Rowan’s Note: I have decided to break this article down into two posts in order to give it the attention that it truly deserves.  In today’s post, part 1, I will discuss what The Great Rite is, the purpose and some of the history.  Tomorrow, in part 2, we’ll talk about the actual rituals.  Because this is a rite that is not fully understood by many,  and one that many solitary practitioners often miss out on really learning, I wanted to take the time to explore it as deeply as possible here.  So be sure to tune into tomorrow’s blog post as well.   Blessed Be!

One of the rituals that once took center stage in many Wiccan traditions has today become a

somewhat misunderstood and even forgotten practice, especially among many neo-Wiccans and solitary practitioners.  While many may go through the motions of The Great Rite it is far more than just a blessing before cakes and ale in ritual; it is the sacred act of celebrating the union of the Goddess and God, the union of the creative polarities, and the celebration of divine creation itself.  It is a key to understanding some of the great Mysteries of this path.

The Great Rite is related to the hieros gamos, Greek for “holy marriage” and is such also known by the name The Sacred Marriage.  Hierogamy is the union of a Goddess and God in ritual, specifically through a symbolic act, often one that takes place with two representative elements such as a male enacting the role of the God and a female enacting the role of Goddess.  In Wicca these roles are often held by the High Priest and High Priestess though in circles and covens where there is no traditional hierarchy any male or female member who is deemed to be spiritually fit for such an act may perform the rite.  In some Traditional Wiccan covens, such as those practicing the British traditions, the act of participating in The Great Rite for the first time can be part of the Third Degree initiation as it is seen as being an introduction into the great Mystery of creation and the Mystery of birth and even death.

The Great Rite, at its core, is an act which celebrates the union of polarities.  It is the bringing together of male and female energies, the God and Goddess within us as well as outside of us through intention, while honoring the creation that comes from this.  Make no mistake that The Great Rite is a ritual act of fertility, as this is what creation stems from.  Before really understanding the act as a ritual, we need to understand the symbolism and the purpose behind it.  To best understand The Great Rite as a fertility rite, we can look back to the fertility rites in Paleolithic times to see how symbolism and ritual come together as an act of magick.

During this era, around 23,000 BC, people saw the Gods as being inherent in all things and the view of animism was strong; the Gods were seen in the winds, the rains, the fire, the mountains, the rocks, the trees, etc.  But the most important of the Gods where the God of the Hunt and the Goddess of Fertility.  These two allowed for the tribes to survive, live and thrive.  The God of the Hunt was important because if the tribes weren’t successful in their hunts, they would go hungry, but without the Goddess of Fertility ensuring that the animals were fruitful then there couldn’t be a hunt to begin with.  The God and Goddess had to work together to provide for the tribes and ensure their success as a people.  This made these Gods of the highest importance to them and therefore they were honored and prayed to through various acts of sympathetic magick.   This included things such as creating clay animals with horns to represent the animals being hunted and in a ritual way showing the animals mating to ensure their fertility which would later be followed the a symbolic ritual hunt where a member of the tribe would be dressed in the skins and furs of an animal the tribe hoped to capture, and then symbolically hunt and kill the “animal” representing their success.

About 5,000 years later when agriculture became part of tribal society the Goddess of Fertility became even more important.  This is also believed to be around when the year was divided into two halves, summer and winter.  The Goddess had dominance during the sumer as she would be seen as vital to the fertility and abundance of the crops to ensure that had all they would need.  The God became critical for them in the winter months when crops weren’t available and hunting animals became the only other food source.   Eventually the societies began to develop methods for storing crops and the Goddess began to become even more important as she was now looked to to provide not only for the present need but also to provide enough to store after the last harvest as a supplement to the winter hunts.

While in these early times of existence man did not understand his specific role in the creation process; it was seen as a great mystery and woman as see as very powerful as she was able to bleed without dying (i.e. menstruation) and she created life (i.e. birth).  How man fit into the creation of life wasn’t know to them but when it was later understood, sex magick, as we would call it together, soon began to become part of these rites of sympathetic magick.   Man and woman would gather in the fields at spring time to have intercourse, knowing (or at least at the time knowing, as we know now there is no guarantee of conception) that they would create life through their act and therefore this would encourage the fields and crops to be fertile and multiply as well.

As Merlin Stone states in her book When God was a Woman, “In the worship of the female deity, sex was Her gift to humanity.  It was sacred and holy.”  And as we see in The Charge of the Goddess “All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.”  So these acts, especially when held in the sense of honoring the divine, like in the instance above, they were seen as holy acts horning woman as Goddess and sex as sacred.

Today The Great Rite becomes another way of honoring this Mystery and this creative force.   The Great Rite brings together the forces of polarity, the male and female, in order to ensure the fertility and continuation of man through a symbolic act of sexual union.  However The Great Rite is seen in two distinct forms, that of the rite in actuality and the rite in token.  For most of us we have seen this rite done in token many times, in either a short form, which is common in public rituals, or in long form, more commonly done in closed coven settings.

The Great Rite in actuality, however, is just as one would imagine.  It is an act of sex magick embodied in the physical act of intercourse between a man and woman in sacred space.  This is where the ritual has, in some ways, become misunderstood and in some cases even perverted by those who are not true to the path, not understanding of the Mysteries, and plain unethical about the Craft.  The Great Rite is not an excuse to have sex with whomever in your ritual circle you wish to without consequence.  It is also not intended to be a voyeuristic event for the whole coven to observe, though this isn’t to say that this doesn’t happen.  Each coven is its own governing body and can decide how each ritual act will be carried out and how participation is incorporated, however it is more common that the physical act of ritual intercourse take place in private, with the coven escorted out of the sacred space beforehand.

Ideally the act rite in actuality is performed by a couple who are already involved in a consenting, loving relationship where sexual activity takes place.  Again, this isn’t to say that other arrangements don’t happen.  There are situations where a working, magickal relationship between a High Priest and High Priestess may include The Great Rite in actuality even though the two are not in a personal, romantic relationship.  This is something that is, again, part of a consenting and adult relationship.

I have spoken with only a few people that have ever had this  sort of arrangement in their coven  and each time the individual has been in long term personal relationships with another practitioner who understands that this is a ritual act that takes place in a magickal mindset and in sacred space and they see it as a ritual act rather than a casual sexual act and therefore it is allowed in the relationship.  In each of these instances as well the High Priest and High Priestess have been together in their magickal partnership for many, many years and know each other on a very deep level and work together in a special way; and in one of these instances the coven only ever observed The Great Rite in actuality at Beltane, as well as at Samhain in some groups, while performing it in token throughout the rest of the year.  Whether or not this is something you may agree with or see as a correct way of honoring your partner or yourself is for you to personally decide, but it is never our place to judge the personal and ritual acts and decisions of another.

In tomorrow’s post we’ll look at some of the rituals used, talk about the symbolism in some of these long and short forms of The Great Rite and discuss how important focus, intention and understanding ones part in the rite becomes in turning what is often seen as just another step of ritual into a powerful glimpse at the Great Mysteries.

One Response to “By Chalice and Blade: The Great Rite (part 1)”