Casting A Circle

All spells and rituals, however formal or informal, arebased on a magical circle. This may be large enough for an entire group ofpractitioners to stand in, or it may be small enough to fit on your personalaltar. I have known practitioners who have only a small area create a circle ona table-top and sit facing North, physically outside it but spiritually within,manipulating the symbols within it. I have also known modern witches who willcreate an instant circle on paper or even on a computer screen.

If you have the space, you can keep a magick circlemarked out with stones in a corner of your garden or painted on the floor of aroom covered with a large rug. Attics are especially good since you are nearerthe sky. If you are able to keep a special area for your circle, scatter driedlavender or potpourri on it before each use, and sweep it in circleswiddershins to remove any negativity.

Whatever the form or size of your circle, mark the fourmain compass directions within it. In the marker positions, you can use stones,lines on the floor, four crystals hanging on cords on the four walls or candlesin the appropriate elemental colours.

Once you know your directions, you can mark out yourcircle, beginning in the North (although some practitioners begin in the East),and working deosil. Draw your circle in one sweeping movement. You may wish tochant as you go.

If you are working in a group, or if this is a circle fora more formal ritual, you may wish to add god/goddess-power forms as aninterspersed chant, with the voices of the group ebbing and rising in waves.You may wish to welcome the Archangels, or Guardians of the Four Watchtowers atthe four compass points as you cast your circle. (The Archangels represent thecelestial beings that feature in the cosmologies of the three main religions ofthe Western world -Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Alternatively, you may wishto call upon powerful goddess forms:

Isis, Ishtar, Cerridwen, Innana, Shakti, Yoruba, Danu,Kali and Aine, protect, empower and inspirethis magical endeavor.

You can embellish the casting ceremony as much as youlike, perhaps drawing pentagrams in the air at the four main compass points,and combining this with lighting the four elemental candles.

Some practitioners like to cast a circle and then welcomeother members of the group to enter, sealing the circle with a diagonalup-and-down slashing movement of their power hand (the one they write with), ora wand or an athame. (An athame is a double-edged knife used in formal rituals.It represents Air and is placed in the East of the circle.

As well as drawing circles, it may be used to conductmagical energies into a symbol.) But I think it is more powerful if one personactually walks around the outside of a circle of people, enclosing them inlight. In this way, the circle is created in human dimensions and is as largeor small as is required by the actual formation. The circle made to fit thegroup is far better magically than the group made to fit the circle, for thegroup is the circle.

If you want to visualize a circle, use a clear, pointedquartz crystal, or wand, or the forefinger of your power hand, and draw anoutline, in the air at chest level or on the ground. The circle extendswherever you draw it from the ground upwards to above your head like a wall ofgold. Again, begin in the North, and continue in an unbroken, circularmovement.

Remember, the circle is created with your own power,amplified if you wish by the sacred Guardians or powers you may invoke. Forthis reason, creating a light body and thus drawing energy from the ground,before casting the circle, is a powerful preliminary. Some practitioners,having drawn the light, extend then-hands upwards so that light from the cosmoscan also enter. Do this before joining hands if you are creating the circle asa group.

In a conventional coven, the High Priestess casts anduncast the circle, but you may prefer to allow the person leading the ritual tocast the magical boundaries.