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hypocrites. There was near Rome a temple in a grove where robbers went to divide their plunder. There was a
statue of the goddess. Her image, according to some, was a head without a body; according to others, a body
without a head; but the epithet of 'beautiful' applied to her by Horace indicates that she who gave disguises to
her worshippers had kept one to her self." She was worshipped in perfect silence. This is confirmed by a
passage in Horace (Epist. 16, lib. 1), where an impostor, hardly daring to move his lips, repeats the following
prayer or incantation: -
"O Goddess Laverna!
Give me the art of cheating and deceiving,
Of making men believe that I am just,
Holy, and innocent! extend all darkness
And deep obscurity o'er my misdeeds!"
It is interesting to compare this unquestionably ancient classic invocation to Laverna with the one which is
before given. The goddess was extensively known to the lower orders, and in Plautus a cook who has been
robbed of his implements calls on her to revenge him.
CHAPTER XV. Laverna 48
ARADIA, or the Gospel of the Witches
I call special attention to the fact that in this, as in a great number of Italian witch-incantations, the deity or
spirit who is worshipped, be it Diana herself or Laverna, is threatened with torment by a higher power until
he or she grants the favour demanded. This is quite classic, i.e., Græco-Roman or Oriental, in all of which
sources the magician relies not on favour, aid, or power granted by either God or Satan, but simply on what
he has been able to wrench and wring, as it were, out of infinite nature or the primal source by penance and
study. I mention this because a reviewer has reproached me with exaggerating the degree to which
diabolism -introduced by the Church since 1500-is deficient in Italy. But in fact, among the higher class of
witches, or in their traditions, it is hardly to be found at all. In Christian diabolism the witch never dares to
threaten Satan or God, or any of the Trinity or angels, for the whole system is based on the conception of a
Church and of obedience.
The herb concordia probably takes its name from that of the goddess Concordia, who was represented as
holding a branch. It plays a great part in witchcraft, after verbena and rue.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX 49
Comments on the Foregoing Texts
So long ago as the year 1886 I learned that there was in existence a manuscript setting forth the doctrines of
Italian witchcraft, and I was promised that, if possible, it should be obtained for me. In this I was for a time
disappointed. But having urged it on Maddalena, my collector of folk-lore, while she was leading a
wandering life in Tuscany, to make an effort to obtain or recover something of the kind, I at last received
from her, on January 1, 1897, entitled Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.
Now be it observed, that every leading point which forms the plot or centre of the Vangel, such as that
Diana is Queen of the Witches. an associate of Herodias (Aradia) in her relations to sorcery; that she bore a
child to her brother the Sun (here Lucifer ); that as a moon-goddess she is in some relation to Cain, who
dwells as prisoner in the moon, and that the witches of old were people oppressed by feudal lands, the former
revenging themselves in every way, and holding orgies to Diana which the Church represented as being the
worship of Satan-all of this, I repeat, had been told or written out for me in fragments by Maddalena (not to
speak of other authorities), even as it had been chronicled by Horst or Michelet; therefore all this is in the
present document of minor importance. All of this I expected, but what I did not expect, and what was new to
me, was that portion which is given as prose-poetry and which I have rendered in metre or verse. This being
traditional, and taken down from wizards, is extremely curious and interesting, since in it are preserved many
relics of lore which, as may be verified from records, have come down from days of yore.
Aradia
is evidently enough Herodias, who was regarded in the beginning as associated with Diana as chief of the
witches. This was not, as I opine, derived from the Herodias of the New Testament, but from an earlier
replica of Lilith, bear ing the same name. It is, in fact, an identification or twin-Ing of the Aryan and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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