Description
The Mysterious Craft series is an exploration of advanced topics and experimental materials in the mythos of the Temple of Witchcraft. Each lesson consists of an audio .mp3 lecture and guided working from High Priest and Founder Christopher Penczak, along with written notes as a .pdf. The concepts explored are rooted deeply in the work of the Temple Tradition, and seek out the mysteries of the soul, deeper spirit contact and metaphysical evolution and consciousness expansion. The entire course is given as a whole and students can take it at their own pace.
Lecture Descriptions
The following are the lectures you receive as part of the class, including audio file recording and class notes.
Great Aeons and Cosmic Months: Along with our familiar cycles of the Sun and Moon through the year, we are influenced by cosmic epochs of time through the movement of the Cosmic Months and the Great Aeons. Time is divided in terms of astrological ages, yugas, aeons and underworlds. Explore the Precession of the Equinoxes and the Shift of the Pole Star and its influence upon the World. Understand the similarities and differences in this overview, but more importantly, explore your own soul’s story in the unfolding ages.
The Three Wells: Myths and folklore speak to the importance of wells, sacred to spirits, faeries, dragons and deities. Wells are particularly sacred to Bridget, and in the Glastonbury traditions of the red and white wells, as well as the Norse sagas. Learn about the role of the three wells feeding the World Tree in the Temple of Witchcraft mythos, wells of fate, life and memory, and how to answer the three sacred questions of the mysteries. Experience the blessings of the fire that flows and the waters that burns bright in your own magick.
Deity Tantra: Explore the techniques of Eastern deity tantra as applied in a modern Witchcraft mythos. Use sound, breath, intentions and visualization to awaken your own divine connections on a deeper level. Learn to honor and adore a particular deity, grounding in the practice of the three souls and three rays, making offerings and finally arising as the deity in this empowering magickal practice. Not a class on sexual tantra.
The Nine Maidens: Seek the mysteries nine maidens who appear in myth and witchy folklore. They manifest as the Nine Maidens of Awnnwn, warming the cauldron of the underworld with their breath, as well as the Nine Sisters of Avalon. They are the Nine Witches of Gloucester and the Nine Maidens of the Well. They are the Nine Marys and the Nine Muses. The nine sisters are teachers and tutors, healers and guides. Come and experience the nine sisters of the Otherworld through Celtic, Christian and Greek imagery in ritual and guided vision. See which one speaks to you and ask them for healing, wisdom, knowledge and power.
The Grail Castle: The Holy Grail is a mysterious thing, as, contrary to popular images, does not always appear as a cup. The Grail has many forms as a part of its mysterious. The grail can move through Five Miraculous Changes. Along with five changes, there are five sacred purposes, one for each of the changes of the Grail. Ask “Whom does the Grail Serve?” and restore the sacred contract of sovereignty between the People and the Goddess of the Land. Learn of the three sacred drinks and quest through the challenges of the Grail Castle in ritual and vision. Participants should prepare for this ritual with a month long journaling exercise.
The Witch’s Eight Winds: While many of us learn about the four elements in terms of the four Greek Winds – Boreas, Eurus, Notos and Zephyrus, the spirits of the winds differ from the elemental beings and archangels. Some divide the winds into a Wind Rose Compass of sixteen, while more common are the eight from the Tower of Winds. Irish tradition lists twelve colored winds. Some Witchcraft traditions look to the colored wind “airts”, or compass directions as red, black, white and gray, for quarter guardians. Work with a modern system of Eight Winds, their colors, spirits and sigils, to seek the Voice of Knowledge upon the Wind.
Akashic Grimoire: From the traditions of Edgar Cayce to modern lore on personal readings, the Akashic Records hold a strange fascination for us. Seen as the deep memory of the Earth, or the Odic Mantle, the Aura of our planetary being, we will learn to access wisdom from the Umbra and Akasha for our magickal evolution. Famed psychedelic Mazatec healer, or curandera, Maria Sabina, was granted a vision of the Book of Wisdom from those spirits she called the Principal Ones. Within this Book of Language, everything she would need to know to heal was written. Despite being illiterate, she absorbed a vast amount of spiritual knowledge and wisdom. Soon the book was assimilated unconsciously and she no longer had to see the answers in the book while in vision. Inspired by that same vision, we seek our own Book of the Principal Ones, the akashic source of magickal knowledge and wisdom for ourselves. And we will learn to integrate it into our being.
The Dream of the Underworld Pyramid: Along with the World Tree as the Axis Mundi that Shaman’s Traverse in vision, many culture look to a world mountain as the central point, the first mound to rise out of the primordial sea. From Mount Meru to Mount Olympus, we look toward the Earth that years for the heavens, and many believe the many obelisks and pyramids our ancient ancestors built year for this sacred center. Fringe scientists look at the core of the Earth as having an octahedronal structure, this guides our own dream of the Pyramid in the heart of the Underworld, and how each of the sacred steps is a process in our path of initiation.
Treasure Vases and Pots: Treasure Vases and Sacred Pots are a ritual technology to create a long term magickal vessel for a specific intention. Much of the technology is drawn from the Tibetan Buddhist magickal practices, and ostensibly appear to be involved in Wealth and Money manifestation, but are truly about manifesting right relationship between the self, mind and all of creation. They can particularly be used as offering to the land and land spirits where desecration and disharmony has occurred between humanity and nature. A similar practice for money manifestation can be found in folk magick practices of the Pot of Gold, and adapted for a deeper experience. Using deity invocation techniques, we will learn to empower such vessels as nexus, a sacred inner world temple for the benefit of all beings gathered to it.
Cave of the Nine Mothers: Work deeply with Nine Faces of the Mother Goddess. Join us in exploring our relationship with Blood Mother, Bear Mother, Bird Mother, First Mother, Green Mother, Deep Mother, Stone Mother, Sea Mother and the Great Mother. Discover their cave realms where life begins and where the threads of fate are woven.
Visiting the Water City: A key image from the Western Mystery Tradition is Atlantis, the sunken city that is the source of magick and civilization. Today, we doubt the physical existence of such a place while gathering evidence of the Global Maritime Civilization predating our notions of “civilization.” With myth and lore found in the work of Plato depicted the perfect city, to the mystery traditions of the Coven of Atho in Traditional Witchcraft, we’ll explore the vision of Atlantis akin to the eastern mandala of Shamballa. We will look to the lore and legends as a spiritual guide for understanding deeper magickal truths and step out of time to dwell within the Water City of the Ancients.
Laboratory in the Heart of the Earth: In the Heart of the World all things of form and function rise and take shape. All arises from the laboratory of the Holy Spirit, the sacred workshop of the shaper gods. Here things are transformed by the greatest alchemist of all time, Mother Nature herself. Learn to work with the deep telluric forces as alchemists and artificers, all in service to the Mother’s unfolding of life. Learn to tap into the secret heart and shape your own world more effectively.
Guardians of Opposition: Are you being tested? Are your challenges of your own making, or are they the result of cosmic forces? The answer is yes! Initiates of the occult traditions look to the guardians and the gatekeepers of consciousness, from the Gnostic tradition of Archons, to the role of the Watchers in Witchcraft as the Lords of Karma. All trials and tests of life are arranged by our own personal Watcher self as teachings and initiations into deeper levels of consciousness. Our spiritual practice allows us to practice that which we must put into use on the path of life, the initiate’s Golden Road.
… and two bonus lectures:
FEAR and the Inner Warrior with special guest Michael Cantone: In this Dark Moon meeting we will work with our inner warriors to understand “FEAR”. Please note: There are no pdf notes for this lecture.
Taurean Pandemonium with special guest Wrentek MacGown: We discuss enlightenment, endarkenment, responsibility, and chaos available through association with Pan. Explore the multifaceted multidimensional nature of the goat-footed God as we travel through his realms and back again. Please note: There are no pdf notes for this lecture.
