Liber ab Tres I (Book of Three—Part I)^63
heart. Do not make an honest attempt to listen to that source and you can be just as
much a member of Wicca as an African-American Jewish lesbian can be a member of
the Ku Klux Klan.Three is the Number of the Outsiders
Three is the Number of Hope and of Afterthought
I draw you up
I bind your ways
I cast you out
I end your days—A simple chant to banish the OutsidersThe Outsiders are those baneful things within each and every one of us that we
wish we could rid ourselves of. Each year at the Real Witches Ball, I host a simply huge
Samhain Rite in which everyone in attendance is asked to fork over their outsiders.
Sometimes we come around the Circle with a box in which to place them, other times I
have asked each person to pick up a pebble, see that pebble as the Outsiders and then
toss it out of the Circle. Each year about half the folk look on as if they are utterly
baffled. The idea that I might think there is something inside them that they don’t want
is confusing as if to say ‘Who me? No, I am perfect thank you.’ If one has already
arrived at perfection, what purpose does a religious path serve?
If an offering is made, the idea is that an appeasement is made outside of the place
in which the Circle is to be cast. The hope is that the Outsiders will leave the ritual
space to receive the appeasement. If banishing the Outsiders, my preferred method,
the Outsiders are collected from everyone in attendance and then either destroyed or
removed from the circle. An excellent way to symbolically collect those outsiders is
with a Pandora’s Box. Per Greek lore, Zeus punished humanity for having received
fire (symbolic of Mind) from Prometheus, who had stolen it from the gods. The form
of that punishment was to unite Pandora, whose name means ‘all gifted,’ with
Epimetheus, whose name means ‘after thought.’ With Pandora came a box that she
was told not to open under any circumstance. She gave in to curiosity and opened the
box. From within came all the evils of the world. She quickly slammed shut the lid,
hoping to prevent further release, but by the time she got it shut there was only one
thing remaining—hope. Three is the number of Pandora, Epimetheus, and their
magickal child, the Outsiders.
Our recognition of the Outsiders in our rites is to say we still have hope. It is in this
box. And with that hope, we are going to capture those Outsiders and return them to
this box. In ritual, this is often done by asking guests to write down their own Outsiders
and place them inside a box while telling them what doing so means. This is why myi WB Chap 02.p65 63 7/11/2003, 5:49 PM