It is known by different names such as the Four Powers of the Magus; the Four Secrets of the Sphinx; the Foundation and the Four Pillars of all Practical and Esoteric Magick. Esoteric meaning “intended for or likely to be understood by a small number of people with specialized knowledge”.
Where did this all begin? It began with a man by the name of Eliphas Levi 1810-1875 and his books were written between 1854-1856. Levi's first work on magick was in 1854 was called “Dogme de la Haute Magie, which then followed his second work called “Ritual de la Haute Magic. Both books were combined and then translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite and was then called Transcendental Magick, its Doctrine and Ritual in 1896.
If you look up images of The Witches Pyramid you will find both an actual shape of a Pyramid, and yet also a Pentagram which is how I first learned about it, however most people only work with it by the Pyramid shape.
Whether it is in the shape of a Pyramid or the Pentagram the meanings are what are so important for us practicing the Craft.
The four principles are: To Know; To Will; To Dare; and To Keep Silent. In the different references there has been a fifth principle added that I completely agree with and it will be included in this lesson for you. How you think of it as either the four principles or the five is up to you...both are accepted.
The first principle being TO KNOW – this principle aligns with the element of Air, the aspect of intelligence or mental aspect. We of the Craft need to KNOW who we are, what we are and what each of us is capable of. Each of these principles is very, very important.
We need to learn and continue to learn all of our lives. There is never the idea of “I know it all, I couldn't possible learn anything else”. We need to “know” our intentions of our work, be it ritual work or spell work, or our daily life. We need to “know” what the elements are and how to work with them and their elementals so that we can perform to the best of our abilities and hopefully not have anything backfire on us for not being properly prepared.
One of my favorite terms is “Knowledge is Power” and that is the truth! Another term that has always been a favorite of mine is “To be forewarned is forearmed”, this is also the truth at least to me. Both are very important statements. We need to know proper timing, appropriate days of the week, phases of the moon, even what color candle would be most appropriate for the work we would be doing. I want to also insert here that it is up to us to decide what is “right” for our work. You can ask 10 different Witches the same question such as “what candle color would you use for prosperity?”, and you could very well get 10 different answers. All of their answers would be right, because what is “right” for each one of us is the right choice for us and our work. Trusting your intuition is very important.
The more that we know and understand, the more powerful and effective our work and healing will be both for us and for all of those that would be affected. So we need to “know” everything that is available to us and we need to memorize, practice and never stop learning. Don't you remember days when we were going to have a test in school and we either prepared like crazy and we knew the work or we just didn't want to bother, but then we must not have cared for the outcome, the grade? So to “know” is extremely important and we need to continue to learn, add to our Books of Shadows, reach for the stars as we continue to enrich not only our lives, but those around us that we need to do work for to assist them...
Associations for Air – Intuition, intellect, reasoning abilities, analyzing, imagining, wisdom, rationalizing.
The second principle is TO WILL- this principle aligns with the element of Fire, the aspect of Passion! How strong is your will when you are attempting something important? How strong is your “will” when you feel you or a family member might be being threatened? We can be very willful when we want to be and we must be! When we truly believe in something, we can become passionate about it. To “will” something to manifest we had better have the confidence in ourselves to bring it about! You must “will” your intentions, manipulate your own powers to maintain focus to bring about the final work that you wish to accomplish. As Witches we must know how to call the elements, direct all of the combined powers to create the Magick we want to manifest and not be slack so that it might backfire and do just the opposite of what we had intended.
The work that we do is very important to us, to those we are directing it at, and doing such always in a positive way, and we need to maintain our will to bring about its proper completion. We can't stop thinking about our spell work once the spell is done, we need to continue to keep our thoughts and will and desires for the outcome we wish to accomplish. We need to know that the magick is within “us”. It takes our “will” to manifest our desired outcomes in our Craft work and in our daily lives.
Associations for Fire – Discipline, our belief system, our self trust, application of our skills to perform the magick desired and even our approach to our own lives.
The third principle is TO DARE – this principle aligns with the element of Water, our emotions! Our need to achieve what we desire and to overcome possible obstacles. Are you willing to dare something to come about? You need to learn to if you aren't at this point. We need to stand with courage and conviction and know in our hearts what we are doing is for all the right reasons.
Before doing any spell work we need to understand what we are going to do and why we want to do it. What is our purpose? What changes do we wish to bring about in our world? We need to dig down and find our courage to move forward and experience new things. Might something scare us? Possibly, especially when we are seeing things come about that others said “it can't be done”. I believe in miracles, always have and always will, and working in the Craft we believe in being able to make wonderful things happen if we dare to challenge ourselves to try and to believe we can accomplish these miracles. We must dare to go beyond our physical limitations, trust our instincts, our intuition, and surrendering to the universal energies that we know exist.
When you have done meditations, have you felt that you have gone into other realms that were not just the physical realm where you are? So, to dare, can be a bit scary, but we need to have the courage and conviction to dare ourselves to go beyond what can be seen and heard by our physical senses. Have you challenged yourself to meet with deity? Have you called the God and/or Goddess to converse with them? Are we allowing ourselves to be open and receptive to ancient wisdom? As Witches we need to “dare” ourselves to go beyond what are the norms. We need to challenge ourselves to face and overcome challenges that will come up, I guarantee you they will come up. As we perform our magick our personal emotions play a big part, and we must be prepared and ready to meet these challenges.
Associations for Water – Emotions, the heart, drive to overcome obstacles, being courageous, take and overcome challenges that might scare us at first. Stand firm in our convictions.
The fourth principle is TO KEEP SILENT – this principle aligns with our element of Earth being centered and grounded, the silence within us.
In years and centuries past those that practiced the Craft learned hard lessons in why they needed to keep silent and be secretive about their “work”. Today, in these times working in the Craft is certainly more accepted, but there will always be those that shun us, or are afraid of us.
After we perform our spell work, don't chat about it to others. Sharing with a significant other or a partner that perhaps performed this with you is fair game as they understand our work and our desires. But we have to remember that to just chat about it, it can lose some of its power, its effectiveness. We need our work and our desires to actually manifest. We need to know in our hearts that what we have put “out there” to the universe to do its work to help us, will work. Never question your own abilities! Through working and learning all of the four principles we will build confidence, not arrogance and there is a big difference there. Having confidence in one's abilities is very attractive to others, but being arrogant certainly changes all of that.
In our confidence we don't want anything to weaken the possibilities of our outcome. We do our homework, we study, we prepare and we know what we put out will work so be happy with that knowing and continue on silently in your daily life. Questions have their place, but not in demeaning our own confidence in our work.
There is a certain power in remaining silent with some aspects of our work. We can always share with others of like minds that which we choose to share, to teach, to mentor; but there is also a beauty of silence of your work with just your knowing and the knowing of the Gods/Goddesses of what you do. There is a beautiful relationship that I share with Deity and I know that they always know what I have done, am doing as well as what I will be doing even before I do. The beauty of silence when we are doing our meditations, when we are saying prayers from our heart. Sometimes when we are not allowing ourselves to be silent, we may not hear what is being said to us from Deity, or other spirits that might wish to communicate with us. There are many answers that may be given to us through silence. So be aware that there are times that silence can be very important to us.
Being centered and grounded is essential for our “work” that we do. We need to prepare both our bodies and our minds for that which we might receive. Practice, practice, practice and learn so that when you need to do something on the “fly” so to speak, something that you weren't planning on, that you can prepare yourself both physically and mentally to do the work that will be needed. Always remember to release the excess energy after your work by either placing your hands on the ground to release the energy back into our beautiful earth to absorb it, or for myself that is physically difficult with my knee's, I clap my hands a few times to disperse the energy out for the universe to absorb.
The fifth and last principle is “Spirit”. This was added somewhere down the road, I am not sure of any specific date but I am sure that it fits perfectly to align all of this together. In doing research some refer to it as “To Go” and also “To Love”. Working with Spirit allows us to be able to let go, to move forth, to manifest, and to evolve. Spirit brings all of the other four elements into perfect balance.
In the Charge of the Goddess it speaks about if our intent in our actions is not pure, if we haven't worked diligently at the other four principles, then these four principles will be out of balance and we may not have any manifestation that we desired, it may in fact do the opposite and therefore could add on to our own karmic burdens.
So, what do we do from here? You study each of these principles, diligently, and continue to remind yourself how very important all of them are to those of us that work in the Craft. Do we need “refreshers” from time to time? Possibly ... I certainly do! I can get so caught up with my mundane life that I forget how important it is to take the time necessary to make sure that I am practicing each of these principles. These same principles not only affect our life in the Craft, but also in our everyday lives.
I aspire to be the best that I can be, that meaning I want to be helpful to others in learning, accomplishing goals and to enrich their lives as well as my own. For do we not flourish when we all are succeeding at our very best?
Where did this all begin? It began with a man by the name of Eliphas Levi 1810-1875 and his books were written between 1854-1856. Levi's first work on magick was in 1854 was called “Dogme de la Haute Magie, which then followed his second work called “Ritual de la Haute Magic. Both books were combined and then translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite and was then called Transcendental Magick, its Doctrine and Ritual in 1896.
If you look up images of The Witches Pyramid you will find both an actual shape of a Pyramid, and yet also a Pentagram which is how I first learned about it, however most people only work with it by the Pyramid shape.
Whether it is in the shape of a Pyramid or the Pentagram the meanings are what are so important for us practicing the Craft.
The four principles are: To Know; To Will; To Dare; and To Keep Silent. In the different references there has been a fifth principle added that I completely agree with and it will be included in this lesson for you. How you think of it as either the four principles or the five is up to you...both are accepted.
The first principle being TO KNOW – this principle aligns with the element of Air, the aspect of intelligence or mental aspect. We of the Craft need to KNOW who we are, what we are and what each of us is capable of. Each of these principles is very, very important.
We need to learn and continue to learn all of our lives. There is never the idea of “I know it all, I couldn't possible learn anything else”. We need to “know” our intentions of our work, be it ritual work or spell work, or our daily life. We need to “know” what the elements are and how to work with them and their elementals so that we can perform to the best of our abilities and hopefully not have anything backfire on us for not being properly prepared.
One of my favorite terms is “Knowledge is Power” and that is the truth! Another term that has always been a favorite of mine is “To be forewarned is forearmed”, this is also the truth at least to me. Both are very important statements. We need to know proper timing, appropriate days of the week, phases of the moon, even what color candle would be most appropriate for the work we would be doing. I want to also insert here that it is up to us to decide what is “right” for our work. You can ask 10 different Witches the same question such as “what candle color would you use for prosperity?”, and you could very well get 10 different answers. All of their answers would be right, because what is “right” for each one of us is the right choice for us and our work. Trusting your intuition is very important.
The more that we know and understand, the more powerful and effective our work and healing will be both for us and for all of those that would be affected. So we need to “know” everything that is available to us and we need to memorize, practice and never stop learning. Don't you remember days when we were going to have a test in school and we either prepared like crazy and we knew the work or we just didn't want to bother, but then we must not have cared for the outcome, the grade? So to “know” is extremely important and we need to continue to learn, add to our Books of Shadows, reach for the stars as we continue to enrich not only our lives, but those around us that we need to do work for to assist them...
Associations for Air – Intuition, intellect, reasoning abilities, analyzing, imagining, wisdom, rationalizing.
The second principle is TO WILL- this principle aligns with the element of Fire, the aspect of Passion! How strong is your will when you are attempting something important? How strong is your “will” when you feel you or a family member might be being threatened? We can be very willful when we want to be and we must be! When we truly believe in something, we can become passionate about it. To “will” something to manifest we had better have the confidence in ourselves to bring it about! You must “will” your intentions, manipulate your own powers to maintain focus to bring about the final work that you wish to accomplish. As Witches we must know how to call the elements, direct all of the combined powers to create the Magick we want to manifest and not be slack so that it might backfire and do just the opposite of what we had intended.
The work that we do is very important to us, to those we are directing it at, and doing such always in a positive way, and we need to maintain our will to bring about its proper completion. We can't stop thinking about our spell work once the spell is done, we need to continue to keep our thoughts and will and desires for the outcome we wish to accomplish. We need to know that the magick is within “us”. It takes our “will” to manifest our desired outcomes in our Craft work and in our daily lives.
Associations for Fire – Discipline, our belief system, our self trust, application of our skills to perform the magick desired and even our approach to our own lives.
The third principle is TO DARE – this principle aligns with the element of Water, our emotions! Our need to achieve what we desire and to overcome possible obstacles. Are you willing to dare something to come about? You need to learn to if you aren't at this point. We need to stand with courage and conviction and know in our hearts what we are doing is for all the right reasons.
Before doing any spell work we need to understand what we are going to do and why we want to do it. What is our purpose? What changes do we wish to bring about in our world? We need to dig down and find our courage to move forward and experience new things. Might something scare us? Possibly, especially when we are seeing things come about that others said “it can't be done”. I believe in miracles, always have and always will, and working in the Craft we believe in being able to make wonderful things happen if we dare to challenge ourselves to try and to believe we can accomplish these miracles. We must dare to go beyond our physical limitations, trust our instincts, our intuition, and surrendering to the universal energies that we know exist.
When you have done meditations, have you felt that you have gone into other realms that were not just the physical realm where you are? So, to dare, can be a bit scary, but we need to have the courage and conviction to dare ourselves to go beyond what can be seen and heard by our physical senses. Have you challenged yourself to meet with deity? Have you called the God and/or Goddess to converse with them? Are we allowing ourselves to be open and receptive to ancient wisdom? As Witches we need to “dare” ourselves to go beyond what are the norms. We need to challenge ourselves to face and overcome challenges that will come up, I guarantee you they will come up. As we perform our magick our personal emotions play a big part, and we must be prepared and ready to meet these challenges.
Associations for Water – Emotions, the heart, drive to overcome obstacles, being courageous, take and overcome challenges that might scare us at first. Stand firm in our convictions.
The fourth principle is TO KEEP SILENT – this principle aligns with our element of Earth being centered and grounded, the silence within us.
In years and centuries past those that practiced the Craft learned hard lessons in why they needed to keep silent and be secretive about their “work”. Today, in these times working in the Craft is certainly more accepted, but there will always be those that shun us, or are afraid of us.
After we perform our spell work, don't chat about it to others. Sharing with a significant other or a partner that perhaps performed this with you is fair game as they understand our work and our desires. But we have to remember that to just chat about it, it can lose some of its power, its effectiveness. We need our work and our desires to actually manifest. We need to know in our hearts that what we have put “out there” to the universe to do its work to help us, will work. Never question your own abilities! Through working and learning all of the four principles we will build confidence, not arrogance and there is a big difference there. Having confidence in one's abilities is very attractive to others, but being arrogant certainly changes all of that.
In our confidence we don't want anything to weaken the possibilities of our outcome. We do our homework, we study, we prepare and we know what we put out will work so be happy with that knowing and continue on silently in your daily life. Questions have their place, but not in demeaning our own confidence in our work.
There is a certain power in remaining silent with some aspects of our work. We can always share with others of like minds that which we choose to share, to teach, to mentor; but there is also a beauty of silence of your work with just your knowing and the knowing of the Gods/Goddesses of what you do. There is a beautiful relationship that I share with Deity and I know that they always know what I have done, am doing as well as what I will be doing even before I do. The beauty of silence when we are doing our meditations, when we are saying prayers from our heart. Sometimes when we are not allowing ourselves to be silent, we may not hear what is being said to us from Deity, or other spirits that might wish to communicate with us. There are many answers that may be given to us through silence. So be aware that there are times that silence can be very important to us.
Being centered and grounded is essential for our “work” that we do. We need to prepare both our bodies and our minds for that which we might receive. Practice, practice, practice and learn so that when you need to do something on the “fly” so to speak, something that you weren't planning on, that you can prepare yourself both physically and mentally to do the work that will be needed. Always remember to release the excess energy after your work by either placing your hands on the ground to release the energy back into our beautiful earth to absorb it, or for myself that is physically difficult with my knee's, I clap my hands a few times to disperse the energy out for the universe to absorb.
The fifth and last principle is “Spirit”. This was added somewhere down the road, I am not sure of any specific date but I am sure that it fits perfectly to align all of this together. In doing research some refer to it as “To Go” and also “To Love”. Working with Spirit allows us to be able to let go, to move forth, to manifest, and to evolve. Spirit brings all of the other four elements into perfect balance.
In the Charge of the Goddess it speaks about if our intent in our actions is not pure, if we haven't worked diligently at the other four principles, then these four principles will be out of balance and we may not have any manifestation that we desired, it may in fact do the opposite and therefore could add on to our own karmic burdens.
So, what do we do from here? You study each of these principles, diligently, and continue to remind yourself how very important all of them are to those of us that work in the Craft. Do we need “refreshers” from time to time? Possibly ... I certainly do! I can get so caught up with my mundane life that I forget how important it is to take the time necessary to make sure that I am practicing each of these principles. These same principles not only affect our life in the Craft, but also in our everyday lives.
I aspire to be the best that I can be, that meaning I want to be helpful to others in learning, accomplishing goals and to enrich their lives as well as my own. For do we not flourish when we all are succeeding at our very best?
Stormloverwolf
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