The Golden Essence

The Golden Essence:
Craft Mythology and the Deep Theology of the Housle

I have described the Housle in my other essays as the “Basic Rite” of the Old Faith. Such
a statement is quite correct, but many people automatically interpret the word “basic” in
such a way that they think the Housle to be “simple” or even “shallow” somehow.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Housle is “simple” in form and practise. This is intentional and important- the
hallmark of the true “Old Persuasion” is a kind of simplicity, an earthy simplicity that
appeals to the intuitive, feeling function in the soul of the practitioners. The forms of Old
Craft rites are intended to be simple and natural feeling; communicating profound
wisdom and truth with a few very meaningful words and gestures. The forms are
supposed to “fit right in” with trees, fields, and bonfires, as though they were also grown
from the land and the hands of the people of the countryside.
The aesthetic simplicity of the Housle hides a veritable ocean of symbolic depth and
power. In this definitive and central essay, I wish to make a revelation of the great power
of the Housle rite, and to shed light on the immensity of what it conceals and soundlessly
communicates. Awareness, after all, is needed to reap the full benefit of the mysteries; as
we will soon see, it is Awareness that is the center and the very point of the entire system,
both the human system of Craft, and the entire divine world and universe itself