The Inner Temple of Witchcraft: Magick, Meditation and Psychic Development

About the Author

Christopher Penczak (Salem, NH) is an award-winning author, teacher, and healing practitioner. As an advocate for the timeless perennial wisdom of the ages, he is rooted firmly in the traditions of modern Witchcraft and Earth-based religions but draws from a wide range of spiritual traditions, including shamanism, alchemy, herbalism, Theosophy, and Hermetic Qabalah, to forge his own magickal traditions and create educational and community opportunities designed to encourage you to do the same. His many books include Magick of Reiki, Spirit Allies, Ascension Magick, and The Mighty Dead. Along with his partners, Steve Kenson and Adam Sartwell, he cofounded the Temple of Witchcraft tradition and religious nonprofit, drawn from the system found in his popular Temple series of books. Together, they support Witchcraft as a spiritual tradition and a means to transform the individual and the world. They also formed Copper Cauldron Publishing, a company dedicated to producing books, recordings, and tools for magickal inspiration and evolution. Christopher maintains a teaching and healing practice in New England while working in the Temple community, but travels extensively, lecturing, offering rituals and intensives, and leading sacred site retreats across the world. For more information about his work and the Temple of Witchcraft community, please visit www.christopherpenczak.com and www.templeofwitchcraft.org.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

The Inner Temple of Witchcraft: Magick, Meditation, and Psychic Development © 2002, Twentieth Anniversary Edition 2021 by Christopher Penczak.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition © 2021

E-book ISBN: 9780738717654

First Edition, expanded and revised

Nineteenth Printing, 2021

Book design by Donna Burch

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Editing by Andrea Neff

Interior Illustrations © 2002 by Mary Ann Zapalac on pages 21, 32, 89, 231, 234, 239, 242, 244, 262, 289. All other art by the Llewellyn art department.

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Penczak, Christopher.

The inner temple of witchcraft : magick, meditation, and psychic development / Christopher Penczak—1st ed.

p. cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7387-0276-5

1. Witchcraft. 2. Magic. 3. Psychic ability. I. Title

BF1566 P465 2002

133.4’3—dc212002030059

ISBN-13: 978-0-7387-0276-6

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dedication

To my parents, Rosalie and Ronald, who always supported me on this path.

To my partners, Steve and Adam, for walking this road with me.

To my beloved High Priestess Alix, for holding, tending, and manifesting the dream.

To my first teachers, Lynne and Laurie Cabot, for setting me on the path.

And to that first Inner Temple class in the basement, planting the seed

for all that came after. Thank you.

Steve, Jessica, Christina, Jen, Bridget, and Kat:

Who knew then where it would all lead?

Contents

List of Exercises

List of Figures & Tables

Disclaimer

Foreword to the New Edition by Laurie Cabot

Introduction to the New Edition: The Expanded Temple

Introduction: What Is the Inner Temple of Witchcraft?

Chapter 1

Ask a Witch

Chapter 2

Digging for the Roots

Chapter 3

Flavors of Witchcraft

Chapter 4

The Witch’s Path

Chapter 5

Lesson 1: The Magickal Mind

Chapter 6

Lesson 2: Meditation

Chapter 7

Lesson 3: The Magick of Science

Chapter 8

Lesson 4: The Science of Magick

Chapter 9

Lesson 5: The Art of Defense

Chapter 10

Lesson 6: The Power of Light

Chapter 11

Lesson 7: Energy Anatomy

Chapter 12

Lesson 8: Journey Work

Chapter 13

Lesson 9: Spirit Work

Chapter 14

Lesson 10: The Inner Temple

Chapter 15

Lesson 11: Healing

Chapter 16

Lesson 12: Born Again

Chapter 17

Lesson 13: Initiation

Appendix: Self-Test

Bibliography

Exercises

Exercise 1: Intention Ritual

Exercise 2: Feeling Energy

Exercise 3: Ball of Energy

Exercise 4: Feeling the Aura

Exercise 5: Pushing and Pulling Energy

Exercise 6: Earth Walking

Exercise 7: Total Relaxation

Exercise 8: Candle Meditation

Exercise 9: Counting Down to a Meditative State

Exercise 10: Basic Visualization

Exercise 11: Affirmations

Exercise 12: Programming Your Trigger

Exercise 13: Mental Projection

Exercise 14: Correspondences

Exercise 15: Vibrational Statements

Exercise 16: Polarity of the Earth and Sky

Exercise 17: Heartbeat Control

Exercise 18: Sun and Moon

Exercise 19: Tree Meditation

Exercise 20: Protection Shield

Exercise 21: Showers of Light

Exercise 22: Sending Light

Exercise 23: Aura Gazing

Exercise 24: Aura Clearing

Exercise 25: Chakra Opening and Balancing

Exercise 26: Psychic Travel

Exercise 27: Pendulum

Exercise 28: Muscle Testing

Exercise 28: Automatic Writing

Exercise 30: Clairaudience: Conscious Channeling

Exercise 31: Visiting the Inner Temple

Exercise 32: Psychic Scanning

Exercise 33: Healing Case

Exercise 34: Past-Life Exploration

Figures & Tables

Figure 1: Early Goddess Images

Figure 2: Timeline

Figure 3: Wheel of the Year

Figure 4: Witches’ Pyramid

Figure 5: The Three Minds

Figure 6: The Four Energies

Figure 7: Shapes

Figure 8a: Recording a Holographic Image

Figure 8b: Projecting a Holographic Image

Figure 9: Vesica Piscis

Figure 10: Atom and Solar System

Figure 11: Taijitu (Yin-Yang) Symbol

Figure 12: Polarity Wheels

Figure 13: Scales

Figure 14: Pentacle

Figure 15: Triskelion and Triple Knot Images

Figure 16: Banishing Pentagram

Figure 17: Protection Symbols: Pentacle, Cross, Ankh, Eye of Horus, Hexagram, Triple Knot

Figure 18: Protective Rings

Figure 19: Invoking Pentagram and Banishing Pentagram

Figure 20a: Damaged Aura

Figure 20b: Healthy Aura

Figure 21: The Seven Chakras

Figure 22: Seven Layers of the Aura

Figure 23: Kundalini Rising, DNA, Caduceus

Figure 24: Symbols of Balance

Figure 25: Tree of Life, or Etz Chaim, of the Qabalah

Figure 26: World Tree

Figure 27: Planes of Reality

Figure 28: Pendulums

Figure 29: Muscle Testing Hand Positions

Table 1: Energy Anatomy of the Seven Chakras

Table 2: Common Symbols for Disease in Psychic Scanning

Table 3: Healing Associations of the Colors

Figure 30: Traditional Degree Symbols

Figure 31: My Personal Degree Symbols

Disclaimer

Please note that the information in this book is not meant to diagnose, treat, prescribe, or substitute consultation with a licensed healthcare professional. Both the author and the publisher recommend that you consult a medical practitioner before attempting the techniques outlined in this book and assume no liability for any injuries caused to the reader that may result from the reader’s use of the content contained herein. All readers should use common sense when contemplating the practices described in the work.

Know thyself.

Temple of Delphi, Greece

Foreword to the New Edition

by Laurie Cabot

I first saw Christopher Penczak in 1993 at my Witchcraft as a Science class, held in the back room of Crow Haven Corner in Salem, Massachusetts. That very first night, he gave me a look that said, You’re a phony. You’re a phony, I know it, and I’m going to prove it.

Christopher came in quietly that night with his mother, Rosalie, and a family friend, as they were all taking the class together. They looked out for each other, and I later learned that my intuition about that look was right: Christopher was a skeptic. He didn’t entirely believe magick was actual or real at that time. He wanted proof and he wasn’t going to take my word for it.

In our fourth class, the students worked psychic health cases. They each received only minimal information and had to psychically diagnose whatever conditions the subjects might have, along with any physical description or details they picked up. Christopher was 100 percent accurate on all of his cases that night, as was his mother. It was clearly a moment of realization for them both, as it was and has been for many students before and since when they experience the reality of their own psychic gifts.

Then there was the wand-charging class. Students would go into alpha meditation and infuse energy into their wand, one of the primary magickal tools. Then they would cross the tip of the wand over their palm to feel the energy coming from it. The energy from Christopher’s wand after that meditation was palpable and powerful, and it was clear that he could feel it, and that others in the class could as well.

He did first-rate work in ritual and writing papers to demonstrate his understanding of symbolism, the seasons, and the gods and ancestors. Through practice and results, he and other students realized their magickal selves and experienced the reality of magick for themselves, their own magick. They found the proof they were looking for. In Christopher’s case, I think he found his calling as well, as a Witch, and later as a teacher.

Now, decades later, with this book and many (many!) others, Christopher has taken his own study of Witchcraft and connected it to many other cultures around the world and throughout history in search of not only the magick of those cultures but also the underlying reasons for their practices. He finds all of the important aspects of both the science and the spirituality of the Craft and gathers them together for his students. He knows that magick is real, and he practices in that manner, but he also understands skepticism, and that seeing and experiencing for yourself is truly believing. He’s intellectual, he does his homework, and he does his research to show you how he arrives at all of his conclusions. I have no doubt that is why his work on Witchcraft and magick has been and remains so popular, and why he has been so successful as a teacher.

Had Christopher just stopped there, I’m sure his work would be rightly remembered and referenced for generations to come, but he also understands Witchcraft as a religion, and as a community, and the role of the Witch in community. After his Temple series of books was first published, Christopher and his partners and his students started the Temple of Witchcraft, a successful religious nonprofit for Witches, to be a home for that growing community. Now they offer sabbats and rituals and classes and own property in New Hampshire, something they can pass on to those generations to come.

I truly feel that Christopher stands between the traditional world of Witchcraft that I taught him and brought him into and the future of what Witchcraft can and will be, now that we have science on our side, with more and more understanding about how magick is real. While he honors tradition, he has found his own way. He is out there in public when he needs to be, but spends most of the time teaching and building and learning. He understands how to let things go and let them grow and evolve. Christopher has owned every single part of the Craft he has taken on, and he does the work of helping people learn to be sovereign within their own magick, giving them a chance to discover and to choose magick, as he did.

As much as the world is blessed by his work, and as much as I honor and appreciate it, I am also thankful to have Christopher in my life. He has invited me and my daughter, Penny, into his heart like we are family, and I feel like he is the son I might have had—did have in some ways. His mother, Rosalie, was the one who brought him to my classes and to Witchcraft, and although I have been his teacher, to me he has been my guide, my healer, my teacher, and my dear friend.

Although we talk about Witchcraft as a religion, the truth is that I don’t believe in religion, at least not in terms of worshipping things. To get on your knees and bow and beg for help and for answers isn’t our way. It leaves your own sovereign nature and intellect behind, wanting someone or something else to always intervene for you. We don’t worship the gods who are our ancestors. We honor them and respect them, but we partner with them. We use our magick to find our own answers, and I hope that you will use everything you find in this book to find yours. Be both skeptical and open-minded, like Christopher, and I promise you, you could not be in better hands.

Blessed be,

Laurie Cabot

Salem, Massachusetts, 2019

[contents]

Introduction to the New Edition