The Society of the Horseman's Word

The Society of the Horseman's Word
England]: Society for Esoteric Endeavour, 2009. First Edition Hardcover. Square 8vo. 184pp. Blue cloth with silver titling to spine, frontis, b&w illustrations, appendixes. Limited to 1,000 copies. A collection of essays, interviews, etc relating to "The Society of the Horseman's Word", the secretive group of professional horse and ploughman who developed and practiced their own craft-related occult rituals in different parts of Britain. The book includes a reprint of the scarce 1879 publication "Eleven Years at Farm Work" by James S. Munro, "An Exposition of the Miller & Horseman's Word, or the True System of Raising the Devil" by William Singer (1881), "Ritual and Law, the Society of Horseman's Word" by William Rennie, etc. The Society of the Horseman's Word was a primarily Scottish phenomenon although it also manifested in various related schools of esoteric horsemanship in southern Britain. It is an unusually diverse and complex tradition, that mixes ancient methods of horse taming, rural craft initiations, teachings concerning Tubal Cain, others drawn from Freemasonry and village witchcraft and cunning lore. New copy. Fine in fine dust jacket. 9780956371300 (Item ID: 37657)

The Society of the Horseman's Word

The Society of the Horseman's Word was a Society of horse trainers, Horseshoe makers and Farmers. They supposedly had the ability to use "Magic Words" that could make horses do things. During the time that the Society existed there were also Grain Millers who had a similar system known as "Miller's Words" and Freemasons had similar systems.

The way it works is that a person would be initiated into a group, and upon initiation they would learn Handshakes and a Password, as well as get a seat at a meeting where they would get inside knowledge about the Masonic, Horse, Miller Industry because they would be sitting in on a meeting where higher ranking members who were in the industry longer would be. One of their rituals was to read verses of the Bible backwards and they were sometimes called "Horse witches". They used tricks such as good smells and bad smells to get the horses to go somewhere to stay away from something, but the idea that there was a secret word they used to do it helped them keep it all a secret.

The passwords would also give them access to places that other people could not go, for example the meeting area, or in the case of a Miller, the Grain Mill.

The Giant horses that are used for work today, such as the Clydesdales that pull carriages, are an example of the types of horses the Society would use and they spread wherever the society was to replace Oxen as the working farm animal.