Invocation Ancient & Modern: comparing the experiences of the Oracle of Delphi to the modern Wiccan practice of Drawing Down the Moon

by Pete Ralls March 2010

Invocation and the subsequent assuming of god forms is one of the most central parts of our working group’s practice, if not the most. We work with various deities, divinities, god forms; call them what you will, learning by their grace and by our experience of their power to help develop us as people. This works as a catalyst that helps us to grow and advance along this path. It is by our experience of them and their guidance that we grow and progress as people and make the important changes that help us to grow into effective priests and priestesses of this path.

There is nothing we do within our practice that is not influenced by the gods. Every working and every word that goes into our rituals are divinely inspired, inspired by dreams and deep meditations, in signs and omens found in nature, or oracular messages. With this in mind, I thought it would be a nice idea to explore the relation of our modern craft practices to an example of a similar phenomenon in the ancient world, that of the Pythia at the Oracle of Delphi.

The Pythia was the head prophetess and seer who resided within the temple complex, and was seen as being the direct line to Apollo, the shining god of divination and prophecy. Of all the ancient prophets and seers of the ancient world she is the one that seemed to work in a way closest to the priestesses of modern craft.

For a long time it was assumed that the Pythia prophesied in some form of ecstatic frenzy, inspired by toxic fumes that crept up through gaps in the rocky floor of the temple's adyton or central chamber. This was based mainly on testimonies of early Christians and other groups that wished to discredit the oracle and the pagan gods that were worshipped there.

This view however has since been disproved and has fallen out of favour with most modern historians of ancient Greece, for in a number of ancient accounts insist on her serene demeanour and clear language, with vase paintings depicting her as being highly composed, sitting upon the tripod speaking the words of the god Apollo. It seems much more likely that she was gripped by enthusiasmos, a divine enthusiasm, that helped inspired her to speak the words and thoughts of the god, albeit it in her own language and vocabulary. As Fritz Graf says in his book Apollo:

'It was the medium's language one was hearing: the Pythia basically was a translator of Apollo's thoughts, and if already translations from one human language into another are always defective, even more so the translation from god to human: "That is why oracles are often unclear and deceive humans' [Oration 10.23]

This to me sounds very similar to modern Wiccan practice and specifically the practices of our working group when drawing down either the moon or sun. It is this enthusiasmos in which we are gripped, led into this altered state of consciousness in which unity with a divinity is truly possible. Having this ancient parallel can be a reassuring sign that we are doing things right and so I think these validations can be important, signposts along the lengthy and arduous path to enlightenment.

As Sarah Iles Johnston puts it in her book, Ancient Greek Divination, while speaking of the experiences of the Pythia, 'Human and divine came more closely together than at any other time,' when inspired by the god. This to me seems just as good a way of describing the modern practices of drawing down the moon or sun, of our own connection to the gods when invoking them into one another.

So how did the Pythia achieve this altered state and how does it relate to Wiccan practice? Well here we have a very close parallel to modern practice not only in Wicca and the craft but also in many other modern magical traditions, as Fritz Graf says:

'She could quietly and lucidly answer the questions of her clients, and nevertheless be in that altered state of consciousness that her own culture associated with being inspired. After all, everybody agreed that she prophesied in a state of mania, madness, and that she was katochos, controlled by Apollo.''

Here the word, katochos is interesting and can be best translated as either "held down" or “held by”. This is contrasted with another word, entheoi, "having a god inside," which I personally think is more characteristic of modern Wiccan invocation, although I do believe there have been examples that do reflect the earlier, especially when working with the more transcendental deities such as Apollo and Zeus.

This altered state was achieved through various ritual and pre-ritual actions such as abstinence, fasting, ritual bathing (in the sacred spring water of the Castalian spring), sitting on the tripod in the adyton and finally the smell of the sweet smelling gas, which may have acted as the final trigger. This has parallels with Wiccan and modern magical practices such as abstinence from meat, fish, alcohol, sex and other things in a prescribed period before ritual; as well as ritual bathing and other triggers like incense and ritual clothing to help induce that altered state. The final trigger in Wicca is of course the actions of the invocation itself in the drawing down of the moon or sun.

This is echoed in the almost universal religious belief that keeping pure and abstaining from pollutants helps bring us closer to the divine, one that was prevalent in ancient Greece and at the oracle of Delphi. It was said that ancient priests were to abstain from sex and death in order to serve their gods. When it came to death this also usually meant abstaining from meat. As Graf says in another book, Magic in the Ancient World:

'Death, associated with meat, which is the result of a violent death, is incompatible with the divine.'

On a practical level I think this may partly relate to our physiological and psychological states when attempting to connect with the gods in a magical or mystical ritual. If we have eaten something that takes longer to digest like meat or stodgy food such as those that contain starch we can find it very difficult to go through the mental and spiritual processes to achieve the desired altered state. The same can be true with the consumption of alcohol for obvious reasons. This being said I think the connection with meat and death was still a valid reason in its own right.

The belief that the Pythia must remain celibate is a more interesting one and prompts various interpretations as to its meaning. As Sarah Iles Johnston asks (in Ancient Greek Divination):

“Should we understand (the Pythia) as Apollo’s “wife,” and thus understand the prophetic process during which she was “filled by Apollo” as a form of sexual intercourse that led to a “verbal pregnancy”?

This would certainly make sense on a psychological and symbolic level; after all catholic priests today take a vow of celibacy, preferring instead to be “married to the church”. I think it definitely has some credence even if this is only on a metaphorical level.

Another interpretation points to the fact that celibacy was a prerequisite for many Greek and Roman rituals, not because of a conceived act of infidelity but because sex was seen as yet another pollutant, alongside urination, defecation and most other natural processes. This makes it a further act of purification by abstaining from sexual contact. This needn’t necessarily be a permanent vow though, as Sarah Iles Johnston states:

“Most often, a person who was about to serve a god would be required to remain celibate only briefly – for a few days before performing the ritual.”

Of course to the modern magician the answer may be more in the preservation of life-force, power or energy; energy that can be used later in ritual, in magical workings, even in the act of theurgy and union with the gods themselves. Psychologically speaking it may again be to help focus the mind to achieve the altered state of consciousness. In this way it is not so dissimilar to the football player who is banned from sex before a match so he does not lose focus when playing.

I think there may be also an ascetic truth to it, that one had to keep them self pure and free of earthly concerns; that one must ignore the needs of the flesh and of the material world in order to reach a union with the higher transcendental deity, in the Delphic case the god Apollo. This is one that makes sense when you are dealing with a divinity like Apollo but less so when we are dealing with Wicca and Witchcraft, which is generally more Dionysian in nature.

Though we may never know the real reasons and practices that helped the Pythia achieve these states it is very interesting to people in the modern craft to see an interesting parallel to rites we practice now, thousands of years after Delphi’s oracle closed its doors to the public and the Pythia retired her laurel crown; to see that a rite that originated only sixty odd years ago has perhaps an antecedent from over two millenniums.

References and Further Reading:

'Apollo', Fritz Graf
'Magic in the Ancient World', Fritz Graf
'Ancient Greek Divination', Sarah Iles Johnston