Via Vera Cruz is a conclave of Traditional Witchcraft, being born from a variety of traditional paths and roads meeting within the blessed soil of Vera Cruz, also known as Brazil. With witchcraft we understand the poetic reality of spell craft and peasant craft that belong to humanity as a whole. We see in Traditional Witchcraft a coherent landscape of traditional symbolism and lore that can effectuate knowledge of purpose and destiny for the journeyman and wandering woman. With Tradition we understand a succession of lore, both vertically and horizontal, initiatic streams that uphold a traditional world view. This will affirm Via Vera Cruz to be a Traditional body it witchcraft, but at the same time we do break off from the embraced model in one regard. We trace our descent not from the rebellious blood of Cain, but from Adam through his son Seth. We do believe that the golden seed was also held by Cain’s legacy but in Cains hands the seed has been exiled and thus must be subject for the wandering in exile leading to the grave of Adam, the ancestor of all, the red earth. Consequently, Via Vera Cruz adheres to the doctrine of reintegration and work towards a union of what is scattered. It might be more correct to see witchcraft as solely one of several symbolic languages that unite traditional wisdom into one axis, flowing from many rivers into the network of roots which is the manifested possibilities of the richness within the One. As such Via Vera Cruz is planted under the Southern Cross as a crossroad of the worlds and from our path walked faithfully we search our ascent.
On the nature and purpose of Via Vera Cruz
The nature and purpose of Via Vera Cruz is to serve as an initiatic amalgam between the heights and the depths, from Hell to Heaven our ascent must be observed and as such the Via Vera Cruz will serve as a three-fold point of power enabling the journeyman to facilitate his or her ascent and dine at the table of the victorious ones. Considering the Via Vera Cruz as a point of power will indicate that it is an expression of the Nameless and Eternal art unbound by the circle of devotees, rather the circle is the circle of One meeting with One in the formula of One adding with One as the merging with ones Perfect Nature is the ultimate goal. As such the purpose is to give birth to a new breed of cunning people, wise witches who aim towards the rejuvenation of the soul and the return to the golden age where power and knowledge flew freely in the rivers of wine and honey in the Gan Eden of wisdom. Certainly, groups of working focusing on the cultivation of this point of power will and should be resurrected, each group subject to the oath and initiation following the point of power forged in their own uniqueness to exist for a time, short or infinite as deemed necessary and useful. As such the Via Vera Cruz is considered to be a collective of good and honorable men and women in good standing meeting at the round table of the circle as equals, each circle sustained by the natural pillar of the group, best suited to aid and bring progress in the work for the better result of each practitioner. In this way, the ecclesiastical and celestial magic and mystery of the journeyman through the path of mystery will conjoin with the path of the cunning craft and the magic of the wise folk as three knots on the three coloured cord of wisdom. This is demonstrated by the ritual cycle referred to as “Three circles of Exile” following the mysteries of the Moon, Sun and lastly the zodiakus, planets and stars, behenain as well as others. This ritual cycle can be understood to be like a ladder of Hermes Trismegistus’. These three stages designate the stages of ascent to the mountain of the victorious ones, where the ones standing and not fallen gather in supremacy.
The Three circles of Exile
Exile signifies a condition where one is cast away from ones homestead or secure foundation. It is an appraisal of advancement, of casting off dross and imperfections and at the same time one is situated in foreign and alien domains. These Three types of Exile can be exemplified by the three children of Adam, Abel, Qayin and Seth, each of them representing a station where the seeker is an outcast. Concerning the exile of Abel, this is the exile of being chained to mundane and profane life, thrown away from our celestial origins, the Jerusalem on high, to such an extent that there is not even a recollection of this fall and there is only the absence of the desire of redemption. This exile are made evident when the seeker wakes up and see that hand, feet, mind and heart is bound and chained within the world of desire and base forms of living and desire to break away from this and execute the murderous act upon ones captures and thus the wheel will start moving. The journey will be begun and ones prison will light up in all its filth and ugliness together with the desire of breaking free, to assume the power that breaks free, even if the somnambulist just awoken is not aware of the reasons why power are sought. This will lead the seeker into the wheel of temptation and trial, redemption and initiation. This stage is signified by Qayin, the first murderer and as such the archetypical Witch, he who does what is necessary in order to break loose from the profane existence, no matter the cost and consequences and as such he unbolts the wheel and the travel towards the mystery of perfection, found in Seven – 7 – upon where Lamech murders him and prepares the ascent of redemption. Qayin and his mystery is represented by the travel and the sojourn, as such he shares features with the Norse Odin and also the Prophet of Wisdom, Al Khidir. Without stretching matters too far we might suggest that Qayin takes on the form of Odin and walks toward the goal, Khidir where the garb of the journeyman is shed for the ascent into the mysteries of those standing and not fallen. In the second circle of exile the journeyman need to travel from the Mons Veneris which he ascended in the first circle and enter through the sub terrestrial tunnels of the world of Hel into the long walk through the valleys towards the Mons Victorius and the ascent to the silent company of mastery, wisdom and all power. For unto the seeker of wisdom shall all power be given. The second Exile will carry within it the mystery of self sacrifice, as Odin did in order to give “himself to himself”. Oracular wisdom and the use of the sorcerous path are tools needed to master as in the act of sorcery we are going against the grain with our actions while in the third Exile we need to fully go against the grain in order to liberate our Light and become victorious.
There are further mysteries to this of a celestial nature, where in the first exile the Angel Gabriel and the mysteries of the Moon are the vehicles for revelation and advancement, in the second Exile, exemplified by Qayin the celestial mystery related to his wanderings and work are Lumiel-Lucifer and the Sun. In the third Exile there is the Angel of Mystery and Secrets Raziel who crowns the journeyman with mastery over the stars and planets in the name of Seth, the eternal King of the Graal Stone.
Concerning the New Breed and the New Grammar
Considering these factors herein presented so far it is right and good to say that Via Vera Cruz aim toward the birth of an entirely new breed of witches’ or rather cunning people as it is this traditional heritage we see us continuing. The legacy of planet doctors, spirit conjurers and hermetic nigromancers that traveled with equal ease amongst the spirits of land and celestial abodes as they did amongst plant teachers and spirits of field and elements. As such Via Vera Cruz will be the vinculum for the continuation of the Wise Arts in honour of the legacy of the cunning people, they be from Albion or Pindorama, they being Francis Barett or the local “benzedeira”, the astrologer of the fortune teller, the divine artist that by telesmata draw down the power of the heavens or the plant healer who administer the poison of plant and spirit for protection or cure. This will all be reflected in the grammar of the True Cross.
Concerning The Ascent of the Victorious Ones
Via Vera Cruz see Seth as the wise forefather of the cunning people, a legacy he inherited from Adam, the Holy, his father upon his death. The legacy of the Wise Art was passed on exclusively to Seth and through Seth and his children the secrets were spread out like pearls and diamonds everywhere in the world, distorted by mud and dross under the wise observance of the silent angel of secrecy, Raziel himself. As such Via Vera Cruz cannot be limited to a specific system, neither the destruction of existing systems for fragmentary use, or the misdemeanor of resurrecting illusion and reckless fantasy upon the foundation of the True Cross. The secret of the Victorious ones lies in the mastery of the Wise Arts, the perfection of the Cunning Craft, the knowledge and understanding of both mountains of ascent and the sub terrestrial network connecting them. In this are found the trial and temptation, the confession and redemption – all that will bring freedom to the journeyman and install him or her in the dwelling at the unmovable pole of the creation, where the one standing is not fallen.
In the Seal of the Saints
By the Key and Wand of the True Cross