A Broom at Midnight

Book excerpt: Preserved in medieval and early modern witch-lore, the image of the witch embarking upon flight has become iconic from a historic and folkloric perspective. In the accounts of previous ages, however, it was commonly understood that witches flew in spirit form rather than corporeal form, leaving the physical body behind as the practitioner voyaged into the otherworld to procure knowledge, learn charms, visit boon or bane upon others, and attend the spiritual gathering of the witches' sabbat. In this unique offering, the author organizes the lore and charms of the transvective arts around thirteen central lessons and approaches in methodology, acting as gates through which the practitioner may cross. Some approaches offered here may be familiar to folk and traditional witches, such as via veneficium (by way of poison) and via equarum (by way of steed), while others, like via imaginibus (by way of image) and via tempestatis (by way of storm) draw on historic lore and charms in order to innovate upon old craft while maintaining the spirit that flavors these beloved arts. By mastering the often overlooked work of sabbatic ekstasis, the witch is brought into direct contact with familiar spirits, powers of the land and of ancestry, and with the primal sources of witchcraft itself, yielding an inexhaustible and ever-unfolding curriculum of the art magical.