FREE WICCA FOR LIFE: THE WAY OF THE CRAFT - FROM BIRTH TO SUMMERLAND PDF Raymond Buckland | 352 pages | 25 Oct 2002 | Kensington Publishing | 9780806522753 | English | New York, United States Wicca For Life: The Way of the Craft -- From Birth to Summerland by Raymond Buckland This is the book that changed my life! It was the very first book I'd ever read on the subjects of Wicca and witchcraft. Buckland has a way of explaining things to laymans that makes everything make This is a very comprehensive guide to the type fo witchcraft that Raymond Buckland goes by. This isn't the type of book that I read all the way though, this is one where I try to flip to whe Gerald Gardner, he introduced Gardnerian Wicca for Life: The Way of the Craft - from Birth to Summerland to the United States in the s and is a leading authority on Witchcraft, voodoo, and the supernatural. He lives in north central Ohio. Raymond Buckland. Buckland demystifies topics such as initiation and spellcrafting, and gives down- to-earth advice on how to embrace Wicca as a spiritual path for today. Written by Raymond Buckland, the leading U. How to Become a Witch. InitiationThe Beginning. Witchcraft in the Family. Witchcraft and Birth. Witchcraft With Siblings. Witchcraft in the Office. Witchcraft for Romance. Witchcraft in Marriage. Witchcraft at Home. Witchcraft for Plants and Pets. Witchcraft in the Bedroom. Witchcraft for Protection. Witchcraft in School. Title Page Copyright Page Introduction. Wicca for Life: The Way of the Craft -- From Birth to Summerland - Raymond Buckland - Google книги Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. NOOK Book. Buckland demystifies topics such as initiation and spellcrafting, and gives down-to-earth advice on how to embrace Wicca as a spiritual path for today. Written by Raymond Buckland, the leading U. Gerald Gardner, he introduced Gardnerian Wicca to the United States in the s and is a leading authority on Witchcraft, voodoo, and the supernatural. He lives in north central Ohio. The word Witchcraft comes from the Old Anglo-Saxon word wiccecraeft, meaning "the craft of the wise. For thousands of years before Christianity, there were many variations of Pagan worship. In the big cities of Greek and Roman times, the forms of religion were well organized, with dedicated temples and an established priesthood. But out in the country areas, the common people did not have this luxury. They worshiped the same deities, but their temples were the woods, the mountains, and the open fields. They were close to nature and, by virtue of this closeness, felt close to their gods. Every man and woman was his or her own priest, able to commune with divinity on the same level as the official priesthood in the towns and the cities. Although the principal deities worshiped were the same in most areas, the names that were used frequently varied in different areas of Europe and Asia, with local titles and appellations prevailing. The Beginnings of Religio-magic By looking at the development of religio-magic from earliest times, we can fully understand the development of this relationship of men and women to the gods. Twenty-five thousand years ago, in upper Paleolithic times, humankind lived in awe of nature. Life was ruled largely by such factors as weather and successful hunting. Before the development of agriculture, it was necessary to kill and eat animals in order to survive. The australopithecines of East and South Africa, the first upright primates, evolved from primate vegetarians to become predatory meat-eating hunters. The cave art of the period shows magical images designed to bring about successful hunting. Adamson Hoebel points out in Anthropology: the Study of Man, "Upper Paleolithic art had the gross purposes of filling men's stomachs and of maintaining the population by serving as a magical aid in hunting and procreation. As Hoebel says, most of it was Wicca for Life: The Way of the Craft - from Birth to Summerland certainly for magical purposes. This is evident from the fact that the artworks were invariably painted in nearly inaccessible places, in niches in caverns deep in the bowels of the earth — places where they were obviously not just decoration but part of some ancient mysteries. In that early time, humankind had a great fear of and reverence for nature: the thunder and lightning of a storm, the howling winds, the roaring waters of a raging river. Gods were seen dwelling within all of these things. Humans, unlike other anthropoids, are omnivorous by nature. Early humans believed that the gods ruled the hunt and its success or failure. Therefore, to ensure its success, magical rituals were performed. These were addressed to the God of the Hunt in the form of theater — acting out the hunt with a successful conclusion. Many times one of the tribe would play two parts — that of the god and that of director of the actor-hunters. The "hunters" would suggest to the god what they would like him to do for them. The God of the Hunt was believed to be horned or antlered as were most of the beasts hunted. Therefore, the person officiating — in effect, the first priest — would dress in the skin of the animal to be hunted and wear a mask and its horns or antlers. There is another at Fourneau du Diable, Dordogne, France. In relatively recent times, Mandari hunters of eastern Sudan, Australian aboriginal hunters, and Native American hunters such as the Mandans have adopted the same techniques that were used in those ancient times. Along with the God of the Hunt was a female deity who was especially important. This was the Goddess of Fertility. Primitive art includes Wicca for Life: The Way of the Craft - from Birth to Summerland and carvings of animals copulating at Le Tuc d'Audoubert, for exampletogether with figurines — dubbed Venus figurines — of pregnant human females. The copulating animals are obviously magical figures designed to promote growth and expansion of the herds to be hunted. Figures of human females were intended to magically ensure the tribes' increase in times of high mortality. The Fertility Goddess was later to become especially important, as fertility of the Wicca for Life: The Way of the Craft - from Birth to Summerland, along with its native wildlife, remained a constant concern. Domestication of both animals and plants was a gradual process, eventually leading to the storage of food for winter use. This, in turn, led to a virtual elimination of dependence on successful hunting. The God of the Hunt dropped into the background, becoming more generalized as a god of nature, while the Goddess remained vital as a deity of fertility. As humankind spread across Africa, Europe, and Asia, these concepts of the deities also spread. Great civilizations, such as Greece and Rome, developed sophisticated hierarchies of gods and goddesses, but the country folk always had far simpler versions of the complicated rituals developed by the powerful priesthood in the cities and towns. Much of what we know as Witchcraft today comes from that Celtic way of life. As the editors of The Celts put it The Emergence of Man series"On the Continent, Celtic culture — with its rigidly structured social organization, its religion administered by the Druids, its eloquent tradition of heroic legends passed down orally from generation to generation and its fantastic art — merged with Roman customs and traditions, sometimes losing its Celtic identity altogether. But the basic Celtic teachings remained. In the outlying villages and farms, religious beliefs were slow to change. The farmer and his wife and family still worshiped the Goddess of Fertility alongside the gods of nature and death, and what came after. Survival of the Old Religion Many of the old rites lived on, both in practice and in legend. In early spring, it was accepted magical practice for a farmer and his wife to lie in the first furrow of a field and have intercourse to ensure that field's fertility and productivity. When the crops first began to appear, it was common for all to take up pitchforks, poles, and broomsticks and to dance around the fields, riding the poles like hobbyhorses. As they danced around the fields, the people would leap high in the air to show the crops how high to grow. It was simple imitative, or sympathetic, magic. At harvest-time, of course, it was time to thank the gods for all that had been produced. Many Pagan rituals and customs such as these are still found across Europe and elsewhere. In the villages were invariably found one or two "wise ones," those who had the wisdom of herbs and of magic. As the local doctors, they tended the sick with herbal concoctions, decoctions, infusions, and macerations. They also knew the spells and charms passed on from generation to generation. These "doctors" were known by the old Anglo-Saxon name of wicce feminine or wicca masculine. When it came to the worship of the old gods and the forms of the rituals, the wise ones conducted the rites. They became the priests and priestesses of the countryside, leading groups from the villages or from neighboring farms in the major celebrations of the seasons. Later on, any followers of this Old Religion became known as Wiccans, or Witches. These wise ones, then, were the original Witches.