Doubt. The very word knows us. The very word is reminiscence to all who walk the Wild Path. Doubt is our common trial and sometimes the end of our path. It destroys and cripples those who are weakened to it and fall to its shadow. Doubt can prevail if we are not strong and I assure you each and everyone of us will be exposed to its tyranny. The challenge from the Gods to test our strength, our magick and our power and will of our own mind. I have experienced this Doubt, I almost let it overwhelm me and at times I did. At times I sobbed and my sides heaved. At times the Doubt would consume my thoughts, I was sick and depressed and it continued to stop me on my path.
I started to Doubt after Yule, the Winter Solstice. After the coven I am involved with celebrated the rebirth of the God, the Sun Child and comforted the tired Goddess. It was the beginning of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere and I returned home after the Shortest Night and I shared a prayer with the Goddess. I asked her to bring me my obstacle if I was ready and I guess she heard me loud and clear and thought I was ready. Two weeks later I discovered an entity had found its way into my home so I did a ritual to dispel it. At the end of this Ritual I opened the Circle and asked the Mother to take me to bed and bid me goodnight. She was holding a golden child in her arms and she kissed my forehead and smiled mysteriously as I switched off the light and went to sleep. The next morning I felt something stir within me, I felt a power that I was yet to discover would be a great enemy.
Through the days, the weeks and the months that followed I prayed, I self-sacrificed, made offerings, cast spells, performed rituals to try to take this Doubt away from me. I consulted both my cowan friends and pagan friends, but nothing did the trick. I felt as if I was at the foot of a large tower in the middle of a desert. That there was no one with me, I was forsaken in a land I did not know - abandoned. I wept and plead to the God and Goddess that they would take it away, but the Tower was ever-standing. However some days I thought it had finally disappeared and some days I thought it would never end, it waxed and waned in its power over me. One afternoon I found myself on my bed next to my altar crying and dowsing for an answer, asking the pendulum if it would ever end. It always said yes, but I was always unsure. This Doubt gives you internal scars. Brands that will stay with you, almost like a war wound. However, in this period it was odd that I still performed at my peak. I was great in my power and energy, sometimes I would ignore the Doubt and tell it to go away in obscene tongue. This is how I got rid of it, one way or another.
A good friend of mine, a wiccan from Sydney told me to ignore the Doubt. I took that advice but I guess I misinterpreted it. I began to use my inner-voice and shout at it, screaming at, revealing my pain. It began to wax in power and I discovered this was not the right thing to do and so I reassessed my friend's wisdom. I was to absolutely ignore it, pretend as if it never existed and it began to work. I felt the Doubt begin to disperse within me, receding to the Universe from whence it came. I pushed it further and soon enough I discovered that I was over it, it returned in strokes and still haunts me in seconds but ultimately it has gone. It would go to haunt another, wreak its pain and suffering on another of the Wild Path. Take them and strike them down as their trial and this is my adivce to you.
However much you cry, however much you wish to leave your path, however much you are set on the idea the world has turned its back on you. This is not true. It is you who has turned you back on the world if you allow the Doubt to take you. Your path will support you, the Gods will hold you when you weep as their child. Do not depend on their help. They are ruthless and disappointing as a family and as such you are created in their own image. Use this knowledge to defeat the power that hinders you. Take of my words and seek the Doubt before it seeks you. Be done with it so and hold you head high. You are a God, you govern your own fate. Use your divine hand to chase the Doubt away. Never let it be your God, for that is fake. It assumes the identity. Know this however my friends.
"As Darkness consumes the Land and the Sea
Hold to your friends and family
Hold to the Goddess, the Mother of All
Hold to the God, Pan's wild call
Seek unto other, the pain that is shared
To know, to keep silent, to will and to dare!"
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Sir William Stirling Maxwell - The CanonStarhwak - The Spiral Dance
Anton Szandor Lavey - The Satanic Rituals
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