The Lords of The Lightning and the Truth of the Weapon:
Miscellaneous Comments on the Magick of Electricity

Had we but a little more faith in the natural wisdom of some of our great contributors to society, rather than paying heed to their fashionable critics.

It is, as I should have pointed out many times on many relevant pages of this site, thoroughly obvious to me that the rationale that "requires" the use of certain "weapons" as magickal tools, is part of a long-running tradition of ancient science that strongly implies mastery of the forces of electricity, which may be one of the most-misunderstood aspects of modern witchcraft and paganism.

Any intimidated observer deserves an explanation, and although the explanations that most pagans will give them are elegant, generous and simple, if there is any reason that they fail to get the point across, it's that they have never been equipped to elaborate on the workings of such an object in terms that are familiar enough to satisfy the casual observer's sensibilities.

Not that I think I can do any better, in fact I was quite disappointed when even Ben Stein could not defend his own game show money by correctly identifying the proper standardized color of a ground wire, which gives us the sad impression that even if we wax technical, the message does not necessarily become clearer without a wee bit of homework on the part of the person who requires an explanation of why magick embraces a tool that many of us would rather not have around at all.

Fortunately, there's no trouble when using a slightly technical explanation, to see the common element and to use it to contemplate more reasonable substitutes. I'm quite content that a sharp pointed and largely harmless yucca left, for example, might make a perfectly adequate substitute, and they're often far more legal and far more inexpensive to come by.

The rationale is the same one we find in John Lust's classic, "The Herb Book" as he discusses certain esoteric lore about plants. The houseleek, it seems, was planted on rooftops by the imperial command of the emperor Charlemagne, in order to prevent lightning strikes.

This is a very important historical citation for many reasons, not the least of which is that it has close kinship to an overly spare magickal tradition of various means from the ancient sciences to prevent houses from bursting into flame, a subject that occupies on the shortest but by no means the least important pages of this website.

As a matter of fact, such a gesture is quite obviously far apart from the idle superstition which most modern "intellects" have regarded it as. The obvious value as a flame retardant to keep a burning house from spreading that fire to all of it's adjacent village could not be more obvious.

Still, Mr. Lust has a theory, that the sharp points of the leaves acted as lightning arresters because such sharp points tend to dissipate electrical charges, the very means by which atmospheric lightning manages a mutual attraction to its target.

This alone gives us an adequate glimpse into the rationale for which the pagan or witches' knife, the athame, is selected as a magickal tool, because it naturally possesses a predisposition toward an energetic function, no matter how vague or specific the particular labeling of that energy may be.

By the same token, it may be if wisely selected and handled, an object that therefore can intervene in the potential for lightning to strike someone who carries one, a survival item not as a rule yet available in sporting goods stores to this very day!

This is by no means the only "lightning charm" available within the legacies of magick; there are a hoard of plants that ancient and not-so-ancient wise people have designated as having relevance in such "meteorological magick", and any and even all of them are quite likely to have their own true values here, just as in the case of Charlemagne's houseleeks, and at some point, a table of them, their uses, and the sources of the references will appear on this very page.

These same concerns have managed to find themselves at the very center of some most unusual speculations you will find on the pages of this site regarding the sheer and utter reality of witches' brooms, that is so easily corroborated by a hoard of samples of scientific and other literature. Any substitutions made of any of the materials traditionally used in witches' brooms may indeed proceed correctly along exactly these lines, their well known positive or negative affinities for electricity, and perhaps other natural forces such as water.

I would like to dwell on something for a minute here that I am often known to say to people, who probably aren't sure what to think of it, that this conception of the magickal weapon as an electromagnetic tool, just as is even far more clearly established by many sources regarding the magickian's wand, ultimately requires of every person living on this earth at this very moment, some careful reconsideration of the nature of countless artifacts we have unearthed that are purported to be weapons.

By the same criteria, the Neanderathal's spear qualifies as the largest Crystal Wand you have ever laid eyes on, and guess what? Our evidence of ancient magickal science, very modern and very sophisticated science, may very well go back that far into human history, just as the ancient religions and traditions seem to. Likewise, a list of ancient knowledge of electricity, one which includes much of some favorite ancient Egyptian icons, the Ark of the Covenant, the Baghdad battery, electroplated jewelry, and a great many more instances, is far too long to include here for support. This premise will inevitably have to presume some archeological and historical awareness on the part of the reader.

What I wish more than anything to emphasize, is that to gaze upon what may be multitudes of ancient magickal and utilarian items and declare them to weapons of war based on historical stories that are literally brimming with multiple meanings, may not only be proven in the long run to be rather perverse, but I appropriately credit this folly to "historians" more than anyone else. It is they whom we have entrusted to interpret these things for us, and they have apparently gone in without even the modicum of graces we expect from our criminal justice systems, and taken mere hearsay for absolute fact, then blinded us with their credentials and numbed us with repetition to encourage us to follow suit with their folly.

As far as historical accounts go, here is a sample from Helena Blavatsky's "Isis Unveiled"(Vol. I, pg. 527) in regards to the ancient function of the long sharp blade and its cousins:

"Tracing back the knowledge of thunder and lightning possessed by the Etruscan priests, we find that Tarchon, the founder of the theurgism of the former, desiring to preserve his house from lightning, surrounded it by a hedge of white bryony, a climbing plant which has the property of averting thunderbolts. Tarchon the turgist was much anterior to the siege of Troy. The pointed metallic lightning-rod, for which we are seemingly indebted to Fanklin, is probably a rediscovery after all. There are many medals which seem to strongly indicate that the principle was anciently known. The temple of Juno has its roof covered with a quantity of pointed blades of swords,

If we possess but little proof of the anceints having had any clear notions as to all of the effects of electricity, there is very strong evidence, at all events, of their having been perfectly acquianted with electricity itself. "Ben David", says the author of The Occult Sciences, 'has asserted that Moses possessed some knowledge of the phenomena of electricity'. Professor Hirt, of Berlin, is of this opinion. Michaelis, remarks- firstly: 'that there is no indication that lightning ever struck the temple of Jerusalem, during a thousand years'. Secondly, that according to Josephus, a forest of points... of gold, and very sharp, covered the roof of the temple. Thirdly, that this roof communicated with the caverns in the hill upon which the temple was situated, by means of pipes in connection with the gilding which covered all the exterior of the building; in consequence of which the points would act as conductors...

Finally, Salverte shows that in the days of Ktesias, 'India was acquainted with the use of conductors of lightning'. This historian plainly states that 'iron placed at the bottom of a fountain... and made in the form of a sword, with the point upward, possessed, as soon as it was thus fixed in the ground, the property of storms and lightnings. What can be plainer?' "

Even while John Walker, in his chapter "The Vortex Arena", gives a powerfully sensible model of Amerindian rainmaking by certain circular dancing creating vorticular motion that extends into the upper atmosphere to encourage precipitation, not at all like the measurable effects of vorticular effects on physical properties and even molecular structure that is discussed on this site's "Magickal Vortex Science" page, and others, there is another thing to contend with.

In a similar fashion to which our own modern science has often manipulated the weather in the form of cloud-seeing using silver compounds, that is, certain salts, a careful survey of ethnobotanical literature should reveal a pattern of Amerindian herbs for "magickal" rainmaking consisting of plants which are conspicuous accumulators of salts.

In other words, these "superstitions" Natives seem to have made rain in as advanced a way as modern man, with the exception that the Natives were advanced enough to have done so in an elegantly simple and efficient fashion without going to the superfluous trouble of building the airplane and installing the runway using paid slaves who had the alternative of starving after modern business ran their families off of their farms.

Zeus' legend managed to contain the science whose discovery attributed to Thales, of electrostatics, before Benjamin Franklin was accredited with it (we should look and see, shouldn't we, if Zeus wore a electrophoretic- that is, static-electricity-generating) aegis since long before the birth of Thales, just as the Egyptian priest wore their own version in the form of animal hides. This ancient myth shows exact knowledge of lightning as static electricity.

It's interesting also that the relationship between Zeus and his daugther, Artemis, may reflect the relationship whereby certain trees of this Goddess who is "protectoress of children" may be considered as repellers of lighting. Theoretically such conifers as the pine and others have the necessary sharp dissipative points, as long as any other necessary criteria are met; Artemis' identity as an archer and huntress that affiliates her with the sign, Sagittarius (which is symbolized by an aroor pointing straight up), in spite of her strong affiliations with the signs Virgo and Cancer, may in part advise us of the criteria we have previously encountered, that the tree we are trusting to be a lightning arrester needs to have points facing straight up, although much of the legendary lightning charm trees may have both electrochemical, exotic matter, and other means of performing the effect as well, as do some minerals.

Thor, the Norse Thundergod is another absolute ancient gem, but I don't really even want to mention him here in the context of lightning and electricity when his hammer, Mjolnir, it's material and especially it's magickal properties are an exquisite example of a device that displays exact and immaculately sophisticated knowledge of the potential properties of magnetism, magnetic resonance, and time reversal, as you can surmise from my notes and those of others on the Philadelphia Experiment as such time-reversal phenomena as palingenics.

Out of sheer exhaustion, I am putting this page on the web as it is, but please return now and then. I won't consider this page finished until I include many more hopefully interesting things to share with you on the subject.

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