The Witch’s Toolkit: Everything You Need to Know for Making Fast Magic Part I

Your Essential Tools

Your altar is the center of your enchantments, your personal power space. A Wiccan altar is where you place symbolic and functional items for the purpose of spells and ritual work as well as a space for speaking chants and prayers. Your altar can— and should—evolve and change with the seasons.

Your Book of Shadows is a journal of your choosing in which you write down your magical workings and notes. When you track the effectiveness of a ritual, you can use this to refine your spellcraft in the future and your power will increase.

Candles are truly essential and contain all four of the elemental energies:

* Air—Oxygen feeds and fans the candle flame.

* Earth—The solid wax forms the candle.

* Water—Melted wax is the fluid elemental state.

* Fire—The flame sparks and blazes.

You can “dress” or anoint the candle with a couple of drops of essential oil on the side of the candle using a dropper or cotton ball. Go with your instinct on choosing sizes, shapes, and colors. I recommend keeping an array of options on hand. Different candle colors can enhance your spells and many of the rituals in this book suggest specific colors.

Magical knives: An athame (pronounced “a-thaw-may”) is your magical knife and should be placed on the right side of your altar. The athame is used to direct the energies raised in your ritual and usually has a dull blade. Since black is the color that absorbs energy, athames should have a dark handle. A bolline is a white-handled knife that is used for making other tools and for cutting materials, such as cords and herbs, within a magic circle. You can cut a branch to create your wand, for example.

Brooms (or “besoms”) have certainly captured the popular imagination as the emblem of witches. Using a broom as a magical tool came about from sweeping the ritual area clean before and after casting a spell. Now they’re mostly used in symbolic energy management.

Cauldrons represent the Goddess (also called Source or divine power), their round basins symbolizing the womb from whence all comes. A cast iron cauldron can hold fire and can even be used to burn incense or purifying sage. You can place a cauldron on your altar if there is room, or on the floor to the left of the altar.

Constructing Your Inner Temple

Call forth your powers within to make magic with ritual.

Your mind and will are potent magical tools, and ritual is the practice of exercising your will. In order for your solitary rituals to be successful and a positive force in your life, you need to think a few things through:

• Identify your intention 
• Plan your ritual
• Prepare for your ritual

Once you have gathered your essential ingredients and tools together, you should prepare everything and once it is in place, you should:

• Relax completely
• Enact the ritual
• Clean and clear the space with everything in its place

Ritual Tools That Need Charging

You will need a symbol of each of the four elements—air, earth, fire, and water—such as: a candle for fire, incense for air, a cup of water, a bowl of salt. Also let your instinct guide you to choose as you wish or what you are inspired by.

Take the new ritual tool and pass it through the scented smoke of the incense and say:

Now inspired with the breath of air.

Then pass the tool swiftly through the flame of the candle and say:

Burnished by fire.

Sprinkle the tool with water and say:

Purified by water.

Dip the tool into the bowl of salt and say:

Empowered by the earth.

Hold the tool before you with both hands and imagine an enveloping, warm white light purifying the tool. Now say:

Steeped in spirit and bright with light.

Place the cleansed tool upon your altar and say:

By craft made and by craft charged and changed, this tool [fill in the actual name, bolline, Book of Shadows, etc.] I will use for the purpose of good in this world and in the realm of the gods and goddesses. I hereby consecrate this tool ______.

Other tools you will use in ritual are more intangible. These include your breath, your intuition, your psychic powers, and your ability to focus your mental powers and spiritual intentions. Because they are intangible, only your intention can purify them. From time to time, you will use colors, herbs, oils, crystals, and numbers. Many of these ritual correspondences and associations have been passed down through the centuries, whereas many of them were invented by modern authors.

Crystals can also be charged. But tools that come from nature and are not “manmade,” but are of divine design, such as flowers, feathers, and herbs, already contain an intrinsic magic of their own and can be used as you find them.

Your tools will collect and hold the magic that lives inside you. They will become instilled with your energy and stored at your altar or in your sacred space. They will become your power source and will magnify the strength of your ritual work. Your altar should be a place of peace and meditation where your spirit can soar. Adorned with your treasured objects and the tools of your practice, it is a place of focus where you can enrich your life through ritual. You can create a wellspring of spirit so you can live an enchanted life every single day.

You can also perform rituals and make magic without any tools or implements at all. Your intention alone is extremely powerful. This simple approach could be called “Zen magic.” When you perform ritual in this way, you are one step closer to the methods by which early men and women created ceremonies.