The Triad of the Goddess (Found among Gardner's papers which had been purchased by Ripley's from the

Witchcraft museum on the Isle of Man) In this short article, I intend to convey to the reader a little of the theology of the Wica. I am doing this for two main reasons. The first is that so many people are completely unaware that witchcraft is a religion at all; they merely regard it as something vague to throw rotten eggs at. The second is to try and help those people, like myself that have a sympathy with the Craft, to understand a little more about it. I should now say, most emphatically, that I am not a great expert on the theology of witchcraft. I am a practicing witch who has taken the time to try and understand the deeper implications of my religion. A religion that worhips a Goddess and has long proclaimed its principles of fertility to the four corners of the globe. The name under which I worship the Goddess I am forbidden to reveal, She is forever known to students of mythology and folklore under a variety of names. This presents something of an anomaly from the start, how a number of pagan mythological Goddesses can be one and the same person? The answer I feel can be derived form a saying of Voltaire's, "That man created God in his own image." A saying which few people that I have met seem to be able to understand. Of course men must view their Gods and Goddesses as their own creations, as long as they confine that view to their physical ideas of a particular deity. Once a person begins to create, as opposed to interpret, the mind of a deity, then he is stepping seriously out of line. A physical representation is merely a mental simile to enable an easier understanding of something complex. Thus it could be said that there is no such thing as a mythological God or Goddess. For instance, Aphrodite really existed because there is a fine Roman sculpture of her in Naples National Museum, she was also depicted on a mural at Pompeii and has been artistically represented in many places at many times. Such protrayals are not artistic images of something that never existed, they are physical expressions of something very real, but something that must be created, at least physically in the eye of the beholder. Mony of these art forms show a triple aspect to the God to Goddess which they represent. A fine example is the triple headed sculpture of Cernunnos at Beaune Museum. Triple, dual and indeed other combined aspects of deities have been known to literature, art and students of comparative religions for a long time. There were, and are, many triunes, a lot of them being far older than the Christian representation of God the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. Some of these trinities are composed of three separate deities being unites into one common triune of worship. An example of such is the triad of Vrahmin, Vishnu and Siva, respectively the creator, preserver and (according to some authorities) the destroyer of life and matter. I feel that the word "changer" would be better substituted for destroyer. All sorts of interpretations can be, and have been, put onto various trinities of differing religions. These arguments give enough meat for many pages of probably pointless debate. All that I am concerned with here is the triple aspect of the Goddess of the Witches, to me my views are absolutely right; I do not expect them to be so equally right with others. There would be something wrong if thise were so. I simply intend to make people think, constructively if

possible, and at the same time perhaps assist those who do not know the Goddess to understand a little of Her nature. The triad of the Goddess to which I refer can best be summed up by the words LOVE:DEATH:REBIRTH. Note that the cycle starts with love, and not with birth. To start such a triune cycle with birth is useless, as the complete idea would end with death, which is in practically all religions, especially among the Wica amongst whom reincarnation is a basic doctrine. Let us first of all consider each of the three aspects of the Goddess separately, commencing with love. The word love has had a long and checkered philolgical career, and usually ends up meaning what any one person wants it to mean. As it is important I will attempt to explain the word in the cotext that I am using it. To me the love of the Goddess is definately not the romantic love of the poets, the whining, pining and always unfulfilled love. The love aspect of the Goddess is alive, urgent and gratifying. It must be so to anyone who can understand what the true fertility concept meant to its followers in the past. When people were few and the mortality rate high, reproduction was a most urgent need. The love of the Goddess encouraged this. I think this is best summed up in the words of Robert Herrick in his poem, "Corinna's Going A-Maying" "Whereas a thousand virgins on this day Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May" and again: "And sin no more as we have done by staying, But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying." The last two quoted lines also help emphasize another important point of the love of the Goddess, it is beyond mortality. For any readers that are apt to pontify I feel that I should add that this is a simple statement with a simple meaning. The next part of the triple aspect is death. Once the natural abhorance of death is overcome in thought it will be seen to any who follow the ways of the Wica, that is is a necessary part of the cycle. To be reborn, you must die, to die you must be reborn. The aspect of death is probably the most widely known, the most usually misinterpreted of the Goddess. It is the Hag aspect, the epitome of the ugly old crone on a broomstick, for generations used to frighten children, along with bogey-men and such. But the true image is not frightening, on the contrary, it is comforting. True the physical portrayals give little consolance, the crone and the mighty undefeatable Goddess of sudden death, the Greek Artemis. But how could such an image be shown? The meaning is important, that in death, we return to the Goddess, for rest and refreshment (of the spiritual kind) before beginning our next journey. If instead of a withered old hag we imagine a wise old woman, herself beyond death and time, always ready to take what must be given, I think the idea is a little simplified. Without we go to the Goddess of death, we can never reach the Goddess of life. The final part of the triad is rebirth. This is perhaps the easiest to understand as it is the Great Universal Mother that is referred to here. Many people acknowledge Her presence in some minor

way under the title Mother Nature. She is the ideal of fertility in all things, man, beast and crops. She has been worshipped from the earliest times. One of the best and, to me, one of the most beautiful representations of Her comes from the Aurigracian period of the Paleolithic era. This is simply a small statuette of the female form with the details of the naked neglected. The artist has however made the proportions of the breasts, belly and hips vastly exaggerated, suggestive of a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy. From a later period is the statue of Artemis Ephsus, here the Goddess is naked from the waist up, and of normal proportions, excpet that She is portrayed with numerous tiered breasts on Her chest. It is also important to note the Her robe, shoulders and head-dress are covered in tiny figures that need Her fruitfulness to exist. The is the Mighty Mother, the bringer of all fecundity that was of old evoked by the flowers of the field and by life itself. Without Her there was nothing. Her wishes were to be respected, and Her worship never forgotten. It is through the growth of such Mother worship that the matriarchal religion of Witchcraft developed. Now that the triad of the Goddess has been dissected, some are bound to wonder how they are connected into one mystical being, the Goddess? This is again a matter for the individual mind. It may help however if I refer to the old custom of killing the Divine King. This was the habit of killing the Kings of a people to appease the Goddess and to ensure fruitfulness and peace amongst its practitioners. This may seem a rather peculiar example to portray the Goddess as one, yet in all roles, until it is examined more closely. The Kings reigned for various times, sometimes a year, or seven years, or until the next King defeated and killed them. As J.G. Frazer points out the customs vary slightly from place to place. Almost without exception the King during his lifetime enjoyed the physical pleasures of the Queen, who was quite often the High Priestess as well. This was even followed when "stand-in" kings were used, to save the real King; they were still granted the favours of the Queen. Thus the King formed a symbolic union with the Queen, who was the living representitive of the Goddess of love. After this act the King was sent back, through the arms of Black Annis, the Goddess of death, to be reborn again through the Great Mother, the Goddess of life. At the same time the King himself too part in the ritual of fertility by being sacrificed for the sake of the crops, cattle and children. I hope that the forgoing has, to some extent, explained something of the Goddess of the Wica. No one can ever explain everything and the best place to look for the Goddess is in your own minds. "Here ye the words of the Star Goddess. She, in the dust of whose feet are the hosts of Heaven and whose body encircleth the Universe."