The Clan of Tubal Cain thus describes a people practising a traditional form of witchcraft, over which much speculation has been vocalised for more than four decades. Numerous debates have raised many contentious issues: did he? didn’t he?, was he? wasn’t he?, is it this? or is it really something else entirely?. These highly irrelevant questions become purely academic when we consider that any magickal system stands or falls on its intrinsic ability to produce results. The energy, virtue and exultation experienced during ritual are the only testimonies to authenticity you need.

There exists between ‘being’ and ‘source’ a symbiosis that throughout the millennia, many have sought to rationalise and ultimately to control. Little do they realise that to abuse it, is to abuse ourselves. Sadly too many gifted individuals, pioneers in the esoteric and occult sciences are no longer here to guide us in our individual quests for knowledge and salvation. Blindly we grope around in the dark, trying to make sense of the legacies left to us, many of which are incomplete.

Evan John Jones, had, since the tragic death of Cochrane in 1966, kept alive the magick and spirit of one of the 20th century’s most enigmatic and gifted exponents of the craft. It now falls to me, as Maid of the Clan of Tubal Cain to hold in trust, the legacy of this now historical, magickal tradition.

Under this premise, the late Magister of The Clan, E.J. Jones, asked me to present this synopsis, paying particular attention to my own experiences within the Clan. This, I found to be a daunting task. Yet it is one, which in sharing with you, will I hope, inspire many of you to trust the ancient forces at work within this great and vast Universe, that play, ubiquitously around and through you.

Humankind has revered and manipulated the powers of the Cosmos since grasping the ability to stand upright on the Savannas of Africa, almost four million years ago. Humbled by what was around and above them, they began the elusive quest for an understanding of and re-union with, the ‘source’. The true ‘experience’ of divinity is still the prime mover amongst all magickal fraternities, lodges, groups and crafters, not to mention all religions and belief systems, either mono or polytheistic.

The Clan of Tubal Cain continues, due to its former Magister, the late Robert Cochrane, to intrigue and beguile occultists and seekers in their unfailing efforts to understand fully his genius, which was such that it often eluded even those closest to him.

Correspondence between Cochrane and a guest member of the Clan [a magician in his own right], the late Bill Gray, over the last few years of Cochrane’s life, created the inspiration from which two books have been written.* The authors seek to elucidate the many bogus elements of his ‘supposed’ work in circulation on both sides of the Atlantic, in particular upon the internet, and also serves as a fitting tribute to a man who will always remain an enigma. Having studied the letters, I can confirm that the clues are there for those of you who choose to analyse his work. However, so dark is the veil surrounding Cochrane, that even intimate knowledge of him by extant members of the Clan, or privileged insights by myself reveal very little; only through the work, the magick and the Clan do we begin to truly experience the man behind the myth, and the myth behind the man.

For those of you who will devise rituals based upon his work, be prepared to experience something very deep, raw and primal. Requiring no elaboration, its power lies within its simplicity. Subtle it is not. Unlike many modern traditions, revived or otherwise, it bears little resemblance to paganism, remaining true to its craft roots. Indeed, Cochrane believed that certain ideals and practices inherent within his teachings separated witches from pagans.

As the seasons unfold, you are taken on a journey that does more than celebrate the transition of life to death and life once more; the rituals rely more on the focussed power of the mind to work in altered states rather than subscribing to an overt show of pomp and circumstance. Conversely, it requires that we recognise our humanity in deference to our ‘divinity’; moreover, it is a totally humbling experience to realise our puerility in the presence of such immense and all encompassing power. Contained within its eclectic praxis are many fundamental truths; arcane keys inspire magickal consciousness, buoyant within a profound Cosmology.

Rites that clearly echo all forms of ancestor worship, honour the Clan family, both past and present. Moreover, spatial and temporal boundaries disintegrate as the true historical legacy unfurls, one that transcends the notoriety of its promulgator, Robert Cochrane. Either directly or indirectly, both he and his successor E.J. Jones have been vehicles for the continuity of religious- historical practises reaching back through centuries of Gypsy-lore, medieval demonology and Sufi techniques, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic witchcraft; back further still in to Indian Tantrism, Bronze-Age animism; and finally to ancient Eastern trance inducing states and processes derived from early shamanic Daoist and Shinto practices of ten thousand years ago.

May the culmination of all that time and knowledge continue to serve you, as it does the People of Goda, The Clan of Tubal Cain.

Shani Oates [1998] amended 2009

• The Roebuck in the Thicket. By E.J. Jones. [ed] Mike Howard Capall Bann
• The Robert Cochrane Letters. By E.J. Jones. [ed] Mike Howard Capall Bann