The Slavs worshiped a wide range of deities, from the shores of the Baltic to the shores of the White Sea. Slavic folklore is cultic in nature, where the same god can be found worshiped in various guises from tribe to tribe. It has been possible in the last two centuries to reconstruct their ancient myths by studying the roots of Slavic languages, folktales, and traditions, from which has been determined a ‘Proto-Slavic culture’. These studies have led to the re-establishment of the original Slavic gods (much like the Olympians of ancient Greece, or the Aesir of Norse mythology).

Dažbog is a sun god who was said to be reborn in the morning, from the arms of The Zorya (Dusk). He rode his chariot across the sky, drawn by three horses; one made of gold, one of silver, and another of diamonds. It was said he journeyed through the twelve kingdoms of the day before entering the underworld, where his absence marked the coming of night. The Slavs imagined Dažbog as a maturd man dressed in animal skins and accompanied by a wolf. It was said he could turn into a wolf at will (suggesting he was a lycanthrope).

Perun is a thunder god, associated with mountains, oak trees, and eagles. He is described as a rugged man with a copper beard who rides in a chariot pulled by goats, wielding a mighty ax. He hurls his ax at evil beings, which always returns to his hand (much like Thor’s hammer). Perun presided over the Earth and all its living occupants. He ruled from the sky and was often symbolized by an eagle sitting on the top of the tallest branch of the sacred tree, from which he kept watch over his world.

Svarog has been compared to the Greek Hephaestus, the god of the blacksmiths and craftsmanship. Reconstructionists believe his father is the solar deity Dažbog, and that he uses the flames of the celestial sun to forge metal weapons, magical items, and powerful Armour.

Rod is a god of creation, who is believed to have given birth to gods (and possibly the first humans). Many scholars believe he was the first supreme deity of Slavic mythology, but his position was eventually overtaken by Svarog and Perun (and later Christ). As a creator god, Rod was also linked with designing a individuals fate (much like the Morai and of Greek myth and the Norns of Norse folklore).

Stribog is the god of winds, sky, and air; and is said to be the ancestor of the eight directions. He was imagined as an old man who had a warrior’s horn which he used to control the winds, his grandchildren.

Svetovid is a four-headed war god, associated with fertility and abundance. His many heads represent his omniscient view of the four cardinal directions. His wields a mighty sword and rides a white horse which is used for divination. His followers prayed to him for Victory in battle, safety on the road and for the protection of their villagers. His temples were said to house an oracle who predicted the future of the tribe by observing the behavior of white horses.

Berstuk is a forest god who protects wild animals and woodlands. It has been suggested he may be the chief of wood spirits known as Lesovik (similar to the goodwose of western Europe). Berstuk has been described as having a moss-covered beard and long shaggy hair. The Lesovik were said to lead travelers through the forest in the wrong direction until they were thoroughly lost. The spirit would then disappear leaving the traveler in despair.

Triglav is a three-headed god of vigilance. His heads were believed to represent his overseeing gaze into the sky, earth, and the underworld. It was believed that Triglav oversaw these three kingdoms (similar to Heimdall in Norse mythology). He had an objective view, represented by a golden binding over his eyes and lips so he could not judge people’s sins nor speak about them.

Veles is one of the major Slavic gods associated with the underworld. He is linked to cattle, commerce, and druidic magic. He is the gatekeeper between Yav, the middle world, Prav, the higher world, and Nav the lower realm. He is also associated with a huge serpent which coils around the roots of the world tree, where he ruled over the land of the dead. His opponent is the thunder-god Perun, and the battles between these two deities constituted as one of the most important myths in Slavic mythology.

Jarilo was a major god of vegetation, fertility, and spring, also associated with war and harvest. He is believed to be the lost son of the Perun. It is said Jarilo was stolen from his father and taken to the world of the dead, where he was adopted and raised by Veles, Perun’s enemy. Jarilo and his sister Morana (goddess of winter & death), are associated with the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

Belobog is the “White God” of the waxing year, and one of Dazbog’s companions. He embodies sunshine, warmth, and life. His followers pray to him for guidance through the dark forests, and to help bring about a bountiful harvest. Belobog is imagined as a bright, bearded man, carrying a staff and dressed in white robes. He only appeared during the daylight, doing good deeds as he went and bringing people success and happiness.

He was said to fight his evil brother Chernobog, the “Black God”, twice a year for control of the seasons. Chernobog was associated with bleak attributes such as cold, famine, poverty and illness. Despite this, he is still respected among all the other gods. During the creation of the world, some say these two brothers came into conflict, and their polarising actions created the cycles of the universe (night & day, summer & winter and the motion of the stars). Chernobog rules over the dark half of the year, opposed by Belobog who presides over the brighter half.

Very similar to the Egyptian cosmos, Slavic mythology values the darkness as an important aspect of the cosmic balance. Evil gods were dangerous and could bring great misery upon the land, but as long as the good deities presided over their duties, darkness would always make way for light, hope, and prosperity. By respecting the darker side of nature, the Slavs were able to survive it and find their way back to the light.

ARTWORK

Perun by Xkirbz
Rod by By Ushakov RoMan
Dazbog & Jarilo by Igor Ozhiganov
Chernobog by By Dusan Markovic

By Simon E. Davies, Contributor to Ancient-Code.com

Modern witchcraft has drawn much of its ideology from ancient religions and esoteric schools. It can be argued that the roots of this revived faith go back as far as the Stone Age, when humans began to conceive their world as a spiritual construct.

1. Shamanism appeared some time during the upper Paleolithic (50,000 – 10,000 years ago). The shaman would often enter trance states to follow the migration of herds (ensuring a successful hunt), heal people from illness, and protect their tribe from evil spirits. Many cave paintings depict shaman dancing in animal costumes, as though taking on the spirit of a particular animal.

2. As the nomadic tribes began to settle, new civilisations emerged, the earliest known being Sumeria (3500 BCE). From the translation of cuneiform tablets we know that the Sumerians believed in a wide range of celestial beings such as gods and spirits, many of which were hostile, so each person was guarded by spirit to protect them from demons. Their magic system was known as invocation, which allowed them to summon, bind and vanquish dark spirits using amulets, incantations and exorcism.

3. In ancient Egypt (2500 BCE), priests became skilled in Heka (the ‘activation of Ka’ or spirit energy). The Ka was the aspect of the soul which embodied personality, and the priests believed they could manipulate this spiritual fabric to influence the gods, gain protection, heal the ill and transform themselves into immortals. During the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (1069–653 BC), the art of Heka was adopted by midwives and nurses, allowing women to explore the secrets of Ka for the first time.

4. The Mystery cults emerged in ancient Greece (1500 – 1100 BCE) and were eventually passed onto the Romans. These secret schools required an initiation process to gain entrance. Worshippers believed that the gods of Greece (such as Demeter, Dionysus and Orpheus) had passed on their magical secrets to humans during the Bronze Age. This included the art of shamanic travel, invoking the gods, reincarnation, and even the ingredients for making ambrosia (an immortalising food).

5. The Celts (decedents of the Indo Europeans), formed a priest class known as Druids by around 350 BCE. These nature worshippers acted as teachers, judges, astrologers, healers, and bards. They were pantheists, meaning they revered many aspects of a single deity (in the forms of nature gods, trees and standing stones). All of their rituals were based around reincarnation, creating potions and crafting spells, which would eventually form the backbone of medieval witchcraft.

6. Another branch of Indo-European magic can be found in the Anglo-Saxon culture (400 CE – 1100 CE). Their magic was based on Norse Mythology, where legend says the god Odin had passed the secrets of the runes to humanity. These sacred symbols are used for healing, creating charms, crafting magical artefacts and hexing people. Due to the Christianisation of their religion in the 6th – 8th century, the Anglo-Saxons came to fear the practitioners of rune magic, believing them to be guided by evil.

7. Gnosticism was a mystic religion that originated in the Middle East around 100 CE. Gnostics believed the material world was inherently evil and that realm of spirit was fundamentally good. They claimed the creator god of the Old Testament was corrupt and had created a flawed world. Instead they directed Christians toward an inner experience of the true god via spiritual transcendence. Their ideology outraged other Christian and Jewish faiths that saw this as an affront to their religion.

8. Gnosticism later influenced the mystic tradition of the Kabbalah. This Jewish sect believed that God’s divine knowledge had been shared by the angels to humans 5000 years ago. His spiritual principles were then passed down the generations via oral tradition until emerging as a sacred text known as Sefer Zohar (“Book of Radiance”), written by Moses de Leon, 1290 CE. Practitioners guide their followers via meditation toward a direct contact with the divine. Like Gnosticism, the Kabbalah speaks of divine beings, a tree of life and multiple cosmic realms.

9. Throughout the early middle ages, the Catholic Church tolerated pagan faiths. However, after the devastation of the ‘Black Death’ (bubonic plague 1347-1349), a paranoia swept through the minds of Christians, believing it was the heathens and heretics who had tainted humanity with their dark sorcery. What followed was 300 years of persecution toward anyone practicing magic and mysticism.

1401: Witch Trials began in England, proclaiming that anyone who practiced witchcraft was to be burnt at the stake.

1487: The notorious ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ (‘Hammer against the Witches’) was published by Kramer & Sprenger, inciting Christians to hunt down and kill witches.

1515: Authorities in Geneva, Switzerland burn 500 accused witches at the stake

1526: Como, Italy, a spiral of witchcraft charges lead to around 1000 executions.

1644: In England, Matthew Hopkins (self proclaimed “Witch-finder General”) began an intense witch-hunting campaign, torturing and killing around 300 women.

1692: The Salem witch trials arrest 150 people, convicting twenty-nine of the felony of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused were hanged.

Between 1400 and 1700, an estimated 50,000 suspected witches were executed (around 75% of them women), in countries such as France, Britain, Germany and America.

After what became known as “The Burning Times”, the practice of witchcraft survived in pockets, particularly in the countryside, cut off from interaction with witches from other areas, or through secret societies.

10. The occult, (knowledge of the paranormal) was studied and practiced throughout the witch trials, often within secret societies sworn to silence. Intellectuals drawn to forbidden lore and mysticism began to study ancient texts related to invocation, ancient mythology, Egyptian mysticism, Gnosticism and the Kabbalah. Throughout this era, societies such as the Freemasons and Rosicrucian’s began to develop new schools of thought in astrology, alchemy, tarot, mediumship and sacred geometry.

11. In 1887, the works of the occult reached their pinnacle in an English society called ‘The Golden Dawn’. The Hermetic Order was an organisation devoted to occult practices, metaphysics, and paranormal activity. Many present-day concepts of ritual magic have been inspired by the Golden Dawn, which became one of the largest single influences on 20th-century Western occultism.

12. Wicca is a modern pagan, witchcraft religion. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century by Gerald Gardner. It draws upon the mystic traditions of the golden Dawn as well as ancient pagan practices. Wiccans typically believe in reincarnation, the use of magic to influence specific outcomes, a moral responsibility toward others and an appreciation for natural cycles (they have eight festivals known as Sabbats that revolve around the changing seasons). Wiccans often worship a variety of nature deities, the most important being the mother goddess and the horned god. These two deities are sometimes viewed as facets of a single godhead.

1. Shaman – Susan Seddon Boulet
2. Invocation by Slawomir Maniak
3. Heka by Wojciech Ostrycharz
4. Mystery Cults by Slawomir Maniak
5. Druidism by Grosnus
7. Rune Lore by Ashley Bryner
6. Gnosticism: NA
8. Kabbalah by John Collier
9. Witch Hunt by Kiri Østergaard Leonard
9. Witch Hunt by Thomas Satterwhite Noble
10. Alchemy: NA
11. Photo of Aleister Crowley (public domain)
12. Wicca: NA

by Simon E. Davies contributor to Ancient-Code.com