Sabbat Wine of the Witches

Drink from the cup of Witches’ wine and remember ancient rites forgotten by time. 

Witchcraft is a practical system of mysticism whose method is known as magick. At the core of my experience of Witchcraft is a direct and personal encounter of the psychic reality. I have come to understand Witchcraft as a type of gnosis or mysticism through which communion with the Divine is the principle initiation. Akin to the Mystery Cults of the ancient Pagan world, the experiences hold an occult quality that may lead you far from the usual encounters of secular religion and into the practice of magick.

I believe this is exactly what the initiates of the old Pagan Mystery Cults experienced and precisely what Gerald Gardner, the father of modern Witchcraft, had in mind with the contemporary expression of Wicca (I use the terms Wicca and Witchcraft interchangeably).

My early encounter with practical magick was via the casting of spells learned from a man who had spent years living with the Spanish Gypsies. Marc de Pascale had published his collection of Gypsy sorcery under the title Book of Spells. He was a gifted psychic, a natural clairvoyant, and over an occasional exchange of tarot readings we became friends. His spellcraft worked well and it taught me to rely on my ability to wilfully cause results through visualisation. By candlelight I would enter a dreamlike state where desires took on ghostly forms, tangible and fluid-like. Later, I learned this manifestation had a name—the vinum sabbati or sabbat wine of the Witches.

The vinum sabbati is a substance not made of any ordinary fruits of the vine. Its roots draw from the rich, dark recesses of dreams. This ethereal fruit may be harvested under the light of the midnight moon, and fermented in a cauldron of dreams generated in the nocturnal trance of sleep. Whether awake or dreaming, the world of imagination is most acute in children, but some adults maintain this capacity. Although I didn’t realise it in my youth, for most of my life I have had a natural propensity to this type of imaginative impulse. In the practices of Witchcraft, I found methods to engage my psychic dreams, coupled with an overwhelming fascination to understand what was behind these twilight experiences.

I was in my first year of high school when I realised that there was something beyond the everyday reality. An incident occurred within my family home involving physical contact with an aberrant spectre, an entity which had haunted our home for years and was later identified as my paternal Grandmother. The family home faced onto the beachfront at Bondi and had been bought especially for my Grandmother. One sunny day as I stood in the room that overlooked the beach esplanade, ghostly hands gripped hold of both of my arms. I struggled to prise myself free. Her presence and power completely overshadowed me and I was forced to witness a distorted vision of a fierce storm happening outside.

The sky turned suddenly dark. From where I stood I could see something like a king tide had entirely swamped the beach. Winds acting like a vacuum sucked windows straight out of the apartments and homes along the entire esplanade. I shook with fear and somehow managed to liberate myself from my spectral grandmother’s grip. As soon as I had left the room, everything returned to normal. Later, I was to learn she had passed away in that room. As frightening as this had been, the event triggered a major turning point.

My first reaction was to approach my science teacher to find out if he could offer any logical explanation. It took me a week to summon enough courage to broach the subject with him. Although he was a high-school science teacher and a good one by my estimation, he was also a Christian Brother. They were like a separate breed, knowledgeable but unapproachable. Unfortunately, his response consisted of a clichéd, ‘Well my son, there are some things in this world we just can’t explain.’ I wasn’t sure whether he was speaking as a scientist or as a Christian, but either way I was devastated that he had no answers. The subject was never again raised at school.

This led me to my second choice, which proved much more productive. I turned to books. Reading brought a new and very hidden world gradually into the light. The occult in Sydney during the late 1960s consisted mainly of astrologers, spiritualists and incense-burning hippies, some of whom had tarot cards but didn’t know how to use them.

There was the ‘Witch of Kings Cross’, Rosaleen Norton, but she was totally reclusive. Therefore my mentor became the pages within these scarce and treasured volumes. I read Gerald Gardner’s book Witchcraft Today and a number of things struck an immediate cord. I had been instinctively practising many of the techniques used by Witches to encounter the psychic reality.

From 1973 I began to formally practise the Wiccan traditions of Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders. (After all, what is the point of tradition unless you follow it?) Sanders did for the 1970s generation of seekers what Gardner had done in the 1950s—only on a scale that Gardner could not have imagined. Sanders’s style of the Old Religion was a fusion of Qabalah, Hermetics and Wicca. Stewart Farrar very eloquently describes his teachings and influence in his book What Witches Do.

The shift to coven-based Wicca provided the structure necessary for me to work with others. I set about in the development of the first coven in Adelaide by performing a ritual to invoke the moon Goddess with the purpose of attracting others of like mind. Up to that point, much of my Witchcraft had been focused around practical magick. Although this provided me with the basis for occult development, it was more result driven and didn’t enable me to experience the Divine of which Gardner and Sanders spoke; and which I now understood was central to a complete initiation into Witchcraft. During the first year there was a lot of exploration, circle orientation for southern hemisphere conditions, the initiatory grade structure and, in particular, experiments in trance and clairvoyant states.

By 1974 the coven consisted of a diverse group of people. There was Chris, who worked by day as a personal assistant and assumed the role of principle priestess for the coven. There was her younger sister Ros, Alex a policeman, Christine an antique dealer, and Alastair a university student and practitioner of Tantra. A few months later, Linda, a teacher of Italian, joined. Linda teamed up with me to lead the coven in the development and formal training of potential members.

We met frequently in the private covenstead of my home in Melbourne Street, North Adelaide, a street better known at the time for doctors, dentists and architects. Affectionately called the ‘Witch’s Cottage’ by the locals, my home, and I, had developed something of a reputation by challenging the Law in a landmark court case over my right to read tarot cards and do psychic consultations in a professional capacity. The ‘Witch of North Adelaide’, as I had become known, was a regular identity seen in the evenings walking down to Café Istanbul with coven members and other students of the occult in tow.

At least once or twice a week we would cast the circle and practise some form of trance induction, and train in the ‘Black Arts’ as the neighbours liked to think. Some of our initial methods included staring into bowls of inky-water, gazing into black mirrors, or using the strange, mirrored Witch ball – a mirrored glass ball usually hung in the window to avert evil. Witch balls have been very popular from at least the eighteenth century. Using these devices for scrying induced the desired change in consciousness. At the start, these experiments helped to open our awareness of the subtle etheric field (life energy) surrounding the body, but eventually we could also see this energy field around the objects themselves. As we progressed in these methods, they led us to try other techniques that resulted in deeper visionary experiences. We were now using more active techniques including special breathing exercises and hypnotic dances.

At the same time I was exploring other occult traditions. One of the major influences in the Western Magickal Tradition is the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded in 1887). Their initiations taught a procedure for trance via a set of astral doorways. These are a set of specially coloured symbols representative of the elements. Using them as a focal point, the practitioner begins to mentally journey through and into the astral world beyond. We used this focused projection of consciousness with our trance techniques to open the psyche into direct experiences. On occasion, spontaneous out-of-body episodes (astral projections) would occur. These encounters with the psychic reality began to trigger events in our everyday lives, frequently resulting in significant life changes. Such as on the occasion when I awoke from an afternoon nap after having had a hair-raising ‘astral joyride’ in a friend’s car, which was being stolen at that very moment. We rushed to the garage only to find my experience was more than a dream.

My perception of reality has undergone dramatic change as a consequence of these encounters. Years later I came to refer to these events as ‘occult darshan’. Darshan is a Sanskrit term for a direct and personal mystical experience. Studying Gardner, I found he was particularly interested in how Witches awakened an energy field around the body. In his book Witchcraft Today, he guardedly outlined some of the Witches’ methods and how their rituals were designed to open a space outside of the normal reality. Using a formula of ritual magick, he demonstrated how the Witch cast a magick circle as a doorway to an objective psychic reality and, more significantly, offered examples of what it was used for. He postulated that a current of energy around the body acted as a bridge between the mundane and the psychic. With the aid of ritual magick, this natural but excited energy could be amplified by using the Witches’ circle. Such rituals could move an individual’s awareness outside of time and space. Gardner explained the ultimate purpose in creating this bridge was to experience encounters with the Divine.

Examples of this communion are found in the performance of such rituals as Drawing Down the Moon, a ritual designed specifically to channel the spirit of Luna, the ancient Pagan Goddess of the moon and initiation. The root words for both moon and mind are the Indo-European manas and mana; the derivative mania originally meant an ecstatic revelation. Likewise, lunacy meant possessed or chosen by the spirit of Luna. Gardner examined how a corresponding psychic reflex could be invoked. Many of the procedures used by Witches cause an altered or heightened state of consciousness as a necessary stage to facilitate initiation and direct experience of the Divine.

We mark this round and cast this rune
Upon this night in the sight of the moon
Our bare feet mark this Witches’ round
And thus it becomes hallowed ground

(Tim Hartridge, from the rite Lumen in Tenebrae)

The coven membership had expanded and with it our need for a more dedicated space. We rented a large old house in an inner suburb of Adelaide. It was perfect for our needs and, not surprisingly, had a witchy number – thirteen. We painted the whole house; the ritual room standing in stark contrast to the rest of the rooms with its deep indigo-blue walls and stained red cedar floorboards with the Witches’ circle painted on them. This became the physical heart of the coven’s ritual practice.

Hypnotic, strangely soothing, the Witches’ mantra named and called to the twilight spirit to draw down. The lithe spirit entered into the midnight-room. Weaving the magick of the sonorous spell, as ancient as humankind, the Witches called to the moon. The supreme and archaic Witch Goddess, ruler of the deep indigo night, the ethereal shape-shifter who bestows mana upon Her chosen. The voice of the Goddess’s Priestess sang the charm to the night and the moon, calling the Lunar Goddess to draw near. Other voices joined, summoning the bright Goddess into the Witches’ circle. A spirit of the night responded and I felt afloat as though on the flowing tide. The deeper the echoes chanted, the more I sank into an emotional sea mixed with currents of excited joy and engulfing sadness. Luna was with us, She who rules the oceans, lovers and lunatics. I was immersed in an atmosphere both brightly charged and darkly intoxicating. She began to appear. Gliding into the sensuous bodies of the Witches and gazing out through their eyes, She was all around me, in the faces of these wild Witches and in the rhythm of the dance, She whirled around and around me. The lunar current swarmed tangibly and surreally in the sea of incense in which we swam. In the centre was a dark iron cauldron and out of it danced a flame. The scarlet fire rose and flared with such force it wound and spiralled up into the air. It transformed into a massive leviathan, and from out of the black cauldron it bellowed a flood of flame like a firestorm. Awe, terror, thrill, intensity poured out in a powerful cone of bright fire, engulfing my body and brain.

Such encounters taught me a great deal. If the Goddess had been an ideal, something not quite real to me, then experiences like these changed all this. I instinctively knew She stalked me, occasionally leaving me hints and clues where I should look to find Her. if the Goddess had seemed more like a yearning for something far away, like lovers kept apart by the cruel circumstance of Fate, then through such initiatory experiences Her presence was felt most acutely in my life.

It was while working with others that powerful archetypal energy began manifesting in the coven. The shadow Gods like to challenge our conditioning, testing in us what is true and what is false. The amphibious Hekate was chief amongst the Gods to pique the cosy coven. She stirred things to create a divine hell-broth which brought home the words of warning of poet Robert Graves in The White Goddess: ‘. . . the Goddess whom you adore . . . she demands either whole-time service or none at all.’ The amphibious nature of Hekate would take the coven circle from the dry land of the logical intellect into the watery realms of dreams and astral experiences.

Chris, the Priestess with whom I worked, had some propensity for trance. We both instinctively knew it was time to invoke the Archeron Goddess of the Underworld so I designed a ritual in which we might take advantage of trance mediumship. The ritual would also be our induction into the archaic mysteries of the patron and Queen of Witches. The initiation was deeply emotional and I began to change. If I had been a reluctant and ignorant initiate up until then, I now felt the influence the Goddess would play in my destiny.

From that moment on, I knew we had been taken under the wing of the nightshade Goddess. Not too surprisingly, my confidence grew and the work in the coven became deeper. I realised, too, that initiation was more than simply joining the club. I gradually began to understand my relationship with Witchcraft in terms of an inner initiation and an outer connection with coven members and others of like mind. I began to question the literalism with which others understood their roles as Witches. My explorations were challenging many of the accepted protocols. The Witch in me frequently appeared more as an unexpected eruption of the unconscious. As if encountering a fascinating stranger, I didn’t recognise myself in these moments.

Although I didn’t have the language to describe the nature of these happenings, I knew one thing – in the make-up of my personality I was not a Witch 24 hours of the day. Instead, I began to recognise that at certain times this psychic function of the Witch would emerge, usually during times of emotional stress. I began to embrace the idea of Witchcraft more as a psychic phenomenon of the Self, and this opened up many new possibilities. Principally, Witchcraft was less about religion and more to do with the practice of  magick as a function of the psyche.

All my early research and spellcraft provided me with some skills to share with the members of our developing coven. Our desire to explore magick sometimes resulted in a number of amusing outcomes – as on the occasion when we decided to conjure a  rainstorm. Summer in Adelaide can be gruellingly hot. This time of year is very dry with a desert-like climate due to the northerly airstreams coming directly from Central Australia. During January and February the expectation of a naturally occurring thunderstorm is as likely as a visit from Elvis. Despite the odds, this is what we were attempting. We set about logically evoking water elementals, which we bound into knotted cords. The technique enables the Witch to simply release the knots on the desired day for rain. I did this and for good measure cracked the cords like a stock whip to stir up the winds of a storm. By five o’clock that afternoon, in the sweltering heat, an unnoticed black storm cloud had gathered directly over North Adelaide where I lived. A powerful downpour lasting several minutes ensued, followed by something like a Turkish steam bath in the street.

Several of the major TV and radio stations broadcast from North Adelaide and so the evening news weather reports spoke of a ‘freak rainstorm over North Adelaide!’. Needless to say I was elated and out I danced into the street. Before long the telephone began to ring with calls from coven members: ‘Was that us?’ However, my joy was soon diverted to problems with the plumbing, which never seemed to be permanently fixed, and an equally annoying case of genital crabs (the sexual organs are ruled astrologically by Scorpio which is the fixed water sign). While I don’t adhere to such Wiccan concepts as the Threefold Law, I was beginning to appreciate a need for balance.

After almost a decade of practising coven-based Witchcraft, changes were occurring and it was happening from the inside out. I had mastered most aspects of contemporary Witchcraft and was now more confident to rely upon my own conclusions. But the Gods were stirring the cauldron again and this time I was the medium.

Many contemporary forms of Wicca place the emphasis upon the Priestess in the coven. This is especially true in the celebration of the full moon or Witches’ esbat. At these rites the Priestess is the one who is said to actually draw down the spirit of the moon Goddess into herself, while the Priest plays little more than a support role.

The one thing I noticed was this drawing down did not always happen, and more than that, I might experience the Goddess regardless! So I began looking into what was really happening during the full moon esbats and other sacred rites. Not surprisingly, I realised that I had been too rigid and literal in my understanding of the rite, or indeed its intended purpose. I suddenly thought, what if drawing down the moon really meant manifesting Lunar consciousness, and not just in the Priestess but in anyone present at the rite? Almost immediately, I began to be subjected to an immense flood of Lunar influences. These began with an insomnia at the time of the full moon. During these periods I would sometimes hear the ethereal sound of a woman’s voice calling the names of the Goddess – Ma, Binah, Moon, Ea, Ge.

Spontaneously, I began to sing these names in a chanted melody. Like a bottled-up dam, the floodgates burst open and offered a passionate out-pouring. The soulful sounds of this Lunar mantra are a powerful spell, and one that the present coven still uses more than twenty years later. It has had an enduring quality, which has proven effective in connecting to the Lunar current of the White Goddess. The experience also produced some unexpected psychic reflexes. I was given access to glimpses of past-life memories: a more recent past life in which I was a paratrooper shot down during World War II and drowned behind enemy lines. Other even more unexpected encounters were astral visits to other Witches’ sabbats both in the past and present. This was not an entirely unfamiliar occurrence because I began to recall how, in my early teens while exploring the occult and the tarot, I had had shadow memories about unfamiliar ritual procedures. One time I even went so far as to build a stone altar based upon such a memory. I constructed it from old stone and brick in an abandoned part of an adjoining garden and used it to invoke the wild energies of the place with offerings of candles and flowers. I would feel an immense sense of solace while communing there amongst the huge Moreton Bay fig trees that overshadowed my small temenos. Unfortunately I had to abandon and dismantle my shrine because my father found it and became convinced that the neighbours were practising black magic.

These shadow memories have persisted throughout my life so that I am never surprised to learn that some ritual I have constructed has a near-identical twin with other Witches living on the other side of the world, or that it was some supposedly top-secret magickal procedure known only to the initiated. Despite having had many psychic experiences, I was for a long time in denial of these abilities. I didn’t know if I could trust these shadow memories, especially what I have come to  identify as recollections from past lives. On occasion these might occur right in the middle of a ritual and act to cause total confusion for anyone else working with me. Despite the inconvenience to my fellow coven members, I would proceed to steer the ritual in some completely new direction. Because of this ability to tap into these shadow memories, I now count amongst my achievements some of the most successful large-scale rituals conducted at Australian Pagan festivals.

On a more mundane level, Luna was making Her presence felt. For the first time, I allowed a friend to read my horoscope, revealing that I carried a permanent full moon in the water sign of Scorpio. On a positive side this may manifest as deeply-felt emotions and sensitivity; in a negative aspect it can lead to depression. The condition is triggered each time the moon returns to its natal position. A full moon will occur once a month when the sun is directly opposite. The moon is also the place of one’s soul, and at full moon is turned toward one’s spirit (sun).

Speaking in psychological terms, it is likened to the direct flow between the conscious and unconscious. The father of modern psychology, C. G. Jung, wrote in terms of the light of Consciousness bringing to bloom the flower of the Unconscious. Sound and music began playing a more significant role in my ritual work. In particular, I was exposed to the Shamanic drum trance techniques as taught by Dr Michael Harner (see ‘Further reading’). I would combine these techniques with my own instinctive and experimental methods. Some years before I had also explored the use of the resonant qualities of the Chinese gong and its effects on consciousness. The gong has some unique qualities and benefits over other percussive instruments. I found that its shimmering sound waves aid in parting the psychic reality, so the Witch may slip through the openings and gaps created. It is not unusual to hear people report, after I have taken them through this technique, that they thought either the ritual room or I had disappeared during the rite.

Around 1975 I had purchased a ritual gong through a friend, Alan, who runs an antique business in Adelaide. Alan had quite a story to tell about the ‘satanic’ gong, as he liked to call it, and was clearly pleased (or relieved) that I decided to take it.

(Tim Hartridge holding the ritual gong. Photo by T. Hartridge and V. Hall. )

The gong has attracted many unusual psychic and physical phenomena over the years. Its history is similarly curious – constructed in Europe during the eighteenth century, about a hundred years later it was procured for the practice of Haitian Voudoun ceremonies, at which time it was inscribed with the ritual vevers (symbols). I discovered that by using the gong’s reverberant qualities, and by applying a rapid, percussive technique, I could produce a sound to provoke trance.

As well as the use of sonic devices and techniques, ritual dance also helped to aid a shift in consciousness. Dance is one of the eight specific methods mentioned by Gardner for producing magickal effects. Dance is particularly useful in raising a psychic phenomenon known as the cone of power, which may occur spontaneously when the dynamic ritual dance is performed in a coven.

Examining many of the practices of Witchcraft reveals that these methods help to facilitate the emergence of the archetypal Witch from within the psyche. For example, the active participation in inspired ritual helps to transport the practitioner out of the normal routines of life. Also, methods that heighten sensuality will assist in shifting the ritualist into an altered state of consciousness. Sensuality in this context should not automatically be equated with sexual libido, but has more to do with an arousal of the senses. In other words, anything that assists the ritualist to ‘go native’ will help them to enter the mythic reality. The use of aromatic sabbat oils rubbed into the body before or during ritual, the use of ritual nudity (skyclad), or the play of frenetic dances, especially when done around a central fire, are all effective triggers. If you can step aside from the centre focus of self-consciousness (the real meaning of the word ecstasy), then an altered state of consciousness will occur. This can be encountered by any sincere person prepared to explore their wild and uninhibited nature, for it is in these neglected places of the psyche that the archetypal Witch can thrive and be directly experienced.

Many modern books fail when it comes to useful teachings in the practice of magick and Witchcraft. This is because they are more about following a tradition without having first explored personal psychic experiences. Many authors are content to let their readers simply follow the prescribed rituals, rather than developing an inner understanding. This is little better than playing at being the Witch.

Without a means of connecting to the magickal current, these types of rituals remain inert. Therefore, the first thing I emphasise to the student of Witchcraft is the importance of connecting to the chi of the ritual, meaning its life energy or spirit. Once this is done, an authentic experience will follow.

In contrast, the writings of magician Kenneth Grant are an excellent resource for any student of the occult. Grant’s background in writing began in the late 1950s. In 1989 a series of his essays was reprinted under the title Hidden Lore, including one of the more significant essays entitled ‘Vinum Sabbati’. This deals with a comparative interpretation of the alchemical symbology of Witchcraft. Grant suggests that much of the imagery of the Witches’ sabbat are symbolic motifs of astral phenomena, and that the Witch makes such phenomena manifest in the ‘latent wish’. This is a primitive urge for union with the Divine. Grant identifies the vinum sabbati as an intoxicating sabbat wine ostensibly brewed from dreams, astral essences and the trance of the ritual participants. I knew I had tasted the vinum sabbati as the product of the psychic reflex.

The arguments for and against a preference in describing oneself as either a Witch or Wiccan evidence a great deal of literalism on the part of those who practise Witchcraft. But what if becoming a Witch is more a psychic phenomena of the Self? It is less, then, about religion and more to do with the practice of magick and initiation into the Mysteries. This is the domain of the archetypal Wild-Witch, who unapologetically awakens from deep within the psyche. When being a Witch is experienced in this way, as our link to the natural, we may begin to re-animate our primitive and forgotten powers. These natural instincts may manifest in a variety of familiar and unfamiliar forms. Our intuition is one such form, while others include clairvoyance, astral and psychic projections, and even a natural ability to heal. The Witch’s Craft may be thought of as the ability to bend and enter the psychic reality at will through the many techniques of trance.

This approach in using an alternative interpretation to what it may mean to be a Witch places a greater emphasis upon the personal psychic function and the importance of personal experience. By looking for the Witch within, we may begin to think in terms of wanting to do more than simply learn from others. We are more likely to seek self-initiation into the Mysteries; to show initiative in the contribution to our own psychic study and knowledge base; and we will almost certainly find greater value in our own experiences above those of others as a basis for belief.

Currently I work within a coven based in the inner-west of Sydney. I still teach and conduct workshops that explore the wide variety of ritual techniques I’ve acquired over the years. I am just as curious and fascinated by other peoples’ experiences as I am with my own and have found the practice of Witchcraft deeply enriching.

For me it is not a spiritual practice which claims to know it all, but it certainly challenges me to ask ‘why’. Perhaps old Gerald Gardner had it right when he spoke of Witchcraft in the following terms:

‘It is the old case of: Unless you experience it yourself you will never believe. When you have experienced it, you don’t believe, you know.’

Further reading

Stewart Farrar, 1971, What Witches Do, Phoenix Publishing, Arizona

Gerald Gardner, 1954, Witchcraft Today, Anchor Press, Essex

Kenneth Grant, 1975, Cults of the Shadow, Skoob Books, London

Kenneth and Steffi Grant, 1989, Hidden Lore, Skoob Books, London

Michael Harner, 1980, The Way of the Shaman, HarperCollins, San Francisco

Carl G. Jung, 2000, Collected Works of C G Jung, McGuire, Adler,

Fordham and Read (eds), Princeton University Press, Princeton

Marc de Pascale, 1971, Book of Spells, Thomas Nelson, Sydney

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