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You are listening to "Witch Hunt" by RUSH

he first magick-makers were the wizards of the old days. Because they worked behind the scenes, making or breaking kings, their deeds were passed down in fragments of song and tattered scraps of history. Their power was inborn almost as if it was their blood, coursing through their bodies. They harnessed the wind, moved the planets from their paths, changed their or other peoples shapes and appearances, they cured or caused disease or deformity and saw into the future.
In later days, when the first enchanters deeds had become legend, some men and women continued to practice the magic arts. But these people lived in a world that had aged and had lost it's innocence.As centuries passed, scholars, trying to reach the old primal magick, had to tamper with the newly percieved order of nature and this activity came to be viewed as an arrogant and evil persuit.
They lacked the natural insight and inborn knowledge of the old enchanters. They were seekers of lost and hidden powers, scholars who used complex, secret sciences to reach into the mystries they knew existed just out of sight and almost out of reach. Some paid dearly for the power they sought. Some with their blood, others with their souls.
Magick was like a science and the wizard's power came in some part from years of study.The price of living in a finely ordered world was the loss of the union with nature, which the wizards of old posessed. If these later magick-makers were to master nature, they had to first understand its patterns and network of correspondences and anologies that bound the universe into a single entity.
Astrology, the examination of the paths that the planets took through the belts of the constellations, was the center of their studies. They also studied terrestial things, such as The 4 Elements, air, earth, water, and fire, which were believed to be present in varying proportions in all matter. Alchemy was an investigation of the elements in metals. Gold mainly because it was an exact balance of the elements. Any perfect earthly thing was an exact balance of the elements. The discovery of that balance would give the scholar powers far beyond the mere creation of wealth. It would mean he would have the key to perfection.
This subject was so profound that it was practiced in secrecy and any records that survived on it were written in mystical symbols and largely unreadable.
The schooling of most wizards went far beyond the conventional arts and sciences of the day. Most scholars disappeared for long periods of time, returning haggard, grim-faced and accompanied by long clawed assistants believed to be the product of magick, who obeyed the wizards every command. People who had dealings with wizards spoke of a Black School, held in underground caverns with no windows or light. No one knew exactly where these schools were but it is said to be in Moorish Spain. The would-be wizard never went outdoors and never saw his master but knew who he was-for there was an understanding upon entering the school. He was Satan and the last wizard leaving the school was to give his soul to the devil as payment. The dear price paid for power.
Witches were the humblest of the magick-makers and seekers. Little about witches matters was ever written down. Just fragmented tales and observations. Black Witches, who were the enemy of healthy growth and life, were concealed among country folk. Some were descendants of the hags and nightriders of days long forgotten, whose powers were inborn. Others were people who sold their soul to Satan in exchange for magick power.
The Black Witch had destructive ways which were the same everywhere and in every era. Protection was needed against the Black Magick and so were protectors. People would arm themselves with spells, charms and rituals, passed down from generation to generation by good people called "Cunning Folk" "White Witches" or "Fairy Doctors". These people were healers, skilled by birth, and trained in the use of herbs and midwifery as well as fortunetelling. Common spells were stored in the memories of the cunning folk-dim memories of the great words of the first wizards. They gave power to the arts these people used. Healing required the understanding of herbs. With each herb went an age-old charm.

Is is said that magick and wizardry died out when Christianity and the one true God came in and drove out the the many gods of the olden days of the Dark Ages.

Blessed Be

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