, they will then be brought into it through a “gate” (usually in the Northeast if anyone is paying attention) either symbolically cut for them at that time, or left “open” during the casting process (and “closed” after their entry). People are brought into the cast circle in a formal fashion, generally with exchanges of passwords and/or kisses, often with aspergings, censings, annointings, etc. Groups that practice binding and scourging may do it at this point in the ceremony, both as a purification process and as a way to start a flow of intentionally erotic mana, and/or they may wait until after the “Quarter Point Invocations” have been done. (Mana is a useful Polynesian word that means magical, spiritual, artistic, emotional, athletic and/or sexual energy. I haven’t found another word yet that combines all these meanings so well.)

After the circle has been cast, exorcised, blessed, etc., and the people are all present inside it (perhaps also exorcised/blessed), a series of invocations are usually spoken, at each of the Quarter Points, aimed at spirits variously addressed as “the Mighty Ones,” or “the Lords of the Watch Towers,” or “the totem animals,” or “the nature spirits,” etc., or various gods and goddesses associated with the directions. Some groups will add an invocation to/from the center, and some to the nadir and zenith as well. All these invocations, by asking for the protection and cooperation of spiritual Gate Keepers finish the process of creating sacred space.

In Starhawkian Wicca and some of the other heterodox Trads, the circle casting, Quarter Point Invocations, exorcism/blessing of the circle and people, etc., can be done completely or fragmentarily, and in any order or all at once, depending upon the consensus and/or whims of the participants.

Once the circle is complete, there is often a ritual process of invocation or evocation done by the coven upon the HPS and known as “Drawing Down the Moon.” The intent is that the High Priestess (or sometimes all the women in the circle, or everyone in the circle) will be able to manifest the Goddess to the coven through divine inspiration, conversation, channeling, or possession.

In this context, inspiration refers to the reception of ideas from the Goddess which arrive as abstract concepts without any pseudo-sensory input, and which the HPS must then put into words of her own before passing them on. Conversation implies that she “hears” the Goddess’ voice (sometimes accompanied by a vision of Her) with which she can mentally converse, and specific phrases can then be communicated from the Goddess. Channeling (known a hundred years ago as “mediumship”) means that the Goddess uses the High Priestess’ vocal apparatus to speak directly with the others in what amounts to a light or partial possession.

In all three of these levels of spirit communication, the High Priestess’ awareness of her own spirit or soul is still in her physical body. In a total or full possession, however, she will usually leave her body while the Goddess controls it, and will often have no memory later of what her body was doing or saying while the deity was in it.

Sometimes, if she is sufficiently possessed by the Goddess invoked, the High Priestess may give the members of the congregation, individually or as a whole, pointed advice and information from the Goddess. More often the HPS will deliver a memorized speech known as the “Charge of the Goddess.” This has nothing to do with charging into battle or charging a bill to credit, but rather is from the Masonic habit of ceremonial officers giving “charges” (consisting of advice, expectations, and warnings) to their initiates. I suspect that the Charge was originally written so that an HPS who had failed to be inspired would have something worthwhile to say. Of course, being a good piece of prose — especially after Doreen Valiente rewrote it — the Charge is capable of being delivered in a truly electrifying manner that inspires new insights among the listeners.

A few Wiccan traditions will then do “Drawing Down the Sun” upon the High Priest (or again, sometimes upon all the men, or everyone in the circle). The HP may then deliver a “Charge of the Horned God” or other message from Him. Some traditions might do the drawing down of the God before that of the Goddess at certain holidays and/or only during certain seasons of the year. Many never do it.

Other forms of trance may be added to or substituted for Drawing Down the Moon and/or Sun. A ritual dance, more scourging, songs and chants, ritual dramas, initiations, handfastings (weddings) or other rites of passage, seasonal games, and/or spell-casting (in any combination and order) may follow or replace the Drawing(s) Down.

At some point, however, a ritual will be done which is known as “Cakes and Wine” (or “Cakes and Ale,” “Cookies and Milk,”etc.). This involves the blessing of food and drink by (usually) the High Priestess and the High Priest, then passing them around for the congregation to enjoy (the food and drink are passed around; hardly ever the clergy — darn it). Some traditions offer libations to the ground when outdoors, or in a bowl when indoors, before consuming the food and drink. Whether this communal meal is done before or after a rite of passage is performed or a spell is cast, and whether the meal is accompanied by general or topical discussion (if any), depends upon a given group’s theory of the meal’s function: Is it for strengthening the coven members before doing magic, or for filling them with energy from the God and Goddess, or for relaxing and reviving after magic has been done?

Along with or, usually, as part of the Cakes and Wine ceremony is a magical act known as the “Great Rite,” which is the primary symbol of the Sacred Marriage between the Goddess and the God, a central concept in Wiccan duotheology. The Great Rite was originally (in Gardner’s notes) ritual sexual intercourse between the High Priestess and High Priest — or sometimes by all the couples in the coven — done to raise magical power, bless objects, etc.

However, almost from the beginning of Wicca, it has been done symbolically (“in token,” as Gardner called it) rather than physically (“in true”) through plunging a dagger or wand into a cup to bless the wine or ale. Gardner was, after all, working with middle-class and working-class British occultists, not the lower-class or upper-class types who might have been less inhibited in their sexuality. The relaxed and healthy sexuality of the Paleopagans of ancient India or Britain was already long vanished, thus dooming his dream of a revived Western Tantra from the start. The few American Wiccans of the 1970s who attempted to restore this aspect of the religion were denounced as exploitative and politically incorrect by many in the Neopagan community and effectively silenced or cast out, with the result that the community lost any ability it might have had to establish appropriate ethical controls for such practices.

Occasionally the Great Rite is used as part of a spell-casting or initiation, or to consummate a handfasting. A handful of traditions insist that some or all of these functions require the sexual act to be physical rather than symbolic, but even these few traditions usually remove the acting couple from the sight of the rest of the coven.

When the participants are ready to end their ceremony, the Goddess and/or the God, as well as the entities invoked at the Quarter Points, will be thanked and/or “dismissed.” In some traditions, excess mana will be “grounded” (drained). These steps are done in varying order. At the end, the circle is often cut across with knife or sword, and/or the High Priestess walks quickly around it counterclockwise, and the ceremony is declared to be over.

There is confusion in the Wiccan traditions and literature over the use of the terms “open” and “closed” when referring to the magical state of the circle. Some groups will say “the circle is closed” early in the rite to indicate that the magical barriers have been fully erected (after casting and exorcism/blessing, etc.) and that therefore no one is to enter or leave without special permission and precautions (ritual “gate” making). Others will say, “the circle is closed” at the end of the rite, to mean that the ceremony has come to a close. Conversely, some traditions use the phrase, “the circle is open” at the other’s same early stage of the ritual in the sense of being “open for work” or the Gates between the worlds being open for communication with the Other Side. Still other groups will say “the circle is open” to mean that the ceremony is over and the magical barriers have been taken down. This conflicting use of terms can be very confusing until you find out how a given group functions. Originally, the circle was opened at the beginning and closed at the end, following the Masonic practice of “opening” and “closing” lodge ceremonies (whence Gardner took the terminology).

This whole collection of variations in Wiccan ceremonial patterns fits roughly within the “Common Worship Pattern” I have described elsewhere. Some Wiccan Traditions match it more closely than others. It has been my experience that Wiccan ritual can be far more powerful and effective, both thaumaturgically and theurgically, if a liturgical design is chosen that is as close a match as possible to the Common Worship Pattern. This can be accomplished most easily by adding the missing steps from that pattern.

One thing you might notice if you attend many Wiccan rituals is that they tend to be “top-heavy” — half to two-thirds of their liturgical structure consists of setting up sacred space and doing the preliminary power raising (calling the Guardians of the Quarters, etc.), with the supposed purpose for the rituals, the Drawing(s) Down and spell casting or rites of passage, taking much less time, and the unwinding of the liturgy being positively zoomed through. Perhaps these rites would be less top-heavy if extensive trance, dancing, or other mana generating and focusing methods were used for spell casting and/or rites of passage, instead of the five minutes’ worth common in current Wiccan rites. However, perhaps Gardner reasoned that modern Westerners need more time and effort to escape mundane reality than folks from other times and places did, so he deliberately elaborated the opening parts of the liturgy. Be that as it may, the ritual design presented next inserts the missing parts of the common worship pattern and makes the middle of the ritual more important than the beginning or the end.

The Pattern of a Generic Wiccan Rite

What follows is my expansion and ordering of the steps for a Wiccan ritual. I have done rites this way for decades now, with great success. I sincerely suggest that people experiment with adapting their liturgies to match this pattern.

The numbered items are the observable steps of the ceremony as it is performed.

Copyright © 1989, 2005 c.e., Isaac Bonewits. Unlike his other sharetext postings, this text file may NOT be freely distributed on the Net, since it is part of a published work—Witchcraft: A Concise Guide. Click here to buy it from Amazon.com. If you would like to be on one or more of Isaac Bonewits’ emailing lists, click here to get subscription information.