Janet Farrar > Quotes

“At the human level, in Jungian terms – the Goddess whispers to a man’s anima, his buried feminine aspect, and the God speaks out loud to his male emphasis; while the God whispers to a woman’s buried male animus, and the Goddess speaks out loud to her female emphasis.”
― Janet Farrar, The Witches' God

“This [personification of deities] is also one of the reasons why the faceless concept of duotheism, which existed in early Wiccan practice, will ultimately fail to fulfill the needs of the new generation of Witches. It is human nature to anthropomorphize the world around us. When we paint and draw as children, we put smiley faces on flowers, the sun, and the moon. As we grow up, we give inanimate objects names and personalities—cars and boats for example. This is the inherited mode of psychic functioning at its most basic level. What Jung doesn’t cover is the result of this personification, the creation of supercharged thought-forms that we call gods and goddesses, which have developed personalities as real as our own.”
― Janet Farrar, Progressive Witchcraft: Spirituality, Mysteries, and Training in Modern Wicca

“The most important magical tool that you have is your mind. Without the skills and knowledge of their use, your other magical tools are useless props.”
― Janet Farrar, The Inner Mysteries: Progressive Witchcraft and Connection to the Divine

“The inclusion of the Oak King/Holly King cycle into Wicca is really quite modern, with Robert Grave’s The White Goddess and Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough as the major sources.”
― Janet Farrar, The Inner Mysteries: Progressive Witchcraft and Connection to the Divine

“One big problem for modern Pagans is that the old gods and goddesses have been asleep. Devoid of worship and recognition for so long, they have become psychically dormant…We see it is as the role of modern Witches and Pagans to “wake the gods” just as Tim Robbins’ character “Erik” did in the film Erik the Viking.”
― Janet Farrar, The Inner Mysteries: Progressive Witchcraft and Connection to the Divine

“Magical forces will seek any means to realize the objective, even if it is not in the best interests of the person concerned. Unless, of course, you are clever enough to make sure you only ask for what you really want, rather than for what you think you want.”
― Janet Farrar, Spells and How They Work

“One of the most obvious things that stick out in this short history is the importance and influence of books in the growth of modern Wicca; Gardner would never have got the new movement off the ground without them.”
― Janet Farrar, The Inner Mysteries: Progressive Witchcraft and Connection to the Divine

“Sex magic without love is black magic.”
― Janet Farrar, Spells and How They Work

“The two most important doctrines that have kept Wicca from degenerating and losing cohesion as a spiritual path is its system of ethical principles—the Wiccan Rede—and its system of training. If these systems didn’t exist within Wicca, someone would end up creating them—regardless of whether tradition or lineage continues as a prevalent factor.”
― Janet Farrar, The Inner Mysteries: Progressive Witchcraft and Connection to the Divine

“Jewish tradition, by the way, also included image spells, but only for one purpose – the recovery of stolen property.”
― Janet Farrar, Spells and How They Work

“The Boomerang Effect is expressed in the traditional occult maxim: ‘Any psychic attack which comes up against a stronger defence rebounds threefold on the attacker.”
― Janet Farrar, Spells and How They Work

“Not training or gaining knowledge breaks the Wiccan Rede itself, the very core ethic of Wicca.”
― Janet Farrar, The Inner Mysteries: Progressive Witchcraft and Connection to the Divine

“The witches’ Circle has, in fact, two functions: protective and amplifying. It keeps out unwanted influences, and it prevents the power that is built up from dissipating until the moment for its purposeful release.”
― Janet Farrar, Spells and How They Work

“By far the best, and most widely accepted, compendium of correspondences is Aleister Crowley’s book 777.”
― Janet Farrar, Spells and How They Work

“When someone interested in Witchcraft comes to us, we have a simple test. We get them to close their eyes and, with their palms up, ask them to put their hands out in front of them. We then ask them if they wish to see some magic. How they react to what happens next is important. When they open their eyes, they discover that we have placed a simple houseplant in its pot on their outstretched hands. We look for the recognition in their eyes, that magic is not separate or supernatural, but is life itself.”
― Janet Farrar, Progressive Witchcraft: Spirituality, Mysteries, and Training in Modern Wicca

“Some individuals are pathological vampires, drawing energy unhealthily off others which they should be drawing healthily from the universal Source and from its manifestation in surrounding Nature.”
― Janet Farrar, Spells and How They Work

“This is one of the reasons we no longer use the terms high priest and high priestess to describe ourselves: we feel the terms encourage ego inflation. We still use the terms priest and priestess, but we use them as a job description rather than a statement of status.”
― Janet Farrar, Progressive Witchcraft: Spirituality, Mysteries, and Training in Modern Wicca