“The language of symbolism and allegory is important to almost all understandings of magic, accessing a means of depicting and apprehending the more fluid and intuitive, creative modes of experience. Symbols, it should be noted, are words or other means of depiction which convey more than literal understanding. Allegory, further more, makes purposeful use of symbols in a narrativised form to divulge a much richer sense of meaning and perspective.
Symbolism works in many fascinating and useful ways, providing us with a more complex, nuanced, and artistic expression of experience. Languages in the past, and in many cases still today, contained double meaning and poetic inference, being beautiful in a generalised way.”
Ian chambers, The Witch Compass, 163-4
The Witch Compass: Working with the Winds in Traditional Witchcraft is now available form all good book stores, or direct from the publisher, Lllewellyn.
“…with witchcraft firmly established in collective psyche since the mid-twentieth century, there are several traditions who can now legitimately claim historic continuity, but that is not where the strength of the tradition lies. No; tradition’s strength resides within the people who keep it alive, and what they do with it.”
– From When is Witchcraft Traditional, by Ian Chambers. Full article here.
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