Entering the Spiral Castle: One

Save for the circle, there is no form more magical than the spiral, and what is a spiral but a circle constantly circling in on itself? The serpent  coming back on its own tail is the beginning of the spiral, the serpent curving again and again, curling into itself more and more, or out and out, is the spiral. When we dance in the center of the circle, there is the spiral, treading the mill is the beginning of the spiral, so we are told, the kundalini travels up the spine in a spiral. Looking into the heavens, there we see other galaxies, spirals, and we ourselves, a little point in a little tip of the arm of our own glazy, are in an ever twirling spiral.

            We have seen the famous spiral staircases, but the truth is, every staircase that goes on for any length spirals. It is the nature of traveling up, that in architecture as well as in imagination, we do not simply go vertically and horizontally, we spiral.

            The oldest human stories tell us of this spiraling architecture. The Greek story of King Minos tells of a maze, a labyrinth spiraling in on itself and several thousand years later, removed from this story, Arthur Evans finds the marvelously spiraling, mazelike palace of Knossos.

            The Spiral Castle differs from the other castles because, in all compasses we revere the castles, but at given times of the year we are more in one than in the other. After the Spring Equinox, we enter the Golden Castle, but we are in the Spiral Castle all the time, because it is in the center of the circle. It is us in our working, and in our constant turning. This is why, in many ways, it is the hardest to describe. Not only is it part of us, it is us. What is more, the Spiral Castle is difficult to explain because most who work in the Craft are working from an almost strictly European influence. Up until now, I have spoken of the Circle when concerned with laying the compass. Other cultures, especially the Navajo, have always used not four directions, but six: North, South, East, West, up and Down. This firmly fixes the compass not as a two dimensional circle, but as a sphere, not a ghost of roundness, but actual, perfect roundness as the world is, as the planets are, as is the universe. Now, understanding the roundness of it, we can see the Spiral Castle as constantly going both up and down, for that is the movement of the Spiral Castle. It is the gravity of the magic sphere, the witchesphere. It is the linchpin.  It is the central pole. The implications for what this means regarding castles we will address later.

Greek myth tells us that Minos, King of Crete, and one of Zeus’s children married Pasiphae, the daughter of the Sun. To make a long story far shorter than it deserves to be, she took a liking to a white bull and conceived a child by it. This half man half bull is the Minotaur, but he also had a proper name, Aristaion, and there is even a queer system of Gardnerian witchcraft devoted to his mysteries. King Minos, afraid and embarrassed, had his architect Daedalus (who had his own set of issues, but more on him later) construct a great spiraling underground maze called the labyrinth. In the center of this maze, under Minos’ fabulous palace, he placed the bull step child. It seems that Queen Pasiphae did not object,

            Theseus also has his own set of complications, but for now let us leave it at, when he came to Crete from Athens, to save his people, currently under the domination of Crete, from being food for the Minotaur, he gained the affection of Ariadne, Minos’ and Pasiphae’s daughter, and she gave him a ball of thread called a Clew (from which comes our word clue), that tying to the end entrance of the labyrinth, he could use it to find his way into the center and then kill the Minotaur. Theseus did do, and he triumphed over the Minotaur and escaped Crete with the princess Ariadne. She did not make it back to Athens with him. What became of her varies with the tellings, but this is the bare bones of the story of that first image of the Spiral Castle, Minos’ labyrinth.

            And how can a spiral dungeon be accounted a Castle? Because thousands of years later, in real time, Arthur Evans came to Crete looking for real signs of old stories and found the spiraling palace of Knossos. He and most of us now, are convinced it was the inspiration for the labyrinth.  But if it is image, it is also inspiration, and here we see the first signs of what the Spiral Castle is, for it is goes above and below. It is an above ground high palace in the administrative center of things, mirrored in a pool of myth by a spiraling prison that goes ever down into the depths. This is the virtue of the Spiral Castle, that much of it is unseen, for it goes down into the underworld as well as reaching up into the sky, and what is seen is mirrored in what is not. This is why the Spiral Castle stands in the place of the World Tree. Everything that happens in Minos’ fantastic labyrinthine palace is mirrored in what happens in the monster’s prison maze below.