Sabbat:
A Sabbat is a Pagan festival. There are eight Sabbat a year observed; they are seasonal quarters and cross-quarters. There are four major Sabbats, the first days, or eves of the first days, of Summer Autumn, Winter and Spring; and four minor Sabbats (sometimes called Esabats), the Vernal (Spring) and Autumnal Equinoxes and the Summer and Winter Solstices. See Also "Samhain", "Midsummer", "Beltane", "Imbolc", "Ostara", "Mabon", "Yule", "Lughnasadh"
Sacred - Holy; linked to the Divine. Anything that is sacred is to be seen with the utmost importance and respect.
Salt, Sacred:
Used for purifying and clearing energy. Representative of the Element of Earth, most often added to water to make, in essence, "Holy Water".
Samhain:
Celtic fire festival beginning the winter half of the year and being the Day Between Years; starts at sunset on November 7th and is also known as La Samhna, Nos Galen-gaeof, All Hallow’s Eve and Halloween. Celebrated by most Neopagans as a major religious holiday. (Pronounced in Irish Gaelic as "Sow-in" and in Scottish Gaelic as "Sav-en") Samhain is the Wiccan/Pagan festival celebrated on Halloween. Also called the Feast of Apples, the Night of the Dead, Hallows or All Hallows Eve, Samhain marks the passing of the Light half of the year and the onset of the Dark half of the year. It is a powerful time for magick, as the veil between the worlds is thin on this night.
Samhain – Sanctuary:
The sacred place of protection and tranquility. Most Witch's Circles and Covendoms are considered their Sanctuaries.
Satan:
See Devil, The.
Santeria:
A Vodun religion modern practiced mostly by Haitians and some Cubans.
Sapphire:
A stone whose magickal qualities are that of psychic development, creativity, passion and energy stimulation.
Saxon, Anglo:
The peoples of Europe. The Celts, the Goths, etc..
Satya-vacana:
In Tantra, the solemn uttering of a Great Truth, used as a mantra for magical or religious effects such as exorcisms.
Schemhampheres:
One of several spellings of a word from Christian Cabala, meaning “the expository” or “the 72 Names of God and His Angels;” originally the title of a collection of magical names, now used as a magical word itself.
Science:
Accumulated and accepted knowledge that has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound or philosophical knowledge, especially knowledge obtained and tested through the use of the scientific method.
Scientific Method:
The principles and procedures used in the systematic pursuit of intersubjectively (consensus reality) accessible knowledge and involving as necessary conditions the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and if possible experiment, the formulation of hypotheses, and the testing and confirmation of the hypotheses formulated.
Scrying:
The art of past and future divination. Scrying is performed by gazing into a pool of water, a black mirror, a fire or flame, a crystal or some like object.
Scourge –
A magickal whip used most commonly for ritually purifying another person. This magickal tool usually belongs to a High Priestess. Note: not a violent or overly painful act, nor any way affiliated with sexual bondage.
Seax-Wica –
A Pagan tradition founded by Raymond Buckland. This 'modern' Tradition is taken from Saxon Witchcraft.
Seed Moon – The fourth Full Moon of the year.
Second Degree:
Traditionally, Second Degree Priest/esshood is attainable with no less than two years of study with a coven. This is at least a say shy of First Degree and advanced study. This is when an individual gains the title of Priest of Priestess.
Secrecy:
Secrecy has always been a part of the Craft. This is not because we have 'evil' things to hide, but because they are personal to us and/or the coven. There are certain things we feel we must hide from the public because they may not be trustworthy or understanding of some of these aspects, and thus hold discrimination and bias against us.
Seeker:
Another name for a Neophyte. One interested in learning about the Old Religion.
Seer:
One who can see the hidden, a diviner.
Self-Dedication:
An initiation by a Solitary Pagan devoting themselves into the service of the Pagan Path.
Self-Knowledge, Law of:
“The most important kind of knowledge is about oneself; a magician must be familiar with her or his own strengths and weaknesses.”
Sensation:
The noticing of a change in the internal or external environment; the activity of a sense before classification.
Sense:
A mechanism that notices or causes sensation.
Sex Magick –
This form of magick utilizes the emotional powers of love and lust and the magickal energies generated physically through exertion and adrenaline. This is not to say that Pagans are a bunch of promiscuous walking hormones who have orgies every night (Well, not every night *Grin*); far from it. We view sex as natural and it symbolizes the embodiment of life. The union of masculine and feminine, without which (re)birth would not be.
Shade
The spirit of a being which refuses to leave the physical plane.
Shaman:
A medicine person and medium who frequently uses astral and/or mental projection to fly into “the spirit world,” in order to represent his or her tribe to the spirits there and who is often possessed by them as well. A very earth-oriented practitioner of the magickal arts. Dealing often with the spirits of animals and the Earth. Shamanism is inherent in many Earth-based religions, such as the many Amerindian and Celtic traditions. Shamanism can be incorporated into any religion or belief system, almost, if not totally without contradiction.
Shaman - Shape-Shifting:
The art of shifting one's self into another apparent form, usually an animal.
Shield:
An area around a being or object within which one or more forms of (usually) antipsi energies are operating in order to defend the being or object from unwanted psychic intrusions; the process of setting up and maintaining such an antipsi field.
Showstone:
A crystal globe used for divination and scrying. The stone is focussed upon to induce a trance that causes images to appear in the depths of the stone.
Sigil:
A Runic or other magickal symbol or 'glyph' used for certain desired effects. There are sigils for Protection, Healing, Courage, War (or seeing one through a conflict), etc..
Sign:
A pattern of sensory stimuli which is intended to communicate data.
Signs of the Zodiac:
In astrology, twelve approximately equal segments of the Ecliptic (the belt of sky through which the planets appear to move “around the Earth”); in many systems of astrology, these no longer occupy the same space as the constellations for which they were originally named.
Silence, Inward:
An inward stilling and letting go of the emotions and mental preoccupations that prevent a ritual from working effectively.
Silver Cord:
Supposed umbilical cord connecting an astral projector to her or his body.
Silver Dagger:
A traditional weapon for destroying various monsters.
Similarity, Law of:
“Effects are liable to have one or more outward physical or inward mental appearances similar to one or more of said appearances of their causes.”
Sin:
To 'sin' is to miss one's mark. From the Greek. Most Pagans do not believe in 'sin' as the Christians do, much less 'original sin'. This is because of the law of polarity, 'good' cannot exist without 'evil' and vice versa, thus everything that exists is both 'good' and 'evil'. And as for 'original sin' most Pagans would agree that only descendants of Adam and Eve would be burdened with original sin. I know, you're thinking "but according to Christianity didn't all humanity come from Adam and Eve?" The Earth was populated (Gen. 1:27) before Eden (Gen 2), and thus Adam and Eve. Still not convinced? Read the story of Cain and Abel. Believe it or not, Cain married a Pagan woman, she was not of Adam and Eve's bloodline. (No applause please.)
Skyclad:
This term literally means 'clad only in the sky'. This the term for nude worship. Nude worship has been used in Pagan practices for century after century. The theological explanation is if nature give life everything it needs, would we not have been born with clothes? Clothing is something invented by wo/mankind. Everything in nature is beautiful and divine.
Snow Moon - The twelfth Full Moon of the year.
So Mote it Be
A phrase used often in rituals to close a chant or incantation. It literally means, "It must be so" or "So it shall be".
Solitaire:
A lone practitioner of the Magickal Arts and/or Pagan practices. Many modern Pagans begin their spiritual study and practice alone. These Pagans have more freedom than those who are members of covens, since they do not have to compromise with any other members. They may worship as they wish when they wish to. A solitaire has usually devoted themselves to the God(s) and/or Goddess (ess) through a Self-Dedication. A solitaire doesn't always remain a solitaire, if they wish to become a member of a coven, but as the saying goes; "Solitaire: by choice or by chance."
Sorcerer or Sorceress:
Indiscriminate terms for those who use (or are suspected of using) magic, especially when acting as independent agents and/or using their magic for “evil” purposes.
Sortilege:
Divination by means of sticks, coins, bones, dice, lots, beans, yarrow stalks, stones or any other small objects.
Soul:
Here the word is used to indicate the personal identity of a living being, its feelings, thoughts, impulses, memories, and sense of self.
Space:
A three-dimensional something that extends without bounds in all directions (this week) and is the field of physical objects and events and their order and relationships.
Space-Time or Space-Time Continuum:
The four-dimensional system consisting of three coordinate axes for spatial location and one axis for temporal location, upon which any physical event may be determined by citing its four coordinates; also, the four dimensional space formed by these four axes.
Spell:
A magical act designed with an emphasis upon the use of mantras and the literal spelling of words. (2) Any magical ritual. A ritual activity used to focus the will. Spells do not have to be religious in nature. Sometimes called a 'dweomer'. Spells vary in purpose; there are those of protection, health, and binding/banishing. summoning/conjuring, etc. See also 'Curse'.
Spirit, Human:
The vitalizing energy that powers within each individual and is one with the divine radiance.
Spirits:
Self-aware beings that lack a physical body.
Spiritualism:
A religion based upon the belief in life after death and the experiences of various mediums over the last hundred years; organized primarily to provide legal protection for the mediums and their followers.
Splodging or Yelling:
An antipsi talent for the generation of specific psi broadcasts (usually of emotions) so strong that all other psi signals in range are drowned out or disrupted, with the information content of those signals collapsing first; may be a form of reversed empathy or of single-content telepathic sending.
Sprites:
Disembodied spirits, elves, fairies or daemons; often the term used for the Air elemental known as “sylphs,” or as the name of the elementals of Spirit.
Statistics, Three Magical Laws of:
“Once is dumb luck, twice is coincidence and three times is Somebody Trying to Tell You Something.”
Statues, Living:
Greek magicians possessed the power, most probably learned from Egyptians, to cause gods or spirits to indwell in statues, which could then be made to speak oracular utterances or answer questions through signs.
Stimuli:
Those things that arouse sensations; energy fluctuations.
Storm Moon - The second Full Moon of the year
Subject:
In science, someone or something being observed and/or experimented upon.
Subjective:
“Reality” as it is perceived, instead of as it may be “in itself.”
Summerlands –
The Celtic Realm of the Dead. The placed believed that the spirits of the deceased go for a
time between incarnations. It is neither 'Heaven' nor 'Hell'.
Summoner
Like a male version of the maiden, a member of the coven who is an assistant to the High Priest.
Sunwise - See 'Deosil'.
Sun Sign:
In astrology, the zodiacal sign that the sun appeared to be in at the time and location for which the chart is cast. In isolation, the sun sign reveals very little data.
Supernatural:
Rare, unusual, beyond the common, extraordinary, unexplainable at the time, paranormal; usually input as “religious” phenomena.
Superstitions:
(1)Fixed irrational notions held stubbornly in the face of evidence to the contrary; beliefs, practices, concepts or acts resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, morbid scrupulosity, erroneous concepts of causality, etc., as in the words and actions of many critics of parapsychology and the occult.
(2) “A belief not founded in any coherent worldview” (J. B. Russell).
(3) Someone else’s religious or philosophical beliefs.
Supplication:
The normal form of prayer, that is to say, begging; occasionally, asking an entity to give you her or his attention for a moment.
Survival Phenomena:
Paranormal phenomena that appear to bear relevance to the questions of survival after physical death; at one time the main area of study in parapsychology when it was still being called “psychic research.”
Suspension of Disbelief:
Temporary curtailment of critical faculties for a specific time and specific purpose, it is absolutely necessary during the performance of a ritual. Before and after the ritual, however, the participants can and should criticize all that they can.
Sutra:
Book or traditional collection of sayings.
Switchboard, The:
A theory concerning a postulated network of interlocking metapatterns of everyone who has ever lived or who is living now, expressed as constantly changing and infinitely subtle modifications of current telepathic transmissions and receptions. Many phenomena interpreted as “spirits” may actually be “circuits” within this Switchboard, as may be many other “archetypes” of the “collective unconscious.” See Akasic Records, Archetype, Circuit, and Unconscious, Collective.
Sword:
An archaic weapon used in western occultism as a symbol of the “element” of Air, as well as for fighting psychic battles, concentrating and directing energies, and for severing psychic links or bonds.
Symbol:
A sign plus an associated concept.
Sympathetic Magick:
The first form of magick. Magick of the sympathetic variety is based upon the theory that like energies attract each other. Example: Natives would ritually hunt and 'kill' a bison prepared from clay in the expectation that the next day's hunt would be successful. The term used by James G. Frazer to describe the presumed mechanism of magic. It may be divided into the Law of Contagion (objects once in contact forever remain in divine connection) and the Law of Similarity (effects can be produced through imitation).
Synchronicity –
When two things occur at exactly the same time. Having the same vibrational and magickal energies. To time things together for a desired magickal outcome. A word coined by Carl G. Jung to describe the meaningful coincidence of events that have no discernible casual connection. Luck is an example of synchronicity.
Synchronicity, Law of:
“Two or more events happening at the ‘same’ time are likely to have more associations in common than the merely temporal.”
Synthesis, Law of:
“The synthesis of two or more ‘opposing’ patterns of data will produce a new pattern that will be ‘truer’ than either of the first ones were.”