Cultus Sabbati and Sabbatic Craft

In order to understand sabbatic witchcraft we must first discuss its place of origin, the Cultus Sabbati. This was a term coined by the members of this tradition for communication purposes, as the Sabbatic Craft is technically a name for “the Nameless Faith” (sometimes also called “the Crooked Path”).

The Cultus or “the sorcery of the Crooked Path”, operates as a vehicle for transmission of magical knowledge. It is an ongoing tradition of sorcerous wisdom, an initiatory path proceeding from both immediate vision and historical succession. This knowledge, according to Chumbley, comes from a single source known as magical quintessence; the doctrine of this belief is called the “Doctrine of Transcendental Sorcery”.

Sabbatic Witchcraft, as a general practice, was an unintentional by-product of the Cultus Sabbati. In an historical sense, the Sabbatic Craft is set against the dual background of both rural folk-magic (Cunning Craft) and the learned practices of European high ritual magic, mainly of the medieval and early modern periods.

An important dimension of magical and folk religiosity within Sabbatic mythology is its specialized use of the the oneiric or dream realm; the mythos of the medieval and early modern European Witches’ Sabbath- or the astral gathering of witches' souls, animal spirits, and a myriad of otherworldly beings around the circle of arte. Hidden within the imagery of the Witches’ Sabbath are various occult symbols such as nocturnal flight, the stang, the Horned God, Unguentum Sabbati (or Witch’s Ointment)- all of which serves as the basis of idiom, rituals, and practice of the sabbatic witch, who seeks gnosis and spiritual union through oneiric travel to the eternal circle of the Witches’ Sabbat.

The Sabbat is believed to be a hidden realm beyond and between the worlds of waking, sleeping, death, and normal dreaming consciousness. This is a secret domain to which the initiates of the Cultus can travel, passing through a crack in the worlds which opens once at dawn, again at dusk, and also at the moment of midnight. The central purpose of Sabbatic imagery and practice is thus based around a core belief and ritual set, then, in which the seeker undertakes the nocturnal pilgrimage to the Witches Sabbath through the use of various trance inducing techniques and procedures.

The Sabbat is perceived as the prototypal form of all magical workings and as the unifying circle of a living and vital symbolism- one which integrates all aspects of witch-lore and magical technique. These aspects are reinterpreted via personal mythopoesis during experience. And from the experience of the dreamer, specific elements are extracted and utilized as the bases for ritual procedures in the waking world. The converse can also be useful: Aspects of waking ritual can be translated into dream, and from there can assume new and deeply significant meanings.

Through the use of cultural symbols and spiritual associations, the Sabbatic Current is transmitted by both man and spirit. The body of lore associated with this particular tradition, however, is ultimately detailed in the Azoetia, a working grimoire for the Cultus Sabbati- written by Chumbley at the age of twenty-four. Likewise, in the article, “Cultus Sabbati: Provenance, Dream and Magistry”, Chumbley discusses a defining feature of Sabbatic Witchcraft.

Daniel Schulke, current magister of the Cultus stated:

According to Chumbley:

For that reason, the many symbols that have been borrowed and used overtime are meant to convey specific ideas already in the collective consciousness of mankind. The symbolic associations within Sabbatic Witchcraft are some from Pagan, Christian, and Greco-Roman mythology and culture among others that have influenced Western esoteric thinking. These images have changed over time and do not indicate any explicit adherence to Abrahamic ideologies; for example:

These names and symbols serve as manmade vehicles for the elder gods. Chumbley therefore warns that: