Gianluca and I had the pleasure of having dinner with Janet and Gavin recently while attending the Welshpool Magical Conference in Wales. After an evening of great conversation, I felt inspired to grab a copy of their book, Lifting the Veil: A Witch’s Guide to Trance-Prophecy, Drawing Down the Moon, and Ecstatic Ritual and give it read. As the title suggests, the book’s primary focus is on the historical uses of trance and possessory work in religious and magical ritual, with an equal amount of emphasis placed on practical techniques that can be used today with relative ease. 

Part One of the book focuses on the historical applications of trance in ritual. After an exploration of the ancient seers and oracles who allowed themselves to be possessed by spirits and gods for prophecy, we are then introduced  to possession in the rites of the Norse Seider, Shamanism, and some of the more modern manifestations of Witchcraft. But Farrar and Bone aren’t afraid to ask the tough question—what’s the purpose of all this? Why do humans—witches—have such an interest in possessory work? I rather loved their answer here: “its purpose is to affect the evolution of ourselves and our world.” (P.80) It is both a service to mankind and to the divine. Farrar and Bone go on to introduce their four keys to trance-prophecy work. These four keys are:

The First Key: Understanding Spiritual Cosmologies

The Second Key: Understanding Spiritual Energy

The Third Key: Understanding Trance and Its Techniques 

The Fourth Key: Understanding Divinity and Spirits 

Each key unlocks the door to the room that holds the next key, meaning each key builds on the one before it. You need to have some benchmark understanding of the spiritual cosmology of the universe before you can try to understand the spiritual energy of said universe. Then, once you understand the energy, you can explore certain techniques to manipulate and go into trance, before allowing oneself to be possessed by Gods or Spirits.

Naturally, the movies make possession look a lot scarier than it actually is. The Exorcist-level of possession is not something that will likely occur (never say never though, right?) when using the techniques and rituals outlined in this book, and the authors do a fantastic job of breaking through some of the [outdated] stereotypes associated with this type of work. Still, even though it’s unlikely that your head will spin completely around or that you will vomit split-pea soup (another Exorcist reference), the authors are very responsible when it comes to safety and protection while attempting any sort of possessory work. 

There is a very functional Grimoire at the end of the book that provides several wonderful examples for working experimentation with trance-possession, most of which are incredibly practical for regular use—and, they don’t need a full coven to be effective! The ritual structure is quite easy to bring together with only two Witches, one being the Seer (the one being possessed) and the other being the guide, or as Farrar and Bone refer to them, the psychopomp (Not to be confused with the gods who also bear the designation of psychopomp. In this sense, the individual fulfilling this role is simply the guide for the one being possessed.)

There are two parts of this book that really stood out to me. First, in Part One, Farrar and Bone had a few contributors share their personal experiences with possessory work. These familiar faces—Fio Gede Parma, Lilith Dorsey, and Courtney Weber, to name a few—are well known by people from various magical traditions, so to be able to read of their experiences with possession was quite nice. The end of the book outlines a series of rituals performed by one of Janet and Gavin’s covens. In these rituals, the coven used the trance-possession techniques given in the book to speak with the Gods and share some of their wisdom with us, the readers. Their reason for including this was admirable: the voices of the gods have been ignored for too long, so let’s give them a platform to speak. While a good number of magical possession experiments with a wide range of gods are included in this part, the book ends with a powerful line: The Gods are here to guide us; which divinity it is, is really unimportant, as only the message that is important, not the messenger, and we ignore this message at our peril.

I feel like this book has flown under the radar. To my knowledge, there aren’t any other books written about safe and effective possession techniques in Witchcraft, even though so many Witches talk about a want, no, a need, to be closer to their Gods. To have an entire book dedicated to building a safe and effective practice designed to increase one’s closeness with the Gods should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in pursuing the Craft.

Book Information

• Lifting the Veil by Janet Farrar & Gavin Bone
• Publisher: The Crowood Press
• Publication Date: December 10, 2024
• Dimensions: 6X9
• Page Count: 336
• Purchase here