Threads of Aradia
What this publication is about, and its purposes.
Reality is illusory some philosophers, ancient or modern, will say, and nothing really matters.
For a long while, I thought this to be true as well. I learned in high school matter, atoms, and particles are the structure of the universe, and reality itself. Energy that vibrates at different speeds, and truthfully, nothing was truly as solid as we had thought. This scientific truth, as you will, is becoming mainstream to describe reality and back up the notion that it is all an illusion.
This isn’t a new thought, of course, for ancient beliefs and traditions across millennia have said the same thing with more or fewer words.
After several decades of walking the Earth, I have come to believe in something a bit more paradoxical. Indeed, we may live in an illusion or as a figment of a dream of the mind of the creator — but does that make anything less real?
I’ve prescribed to a current belief that alludes to groups of people with similar purposes as being from the same cloth. We are threads woven together in solidarity at a particular place on the great tapestry of creation. Like it or not, we are all connected, and some, woven more closely together than others. During this time and place, we are more connected to our peers of this period than to others who came before us.
People don’t think twice when they come into contact with others, but it’s all attributed to this web of connection.
We’re within the midst of a tumultuous period in human history. Great nationwide powers are vying for more leverage internationally. They’ve mired politics with lies, and the people in the U.S. and the west have been suffering under the weight of oppression. Every time the fight for equality moves forward, those in power, and their followers, push back and force us to start again with more obstacles than before.
Aradia became popularized by Charles Leland’s Gospel of the Witches, where he meets a Tuscan witch named Maddalena, who names Aradia as their goddess and messiah of the witches. He writes: Aradia is born of Diana, Goddess of the Moon, and Lucifer, God of the Sun and light bringer.
— Side note: Lucifer in this context aligns more with the Roman deity, rather than the Christianized devil. Although Lucifer, I like to believe, is a manifestation of the Horned God of witches. In this respect, he entails the good and the bad of the Horned God, which includes some of the very aspects that the devil embodies: rebellion, lustfulness, debauchery, enlightenment, and wild abandon. The gratification and deification of self, the enactment of one’s own and true will.
Although scholars do not believe the tales written by Charles Leland, many believe Aradia was a real person in antiquity, that spoke out against the wealthy and the upper classes that oppressed the lower classes.
She is thus a figure that represents the activism of witches to use their power to make the world a better place, and level the playing field against those who hold the upper hand, and misuse their power.
“The growth of Sentiment is the increase of suffering; man is never entirely miserable until he finds out how wronged he is and fancies that he sees far ahead a possible freedom.”
― Charles Godfrey Leland, Aradia: Gospel of the Witches
This is what I hope to achieve within this publication. To empower and embolden other practitioners, so that they will use what they’ve learned to make the world better, to be the great equalizer in a world that continuously uses and abuses its residents in the name of materialism.
Topics will range from activism, occult philosophies, witchcraft, cultural traditions from around the world, and lessons in witchcraft, basic or advanced. These will thus be the tools provided to empower my fellow witches and seekers of the crooked path.
References
- Leland, Charles Godfrey, 1824–1903. Aradia; or The Gospel of the Witches. London, D. Nutt, 1899.
- https://medium.com/@mitch-horowitz-nyc/familiarity-is-not-truth-b7839f001344
- https://classicalwisdom.com/philosophy/platos-allegory-of-the-cave/
- https://www.americanscientist.org/article/whats-everything-made-of
