“Working with the Spirits: A Model for Druidic Spirit Arte” by Ian Corrigan (wip draft)

"Working with the Spirits: A Model for Druidic Spirit Arte" by Ian Corrigan (wip draft)

"Many Pagans have been rather ‘put off’ by the systems of spirit magic presented in the grimoire tradition. Written within the Christian mythology, the Landspirits, Ancestors and Daemons of the Pagan magician became pawns in the imagined war between good and evil. Magic based on contact with the ‘evil’ side of the spirits came to seem tainted and treacherous. Later grimoires often use an adversarial approach to the spirits that has made those systems seem unPagan and unpalatable.

When restored to a less dualistic Pagan perspective, the methods prescribed in the grimoires are plainly an inheritance from the pre-Christian magic of the late classical world. We find plain parallels between the methods of the Graeco-Egyptian books of spells from 100ce and French grimoires of the 1700s. This is enough to interest me in abstracting the methods of classic European spirit arte into a northern cultural setting and giving it a try."