On Becoming a Werewolf
Traditional Lore & Pragmatic Practices
By Denny Sargent
werewolfmagick.com
Often true Pagan or Animistic secrets of magick from ancient times survived in European folklore and superstition. So before moving into practicing werewolf magick, let’s see what the lore says about actually becoming a werewolf. Here is the big question: According to European folklore, how did one become a werewolf? Well, there are two different ways it seems.
You can be born one
Some tales tells us that people can be born as werewolves, often as a result of a curse being put on an infant or the pregnant mother, by a witch of course. Other folktales mention a curse for those born on Christmas or Christmas eve. Why? That birthday is an affront to God it seemed, so thou must suffer. Not sure why being a werewolf was an appropriate curse. Go figure. Other lore simply says that there are lineages of werewolves among us, that some families have the ‘Lycanthropy gene’ as some Irish clans like the ancient lycanthropic Ossery tribe is said to have. That is, all the clan are werewolves. Another curse that will gift you fur fangs and a tail is if you are born under a full moon or even if you fall asleep under one! Campers beware!
As we have seen, some divinely blessed people were said to have been born from wolves or raised by wolves and this was said to give them wolfish powers. Romulus and Remus were raised by the wolf Lupa so all Romans venerated wolves. The divine Germanic hero Siegfried was abandoned at birth and raised by a she-wolf. Tu Kueh, the mythic hero who founded the Turkic peoples in prehistory, was raised by a ‘blue’ she wolf. These people were forever known as filled with wolf power and magic, like werewolves. However, if you are reading this it is likely too late to be raised by a wolf. Oh well. Maybe try sleeping under a full moon?
Takeaways: Werewolf sorcerers or cult members were often born into these lineages, either through clan affiliation, being born into a ‘shamanic’ family or by joining part of an in-group that practiced these rituals. Status and having wolf-powers were connected and being a ‘wolf-king’ made one honored and respected. Night and lunar goddesses such as Artemis, Diana and Hekate were all associated with wolves and their powers. The connection between the full moon and werewolves, while somewhat apocryphal, clearly has a deep truth to it.
You can become a werewolf through Sorcery, Witchcraft or Magic:
Here is where things get more interesting.
Folklore says that a sorcerer can become a werewolf through a ritual or spell. Since, magically, this is the juiciest way to become a werewolf, let’s look at what kinds of rituals we are talking about. Here are some often mentioned in folklore and older occult grimoires or books of magic:
Wearing a wolf skin or a magical belt of wolf (or of human skin) can make you a werewolf under the right conditions. Often this pelt or belt is said to be given to you with a magick salve by a demon, the Devil or the mysterious ‘Lord of the Forest.’
This magick werewolf salve is often mentioned when werewolves are discussed. Books on werewolf lore describe these lotions or salves as being full of a huge variety of psychoactive ingredients. Smearing one’s body with, for example, ‘boiled wolfs-bane, opium, foxgloves, bat blood, aconite and the fat of a murdered child, hemlock, poppy seed, belladonna, nightshade and wolf fat’ would indeed cause changes. Those are dangerous psychoactive ingredients! A brew like this was to be cooked up in an iron cauldron, in a thrice-cast circle, in preparation for such transformation rites, before being rubbed on the body.
Another traditional way to become a werewolf was to ritually eat the brains of an animal a wolf has killed or by eating the flesh of a wolf itself. Cooked, one hopes.
If you ritually drank rain water collected in a wolf-print or to go drank from a special magick ‘wolf watering hole’ or a ‘werewolf cursed stream’ you would become a werewolf. There is a ‘Lobo Bar’ in my town, one wonders if this counts, but probably not.
Another old school Russian ritual for wolf transformation involved stabbing a fallen mountain ash tree, with a copper knife, uttering an incantation, and then leaping over it three times. Here is a translation of the invocation:
“On the sea, on the sea, on the island, on Bujan,* On the empty pasture gleams the moon, on an ashstock lying In a green wood, in a gloomy vale. Towards the stock wandereth a shaggy wolf, Horned cattle looking for his sharp white fangs; However, the wolf enters not the woods, However, the wolf dives not into the dark vale, Moon, moon, gold-horned moon, Check the flight of bullets, blunt the hunters knives, Break the shepherds cudgels, Cast wild fear upon all cattle, On men, all creeping things, That they may not catch the gray wolf, That they may not rend his hot skin! My word is binding, more binding than sleeping, More binding compared to the promise of a hero!”
*Note: Bujan is a mythic Russian ‘spirit world’
Takeaways: One who had a natural inclination or wolfish affiliation could intentionally become a werewolf or shapeshifter the way other shamanic shapeshifters did: Through initiation, intense deep ritual work and mind-altering entheogens. It is inferred that one has to ‘leave’ his or her humanity behind and ‘leap’ into a new state of animal consciousness.
Looking at all these surviving bits of folklore and spells together, it seems that we have the ingredients for half-forgotten animistic, shamanic, animal spirit trance-ritual-worship that we have seen in the prehistoric cave paintings. How did these shamanic therianthropic shapeshifting ‘werewolf’ practices evolve and manifest in ancient cultures and continue into Christianized European culture? It is this curiosity that sparked this book and the practices that unfold within it. Of course, early Christianity saw shapeshifters such as werewolves as evil, the work of the Devil. However, their feral animalistic ‘Devil’ was identified as the ‘Lord of the Forest’, the one who granted accused witches the gift of lycanthropy. This ‘Devil’ behind werewolf power was likely the primal and ubiquitous god of the animals, Cernunnos or Faunus, both connected with wolves. This indicates deeper werewolf magick roots descending from pre-Christian shapeshifting traditions and helps explain how the primal Wild Pagan God of the shapeshifters became associated with the Devil of the Christians who was said to have made werewolves.
So what do we have here?
If we are looking for real, practical tools and ideas for our work, what have we found hidden in the dismissed folklore? As we are reconstructing a kind of Animistic-Pagan shamanic magick, let’s see what we can use: Magical tools are Important and some mentioned: A wolf skin, the cauldron, a thrice- cast circle, a fire, a copper knife, potions with psychoactive drugs. Also, other sacred natural items, such as: Wolf flesh, special wolf-paw water (or a ‘werewolf stream’). Also mentioned are specific ritual chants or words of power including spells, prayers and howls (my favorite!) often said to be directed the Devil or ‘The Lord of the Forest.’
Amidst this seemingly nonsensical folklore lurks a deeper and more powerful wisdom than is obvious. Once we link this hodgepodge to the more historical werewolf cult information from earlier Pagan cultures already mentioned, all is revealed. Clearing away the silliness and connecting the dots on what this werewolf cult magick really is, what emerges is varied root-magick shamanic practice involving both evoking and invoking natural powers, connecting with the Wolf Spirit and letting it emerge with various tools and practices. In short, primal shapeshifting animistic magick and active Shamanism. The point of becoming a wer-wolf was to gain strength, skill, prowess, ferocity, enhanced senses and skills and the ability to survive easily within the wilderness. These are all things that would help keep you and your tribe alive in the paleolithic as well as in medieval and even modern times. As with most animistic tribal cultures, the goal of such intense wer-wolf work was survival and many sorcerer -werewolves were much honored warriors in Celtic, Greek, Roman and Norse tribes. The Norse referred to such wolf warriors as UlfSark. Those who ‘wear the wolf skin.’
While the werewolf archetype today has been relegated to the movies and comics, yet it, like the urge to survive, still lurks within our subconscious primal mind. This can be seen by our continual fascination with werewolves. As the prehistoric cave paintings show, there is great power in becoming half-animal or more bestial.
All the folklore about how to become a werewolf aside, the truth of shapeshifting is actually accessible to us if we dare. However, the real process of ‘becoming a werewolf’ may not be what most think it is as you may discover.
Here are the keys as I have discovered them with great effectiveness after meeting and spending time with real Shamans from Siberia (Ulchi) and Guatemala (Mayan).
-All work is done in Nature
-Full Moon
-Important trees/plants/natural items
-Rocking
-Swaying
-Growling
-Howling
-Rumbling
-Gestures/postures/actions
–Paralinguistics
-No speaking language during rites
-Invoking and utilizing the energetic powers of:
The Earth Power, the Forest Power, the Full Moon Power, The Wolf Spirit
-Key Animistic rites
-Entheogens
-Drumming
-In groups: Tonal synchronization with howls
-Syncronized group physical actions (dancing, swaying, circling) and interconnected group energy.
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A combination of these can affect a significant lycanthropic trance state as I can attest from several years of research and several years of practice, solo and with a Pack. all explained in Werewolf Magick and Werewolf Pack Magick.)
As with most folklore and occult secrets, there is, at times, true pragmatic wisdom hidden in the shadows. Especially if you have, well, feral proclivities.
Interested? Come enter the deep forest of your ancestral DNA and discover how to awaken the beast within.
BiographyL Denny Sargent (aka: Aion 131, Hermeticusnath)
A Seattle writer, artist and university instructor whose extensive global travels and esoteric studies informed the backbone to numerous published books. Involved for decades with numerous esoteric traditions, the author has published works on Alternative Religions, Hermetic Magick, Taoism, Animism, Shinto and Tantra.
His many published books include: Global Ritualism, The Tao of Birth Days, Your Guardian Angel And You, Clean Sweep, The Book of the Horned One, Naga Magick, & Dancing With Spirits (Shinto) and – Werewolf Magick & Werewolf Pack Magick Magick.
He regularly presents lively online workshops and lectures and previously hosted at conventions and gatherings. Currently residing in the PNW, the author invites and welcomes conversation on. He can be reached through werewolfmagick.com or on Face Book: Denny Sargent Author page or at facebook.com/denny.sargent