Moving in Circles

I really need to talk about the concept of deosil and widdershins. Because it seems the majority of practitioners are in the northern hemisphere, the idea that deosil is clockwise and widdershins is counter-clockwise seems to have become the accepted norm. I’m here to tell you its not, and PLEASE COULD EVERYONE GET IT RIGHT FOR A CHANGE! I know, stop shouting and being so anal retentive, but its just been one of my biggest pains for years now and its a problem.

The movement of deosil and widdershins has absolutely nothing to do with moving clockwise and counter-clockwise, except that you are moving in a circle, so sure you would be moving one or the other, but, deosil means “sunwise” and widdershins means “against the sun”. Now because all you folks are in the northern hemisphere and your sun does move “clockwise” around the sky, does not mean you can decide that the term deosil now means “clockwise”. Us poor sorry asses in the southern hemisphere end up moving the wrong way and all sorts of things go wrong, or don’t go wrong (because the energy is reversed and so nothing bloody well happens) because we keep reading your books and watching your videos. If you are going to use a term, then use it correctly.

So, to repeat, deosil means to move with the sun, hence if you are in the southern hemisphere you would be moving east, north, west, south. Widdershins is the opposite, i.e. moving against the sun, so you would be moving east, south, west, north.

So that’s the main point out of the way. Just for a wrap up, why would you move one or the other? Well that depends on your tradition, you belief structure, and what type of work you are doing. In some cases moving deosil is for benevolent magic, and widdershins is baneful magic. Personally I move in an esoteric or exoteric manner, so if I were moving deosil then it would be workings that are exoteric, i.e. exterior to myself, maybe in the case of healing someone. Moving widdershins would then be an esoteric act, i.e. internal to myself, reaching the inner dimensions like moving into the Underworld, that sort of thing.

However, I really needed to clear up that problem with it being clockwise or counterclockwise, the main reason being that someone down here in the lower reaches of the world, as I said, picks up a book written by an American and it states for them to cast a cirlce moving clockwise. All well and fine for the person up north, but then the newbie down south starts moving against the sun and can’t figure out why everything is going wrong or not working at all.

Some time back my friend and Kabbalah mentor, Jacobus Swart, told me about when his mentor, William Grey, came to visit him in South Africa. The topic of moving deosil and widdershins came up and William Grey couldn’t understand why we here move in the “wrong” direction. After some discussion the late Mr. Grey was persuaded to try it, whilst in South Africa of course, and to his surprise he found the same power that he was used to when moving in the opposite direction in the UK. So you see, there is a good reason why I got my knickers in a twist.