Lifting the Veil Quotes

“Everything is energy—this book you are reading, the ink on its pages, even the thoughts that are going through your mind while you read these words.”
― Janet Farrar, Lifting the Veil: A Witches' Guide to Trance-Prophesy, Drawing Down the Moon, and Ecstatic Ritual

“As we mentioned, the ritual of Drawing Down the Moon is the defining rite that separates Wicca from Druidism and ceremonial ritual magic. Unlike the other traditions, Wicca introduced the idea of deity assumption, or possession by a god or goddess, into modern Witchcraft.”
― Janet Farrar, Lifting the Veil: A Witches' Guide to Trance-Prophesy, Drawing Down the Moon, and Ecstatic Ritual

“The gods and goddesses of any culture cannot change the world around us directly. They have to work through us, through the priestesses and priests who freely give over their bodies and mouths to allow them to speak. The purpose of the oracle, seer, or the high priestess who has the moon drawn down upon herself is to serve the gods, to be the conduit for the message they give. The gods are here to guide us; which divinity it is, is really unimportant, as it is only the message that is important, not the messenger, and we ignore this message at our peril.”
― Janet Farrar, Lifting the Veil: A Witches' Guide to Trance-Prophesy, Drawing Down the Moon, and Ecstatic Ritual

“Changes occurred again by the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s when feminist and Dionysian influences began to rise. We have attended at least one ritual by a well-known high priestess of that time period; she performed a Dionysian-style ritual using drumming and dancing without any structure. The result was a total inability to control or direct any raised magical energy whatsoever.”
― Janet Farrar, Lifting the Veil: A Witches' Guide to Trance-Prophesy, Drawing Down the Moon, and Ecstatic Ritual

“Braid suggested that hypnosis was “a condition resulting from the mind being possessed by dominant ideas,” that it was caused by suggestion. This remains the main theory of hypnosis even today…It relies on the individual’s willingness and desire to enter into that state and the belief of the possibility of it happening.”
― Janet Farrar, Lifting the Veil: A Witches' Guide to Trance-Prophesy, Drawing Down the Moon, and Ecstatic Ritual