Anthony Testa - The Key of the Abyss.pdf

The Origins of Witchcraft are obscure; the Neo-pagan revival has
tried, and failed, to find the “roots” the Witch cult in pre-Christian
paganism, Medieval pagan survivals and pre-historic shamanism.
Grant writes; Sorcery and witchcraft are the degenerate offspring of
occult traditions coeval with those described in the second chapter.
The popular conception of witchcraft, shaped by the anti-Christian
manifestations that occurred in the Middle Ages is so distorted and so
inadequate that to try and interpret the symbols of its mysteries,
perverted and debased as they are, without reference to the vastly
ancient systems from which they derive is like mistaking the tip of an
iceberg for its total mass 255 .
In mistaking the outward form (and formulae) for the inner meaning,
interpreters of Witchcraft, from the Roman Poets to the Medieval
witch-finders have failed to grasp the phenomena of the various cults.
It is the source of Witchcraft, both in the sense of the idea and the
power behind it that provides the key. As we have already seen, this
source is the Qliphotic realm of the averse Tree of Life and also the
very Abyss itself. As Grant says, (It has been suggested that) the
original witches sprang from a race of Mongol origin …(but) these
'Mongols' were not human. They were degenerate survivals of a prehuman
phase of our planet's history ... The characteristic that
distinguished them from the others of their kind was the ability to
project consciousness into animal forms, and the power they possessed
of reifying 256 thought-forms. The bestiaries of all the races of the earth
are littered with the results of their sorceries. 257
This passage provides two important insights. First, the origin of
witchcraft is extra-terrestrial, or at least pre human. This parallels the
myth of the Watchers or “Sons of God” from Genesis
Genesis: 6 : 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that
they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
Genesis: 6 : 4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also
after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,
255 Kenneth Grant, Cults of the Shadow, Skoob
256
To regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence. (American
Heritage dictionary) Grants use of the term also indicates that these abstract “thought forms”
are actually brought into material existence via the power of the sorcerer or witch.
257
--Kenneth Grant, ibid.
159