#viridarium umbris
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What reading or background knowledge would you consider to be a pre-requisite for starting Viridarium Umbris?
I'm honestly not sure what I would suggest, other than maybe trying to learn what you can about Eruopean Wort Cunning and the Cultus Sabbati first. Others are welcome to give their own suggestions to this, though!
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hello! two years ago you mentioned 'hortus conclusus' in a post. if i may ask: what is that?
i didn't intend to answer this because i figured it'd be easily google-able, but then, on a whim--perhaps guided by the hand of the divine to not make a total ass of myself--looked it up, and it's really not clear what i was talking about.
the hortus conclusus i was talking about is from a book called Viridarium Umbris by Daniel Schulke. 'hortus conclusus' means 'secret garden' in latin, and in this case is/may be referential to the song of songs from the bible which mentions the phrase. its sort of hard to find individual things from the book online (outside of tumblr that is, lol) but the book is readily found in pdf form just about everywhere. it's on page 14 (page 33 of the pdf)
the idea is it allows spirits to impart wisdom onto the 'verderer' (as deemed by the book, lol. the amount of green is very silly)
sorry for taking forever to answer!
#lune croaks#frog answers#viridarium umbris#<- dis is also my VU tag which has a bunch of shit in it
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So, I printed the Viridarium Umbris but my printer does not have the double-sided printing option... So yeah it was a lot of ink and a lot of paper... I don’t even know how I am going to be able to bind it, I am thinking maybe a Japanese binding and I will need to do it in two volumes.
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Occult People in 4089:
''Look at this ancient grimoire called the VIRIDARIUM UMBRIS''
Me : Don't. It's too beautiful and important, just live a normal life
Also me: who the fuck is Elphame, are you talking about Dame Abonde or Hekate, Mother of Angels, or the fucking Virgin Mary?
Fuck you Schulke, I love you 😮💨
Just bought a Book about Strixcraft, where is my soul Lost? I shouldn't buy New books, they're just (awesome & precious)evil shit
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The harvesting of Worts from the Shrine of the Earth is an action in both the Garden of Flesh and the Garden of Spirit. The Simpler must make use of the mundane implements and maxims of Agriculture, as well as the hard structures of Botanical Knowledge […] While certain protocols of harvest apply universally, custom and lore relate that some plants have their own good traditions of harvesting in accordance with their Genii.
From Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow, published 2005; Daniel Schulke (My Ko-Fi Here)
#Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow#Daniel Schulke#Natural Connections#Sabbatic Craft#Cultus Sabbati#Green Witch#Green Witchcraft#Herbalism#Quote
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Slapping astrology out of these TikTok queers hands and giving them all copies of the Viridarium Umbris. Fuck y'all. You're spiritualizing botanical taxonomy and methodology now.
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disappointment anon, i didnt actually know you could create spirit doors i thought i just had to hope that the spirits heard me after i called them to me because i dont have clairsenses or good divination.. LOL but thank you for that post that was extremely helpful :)
Hi! In Traditional Witchcraft and other related practices, I think I especially want to say Fairy Faith, the idea that the practitioner has the ability to find, capitalize on, or simply create portals, gateways, and roads into the spirit world is a dominant theme.
The only time I ever see this referenced in 101 stuff is casting a circle! The concept in Traditional Witchcraft is more or less the same as a Wiccan circle, but we call it a compass. If a lot of your education is coming from online sources, you may be unaware that a primary function of a magic circle is to "join the worlds" and, as Kelden puts it,
On a deeper level, though, and most central to Traditional Witchcraft, the compass is a liminal place, a doorway through which we can enter into the Otherworld.
On one hand, the word compass is synonymous with the word circle, but it also denotes the well-known navigational tool used in travel. This second meaning makes a lot of sense in the context that Traditional Witches use the compass round to navigate and traverse the different realms.
Kelden, The Crooked Path, 2020 (emphasis my own)
For a spirit-working witch, the skill of learning where to find spirits and how to reliably call them is a skill which I believe is separate from brokering deals. I also believe that working with these gateways is probably a fundamental skill of witchcraft.
The witch has many tools at their disposal for creating gateways into the spirit world and walking back and forth between this world and the next, with new knowledge, allies, and powers.
Some of these gateways are physical locations, each of which may lead to a different place in the otherworld, or make it easier or more difficult to access certain powers.
A small, secluded cave half-filled with water at the bottom of a steep riverbank may be the ideal location to enter the Underworld, or commune with chthonic powers.
A tiny thicket formed by the arch of a rosemary bush where it tangles with the branches of a thorny rose may be an excellent location to leave tiny gifts for the Greenwood and commune with the green folk.
Much more accessible for many of us is indeed just the concept of crossroads, either a 4-way X or a 3-way T. These locations are long famed for being the meeting places of spirits, or ideal locations to leave offerings or broker spirit deals. The Devil Himself is often said to be haunting just such remote crossroads.
But these gateways don't just have to be found. The witch has the power to create them.
Exhibit A - casting a circle (or more accurately to say, laying a compass).
Also, I believe the creation of a spellcasting altar, if properly magicked and tended to, begins to become liminal in and of itself - it literally becomes a doorway to the otherworlds.
Certain human-made locations, like gas stations and grocery stores, are often considered to be gateways and have been used by some practitioners to fulfill spellwork.
Various charms and talismans can assist with creating doorways navigating the liminal, most famously the Holey or Hag stone.
Robin Artisson details several methods of understanding, discovering, creating, and working with such doorways, I believe in Witching Way of Hollow Hill, but especially in An Carow Gwyn, in the section called The Breaching Charms: The Gateways into Sorcerous Experience.
Daniel Schulke, at least in Viridarium Umbris, provides several sigils and charms for obtaining entrance into the otherworld.
Roger J Horne, in A Broom at Midnight, details thirteen "gateways" to spirit flight. While these are specifically methods of entering astral travel, any student of the concept of gateways and doors within witchcraft I think would benefit from studying the rituals within.
Speaking of astral travel, many common methods espoused include imagining that a person is climbing down the roots of a tree, or inside of the trunk of a tree and floating down like an elevator; or going down a well. All of these things are analogous to (or, the same thing as) mentally seeking out a gateway to the otherworld, searching in mental constructs of places in nature where gateways are commonly found or believed to be found.
Indeed, the concept of roads, gates, thresholds, and doors, is (I think) a vital contemplation to the understanding of Witchcraft itself, and it is upon these bedrocks that a great deal of witchcraft has been built.
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Developing Local Cultus: A Companion Library
In preparation for the revamping of my Local Cultus series over on wordpress, I have begun to gather this small reference library for anyone who may be interested. Containing mostly works which inspired me to set out on the path of developing a localized religious practice, as well as some of my research materials. For those interested in the series, and the topic which it covers, I absolutely recommend giving these titles a flip through.
The first of this series, an introduction and mapping out of what is to come, will be up on the Barn Cultus website by the end of July.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Indispensable knowledge of ecological relationships as written by an indigenous woman and professor of environmental biology.
The Green Mysteries by Daniel Schulke
An encyclopedia of the spiritual, magical, and folkloric qualities of plants. Written by the Magister of the Sabbatic tradition.
The Golden Bough by James George Frazer
Frazer tracks the role of religion and magic up until the modern day, introducing along the way some of the key ideas behind my style of cultus developing (such as re-enchantment). This book is always on my reference shelf, close at hand, and while the anthropology is at times laughably outdated, it is a beautiful read with some interesting groundwork.
Viridarium Umbris by Daniel Schulke
I'd be remiss to not include this in my list. Another Schulke work and a comprehensive grimoire of verdant magics. I personally view this book as overhyped, though a should-read, perhaps not a must.
Demons & Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices
A foundational text of folkloric land spirits and the operations used by Pre-Modern Europe to interact with them.
Roman Cult Images: The Lives and Worship of Idols from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity
In my own eyes, the finding of localized images. Images references the faces, attributes, and fauna of the region in which each divinity of the cultus is depicted. The crafting of cult images, in the forms of eikons and idols, is another aspect of this.
Idolatry Restor'd by Daniel Schulke
Schulke speaks to the ensouled fetish, which connects greatly to the idea of the Living Statue and the cultic image. More of a sorcerous read, but worth it nontheless.
We Are In The Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices of Turtle Island on the Changing Earth
I hold the strong conviction that those of us in America who find our bloodlines here through the powers of colonialism absolutely must be listening to indigenous wisdom- full stop. Publications like this one are a huge boon to the mending of the rift between the descendants of colonialism and the land which they inhabit. I think this becomes doubly important to those practices land-based religions.
The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade
I come with the bias of studying the anthropology of religion full time. This book has in many ways aided in bridging the gap between my academic studies and the building of my theologies, and is a profound read by an author with a storied collection of publications within the field.
Mystai: Dancing out the Mysteries of Dionysus
An interesting look into the mystery cult of Dionysus during late antiquity. Mystery cults often operated regionally and with localized aspects to their mysteries.
Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites by Dudley Wright
All literature on the Eleusinian mysteries is a boon- this is my recommendation. Following the ritual life of the local agriculture cult which has gone down in history as one of the largest surviving cults into the Christianization of Greece.
Walking the Worlds: Building Regional Cultus
Less of an academic read than the others on this list, but one I found equally as inspiring. The articles speak to diaspora and tensions of modern polytheism, and I think without some kind of academic pre-knowledge of these topics the articles themselves would fall a little flat, but a worthy read for the genuine pursuant.
Mystery Cults in the Greek and Roman World by the MET
Kongo in Haiti: A New Approach to Religious Syncretism
by Luc de Heusch
This article explores religious syncretism through the lens of Vodou, an African traditional religion known for its syncretic relationship with Christianity here in the US and Haiti. De Heusch explores a little bit of the roots in West Africa, and how the religion operates in both syncretic and nonsyncretic ways across the African diaspora.
Why Cecropian Minerva?: Hellenic Syncretism as System
by Luther H. Martin
This article explores syncretism in a western context, from the other side of the isle. This is not syncretism brought on by oppression and colonialism, instead highlighting syncretism theologically proposed by the oppressors, a favorite of the Romans. Martin explores the theology of this, the politics of this, and offers interesting analysis of the historical evidence.
Epithets in the Orphic Hymns by W. K. C. Guthrie
There's powers in names. You know it, I know it, Guthrie certainly knows it. Behind that power is meaning. While Guthrie does not particularly touch on regionalized epithets, I still find this to a be a great read to get one thinking about cult specific poetic titles.
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Hey there! I’ve followed you for a bit but haven’t asked you much yet! So I’ve got one for you—what are your general thoughts on Chumbley’s work? Any books you recommend regarding Cultus Sabbati?
Hello! hope all is well 😁
Admittedly I’ve read more Schulke than Chumbley, though I do enjoy his works. I enjoy his writing style more than Schulke’s, tho like most sabbatic literature it can be hard to grasp but that’s the point! I enjoy the emphasis on ecstatic and oneiric experiences, the draconic motifs, the stellar motifs. It’s kinda what I was looking for when I got interested in witchcraft as a pre-teen. Sabbatic lit provided me structure as I was leaving behind the New Age stuff, which I desperately needed as I no longer had the structure of Wicca.
I’d recommend Azoetia, Lux Haeresis, Opsulca Magica and Qutub to somebody newer to sabbatic craft. I also really really enjoy Viridarium Umbris, Ars Philtron!
Pretty sure all of these are easy to find as PDFs. VK who? 👀
Just for transparency’s sake I am very much a novice, I have been practicing trad craft for like 6 ish years? Gotta long way to go!
#traditional witchcraft#magic#witchcraft#tradcraft#occult#sabbatic witchcraft#Andrew Chumbley#book recs#Daniel schulke#asks
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Thorns are chiefly weapons of Warding. As such, there is often to be found some sweet treasure the Herb or Tree is obliged to defend against those who would steal it: the odorous blossom of the Rose, the moist oasis at the heart of the caftus, the succulent dates of the Crucifixion Thom. The Thorn, therefore, is naturally endowed with the potencies of brisk defense, and further to this virtue, hatred of its enemies and valour in warfare. In this latter manifestation the Thorn is both punitive and binding, the Holy Nail of the Greenwood executing the grim sentence of Crucifixion at once harnessing the forces of binding and torment.
Daniel Schulke, Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow
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'Concerning The Powers and Virtues of Pine, Rustic Lord of the Lonely Places'
"The Pine stands as the ally of the Wayfarer upon the Path for its many uses, both practical and magical. The presence of Pines is an indication of life, as the Trees tend to grow in community and attract diverse beasts and worts to their domains. Dead wood provides excellent kindling for the fire, and live wood cut for timber is one of the most versatile and workable of woods. Nuts found within the cones provide a wholesome food to sustain the body; all species are edible. Its sap is both nutritive and medicinal, and, should additional sustenance be needed, the green needles may be brewed into a nourishing tea. Thus, though often found spreading its branches in the wild lands, the Pine-forest serves as a place of Sojourn and respite whilst walking the path in pilgrimage.
The Genius of the Pine, despite its preference for wilderness, is on the whole friendly toward man, hence its adaptation in many circumstances to domestic existence, and bestows the virtues of ingenuity and adaptation. In species it numbers almost one hundred, widely distributed throughout the world, and some kinds, such as the Bristlecone, may attain ages in advance of 4,500 years. Though numerous exotic conifers have come forth unto Albion in recent centuries, its principal Pine-warden is the magnanimous Pinus sylvestris or Scots Pine, which may be seen in its truly wild state now only in isolated places in the Highlands, however in certain hedges in East Anglia it curiously makes a home among the more usual hardwoods common there.
With most Pines, trunks of larger trees reveal sap-flows where the fragrant resin has hardened; this may be collected and used for varied purposes of Art, such as for fumigation or for making varnishes. However, not every Pine species produces resin of good and wholly aromatic quality, thus it is a matter of discernment which the simpler must arrive at by cunning and diligent investigation. Where a certain pine resin is left wanting with regard to its aromatic properties, it may still be used as an agent of binding.
Needles harvested and dried green will retain aromatic virtue and may be burnt, together with resin and cones, as a suffumigant strong in powers of earthing, and keeping haunting shades of the dead at bay. This power of removing ghost-infection is doubly potent in the resin.
The cones, after having expelled their seeds, serve as encharmed vessels for the work of thaumaturgy, each of the numerous hollows capable of being filled with a different enchantment. Likewise, the hollows of a cone may be packed with flammable unguents, aromatic resins and powders, and the whole set to roast slowly upon the hearth-fire of working as a splendid perfume. Such aromatic ingredients may be derived from the Pine direct, in the form of resin, ground bark and needles, and twigs, or from other worts and trees as dictated by Ingenium."
—
Viridarium Umbris:
The Pleasure Garden of Shadow
3: ‘The Book of Going Forth into the Field of Cain’
by Daniel A. Schulke
#viridarium umbris#daniel schulke#traditional withcraft#cultus sabbati#sabbatic witchcraft#pine#tree magic
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"More than a simple book of magical plant virtues, this work is become the flesh of the Eternal Garden itself, portal unto a means of daily living; a pilgrimage of empowered interaction with the spirit world. As such, its power lies not so much in the vessels of word and image that binds this Rose Garden, but in the contemplation of their contents, and the wise application of their teaching."
-Daniel Schulke, Viridarium Umbris
#lune croaks#viridarium umbris#excerpts#book excerpts#I HATE THIS GUY SO MUCH#the goddamn treasure was the magic we learned along the way. fuck you#i'm still gonna unpuzzle it though. enrichment.
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Ask and ye shall receive lol!
How have you been/what have you been studying recently?
-freedominthecircus
Oooo great question!!
I’ve been reading up on the two deities I’ve been commissioned for deep dives and I’ve also started reading Schulke’s Viridarium Umbris! There are free pdfs online of it and it’s been interesting so far c:
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Is there a good resource for searching up plants for their metaphysical properties?
Viridarium Umbris. The Pleasure Garden of Shadows, which Treats of the Secret Knowledge of Trees and Herbs Deliver'd by the Fallen Angels unto Man.
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The Paten is Nature's Pantacle, the charmed table upon which the Feast of the Land glimmers; the Hearth becomes the Stone of Sacrifice, the Coin of Spirit with which to pay the land-wights. Upon it are laid the varying fruits of harvest, the plants gathered according to the Art Magical and freshly […] to be blessed in the name of The Lady. This Graal of Plenty serves as well for the laying of the Cross-Seals of the Garden, an Altar of Working as well as of Offering, Petition, and Summoning.
Its form is of the simple plate, round and of a size ample enough for the harvest and sacrifice, yet appropriate for accompanying the Wayfarer in [their] journey [… And yet] Some may find [their] Paten in the simple cross-section of a felled tree, or yet baked into stoneware from the very Clay of the Land.
From Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow, published 2005; Daniel Schulke (My Ko-Fi Here)
#Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow#Daniel Schulke#Natural Connections#Sabbatic Craft#Cultus Sabbati#Quote#Wiccablr#Paganblr#Witchblr
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If you call yourself a green witch or a garden witch or whatever, read the Viridarium Umbris right now.
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