Book Review: Call of the Horned Piper by Nigel Aldcroft Jackson

Mr. Jackson does not appear to believe in biographies as there is no information about his experience written within his work, Call of the Horned Piper or any citable source on the Internet. He also does not include a bibliography in order to gain insight on where he bases his research. It stands to reason then that his work is a description of his personal pathwork, experience and impressions.

I must guess that Mr. Jackson created this work in order to provide a novice interested in the old working of witchcraft with introductory knowledge of the subject. That said, I would argue that the text would be better understood by someone who already has basic knowledge of witchcraft, the tools and the traditions; as Mr. Jackson is clearly a logophile and often switches to old English to display some chants. The one tool that I did not have much understanding of was the broom or the besom as it is also called, which is the cliché symbol of the witch. What Mr. Jackson helped me to understand was that perhaps it is not a literal sky flight that the witches of old were after, but a metaphysical flight of the spirit. He goes into detail (without giving specific recipes) of the hallucinogenic herbs ancient witches uses to induce trances where they would dream of flying and return with new wisdom. The besom according to Mr. Jackson is a metaphor only.

In addition to the broom as a metaphor it seems to me that Mr. Jackson is of the mind that individual Goddesses of different cultures are also metaphors and simply a way of describing a communal divine energy. He is not alone in this ideology. I believe that in many pagan and specifically Wiccan sects a generic “Lady” Goddess is revered. I do think that this mode of spiritually can be useful in some regards but it is not a construct that I use personally; particularly as a devotee of two very different Goddesses.

Goddesses are given some length in his work but of course the main focus of this work is The Horned One, or as Mr. Jackson often refers to him “Old Hornie.” Once again Mr. Jackson seems to lump all horned male entities into one generic archetype; even going so far as to lump The Lord of Forest with the puca nature spirit. I have never been personally comfortable with the term “witch” though I must acknowledge that the term does apply to me. I have gone on many on these spirit flights to which Mr. Jackson refers (albeit without the use of narcotics) and I have encountered on those dream flights a great Lord of a Forest and a puca. As terrifying as the puca can be, he is no Lord of the Forest. I must admit too being very put off by the reference to the devil in association with horned Gods. My personal pagan practices have nothing to do with Christianity and I resent any association of my religion as a left-handed path of the religion of Christianity. Also, I do not have any desire to subjugate myself to any God, horned or otherwise. My Goddesses and I have a symbiotic relationship, much like that as teacher and student. I am sure that like my mortal experiences with teaching, my Goddesses must also be learning something from me as their eager student, or else I think that they would find my offerings very tedious.

While it may seem that my criticisms of the work are strong I did appreciate the collection of this information. I did enjoy the more in-depth analysis of the symbology of the besom. Mr. Jackson also included a great deal of information and history of various herbs. His chapter “Spirit Masks in European Paganism” also gave me new appreciation for the metaphoric properties of masks as a vehicle to enter other states of consciousness, both for the watcher and the wearer. This may not be the right choice of material for a master of witchcraft as they may find their own practices to not confer with Mr. Jackson’s. A beginner to the craft may not have enough information to fully process the material as it is presented. However an intermediate student will find some treasures and will at the very least have another perspective to compare with their own experience.