Magical tools in Wicca
Sacred implements used in Wiccan ritual and magic.
In the neopagan religion of Wicca, a range of magical tools are used in ritual practice, each with different uses and associations. These tools are commonly employed at an altar inside a magic circle, and in the traditional Gardnerian system they were considered sacred and kept within a coven. The practice may derive partly from Masonic traditions and from the rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which drew on medieval grimoires such as the Key of Solomon.
Quick Facts
- Traditional length of cingulum
- 9 feet
Facts from the source article.
Usage
In Wicca, magical tools are used during rituals that both honour deities and work magic, with the general idea that the tool directs psychic energies to perform a certain action. In modern-day Wicca, solitary practice of rituals and study is encouraged, though covens remain part of Wicca and related doctrines. The allowance of solitary practice is considered an important factor in the growth of adherents, as joining a coven involves transaction costs of locating members and undergoing initiation. In Gardnerian Wicca as laid down by Gerald Gardner, a first-degree initiate had to create or purchase and then engrave their own ritual tools. A requirement for second-degree initiation is that adherents must name all ritual tools and explain their purpose and associations. Before use in ritual, tools are consecrated. The Gardnerian Book of Shadows contains a section on consecrating ritual items, stating items must be consecrated within a magic circle at the centre of which lies a pentacle. Each item is placed upon the pentacle, sprinkled with salt and water, passed through incense, and followed by a declaration invoking Aradia and Cernunnos.
Principal tools
The chief tools in Wiccan ritual are the pentacle (or paten), Athame (or sword), wand, and chalice, each representing one of the four elements. The pentacle is a disc-shaped altar consecration tool with a sigil or magical symbol engraved upon it, most commonly a pentagram within a circle. It is symbolic of the element of earth and is used during evocation to bless items and magically energize what is placed upon it. The Athame, a ritual knife or sword, is symbolic of the element of fire in Gardnerian Wicca; the Athame is elemental while the sword is planetary. The Athame is traditionally black-handled and often inscribed, sometimes in the Theban alphabet, and is used to direct energy for casting magic circles, controlling spirits, and other ritual purposes. Gerald Gardner described it as 'the true Witch's weapon,' a statement criticized by Frederic Lamond, who believed there should be no weapons in Wicca. In some traditions, the Athame is never used to draw blood and must be destroyed if it does. The term 'Athame' in its modern spelling first appears in Wicca but originates from words in two historical copies of the Key of Solomon; the version in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris, uses 'arthame.' The historian Ronald Hutton theorized that Gardner obtained it from one of these sources with a modified spelling. The wand is symbolic of the element of air in Gardnerian Wicca, though some traditions assign it to fire. It can be made of wood, metal, or rock and is sometimes set with gemstones. Gardner stated the wand is used to summon certain spirits with whom it would not be meet to use the Athame; Lamond noted this referred to elemental spirits traditionally believed to be scared of iron and steel.
Other tools
The besom, or broom, is associated with witches and witchcraft; stories of witches flying on brooms originated from it. In Wicca, it is used in handfasting ceremonies where a couple jumps over it, and in seasonal fertility dances as a representation of a phallus. The boline is a knife with a curved blade like a crescent moon, used for harvesting and cutting herbs. A kirfane is a white-handled knife used for inscribing candles with symbols or sigils and cutting ritual cords; it is often mistaken for the boline. Unlike the Athame, the kirfane is used in the physical process of magical works, serving the physical plane as the Athame serves the spiritual. The cauldron is associated with witches and witchcraft; in Wicca it sometimes represents the womb of the Goddess, like the chalice. It is used for making brews, incense-burning, holding pillar candles, and a fire can be lit within it for leaping over as a fertility rite or at the end of a handfasting. If filled with water, it can be used for scrying. The censer dispenses incense. In British Traditional Wicca, cords called cingulum (or singulum, meaning 'girdle' or 'belt') are worn about the waist, often given upon initiation and worn at each ritual. Traditionally nine feet in length, they are used to measure the circumference of the magic circle. In many traditions, the colour of the cingulum indicates rank; in some Australian covens, green denotes a novice, white a first-degree initiate, blue a second, and a plaited red, white, and blue a third, with the High Priest wearing gold and the High Priestess silver. Wiccan High Priest Raymond Buckland stated the cingulum should not be worn but kept for spellcraft.
Ritual
The four principal tools are associated with the elements: earth with the pentacle, fire with the wand, air with the sword, and water with the chalice. These tools appear in the occult tarot deck designed by Golden Dawn members A.E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, most obviously in The Magician card. Some practitioners distinguish high magic, which includes ceremonial magic and theurgy and may be more common in Alexandrian covens, from low magic, which is more typical of the hedgewitch and involves everyday tools rather than specially fabricated magical implements.
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