The thirteenth month, last in our lunar calendar, was
anciently assigned the letter R and the number 15. It is the time of year when the powers
of darkness are concentrated and intense, culminating at Winter Solstice, the longest
night of the year, which precedes the northward turning of the Sun. At this time of year
the Sun, signified by the Hebrew letter Resh, is held within the womb of Night to be
birthed once more into the sign of Capricorn at Winter Solstice to begin the New Year.
Atu XV of the Tarot, The Devil, is Capricorn The Goat, and it
is said that at the Medieval "Witches'
Sabbath", the Devil was worshipped in the
form of a goat. The "devil-worshipping" Yezidi equated their peacock deity with the Sun
in the South, and faced North to worship, much as the Winter Sun turns northward from the
south at Winter Solstice.
The fifteenth day has long been equated with the Devil, and the color
red, yet the number 15 is sacred to Atu XVII, The Star who treads the fifteenth
path of the Tree of Life. In lunar magick, it is the Full Moon, the Red Moon which falls
on the fifteenth day of the month, and it is this most potent Magick of the fifteenth day
which has long been shrouded in tabu and mystery, and so dreaded by the uninitiate.
Note: Witches call upon the Goddess, not the Devil. As Robert
Graves reminds us: "Conquering gods their
titles take from those they seek to captive make"
~ the gods of conquered religions become the "devils" of the new.
