The Moon & Serpent Bumper Book of Magic: A Look

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid, are the dreams made real
All of the buildings, all of the cars
Were once just a dream, in somebody's head...

...There in the midst of it, so alive and alone
Words support like bone

Peter Gabriel, "Mercy Street"

The term "bumper book" may not be a familiar one to many of my fellow Americans. 

From the mid-1920s up until the end of the 20th century, in the United Kingdom, monthly or weekly booklets were produced for children. These contained serialized comic stories, puzzles, rainy day activities, and the like. Most aimed at being educational in some fashion, and used public domain images to keep costs down. At the end of the year, in time for Christmas, they could be collected and republished in thick hardback books, perfect for presents. It's from these that the term "bumper" (something unusually large) likely gets applied.

British friends--of a certain age--I have spoken with have fond memories of these books, the way I suppose I do of scouting magazines like Ranger Rick or Boy's Life, which were similar in many ways, or Highlights, a staple of visits to every American pediatrician. These magazines were informative, and kept us engaged and entertained in those halcyon days before smartphones and tablets. So it only makes sense to me that Alan and Steve Moore (same surname, no relation) might revive the bumper book for an introduction to magic and the occult.

You see, when you stop to consider it, the bumper book is the perfect way to tackle this rather tricky subject. To learn the art of magic, you need informative articles introducing the subject, brief histories and biographies of great magicians, puzzles to engage the mind and introduce new ways of thinking, and (perhaps most importantly for an Art) plenty of rainy day activities to engage the hand and mind in the production of magical charms and tools. Even better, you need to strip away the conditioned and institutionalized cynicism of adolescence and adulthood that society uses to straitjacket us into commutes, bills, and the almighty alarm clock. You need to take us back to a time when all things were possible, rather than practical. As the man says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." 

So what we have is a very adult book designed to look like a bit of childhood nostalgia, a time machine of sorts. In sense The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic is attempting to induce an altered state of consciousness, a vital trick in the magic arts, right on its initial pages...

In a sense every grimoire wants to shake you out of your daily consciousness. Books like Andrew Chumbley's Azoetia attempt it through the weird, with hallucinatory imagery and text. Others attempt it through the occult, the forbidden, or the taboo. While this can work, it can also have an alienating effect. Crowley's 1904 Goetia, Simon's 1977 Necronomicon, or even LaVey's The Satanic Bible employ goth aesthetics that induce a mental "head click," but most people are not going to stick around long enough for the magic to happen. Something else is going on in Moore and Moore's grimoire. Moon and Serpent is inviting you back to Narnia, to Wonderland, to Oz. These landscapes all contains wonders and terrors to be sure, but the thrill of them is as familiar to us as the texture of our old teddy bear. The magic here is not cloaked in Dark and Brooding, but childlike awe and wonder.

A Long Expected Tome

First announced back in 2007 (I could swear I had heard of it even before that, but memory and imagination are both Yesodic and never fully trustworthy), The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic was a collaboration between legend Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, The Killing Joke, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, Lost Girls, and most critically here, Promethea) and his mentor Steve Moore. Himself a practicing ceremonial magician and occultist, Alan Moore had pulled back the curtain on the world of the magic rather extensively in the pages of Promethea, and the idea of him writing a grimoire, a treatise on the arts magical, was a mouth-watering prospect for a thirty-five-year-old version of me fresh in my O.T.O. days and gearing up to attempt the Abramelin. His thoughts on the subject, at least from what I saw of them in interviews and  Promethea, resonated with me, and his power as a writer was undeniable. I was ready, and I wanted my greedy mitts on it.

And ye gods...was I in for a wait.

Years ticked by, and in 2014 the death of co-author Steve Moore seemed to make Moon and Serpent one of those dreams (if I may paraphrase Peter Gabriel) not made solid or real. Yet apparently it was still on its way, announced for 2023, delayed a bit longer, and finally released in October of 2024. It took me a couple more months to get a copy, but in the end of 2024--which in so many other ways had been a miserable bloody year for me--the Long Wait was over. Moon and Serpent was mine.

The Name

The title of the tome comes from "The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels," a cabal of sorcerer-artists including Alan Moore, Bauhaus and Love and Rockets bassist David J, and musician-composer Tim Perkins. Together, they released a series of "workings" between 1996 and 2003. These were occult spoken word performances set to music. Chronologically the first of these was the self-titled The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, though it was released on CD after the follow up, The Birth Caul (A Shamanism of Childhood). These were followed by The Highbury Working: A Beat Séance, Snakes and Ladders, and Angel Passage. 

If you have heard these Workings, you have a good idea of what to expect of the Bumper Book. For Moore, magic is first and foremost an art, a creative act. The goal of aspiring magicians is to reach certain trance states and altered forms of consciousness similar to those which musicians, writers, painters, and other artists work from. The book advocates using art, any art, to help access magic. Of course, Moore is not alone in this. While Aleister Crowley was a stickler for ritual, particularly in his youth, he was also a poet, prolific writer, and a painter. Liber AL vel Legis and the "Holy Books" of Thelema are phenomenal pieces of poetry, all received in a trance state. His "Rites of Eleusis," seven dramatic performances combining poetry, spoken word, music, and dance, were very much in the vein of the Workings the Moon and Serpent would later perform. Austin Osman Spare, Crowley's contemporary, was another magician artist. And while Moore does not seem to have tremendous respect for the man, Anton Szandor LaVey viewed magic as art and performance as well.

This brings us to the titular serpent.

One of the first things Moore suggests an aspiring magician should do is find a god they are drawn to. Not necessarily to worship, but to act as a patron of sorts as the individual steps into the world of magic. For Moore, that patron is the 2nd century snake god Glycon, but what is telling is his reasoning.

Glycon--at least according to the accounts of contemporary Roman satirist Lucian--was created by magician, con man, and would be prophet Alexander of Abonoteichos. If Lucian is to be believed, Glycon (a serpent with a mane of gorgeous golden human hair) was essentially a sock puppet that Alexander used to get rich and get laid. Now, there are potent occult reasons to select a serpent god as one's patron (see my series of essays posted back in December of 2016), but Moore has been up front with the fact that part of selecting Glycon was the absurdity of it, and also that the deity was an artistic creation. Glycon embodies what the magician does, namely conjure ideas into flesh. Whether or not this was the case, Moore likes the idea that Glycon was a sock puppet. Again, this very much recalls Anton LaVey, who never believed in an actual Satan, yet established a religion in his name arguing that all religion was theater. 

Glycon, from the inside front cover.

       

As an Artefact

Weighing in at 352 pages, The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic is a hefty tome, with a cover 9.25 x 12.40 inches (23.5 x 31.5 cm). The pages are thick, heavy, and glossy, with a sturdy "lays-flat" binding and a purple book ribbon.

Moore is best known as a comic book author, inarguably one of the greatest, so we cannot be surprised that Moon and Serpent is gloriously and gorgeously illustrated by Steve Parkhouse, Ben Wickey, Rick Veitch, Kevin O'Neill, and John Coulthart. The cover is lettered in gilt.

In short, the book is a work of art, and something not only magicians but fans of comic art and Alan Moore will want on their shelves.

The Structure of the Book, or "What is so Bumpery about it?"

On my first leaf-through, Moon and Serpent reminded me of Starhawk and Hilary Valentine's classic The Twelve Wild Swans. That book talked about using fairy tales and myths to learn and practice magic, and was structured in such a way that a chapter would include a story, then magical instruction, then exercises. You could go through the book just reading the story, or the instructions, or the exercises, or read it cover-to-cover. Much of that applies here.

As mentioned earlier, bumper books tended to include stories, serialized comics, activities, and the like. These were then collected into single volumes. Moore and Moore have done that here. Each chapter contains an essay on an occult topic, an activities section related to that topic ("Things to Do on a Rainy Day"), a serialized history of magic in comic form ("Old Moores' Lives of the Great Enchanters"), and a prose fiction account of a young woman embarking on the path of magic ("The Soul"). This prose story reinforces and illustrates the occult topic and rainy day activities of that chapter. As a teacher, this is all familiar. Instruct. Practice. Provide an example. Produce. There is also at the beginning of the book a wordless comic showing the awakening of consciousness in primitive man ("In the Morning of the Mind") and starting slightly later in the book a second serialized comic, this time following the career of Alexander of Abonoteichos and the creation of Glycon. 

In addition to this basic skeleton (words support like bone), other material is scattered throughout the book. In fact, the very first thing the book presents us with is "The Moon and Serpent Magical Alphabet." This 24-letter alphabet is a series of magical sigils, each representing a letter of the English alphabet, a number, a deity, a sign of the zodiac, and for the first ten, a Sephira from the Tree of Life. That it comes at the very start of the book should be no surprise. Human consciousness, at least as it exists today, cannot exist without language. Crowley famously called magic a "disease of language." "Spells" are simply "spelling," and "grimoire" is related to "grammar." Alphabets form the very foundation--the bones--of thought and if magic is the exploration and manipulation of thought, we must start with the basics. In his choices and associations, Moore reveals a great deal about his magical thought. He is eclectic:  the deities listed are Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Hebrew, Thelemic (Nuit), and fictional (Glycon and Cthulhu). They lay out his approach to Kabbalah and the Tree of Life (for example, 11 he gives to Daath, the "false Sephira" of the Abyss and associates with Cthulhu). And they indicate what ideas he finds particularly useful. Later, near the very end of the book, he provides several other magical alphabets (Theban, Celestial, Enochian, etc) and space for you to create your own. Finally, there are several tables of correspondences to the Hebrew Tree of Life, not unlike Crowley's 777, and to my delight, a paper model for you to cut out and assemble your own Moon and Serpent temple.

The book closes out with a 50+ page recap and explanation of each of the book's moving parts. Moore discusses how choices were made, his thinking, and provides context for each. If we think of the Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic as an introductory course in the art of magic, then this section is where the instructor pulls back the curtain on why the lessons are presented in the manner they are.

Adventures in Thinking

The book tackles a number of subjects, but before we can discuss any of them we need to answer one important question. When Moore and Moore are talking about magic, what is it exactly that magic means to them?

I opened this post with Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street" because, while "The Rhythm of the Heat" deals directly with the magical experience, those lines from "Mercy Street" capture beautifully what magic is...at least to me and clearly Alan and Steve Moore. 

While we as a civilization race towards the edge of artificial intelligence, the truth of the matter is that we still do not fully understand what "consciousness" or "sentience" is. Without getting too far into the weeds, the problem science has with consciousness is the so called "hard problem." The "easy problems," how sensory data is transmitted to the brain, how memories are formed, how attention is focused, are all mechanical and thus easy to study. But the hard problem is the feeling of consciousness...that each of us feels we exist. We are getting to a point where AI convincingly apes consciousness, and might even be able to trick us into believing it is...but does the AI itself feel conscious? And how would we know?

For Moore and Moore--and myself, and arguably many other occultists out there like Lon Milo DuQuette--magic is the art of consciousness. It is the exploration of the phenomenon, the development of it, the manipulation of it, and the application of it.

The mind exists, and our thoughts exist, ideas exist, but not in the same way that chemical compounds, DNA, or forms of energy do. The first step in magic is to accept the notion that ideas are every bit as real as material objects, but that they exist and operate on a very different plane and by very different laws. I cannot defy the laws of gravity...yet in dreams I often fly. In fact right now I can close my eyes and imagine myself doing so. More interestingly, while flight is a simple matter of aerodynamics, the idea of flight is part of an interconnected chain of concepts...freedom, motion, joy, birds, the sky, etc etc. Flight in the physical world is a phenomenon. Flight in the mental world has meaning.

Now, if we can agree that ideas exist, a host of additional questions arise. Where, for example, do they exist? Moore asks an interesting question early on, essentially: does consciousness exist only inside our individual skulls, or is it a world in which our individual skulls are just houses, waiting for us to go out the door and explore? We cannot really answer that until we try. If ideas are real, to whom do they belong? Is my Santa Claus your Santa Claus? Or is Santa Claus--or an innumerable host of Saint Nicks--an inhabitant or inhabitants of this other world? By what laws does this other world of thought operate? Time and physical distances seem meaningless there. Indeed distance seems to be a function of meaning rather than space. For example, "work," "job" "career" and "profession" are all "close" to each other, inhabiting the same little cul de sac. "Hammer" and "philosophy" by contrast seem miles apart. Moore points out that even size operates by different principles there. We talk about "big ideas" and "little problems," indicating that size on the mental plane seems to translate into the effect it has on our lives.

So what we discover then is a mental universe, an "Other Side," people by ideas (spirits, gods, etc) that each of us partially inhabits. But it is amorphous, a perilous and ever-shifting terrain. That makes exploring there tricky.

In this context, occultism and magic become comprehensible. The various "systems" of magic--such as Kabbalah or Enochian--become conceptual frameworks, "maps" by which the territory of the mental Other World can be catalogued and explored. The Tree of Life can be viewed as a 32-drawer filing cabinet into which any single idea can be neatly assigned. In drawer number 4, the Sephira (sphere) known as Chesed, we find gods like Zeus, Odin, Indra, and Orlanth. We find the notion of fatherhood, of the sky, of leadership, etc. When we come across similar ideas, such as Yahweh in his ancient form as a thunder god and war god, we know right where to place him. We can also put his counterpart El--the paternal, patriarch, father god--there as well and this might give us an indication how the two then fused over time into our more modern Jehovah.

The symbol sets (like alphabets) of magic are thus essential tools. They form the basis by which we can begin exploring and manipulating ideas. But why should we wish to?

The answer is "art." 

In modern English we tend to think of "fine arts" when we hear the word, of beauty and entertainment. But when it entered English in the 13th century it meant "a skill, craft, or trade," and that is pretty much what it meant in Latin. It's Sanskrit cousin, rtih, means "the manner something is done, how it is done." The Proto-Indo-European seems to mean "shaping things" and the English word "arm," the limb we use to shape things, is cognate.

Art is the practical application of magic. Yes, magic involves crossing over to the Other Side and exploring the vast conceptual territories there, but it also involves bringing things back from the Other Side and manifesting them. All of the buildings, all of the cars...Were once just a dream, in somebody's head... The fact of the matter is that apart from our daily run-ins with mechanical, chemical, or organic laws, very little we experience in daily life is "real," by which I mean to say it is "artificial," created by art. The words we use, the buildings we live in, the cars we drive...our laws, economics, borders, religions...are all products summoned from the imaginary world. We live in a dream made real.

So is one side of magic is the exploration and expansion of consciousness, then the other is the application of it to reshape our worlds. This is a uniquely human faculty, and one that it almost seems a crime (as our birthright) not to explore.

Altered States

In their first "Things to Do on a Rainy Day" section the two Moores touch on magic's reliance on altered states of consciousness. In a second "Things to Do on a Rainy Day" they dig a little deeper.

Because it is useful to think of consciousness as another realm or territory, one that can be navigated and explored, the magician needs ways to step "out" of everyday thinking and cross over to the Other Side. Ideally we want to cultivate mental states that approach lucid dreaming, where we have absolute freedom and authority to reshape mental environments, interact profitably with the idea-entities we encounter there, etc. We want to immerse ourselves in the mental landscape as deeply as possible, but retain control.

There are innumerable ways to do this, from induced physical exhaustion to meditation to the ingestion of entheogens (a term that interestingly enough means "full of god"). The Moon and Serpent covers many of them here. In a latter section the book tackles the more transgressive techniques people have used over the centuries to achieve the same. Ultimately the point is, when you engage in magic, you will want to do so in an altered state of consciousness.  

Tree-Climbing

As a practitioner, Moore sits firmly in the Western ceremonial tradition of magic. In preparing this review, I read and watched a few others, and several times heard him referred to as a Thelemite, i.e. an adherent of the belief system promulgated by Aleister Crowley. I see absolutely no evidence of this. Rather, what I do see is that Moore finds a great deal of what Crowley taught to be useful. Chief among these is Kabbalah. After the first chapter of the book introduces the basic outline of what magic is and what to do with it, Moore moves immediately to the Tree of Life.

I talked extensively about Kabbalah back in October of 2016, particularly in this post here (though the others in the same series touch on it as well). Kabbalah, as mentioned above, is a form of esoteric Judaism that arose in 2nd and 3rd century Alexandria alongside Hermeticism and certain Gnostic traditions. It fuses Pythagorean mysticism with esoteric readings of the Torah. Over the centuries, however, it has been adopted by non-Jews, and a variant form of Kabbalah has come to form the core of the Western ceremonial tradition. It is the skeleton that supports the flesh and blood of that tradition. 

At the core of the structure are the ten Sephiroth, each corresponding to one of the numbers of the Pythagorean decade. These "spheres" are linked by 22 paths, each associated with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and since the 19th century, the 22 Trumps of the Tarot's "Major Arcana." As I said above, this creates a 32 draw-filing system by which ideas may be organized and the Other Side "mapped." 

I have read a lot of books on the Kabbalah, including primary texts, and I can say without reservation that this chapter of the Moon and Serpent is a tour de force. It is useful to remind ourselves here that aside from being a magician, Moore is a superb writer, and thus his articulation of this tricky subject matter is a masterclass in clarity and concision. He starts the section by discussing the basic structure of the Tree from the top down, and later how the magician may use the Tree as map to explore consciousness from the ground up ("tree-climbing"). To be clear, Moore's takes are not universal, but they are very provocative.

From the top down, we find Nothingness that gradually evolves into somethingness. Ain, "nothing," becomes Ain Soph ("limitless nothing") and Ain Soph Aur ("limitless radiant nothing"). A sort of critical mass is achieved and the first Sephira, Kether, is born. This is Unity, Oneness. Yet almost as soon as it appears, two other Sephiroth follow, Chokmah and Binah. Together these three are--among other things--the triune godhead. Kether is god above all description. Chokmah is god the father. Binah is god the mother. Geometrically, Kether is the point, Chokmah is the line (two points) and Binah is the triangle (three points and the introduction of the 2nd dimension). 

But now something odd has to happen. The highest three Sephiroth are called the Supernals, and they exist beyond a conceptual Abyss. The remaining seven Sephiroth belong to the experiential world, we can know them. But to cross the Abyss and experience the Supernals, we need to obliterate the distinction between subject and object. The Abyss then, is ego death.

Different magicians have wrestled with Abyss in different ways. Som traditions put an 11th, "false Sephira" there, Daath or "Knowledge." Knowledge here should be understood as direct experience...the old Biblical "and so and so knew his wife and begot such and such." Knowledge requires two things to exist, subject and object, knower and known. The Abyss is where Knowledge goes to die. Usually it is not given a number (Crowley argued for 11), but Moore assigns it Pi (3.14159) and associates the fictional deity Cthulhu with it. 

There is a certain logic to this. Pi is not a number, it's a constant, in the same way Daath is not a Sephiroth. Cthulhu is a fictional character, Daath is a fiction. And coming down from Daath we come to a fourth point, Chesed. But in Daath the rules have changed. Chesed cannot exist on the same "plane" as the Supernals, because this fourth point opens the 3rd dimension. Indeed, Chesed and the remaining Sephiroth all exist in 3rd dimensional space. Traditionally associated with sky gods, Moore equates Chesed with Space.

The fifth Sephira is Geburah, associated with stern judgement and martial deities. Moore like's to associate it with Kali, and with Time. Crowley might have thought along similar lines, associating Geburah with the tesseract, or fourth dimensional hypercube.

Now, however, the table has been set. We have the highest conceptual triad (thesis-antithesis-synthesis, positive, negative, neutral), Space and Time. So now we bring out the star of our show, literally. Traditionally associated with the Sun, the sixth Sephira Tiphareth in Moore's view embodies consciousness itself and the Will. From here on in, all remaining Sephiroth will deal with aspects of Tiphareth.

Netzach (the seventh) and Hod (the eighth) represent emotion and thought respectively. Hod is the seat of language, reason, and communication, while Netzach (existing before Hod) is the raw emotion of a crying infant or an animal, emotion unshaped by words or thinking. Only with Hod does the concept of "identity" and "individuality" become possible. It may have existed in Tiphareth, but it could not be defined without language.

The ninth and tenth Sephiroth are, in The Moon and Serpent, two sides of the same coin. Traditionally these are Yesod and Malkuth, the "Foundation" and "The Kingdom" respectively. They are associated with the Moon and with Earth. The argument being made is that Yesod is the foundation of Malkuth. Now, Yesod is the imagination, the realm of dreams. Malkuth is generally viewed as the material world, or rather, the world of waking consciousness. Moore argues that none of us have direct experience of the material world. Instead we receive sensory data and construct a holographic experience of it in our heads. In short. the material world is manufactured in the imagination. And as discussed above, much of what we perceive as "real" originated in the human imagination. 

But to circle back to art, this interpretation of the Tree of Life now gives us a working theory of magic and art. The base three Sephiroth on the middle pillar of the Tree are Tiphareth, Yesod, and Malkuth, the Will, the Imagination, and the Waking World. Magic--art--is the application of the Will upon Imagination to direct it to create in the Waking World.

As mentioned, the 22 paths connecting the Sephiroth correspond to Tarot Trumps. While a full discussion is beyond the scope of this post, we can see how they reinforce this interconnected web of concepts by continuing this example:

The Path between Will and Imagination is the Trump Crowley called "Art." Art is the exercise of Will upon Imagination. The Path between Imagination and the Waking World is "The Universe," indicating that the Universe is (descending) shaped by the Imagination and (ascending) processed through the Imagination.      

Remaining Matters

In good time The Moon and Serpent moves on to discuss the Tarot, using the Kabbalah as a basic for understanding. It is another stunning chapter, making a subject often over-complicated clear. 

After, we circle back to interacting with and traveling through the Other Side, using trance techniques previously discussed. The ten Sephiroth are again revisited, emphasizing their importance in the Moon and Serpent stream of magic. Other models or "maps" of the mental realm are then introduced. The Shamanic otherworld, the Indian Tattvas, the Astral Plane, the Visionary Realm, Fairyland, the Alchemical Landscape, the Enochian Aethyrs, and the Witches' Sabbat are all discussed as alternative conceptions of the Other Side. 

The next "Things to Do on a Rainy Day" deals with "Imaginary Friends," and the book is bringing us round at last to the concept of spirits. 

Moore carefully sets up the question: are these varied entities independent life forms or facets of ourselves? This is something that every practitioner of magic will wrestle with. I have gone back and forth on the matter a dozen times. Particularly in dealings with my Holy Guardian Angel (a topic Moore covers admirably) it is clear to me that if he is not an entity of greater knowledge and ability than myself, then it is a part of myself capable of far more than I usually seem able. But ultimately, the Moon and Serpent argues, it does not matter. Spirits should be engaged with as real and independent entities, otherwise there is nothing to be gained from the interaction. The book goes into detailed and thoughtful methods for contacting these beings and having dealings with them, and discusses separate classes of them: animal spirits, spirits of places, spirits of the dead, gods, the Loa, demons, angels, planetary spirits, Enochian angels, and fictional characters. 

This leads into our next "Things to Do on a Rainy Day: Malpractical Magic," the so-called Dark Arts. As it did earlier in dealing with transgressive magic and the use of drugs, The Moon and Serpent clearly has a position on this subject but never descends into being overly moralizing about it (looking at you Arthur Edward Waite, looking at you). The book's entire bumper book approach firmly sets it against the gloom and doom goth vibe of Black Magic, but it is also aware that such arts exist and may have their uses. Nor could Moon and Serpent be the introduction to the world of magic that it is had it excluded such topics.

The book closes with a lovely connect the dots puzzle (Baphomet) and a Sephirioth maze.

What the Hell Can I Say?

I have never waited longer for a book. It was worth the wait.

There are very few books one can recommend as heartily. Crowley called one of his final works Magick Without Tears, but The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic lives up to that title better than the original did. I took up the practice of magic when I was sixteen, and for the intervening ten years (*winks*) have tried to answer a single question more times than I can count: "what is a good book to start with?" I now unequivocally have an answer.

What is magic? How do I do it? Why would I bother? Moore and Moore answer these questions with astounding alacrity and deftness. At no point do they shy away from the thornier subjects, but the subject is kept light, bright, and positive. There is something exhilarating about simply thumbing through the book. It is, in a word, "magical."    

THE SACRED TIME, An Episode

Every year, in the final weeks of Storm Season, the tension grows. The violence of the weather intensifies. Days range from sudden thunderstorms and gales to fist-sized hail stones, flash floods, and the occasional cyclone. Even earthquakes are more frequent. Then, as Sacred Time dawns, a stillness falls over it all. A silence. And in that silence, there is an intensity. Every adult Sartarite knows the danger. They know the sudden stillness does not mean peace or salvation from the violent weather, but rather the triumph of entropy. The silence that comes at Sacred Time is the silence of the Void, the silence of Death. At the end of the year the cosmos itself ends, and it is up to the gods to make it anew. 

Mortals must help them. The two weeks of Sacred Time bear the names Luck and Fate, because it will take both for the new year to dawn.

The Seven Tailed Wolf, p. 18

In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin for "threshold") denotes the middle stage of a rite of passage. In a liminal stage, you are no longer what you were, but not yet what you will become. This lack of definition is ritually disorienting and  dangerous. Order has been suspended and you are in a chaotic state. In coming of age and initiation ceremonies, this is where the candidates face trials and ordeals, often with a serious chance of harm or failure. In folklore this is when the infant--born but not yet baptized--is at the greatest danger of being snatched by fairies, and it is at liminal times (midnight) and places (at the crossroads) that the Devil appears.

Liminality manifests in Glorantha in all sorts of ways. Cults have their initiation rites, shamans confront the Bad Man, the Orlanthi perform the Summons of Evil in their worship rites. They, like us, have their rites of passage: birth, adolescence, marriage, death. Yet these experiences are personal or local rather than collective and universal. The single greatest example of liminality in Glorantha, when the entire cosmos enters the liminal state, is the Sacred Time. 

Sacred Time is a two-week period when normal activity halts, and the world ritually and really re-enacts the death and rebirth of the cosmos to replenish the world, for incorporating the entropy of Chaos into the world is part of the Great Compromise. To live, one must descend into death and be reborn. The participation of all beings in these annual ceremonies and their commitment to them integrates the participants with unconscious understanding of the cosmic balance—a major factor in the high level of magic generation and use in Glorantha.

RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, p. 420

Time and Sacred Time

One of my favorite things about Glorantha is the calendar.

There are several out there--the Brithini, Lunars, Dara Happans, Kralorelans, and Pamaltelans all have theirs--but I refer specifically to the Theyalan calendar spread by the Lightbringers with the Dawn.

While many players and GMs don't give it much thought, it is very clear that Greg Stafford did. It is, first and foremost, a timekeeping device, and I invite you to think about that word a little differently. We use it to mean something that lets us know what time it is. But in Glorantha, the only thing holding the world together, the only thing keeping the Devil out, is Time. Keeping Time takes on a whole new meaning. The world had died. Chaos had conquered it. But the Great Compromise bound the cosmos and themselves in the Web of Time. The calendar tells you that story.

The week. Look closely at any given week. 

  

What you see here is a microcosm of the Gods Age. Darkness emerges from Chaos (Freezeday), then come the Waters. Gata the Primal Earth emerges from these. Waterday and Clayday. Now as we know, Fire/Sky came next, but when Umath was born the Primal Air ripped Earth and Sky apart to make a place for himself, thus the week has Windsday between Clayday and Fireday. But look what happens next...

Wildday is marked by the Luck Rune. No right-thinking Orlanthi is going to mark something with the Chaos Rune. But this is the day of the full moon in Dragon Pass, and the day when the powers of Chaos are strongest, and it falls after Fireday. Luck, like Chaos, suggests randomness. It falls here because Chaos entered the world after Orlanth slew the Sun. 

The final day, Godsday, embodies the Great Compromise that held Chaos at bay. It is marked by the Fate Rune, largely thought to be the Web of Arachne Solara, the Web of Time.

Each week then is a talisman, a ritual ordering of Time that repeats the story of the Gods Age and the salvation from Chaos.

The year. The five seasons of the Glorantha year tell the exact same story, just a tad differently because it focus on the Ages of the God Time rather than the emergence of the Runes. Sea Season is the Green Age, the birth and youth of the world. Fire Season and Earth Season are the Golden Age, their reign of the Solar Emperor. But his murder brings the Lesser and Greater Darknesses, Dark Season and Storm Season respectively. The destruction of the world. 

We are being told a story here. The same story. The only story that matters.

Sacred Time. The five seasons each have eight weeks marked by members of the Celestial Court. This gives the Gloranthan Year 280 days. 

I do not think that is a mistake. 280 days is the average gestation of a human being, and at the end of the Gloranthan year we witness a birth, or rebirth. The birth of Time. This occurs--hopefully--during the two-week period known as Sacred Time.

Sacred Time does not belong to one year or the next. It is outside of them, outside of Time, a cosmic and universal liminality. The previous year has died, and the world with it. The next year is not coming...it needs to be brought. Shoulder to shoulder you stand with the gods performing the rites that will ensnare Chaos and lead the world back to the light.

The two weeks of Sacred Time are unique. While all seasons have weeks marked by the same Runes, only Sacred Time has Luck Week and Fate Week. Thus the end of a year and the beginning of the next is marked by the same Runes that mark the end of the week and the start of the next. Again. We are being told a story. Luck and Fate. In Sacred Time, the Devil must be bound.

Just a quick word on "Sacred Time"

In our world, the term "Sacred Time" was coined by Romanian philosopher and historian Mircea Eliade. Building on the work of French sociologist Emile Durkheim, Eliade proposed that "traditional man" (i.e. humanity prior to the Enlightenment period and industrialization) recognized two levels of existence...the Sacred and the Profane. The Sacred was the realm of gods, myths, and heroes. It existed outside of time and was eternal. Sacred Time was the essential, the hub around which the cosmos turned. The Profane was the mundane, everyday world, the world of history and time. Through rites and rituals, through hearing myths, traditional man could "return" to the Sacred Time, and experience timeless, universal truths first hand. In other words, in Glorantha Eliade's "Sacred Time" is in fact the "Gods Age." 

It is probably not coincidence or error that Greg Stafford borrowed the term to apply to the two weeks between Gloranthan years, however. Gloranthan Sacred Time exists, just like the God's Age, outside of time. Here the Web of Time unravels, here the veil between worlds is thin. This is why so many heroquests are performed in this two-week period...it is easier to reach the Other Side. The gods and their world are closer to Mundane Glorantha in this period, standing together with mortal beings to save the world from Chaos once more.

Playing Through Sacred Time

The core RuneQuest rules abstract Sacred Time in the "Between Adventures" chapter, pp. 420-427. But there is no reason, given their prominence in the life of the adventurers, not to play through the rites and rituals of Sacred Time. This is probably more true if the adventurers are community leaders, and would take a more active role in leading this ceremonies.

The rituals of Sacred Time are all heroquests. Broadly speaking participation in them can be divided into two roles: the heroquesters, who take on the roles of gods and heroes, and the worshippers who provide magical support. As a frame of reference, I will be using the heroquest rules from The Company of the Dragon (pp 164-170) but those in Six Seasons in Sartar can be used as well.

Communities spend the entire year preparing for these rites, setting aside offerings and sacrifices, building up magical resources, making costumes and props, practicing the dances, the piping, the drumming, etc. 

 

In the week leading up to Sacred Time, people engage in ritual purification, abstaining from sexual congress, the use of intoxicants, etc. This varies from culture to culture and cult to cult, however. I like to imagine the worshippers of the Storm Bull having a Mardi Gras like orgy of sex and intoxication before the final battle with Chaos comes. 

The entire adult community takes part in the rituals, unless they are too infirm or injured. Children are excluded. They witness the rites, but do not magically contribute to them. The solemnity of these rituals are impressed upon them, however, and they watch wide-eyed and in wonder as they are performed. 

For the entire two weeks the myth of "how the world was saved" is re-enacted. Among the Orlanthi this is the Lightbringers' Quest. Yet among the Dara Happans and Pelorians we might imagine the murder of Murharzarm, Yelm's descent into Hell, the Rebel Gods coming and begging at his feet, the trials and tests he set for them, and his glorious re-ascent replacing the Lightbringers' tale. In the Lunar Empire, local myths are likely observed, but in the most Lunarized and urban eras the quest of the Red Goddess might be re-enacted (she saved the world by "reinventing" Time). Yet universally what is being re-enacted is the saving of the world. For simplicity, we will focus on the Lightbringers here.

The Orlanthi day begins at sunset, not midnight, so the Sacred Time rituals are performed then. In Disorder Week they are conducted each night from sunset to past midnight, symbolizing the descent of the Lightbringers into the Underworld. In Fate Week, they are conducted from before dawn to late morning, symbolizing the return. A number of cults have their holy days here, and these usually happen from midday into the afternoon. Adventurers who participate in both Sacred Time rites and worship rites probably end the day exhausted!

Mechanics & Procedures

Sacred Time rituals are "community" level heroquests, designed to bring a boon to the community. The success of each individual community contributes cumulatively to saving the world, but for the sake of your gaming table, focus on your clan, neighborhood, or community.

The Boon: the Boon being sought during Sacred Time is continued existence. Time has died and you are rebirthing it. Succeed and the world is reborn. Fail, and entropy reigns. 

To model this, replace the "Omens" table on p. 421 with the following. The community will perform a heroquest. Successfully passing each stage results in a cumulative +5% bonus. Failing a stage results is a cumulative -5% penalty. These cancel each other out, so if you pass four stages and fail two, you end up with a +10%.

This number replaces the Harvest modifier on the Omens table. If you are using the Community Characteristics rules from The Company of the Dragon, this modifier is additionally applied to all Community Characteristic rolls made the next year. For example, a clan with a Community CHA of 12 is negotiating with a neighboring clan. Unfortunately, they have a -15% penalty from Sacred Time. Instead of rolling against 60% (12 x 5) they now role against 45%.

If none of the stages are passed, disaster befalls the community. For example, the harvest is threatened by grain blight. Heavy rains cause flooding and landslides. Lack of rain threatens famine and drought. The cattle are plagued by particularly powerful disease spirits. The community wyter falls silent and cannot be contacted. No children are conceived that entire year, etc, etc. This is in addition to the penalty mentioned above. 

If all stages are passed, the community is blessed. Add 1D3+1 to three Community Characteristics. Add the bonus to all "Childbirth" and "Child Survival" rolls for community members that year. The GM may add any other blessings they desire.

The Myth: for simplicity's sake we will assume our community is an Orlanthi clan and the Myth being enacted is the Lightbringers' Quest.

There are several versions of this now available in print. For example, pages 12 and 13 of The Lightbringers or pages 45-47 of Mythology. It is critical to understand, however, that different tribes, different clans, different cities, will all have slightly different versions, and the episodes of the myth they re-enact will differ. Feel free to embellish, modify, and alter to create a version unique to your community.

The Hero's Journey: as described on page 169 of The Company of the Dragon, your heroquest will begin with "The Call to Adventure," a series of trials and tests, a "Supreme Ordeal," and "The Return." 

On pages 19 to 25 of The Seven Tailed Wolf I present a version of this, portraying Kallyr's disastrous attempt at a nationwide Lightbringers' quest. On Freezeday of Luck Week, the "Call to Adventure" begins with Orlanth recognizing the danger the world is in and vowing to set it right. On each subsequent day I stage a different episode drawn from the myth. 

For your Sacred Time re-enactments, I recommend starting the same. "The Call to Adventure" can simply be Orlanth vowing to set things right. After, you will want about 4 scenes or episodes from the Lightbringers' Quest to provide the trials and tests, each performed on subsequent days. Then comes the Supreme Ordeal, the gods confronting the Devil in the Underworld, the forging of the Great Compromise, and the birth of Time. The Return is the final day, with the Lightbringers returning through the gates of Dawn.

This totals 7 scenes. Obviously Sacred Time is 14 days in length, but unless you are feeling really ambitious or really masochistic, I don't suggest 14 full scenes. Assume that other re-enactments are going on the other 7 days, but don't weigh yourself down (particularly at first). Note also that in Mythology, in the description "What Happens in Sacred Time?" (pp. 51-52), the Lightbringers' Quest lasts only 7 days. The other days are given to other gods. If you wish to conform to that outline, you can still use all of the following to portray the Lightbringers' Quest. 

Also, focus on the player characters. If you have an Orlanthi, a Lhankor Mhy, and an Issaries in the group, make sure to pick episodes from the Lightbringers' Quest that showcase these deities. 

Following the Lightbringers' Quest as presented in Mythology, your re-enactments might look something like this:

Day 1: The Call to Adventure. Orlanth looks upon his blasted and empty hall and vows to set the world to rights.

Day 2. Orlanth heads west and gathers the Lightbringers. They cross the sea on the back of the Turtle God and confront the purple-skinned Luathelans and the bloody goddess of Dusk, finally finding the entrance to the Underworld.

Day 3. They descend into the Underworld, facing terrible trials and ordeals.

Day 4. The Lightbringers seek the Halls of the Dead, confronting wraiths and shades, darkness spirits, and finally King Griffin, who they must challenge to enter.

Day 5. Orlanth confronts Yelm at last. The Lightbringers endure the requirement of Proof, and Trial by Combat.

Day 6. The gods swear the Great Compromise and perform the Ritual of the Net. The Devil is faced, defeated, and devoured by Arachne Solara.

Day 7. The gods make the dangerous return journey, this time with Yelm and other dead gods. They endure further tests and challenges before returning victorious through the Gates of Dawn. 

This is the structure. Now let's focus on the performance.

Performance: at sunset on Freezeday, Luck Week, the entire clan gathers. Community leaders and important members have been selected to portray the roles of the Lightbringers, Yelm, and other important characters. They will be costumed, painted, and dressed as these gods. For the next two weeks they will not be referred to by their names. Instead they will be called by the name of the god they embody.

The rest of the community will lend magical support, watching the re-enactment of the quest, singing along with the verses of the story, performing ritual gestures at critical moments, and the like.

On that first sunset sacrifices are offered. A prized bull. Jewelry. Beloved possessions. Locks of hair. If the last year was particularly bad omened, they might even sacrifice a horse. 

Following the sacrifice, prayers are offered to the gods. Player characters must make Worship rolls. If you are using the Community Characteristic system, Community POW and CON are rolled to represent the magical and material sacrifices being made. The entire community sings and dances. If the player characters are supporting the rites, and not playing the roles of gods, they must all make Dance and Sing rolls, and sacrifice at least 2 magic points.

Start keeping track of who succeeds and who fails. Those who succeed most of their rolls should be awarded a blessing at the end of the day. Those who fail most of their rolls gain a bane. See the boxed text on page 171 of The Company of the Dragon for details. Keep track of the total number of rolls as well...do most pass or fail? This is important to test and see if the community passes the stage. 

If player characters are portraying the gods, they must come out, costumed, and deliver their lines. Have them make Act, Sing, or Orate rolls (the myths are ritually chanted along with drumming and piping). They cross over to the Other Side and now speak and think as the god they portray.

As a very general rule, I have the group face 2 or 3 tests each stage (day) of the quest, 1 or 2 if there is a combat. This is because I run following the "1 Season 1 Adventure" rule and am counting all of Sacred Time as a single adventure. Further, I like to play one adventure per game session, so I try to keep things moving. There is no reason why you cannot increase the number of challenges faced each day, however. Also, I try to think of broad tests that everyone can face, but also ones that spotlight specific cults and characters. Give Chalana Arroy, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, Eurmal, and the others a chance to shine. 

Looking back at our myth what is being re-enacted here is "Orlanth Vowing to set the World to Rights." I presented a version of it in The Seven Tailed Wolf  page 19, drawn from Stafford's Book of Heortling Mythology with my own elaborations. Present it however you like, but this opening session should be briefer and less challenging than the trials ahead. You are merely setting the stage, and a number of rolls have already been made, enough to calculate the results of the day.

If the majority of rolls pass, the community gains +5% that day. If not, -5%.

The second day (assume Clayday, Luck week, skipping every other day) we have "The Westfaring," Orlanth heading west and gathering the Lightbringers as outlined in the myth above. The community gathers at sunset, and after songs and prayers are offered, the quest resumes.

This is the first of the trials and testing stages of the heroquest. In Company of the Dragon I broke these down into three: facing a foe, making an ally, and beating a challenge. There are plenty of opportunities to make allies as Orlanth encounters and recruits each of the Lightbringers. They then must convince the Turtle God to carry them across the sea. This is probably beating a challenge. They confront the Luathelans, leading to either facing a foe or beating a challenge, and then the bloody goddess of the Dusk, whom they must convince to let them into the underworld. This is probably beating a challenge. 

At this point, however, it might be best if we digress for a second. Consider the following a "sidebar."

What is actually happening here?

Always keep in mind that this is a re-enactment, a performance. The performers have one foot in this world and one in the Other Side, so they actually see and experience the myth as if it were real. For example, in confronting the Luathelans above, the questers see towering, purple-skinned demigods looming over them on the God Plane. When they fight, Orlanth hurls his Lightning Spear at one with a terrible flash of light and crash of thunder...

...but at the same time, those "Luathelans" are fellow clansmen painted purple, and the Lightning Spear Orlanth carries is a prop. The entire clan is looking on, chanting, cheering, lending magical support to the gods. 

You are not, then, actually testing the character's Javelin or Spear skill. They are not attempting to wound or kill their clansmen! So what are we testing then?

As a general rule, you primarily want to test Rune affinities, performance skills like Act, Dance, Orate, and Sing, and knowledge skills like Cult Lore. Passions come into play when appropriate (Devotion to the god you are personifying, Hate of an enemy you are facing). Magical skills like Worship and Spirit Combat are also common. Most other skills are irrelevant. This is a magical and religious ceremony, not a physical adventure. 

Continuing our example, then, when Orlanth throws the Lighting Spear at the Luathelan, the character might...

...test Orate, as they declare "And lo He Who Wields the Thunderbolt did unleash his Spear of Lightning, and smote his enemy in wrath."

...test Dance as in the performance they dash gracefully around the Luathelan in circles, tapping them with the Lightning Spear prop.

...test Act as the performer bellow and roars so convincingly that the audience sees Orlanth before them.

...test the Air Rune affinity or Devotion Orlanth, as the performing calls upon their god's magic to smite the enemy on the God Plane.

There are exceptions to this. In The Seven Tailed Wolf to simulate the Turtle God bearing the Lightbringers over the sea, clansmen portrayed the Turtle by carrying the Lightbringers on shields raised over their heads, while other clansmen played the roll of the sea (!!!) throwing buckets of water at them trying to make them drop the Lightbringers. Meanwhile the Lightbringers had to stand on the shields and try not to fall. These were tests of STR, CON, and DEX, with a few other physical skills as well. But the primary thing is that it was a ritualized game, not an actual fight.

Also, there may be times (as we will see when we reach "The Supreme Ordeal" stage below) that actual fighting may occur. In The Company of the Dragon I talked about a Storm Bull initiation ritual in which the initiate had to act out Storm Bull's destruction of the Devil. This was done by placing the initiate into a ring with a captured Chaos creature (typically a Broo) and having them fight. There are similar episodes in The Seven Tailed Wolf. Further, the Orlanth use of "Summons of Evil" also brings real danger to the test.

To sum up, 90% of the time you want to test magical and performance skills. There will be times, especially in those who focus all of their attention on their character's weapon skills, when players complain about this. I like to remind them characters in RuneQuest are not only fighters, they are also magic-users, and that even the deadliest samurai practiced poetry, noh, and flower-arranging!

Now back to our quest...

Day three falls on Fireday, Luck Week. Again, at sunset, the clan gathers at the ritual space around the performers. Prayers are sung, and the drumming and piping begins.

In this stage, the Lightbringers descend into the Underworld, facing trials and tests as they go. There are any number of options here. The safe path must be found (Issaries or Eurmal might test Devotion to their god, Issaries as the Pathfinder and Eurmal as the one who knows the way into Hell). The Lightbringers might be attacked by Underworld demons or the Dead. The performers may have to test their Darkness Rune affinities to not get lost in the blackness, or their Water Rune affinities to cross the Styx. They might meet Darkness spirits they might ally as a guide (Orate, Act, etc). 

Day four falls on Godday, Luck Week. As usual, the clan gathers at sunset, prayers are offered, the music begins. On this day the Lightbringers cross the Underworld, seeking the Halls of Yelm, and must pass King Griffin to enter. Perhaps Chalana Arroy must heal the blind and hungry dead so that the Lightbringers may pass (Devotion or Worship Chalana Arroy, or test the Harmony or Fertility Rune). Maybe Eurmal must trick the way past them. Maybe Flesh Man finds his father amongst them and must convince his father to aid them (test the Man Rune affinity). Whatever the case, the journey ends with King Griffin. They must persuade him to let them pass (Orate, Act, Sing) or answer his riddles (Cult Lore).

Day five falls on Waterday, Fate Week. This time the clan assembles at dawn, and will for the rest of the days. After the usual opening, the re-enactment begins. At this stage they must face Yelm in his Halls. 

Mythology is pretty specific here (p. 47) in what they face, and it is mostly Orlanth centered. It beings with a tense series of negotiations with Yelm, and these could be re-enacted by having the Orlanth performer and a fellow clansmen skilled in oratory "orate" against one another (a rap battle!). Or a clansmen with a high Fire/Sky Rune and the Orlanth performer might have a Rune Affinity contest.   

After this Orlanth endures the "acidic hatred" of his assembled enemies. Perhaps the Orlanth performer is splashed with a bucket of lye water (yes, we know it is a base and not an acid, but I doubt the Orlanthi make such a distinction) and must dodge it (a time the actual Dodge skill is used) or suffer a certain amount of actual damage (a low amount, say 1D3...the performer has failed the test which was the point, not blinding or burning them). Alternatively it could be handled the usual ways (contests of skills such as Orate, Sing, or Act against one another). 

Then comes trial by combat. Again this could be pure performance (a Dance contest), or non-lethal fighting to first blood using Fist or Grapple). If Orlanth is wounded, give Chalana Arroy the chance to heal him (another test).

Day six comes Windsday, Fate Week. This is the Supreme Ordeal, the confrontation with the Devil in Hell, his devouring and binding, and the swearing of the Great Compromise. The clan gathers at dawn and after the usual rites the tests begin. 

This is a perfect example of when actual combat might occur. "Summons of Evil" might be used, or a captured Chaotic foe might have to be fought and defeated to re-enact the defeat of the Devil. Once defeated, the ritual of the Net might be performed, with each performer holding threads, weaving in and out of one another to form an elaborate web (all must pass Dance tests). 

The seventh and final day falls on Wildday, Fate Week. It begins again at dawn. After the opening rites and rituals the performers re-enact the return of the Lightbringers, with Yelm, to the world.

The final day of Sacred Time, Godday, Fate Week, is a time for celebration, feasting, and rejoicing (tempered by how well the rites were performed!).  

Final Notes

None of this, of course, is a full scenario, just an outline to give individual GMs ideas. As mentioned, I give full scenario examples in The Seven Tailed Wolf (though these are Kallyr's larger pilgrimage version of the rites) for further ideas. 

Also this post focuses solely on the Lightbringers' Quest, and if your group is made up mainly of members of other cults, take a look at Mythology, "What Happens in Sacred Time?" (pp. 51-52) for ideas on things they might be doing.