Haqel D’ma, the Potter’s Field or Field of Blood, is the burial ground of nameless souls, the forgotten, and those outside of society. Associated in legend with the place of Judas’ demise, paid for with the coins of betrayal, and the location of a desert father, hermit, Saint and ‘wild man’, it is the ‘field of blood’. From the first centuries of Christianity, Judas was the apostle who betrayed Jesus and became crucial to the story of the Christ’s death and resurrection. This book spans the early Christian cult, the Gnostic Cainites who kept the Gospel of Judas, through to the medieval period when the Betrayer accumulated sins around him. Through folklore and custom, Judas has become synonymous with witchcraft and diabolism, charming and - most appropriately - cursing. In particular, curses laid upon books against theft!
This book explores the myth of Judas as a Cainite figure within medieval witch-lore, folklore, and custom, charming and cursing, revealing greater depth around a much-maligned character. It is a work concerned wholly with the arcana of Betrayal and its implication within the hallowed current of the Wytchan art and as an expression of the via negativa.