Talk:Drawing down the Moon (ritual)/Archive 1

Drawing down the Moon (ritual)
I did a bit of cleanup. For the moment I left the disputed source, though I've never heard of it. I lean towards removing that source, actually. Seeing that no one else has bothered to, I think I may just remove it so the stub can be unflagged. I have no real attachment either way, though. --Kathryn NicDhàna 04:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This is horrible. The article doesn't even describe what the ritual is, and when/how it is practised. Someone with this knowledge should rectify ASAP! --212.213.204.99 22:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats nearly impossible to do: the ritual could be different from coven to coven; tradition to tradition. Heck, it would differ between Eclectic covens, or even solitaries. Disinclination 07:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * ancient references of drawing down the moon:

The lunar eclipse was believed to be caused by the magic of Thessalian witches, who drew the lunar goddess down from the sky to extract her magical blood. Cymbals were customarily beaten at such times, to negate the power of the witches, and restore the goddess to the sky.

"[Medea the witch cries out to the sky gods:] 'Thee too, bright Luna [Selene the Moon], I banish, though thy throes the clanging bronze assuage; under my spells even my grandsire’s [Helios the Sun’s] chariot grows pale and Aurora [Eos the Dawn] pales before my poison’s power." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.207

"Three nights remained before Luna’s [Selene the Moon’s] bright horns would meet and form her orb; then when she shone in fullest radiance and with form complete gazed down upon the sleeping lands below, [the witch] Medea, barefoot, her long robe unfastened, her hair upon her shoulders falling loose, went forth alone upon her roaming way, in the deep stillness of the midnight hour [to make her magics]." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.179

"Circe turned to prayers and incantations, and unknown chants to worship unknown gods, chants which she used to eclipse Luna’s [Selene the Moon’s] pale face and veil her father’s [Helios the Sun’s] orb in thirsty clouds." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.365

"Often have I seen her [the witch Medea] in frenzy and assailing the gods [Helios and Selene, the sun and moon], drawing down the sky." - Seneca, Medea 672

"When thou [Selene the moon] drivest thy car through the nightly skies, may no witcheries of Thessaly prevail to drag thee down." - Seneca, Phaedra 420

"Anxious for our troubled goddess [Selene the moon], thinking her harried by Thessalian charms, made loud jingling sounds [i.e. a charm to bring back the moon from the lunar eclipse]." - Seneca, Phaedra 786

"Medea … than whom is none more potent at the nightly altars [casting magic spells]; for responsive to her cry and to the juices she scatters in desolate places the Stars are halted trembling and Solis [Helios the Sun] her grandsire is aghast as he runs his course ... the Atracian poisons made Luna the Moon [Selene] to foam and that spells of Haemonia were rousing up the ghosts." - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 6.442

"From afar the chambers breathing magic spells burst open and the grim doors flew wide, and she [Medea] gazed at all that she had torn from the ocean-bed or from the Shades below, or drawn down from the blood-red visage of Luna the Moon [Selene]." - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 7.327

"When Atracian spells make travailing Phoebe [Selene the Moon] redden through the clouds; suffused with venom, her skin distends and swells with corruption; a fiery vapour issues from her evil mouth, brining upon mankind thirst unquenchable and sickness and famine and universal death." - Statius, Thebaid 1.105

"So falls, whenever she is torn from the astonished stars, the darkened sister of the Sun [Selene the Moon]; afar the peoples beat the bronze for succour, and indulge their fruitless fears, but the Thessalian hag triumphant laughs at the panting steeds [of Selene] who obey her spell." - Statius, Thebaid 6.684

"Their [the Brahmans of India] inspired incantations have often enchanted Selene as she passes through the air like an untamed bull, and brought her down from heaven, and often stayed the course of Phaethon [Helios the sun] swiftly driving his hurrying car." - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 36.345

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Drawing down the Moon (ritual) → Drawing Down the Moon – Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC) The ritual is the primary topic, per WP:PRIMARY. A search of Google books provides a large number of sources which talk exclusively about the ritual with most other usages of the term making reference to it (see here). None of these appear to make reference to any of the other items listed on the current disambiguation page apart from a few reviews or mentions of the Adler book. In terms of page views, the ritual receives more than double the traffic of the next highest page Drawing Down the Moon (album); in the past month 1257 views to 484. France 3470  ( talk ) 01:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Drawing Down the Moon → Drawing Down the Moon (disambiguation)


 * Comment. It's really Margot Adler's 1979 book of that title that is primary and that put the ritual on the map. Note that in all of the 500-odd years of printed history from 1400 to 1978 there are only 139 GoogleBook results: . But in a mere decade after the book was published, the results jump to 1030 results in a single decade . Softlavender (talk) 06:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep disambiguation page as landing page for this search term. The Adler book takes its title from the ritual, and so in one sense it is the latter which is primary; existing first and being the source for the latter. I accept that a Google books search may show many more hits for the book - but a Google search is not a replacement for editorial decisions about the cultural significance of a term. I'm not arguing for the ritual to be made the primary page, and for searches to land there first with a "For other uses..." at the top - rather I just think the present situation should continue. Kim Dent-Brown   (Talk)  06:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Commnent: The ritual would be a common noun; if this move is made, neither Down nor Moon should be capitalized. But on the whole, it may be preferable to merge this with the article on the book from which its contents are drawn, and save drawing down the moon for a redirect to an article on Thessaly - which could well begin with reading Peacock, a competent scholar who cites his sources: Lucan, Lucian, and Pliny. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The contents of this article aren't drawn from one book -- there are dozens and dozens of ways to perform the ritual and dozens more opinions on those, and so there are hundreds of books referring to various permutations of it. There's no reason to redirect an article on a religious pratice to one or another time in history when that practice/ritual was noted or encoded, because the article exists to give the entire history and description of the ritual/practice. Softlavender (talk) 01:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * You misunderstand th proposal: Drawing down the moon should redirect to the attested and long-standing Thessalian ritual so described; this article, and title, should be merged with the book of the same title. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That still doesn't make sense because there's no indication that Thessalanians ever performed the ritual as it is practiced in Wicca, and the Adler book is about Wicca in general, not about the ritual. This article is about the Wiccan ritual, and should remain as is. There's no specific article on what Thessalanians did with the moon because so little was written on it in antiquity, much less any specifics, so it wouldn't comprise enough for a separate article. Softlavender (talk) 03:30, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's what section redirects are for; since I can think offhand of two theories in the secondary literature as to what the phrase meant, neither this ritual, there should be a section. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:13, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.