The month of February is of prime importance in the occult, and it is a time of increased spell-casting, as February 2nd is one of the eight sabats on the witchcraft calendar. It is the high cross-quarter sabat called “Imbolc”, pronounced “im-mol-g”, and it is a Scotch-Gaelic word, which means “in the belly.” The witches believe that on that day, February 2nd, are the first stirrings of the new spring in the womb of “Mother Earth.” The Roman Catholic Church stole it from the witches and call it Candlemass. Others call it Groundhog Day, the day when the little animal stirs in the earth and comes out to play with light and shadows and tell us when the new spring will be born. It is all a form of witchcraft after the old Wiccan tradition. Witches always celebrate their sabats on the evening before the day, and in the case of Imbolc, that would be February 1st. Thirteen days later is a witches’ holiday called Lupercalia or “day of the wolf.” The Roman Catholics also stole that day from the pagans and renamed it St. Valentine’s Day. The witches and their followers who lived during the time of the old Roman Empire would celebrate Lupercalia on February 14th, on a day of accepted free sex. Young men would take thongs of sheep skin, called “februa”, and dip them in sheep blood. They would chase the young women through the fields trying to strike them with the bloody februa. If they were able to mark them with the blood, the young women had to surrender to the desires of the young men. That is the true origin of Valentine’s Day.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
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