Charge of the Goddess

Several versions of the Charge exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by the Great Goddess to her worshippers.

[2] This version, titled "Leviter Veslis" or "Lift Up the Veil", includes material paraphrased from works by Aleister Crowley, primarily from Liber AL (The Book of the Law, particularly from Ch 1, spoken by Nuit, the Star Goddess), and from Liber LXV (The Book of the Heart Girt with a Serpent) and from Crowley's essay "The Law of Liberty", thus linking modern Wicca to the cosmology and revelations of Thelema.

The opening paragraph names a collection of goddesses, some derived from Greek or Roman mythology, others from Celtic or Arthurian legends, affirming a belief that these various figures represent a single Great Mother: Listen to the words of the Great Mother, who was of old also called Artemis; Astarte; Diana; Melusine; Aphrodite; Cerridwen; Dana; Arianrhod; Isis; Bride; and by many other names.This theme echoes the ancient Roman belief that the Goddess Isis was known by ten thousand names and also that the Goddess still worshipped today by Wiccans and other neopagans is known under many guises but is in fact one universal divinity.

And therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honour and humility, mirth and reverence within you.In book eleven, chapter 47 of Apuleius's The Golden Ass, Isis delivers what Ceisiwr Serith calls "essentially a charge of a goddess".

[3] This is rather different from the modern version known in Wicca, though they have the same premise, that of the rules given by a great Mother Goddess to her faithful.

The oldest identifiable source contained in this version is the final line, which is traceable to the 17th-century Centrum Naturae Concentratum of Alipili (or Ali Puli).

[3] This version also draws extensively from Charles Godfrey Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1899) and other modern sources,[3] particularly from the works of Aleister Crowley.