Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

OINMENTS (aka Unguents)

Grease-based preparations have been used in magical, healing and oracular rites since ancient times. The ancient Egyptians used magical and sacred ointments for numerous purposes, such as embalming mummies and stimulating prophetic dreams.

According to the instructions on a 3rd-century magical papyrus, divining dreams could be induced in an elaborate rite, part of which called for the smearing of a magical ointment on the eyes. The ointment was made from the flowers of "the Greek bean," which could be purchased from a garland seller. The flowers were sealed in a glass container and left for 20 days in a dark and secret place. When the container was opened, it would reveal a phallus and testicles inside. The container was resealed for another 40 days, after which the genitals would become bloody. The ointment made from this was kept on a piece of glass in a pot that was hidden, and was rubbed on the eyes when an answer to a question was desired from one's dreams.

In folklore, Witches were reputed to use ointments - also called Sorcerer's grease - for two chief purposes: to enable them to fly, and to kill others. Some ointments also were said to enable witches to shape-shift into animals and birds. Various recipes for ointments have been handed down through the centuries and have been published in magical Grimoires.

Typically, the recipes contain vile ingredients such as baby's fat and bat's blood, or bizarre ingredients such as the filings of bells. Many also call for herbs and drugs that are toxic and/or hallucinogenic, such as bella-donna (the "Devil's weed"), hemlock, hellebore root, cannabis, hemp, mandrake, henbane and aconite. Such drugs produce dizziness, confusion, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, delirium and hallucinations.

According to lore, witches of old brewed the ointments in their cauldrons. For flying, they rubbed the ointments on themselves and the brooms, pitchforks, chairs, poles or beans talks that they used to ride through the air.

Some accused witches confessed in trials that they were given magic ointments by Satan. For example, five women brought to trial in Arras, France, in 1460 said they had been given such an ointment by Satan, which they rubbed on small poles and "straightway flew where they wished to be, above good towns and woods and waters, and the Devil guided them to that place where they must hold their assembly."

Legends tell of non-witches who found pots of ointment, rubbed themselves with it and instantly found themselves transported to the scene of wild witch revelries.

While witches often insisted they had indeed flown through the air with the help of their ointments, most demonologists, as early as the 15th century, believed the effects to be imaginary and not real. In some tests conducted by investigators, a witch rubbed.

herself down with the ointment and then fell into a deep sleep. Upon awakening, she insisted she had been transported through the air to a Sabbat, when in fact she had been observed not moving for hours. In a tale from 1547, a witch summoned before the Inquisition of Navarre secretly brought along a jar of magic ointment, which she managed to rub on herself. In front of the judges, she turned into a screech owl and flew away.

One recipe published in Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) calls for "Acarum vulgare [probably sweet flag], cinquefoil, bat's blood, oil and Solanum somniferum", combined with fat or lard, which the witches were supposed to rub vigorously into their skin "till they look red and be verie hot, so as the pores may be opened and their flesh soluble and loose."

Scot also offered another flying recipe, which called for the fat of young children to be boiled in water and combined with "eleoselinum" (probably hemlock), aconite, poplar leaves and soot. Still another recipe called for aconite, poppy juice, foxglove, poplar leaves and cinquefoil, in a base of beeswax, lanoline and almond oil.

Like demonologists of his time, Scot believed that the ointments affected the brain and did not really enable witches to fly.

In modern times, Dr. Erich-Will Peuckert of the University of Gottingen, West Germany, tested a medieval flying-ointment recipe on himself and a colleague. The ingredients included deadly nightshade, thornapple, henbane, wild celery and parsley in a base of hog's lard. The ointment caused the two men to fall into a trance for 20 hours, during which each had nearly identical dreams of flying through the air to a mountain top and participating in erotic orgies with monsters and demons. Upon awakening, both men had headaches and felt depressed. Peuckert was impressed with the intense realism of the dreams. In light of his experiment, it is probable that medieval witches who used such ointments believed that they actually had such experiences, which accounts for the siInilarities in many "confessions."

The following killing ointment was recorded by Johan Weyer, 16th-century demonologist and student of Cornelius Agrippa:

Hemlock, juice of aconite,
Poplar leaves and roots bind tight. Watercress and add to oil
Baby's fat and let it boil.
Bat's blood, belladonna too
Will kill off those who bother you.

It is possible that some medicinal ointments, concocted by village wise women and wise men for deadening pain and healing, contained an imbalance of toxic ingredients that proved fatal. Another kind of ointment supposedly made witches invisible. Medieval witches were said to rub themselves down with it before leaving their homes for secret Sabbats. The chief ingredient was the herb vervain, associated with invisibility, which was crushed and steeped overnight in olive oil or lard, then squeezed through a cloth to remove the leaves.

Gerald B. Gardner, the father of modem Wicca, said he knew of no 20th-century Witches who used any kind of ointments. This claim is demonstratably false as the use of various so-called 'flying ointments' to aid in achieving altered states of consciousness for various magical and ritual workings was quite common among the initiates of my old Coven - the 'Circle of the Mystic Moon'. The use of such unguents was certainly not unknown to those of other Covens we dealt with during my time as High Priest of the Coven.

see also: OILS

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc