The Problem of the Moon

Since ancient times the Moon has evoked highly ambivalent feelings and attitudes in people: it inspires and moves some, oppresses others, and destabilizes everyone to some degree.

Scientists and philosophers, each from their own standpoint, have tried to explain this evident influence — whether by the effect of gravity on the body’s waters, by the polarization of reflected light, or by the psychological impact of night and mystery. Magi, of course, have developed their own view of the matter — less hypothetical and more practical.

We will not dwell here on the well-known matters regarding the influence of the Moon’s phase or its position in the zodiac on the advisability of conducting magical operations. Let us speak of another thing — the Moon’s power itself.

Treating the Moon as a source of a particular kind of power, Magic does not ask whether that Power is carried by gravity or by the Moon’s light; it deals directly with the Power itself, its source and its effect on the mind.

Like any source of Power perceived by the mind as external to it, the Moon, from the standpoint of Magic, has two hypostases — the White (Tanit) and the Dark (Lilith). It is clear that both hypostases are feminine, as is the Moon’s physical aspect — passive — merely reflecting the Sun’s light. As mentioned, the divine feminine triad is presented as a lunar triad. The waxing Moon symbolizes the Maiden, the Muse, birth; she is young, free, belonging to no man. The full Moon is the flowering of female beauty and Power; it is a symbol of carnal love and motherhood; a woman in this phase is either a wife, like Isis, or a treacherous seductress, like Circe. The waning Moon, the crone — she is the witch, the keeper of the secrets of death, a destroyer, but also a mother of mysteries, like Hecate.

But nothing is more contradictory than the Moon. She does not merely transmit the Power of the Great Mother; she transforms that Power, sometimes into its opposite.

It is precisely the extraordinary intensity and importance of the Moon’s effect on the mind that takes this factor beyond ordinary dual femininity, adding a masculine active principle to its influence.

The ancient Sumerians considered the Moon a more fundamental source of existence than the Sun, and the Moon god Nanna (Sin) was regarded as the father of Utu (Shamash) — the sun god — and of Inanna (Ishtar) — the goddess of generation, love and death. Sin’s popularity throughout Mesopotamian history is attested by the many personal names that include his name. The chief center of Sin’s cult was the city of Ur. Nanna was the firstborn of Enlil and Ninlil. He was born in the underworld and then rose to the sky. Only at the new Moon does he descend to the underworld.

A similar situation applies with the lunar hypostasis of Veles — he belongs simultaneously to two worlds, separating them while also ensuring their unity.

And here lies the key to understanding the magical attitude toward the Moon — although she dwells in the sky (in the “upper” world), she was born in the nether depths, the depths of death. Incidentally, it is precisely in this way that the Moon has at all times been considered conducive to dreams, divination and prophecy (and to “sleepwalking”) — by crossing the threshold between life and death herself, she helps the mind to do the same.