Raising Power, Part Two:
Natural and Supernatural Sources,
Accumulated Power, Magic Words,
and Flavor
Let’s continue our exploration of sources of magical power, starting with sources from nature and the supernatural.
Power from Natural and Supernatural Sources
As you may have gathered from reading this far, the dividing line between natural and supernatural is somewhere between fuzzy and invisible. That being the case, it makes sense to group these two power sources together, rather than wait until science settles the question(s).
Among natural sources, I include both the macro and the micro. Macro-nature is nature itself: mountains, oceans, caves, soil, forests, deserts, storms, rivers, and so on. The life force inherent in these may or may not be considered supernatural. Wights, devas, nymphs, fair folk, and other nature spirits are hard to separate from the nature they inhabit (Am I raising power from a tree or from a dryad?)—yet another reason this section includes both, jointly.
Accessing Power from Nature as a Whole
One way to raise power from nature is by calling upon it (or upon its spirits) and asking for it. Picture, for example, standing in the waves and saying something like this:
Beloved ocean, I stand here with you.
Mighty ocean, let your power wash over me with each wave.
Let your power fill me.
Beloved ocean, I stand here with you.
Make me buoyant with you.
Make me strong as you are strong.
Make me deep as you are deep.
Make me resilient as you are resilient.
Beloved ocean, I stand here with you
And ask for your power.
I thank you. Blessed be.
Note that I have used a triple repetition as well as an assumption of success. Evocation to call a nature spirit is pretty much the same as evocation to call upon deity, and the same principles apply.
Of course, you could just be out in nature, at some natural spot, and not say anything. Your call could be entirely mental or emotional, reaching your mind and spirit to the mind/spirit of the place and taking the power in. I’m a fan of verbalizing things, but you’d expect that from a writer, and that may not be your style. You could call through music, or through dance, or through whatever means feels right to you.
Another way to access nature’s power is simply to do your magic outdoors, in nature. While raising power through other means, you are also connecting to this power. For example, drumming on the beach accesses the body-mind power of rhythm and the natural powers of the beach and ocean. The same could be said for sex magic in the woods or chanting in the desert. Combining techniques is almost always a part of magic. You can have sex while chanting in the woods, or drum and dance on the beach.
Figure out what macro-nature is accessible to you. Is there a beach nearby? A forest? Where can you find nature in your life? Even city dwellers should do this exercise. Maybe it’s a park, or maybe it’s roof access that allows you to be with the open sky.
Suburban life tends to offer little bits of nature, but if you live in the suburbs, see what wilder parts of nature are accessible to you.
Once you’ve found a natural spot, ground and center there. Reach out with your feelings, and see if you can sense the power of the nature around you. What does it feel like? Is it strong? Gentle? Loving? Wild? What is the power you are feeling?
Do you feel an affinity for this place? Does it feel like “your place”?
Leave a small offering to the spirits of the place when you go.
Exercise 16: Building an Inner Location
Many magicians use a meditation technique called “building an inner temple” (or a similar name—depends on who you ask). This is a long-term project done in a meditative state. The project is for someone already practiced at the basic mind skills explored in chapter four. You should already be comfortable meditating and focusing.
Once you have the needed mind skills, you can undertake this project as a part of your meditation practice. You’ll be devoting (approximately) twenty minute sessions to this project, and you’ll be coming back to it regularly.
The steps are as follows:
1. In meditation, begin a journey to someplace special. Your task, in the beginning, is threefold. First, choose what purpose your “someplace” is for, what such a special place will mean to you. It could be a beach, a cave, a cottage in the woods, a castle, a garret, a treehouse—the possibilities are endless. Second, be open: When you arrive at your someplace, it may not be what you thought it would be. Don’t force it—this is a process of discovery as much as creation. Third, pay attention to the route. You will be repeating this inner journey many times, so you should know the path/road/stairs/highway/train … However you travel, it should be repeatable and reversible (in other words, you can go there again, and you can come back).
2. In subsequent meditation, return to this location. Now you are studying two things. First, you are studying the path. This should become second nature to you, and the project is not complete until you are confident that this path brings you to this place. Second, you are studying the location itself. Begin exploring it. Suppose, for example, you’re in a cottage. Is there furniture? Are there drawers in the furniture? Open the drawers and see what’s in them. Suppose you’re at the beach. What color is the sand? Is it a seaweed-covered area, or a rocky area, or a sandy area? What is the shape of the shoreline? Over the course of multiple meditation journeys, your explorations can become more detailed and range farther afield, always keeping your “someplace” as the central touchstone location.
3. Once you are confident that this is a place you know, can return to, and want to return to, start bringing things on your journey. This means you will have to find a place to leave them there. In a cottage or castle, this may be simple, but on a beach or in the woods, you may need to find or build a natural or humanmade storage location, whether it’s a hole in the ground, a hollow of a tree, a wooden box, a beach cabana, a lean-to, or something more elaborate. (If you have chosen to take on a building project in your location, then that is an extra step prior to bringing things to leave there.) The things you bring depend, obviously, on the purpose of the location you’ve chosen. Let’s assume you’ve created a location in which to raise power. In that case, you may wish to bring a wand or an athame, a drum or a flute, a magical robe, an incense burner, or whatever other magical tools feel appropriate. Perhaps you want firewood and a few books of matches. You’ll probably want to return to the location and check on the things you’ve left, to feel confident they’re there, and intact, before relying on them.
The practice of creating an inner location as described here has many uses. In this case, we’re discussing it in the section on power from nature, because you can build a natural location that you can return to at times when visiting the physical location is not possible. This allows you to connect to nature and access nature’s power even when you’re stuck indoors for whatever reason.
Of course, such a natural location can also be soothing, renewing, and centering for you, and can be a refuge, above and beyond its power-raising advantages.
Understanding Nature
It helps, if you’re accessing power from nature, to understand nature. This means understanding things like moon phases, growing seasons, solstices and equinoxes, and other seasonal, annual, monthly, and daily cycles. It helps to know a bit about your local weather patterns, plants, and animals. Ceremonial magicians pay attention to astronomical and astrological cycles as well—planetary hours, for example.
Witches especially work heavily by moon phase:
• The full moon is a time of power and rebirth. Often it is reserved for theurgy.
• The waning moon (from full to new) is a time of diminishment. Magic done at this time is to cause things to shrink or depart.
• The new moon is a time of darkness and mystery. Often it is reserved for meditation and shadow work or for divination.
• The waxing moon (from new to full) is a time of growth. Magic done at this time is to cause things to grow or come to fruition.
Solar cycles are variable, depending upon where you live. I’m from a temperate zone with four seasons—spring and summer are when I do outward-focused, community-building work, while fall and winter are introspective and a good time for solitary work. If you live in a tropical region, or a desert, or even in Northern California, with rain and drought cycles, your understanding of seasons will naturally differ.
Solar and agricultural cycles vary by region but also by tradition. Like many Wiccans, I follow the eight-spoked Wheel of the Year, but the meaning of those seasonal energies might not apply to the tradition you’re working, or might not feel right to you, if you’re not working a specific tradition.
Things like planetary hours, retrogrades, and moon voids require specialized reference materials both to know when they occur and to understand their import.
Accessing Power from Natural Things
The “things” I’m referring to in this heading include animal, vegetable, and mineral things—a virtual Twenty Questions of magic. Since they all exist in the physical world, we can agree they’re natural, despite that fuzzy dividing line we’ve discussed.
The fuzziness in the case of most natural things has to do with how the power is accessed and the nature of that power.
Let’s take lavender as an example. Lavender is a flower (vegetable, if you’re still playing Twenty Questions) with relaxing and healing qualities. Lots of research supports the use of lavender for its calming and sedative effects.13 Some of the related effects have less research supporting them (anti-depressant and insomnia relief, for example), but research is growing. So if you were to inhale lavender oil, apply it topically, or even drink a lavender tea in order to relax, then everyone could agree that you would be using a natural power and accessing it in a natural way.
But suppose you were doing distance healing. You might be in Kansas, sending relaxing energy to someone in Seattle. In that case, would the use of lavender in your spell suddenly make the power supernatural instead of natural?
Let’s start by understanding that natural substances have certain properties, and those properties can be accessed for magical purposes. Those properties might have non-magical application as well—such as lavender for relaxation—or they might not.
One of the things that’s important about this notion of the powers of natural things is that it answers an age-old question about magic: Is it all just a placebo effect? Is it all in the mind? Certainly even well-known magicians have written that the most important aspect of magic is its effect on the mind of the practitioner, as well as the mind of the subject. It’s also very “civilized” to look at the inexplicable—be it a death curse or a miraculous healing spell—and explain it away by saying “placebo effect!” But as long as there has been magic that has used the power of suggestion—and that’s millennia, make no mistake—there have been magical brews, potions, and objects. Natural substances draw on a power from outside of the self. In this way, these substances expand your own power, and the potential of your magical work. It’s also a different way of looking at magic and, I think, an important way.
Natural Substances Include:
• Herbs
• Plants
• Flowers
• Wood
• Mosses
• Fungi
• Other plants or plant parts
• Spring water, ocean water, and other naturally occurring liquids
• Stones, including meteor stones
• Crystals or gems
• Resins
• Bone
• Hair
• Blood
• Other bodily fluids
• Other animal parts
Kinds of Power That Can Be Accessed
Natural substances start with generally agreed-upon natural qualities, whether or not those qualities are well studied by science. Plant substances have chemical natures that affect the mind and body. Less agreed-upon but still based in the physical nature of the object is the molecular structure of crystals, the natural properties of magnets, and other mineral properties. Everything on the previous list has inherent natural properties that can be leveraged by a magician.
Sympathetic qualities are typically well known in folklore. The heavy, solid, cool sensation of holding a hematite, for example, lends people to use it for grounding. It feels grounding—so we can say it has sympathy with the sensation of grounding. Mandrake is a plant with folklore based on its appearance—it looks like a man, and its association with fertility comes from that.
How to Access Power from Natural Things
Natural and sympathetic qualities can be accessed directly—for example, drink the tea, hold the magnet, inhale the aroma. They can also be accessed sympathetically.
This may be confusing, because I’ve just said you can access a sympathetic quality sympathetically. But other than the weird sentence structure, it’s actually pretty simple.
Access a quality through sympathetic magic by using it in a sympathetic way. For example, you could stuff a poppet (a magical doll) with rose petals to create love in the person represented by the doll. This is a form of imitative magic in which the doll—which has sympathy with the person it looks like—“behaves” as the actual person should—it receives the love. You could also rub a healing crystal on a photograph of a person being healed. The photo is the sympathetic object, and the patient is accessed sympathetically through it.
I keep a little protective mojo bag in my car. It has a variety of consecrated substances with safety, general protection, and anti-theft properties. It also has consecrated coffee beans to keep me alert behind the wheel. Here, we’re using the natural property of caffeine in a sympathetic way—caffeine doesn’t naturally work by simply being nearby.
Here’s an example of the opposite: use of a sympathetic property in a direct way. Salt is a natural preservative—it prevents food from going bad. For this reason, it is associated by sympathy with purification. If I consecrated salt and then cooked with it, I would be directly ingesting the sympathetic quality of purification, as well as the natural quality of deliciousness.
Magical tools made from natural substances will partake of the natural and sympathetic powers of that substance, and when the tool is used, the power will be accessed.
To sum up, means of directly accessing natural power include:
• Eating or drinking (if safe)
• Inhaling
• Wearing
• Carrying
• Placing on the altar
Indirect (or sympathetic) access to natural power is, generally, connecting the substance to a sympathetic object (a photograph, a poppet, etc.).
Natural qualities are those inherent in the substance—coffee makes you alert, valerian makes you sleepy. Sympathetic qualities are apparent from the folklore and magical associations of a thing and generally are based on a similarity (connection) to the natural quality—salt purifies, snakeskin brings renewal, hematite is grounding.
It’s not necessary to know where a thing’s magical properties come from in order to use it. If you have reputable reference materials, go ahead and use them. For example, I often refer to Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs. Since Scott Cunningham was known as a thorough researcher, it’s a trustworthy resource. I may not always know if the property of an herb, gem, or other natural object is inherent in the object (such as comfrey is good for broken bones), or directly sympathetic (such as salt’s purification qualities), or symbolically sympathetic (amethyst is wine-colored and therefore associated with sobriety), or if it’s associated with an old story, a social custom, astrology, or some lost bit of folklore. Some of this shades into our next section on accumulated power, but if the power is there, it doesn’t really matter whether or not you can parse out exactly how it got there.
Elemental Power
The four elements are both natural and supernatural. They’re natural in that they are rooted in nature—air is the sky, the wind, and the air we breathe. Fire is itself, fire, as well as heat in general. Water is all of the waters of nature, from oceans to ponds, as well as liquids generally, including bodily liquids—blood, sweat, and tears. Earth is soil, the ground generally, stone and stone formations—especially caves, which are both stone and in the ground—and minerals generally.
The occult understanding of the four elements is considerably more abstract, extrapolating out quite a distance from the simplicity of the naturally occurring elements. Using salt to represent earth is an example of a slight abstraction. Using feathers to represent air is more abstract—birds fly in the air, therefore feathers have a sympathetic connection to air. Lots and lots of things have sympathetic connections to the elements, and the appendices in this book provide tables, including a table of elemental correspondences and symbols. (Not everyone uses a fifth element—spirit. If you do, then representing this element is far more abstract, since you’ll be using something physical to represent the quintessentially non-physical.)
In addition to having representations that are sometimes abstract, elements have a quality that transcends nature and so can be considered “supernatural.” Around 450 BCE, the philosopher Empedocles theorized that the four elements were the roots of the cosmos. Most importantly, he said that the elements cannot exist in pure form in nature, but are always mixed and adulterated when in physical form. These ideas are highly influential within occult thought to this day. Consider water, for example. As found in nature, water has air bubbles (even if not carbonated), it has mineral content, and it has varying degrees of heat—all three of the other elements are present. Accessing an element, then, is using its natural form to access something beyond that form, to reach a spiritual or astral essence of that element and connect to it.
When looked at this way, we can easily understand why a magician might ritually purify the elements—this act brings the true, unadulterated form of the element to the rite. We can also understand how an element can be associated with a direction. Sitting at my desk, I know that air (the sky) and earth (the ground) are in every direction surrounding me, just as I know that the nearest body of water is about a mile due east. However, if we’re talking about the pure, metaphysical elements as understood in the occult, we can understand each element as having an inherent nature that is specific and transcends local geography. Metaphysically, Western occultism places water in the west even if the Hudson River is just to your east.
Most of the time, elemental power is accessed in ritual by purifying the elements and having them present on the altar. They can then be used for additional purifications and/or consecrations, for example, by wetting an object in saltwater (water and earth) and passing it through incense smoke (air and fire), or by using each of the four elements separately.
Elemental power can also be accessed more directly. You can spend time in a very “airy” or “earthy” place and draw upon the needed power in such a place.
Objects consecrated to, or containing, one or more elements can be incorporated into other magical objects—embedded in a wand, sewn into a robe, stuffed into a poppet.
Natural substances and objects can serve a dual purpose. For example, suppose you were healing someone with a balance disorder. Earth might help ground and stabilize the person, so use a healing herb in your spell that is also associated with the element of earth.
Elements can be accessed through meditation or ritual invocation/evocation. If you are drawing the elements into your ritual space or into your person, you should first know them well through meditation. (My book The Way of Four has elemental meditations and exercises designed to increase your intimacy with the elements, and you may find it useful.)
Finally, elemental power can be accessed through the beings of the elements: elementals. Known as sylphs (air), salamanders (fire), undines (water), and gnomes (earth), the elementals are supernatural beings, usually noncorporeal, who are composed entirely of their own elements.
I want to emphasize here how very difficult elementals can be to understand, let alone control. You and I are made up of four elements. We have the intelligence of air, the willpower of fire, the emotionality of water, and the practicality of earth. We are so used to being complex and having all these powers are our fingertips that we often can’t imagine what it’s like to be so singular. If you invite a salamander into your home, it will light fires. It won’t do this because it’s malicious or destructive, but simply because it’s fiery.
I speak from experience. I will never forget the Great Salamander Infestation of 1985. My roommate was allowing her young daughter to fry plantains, while she got drunk and passed out on the couch. The oil caught fire and then the kitchen curtains, then the fire department came, and by the time I got home from work that evening my former kitchen was a charred cavern with a hole that had been chopped in the ceiling by the good people of the FDNY. Along with cockroaches (we’d managed to conquer them in our apartment, but the hole gave them a reentry point), we ended up with an apartment full of salamanders.
It was little things, one after another, that alerted me to their presence. I was meditating in the bath, as is my habit, and the censer somehow fell over, spilling hot coals everywhere. Candles tipped over. I finally understood what was happening one night when I was lying on the couch reading and realized that I had been ripping up little strips of paper and setting them on fire in the ashtray. I hadn’t been fully aware I was doing it, but one little strip ended up not being quite so little, and the fire flared up and startled me into wakefulness. That’s the moment when I understood that salamanders were in the joint.
The infestation ended comically. I was young and new to magic, and spoke to my teacher for advice. I then politely ritually requested that the salamanders vacate the apartment. They left—taking the hot water with them for four days.
I like telling that story, and I’ve told it in print before, because it’s funny and dramatic and completely true, and it also makes a point. Elementals are unpredictable. They are beings with their own inner nature, and they aren’t easy to boss around. Calling upon them for elemental power is a practice best left to the experienced ritualist, and is best done in a magically contained space, such as a cast circle, so that they don’t get out and start knocking over censers. Fortunately, there are many other ways to draw on elemental power.
Other Supernatural Beings
Discussing elementals naturally leads to a discussion of other noncorporeal entities, and there are lots of them. We’ve already covered deities and nature spirits as well as elementals. There are also angels, the Mighty Dead, daemons, demons, the fair folk, ascended masters, and so on.
There is no question that calling upon such beings can provide you with a great deal of power. But if elementals—smallish beings compared to angels, demons, or fairies—can cause so much trouble, imagine what calling upon larger powers can do! I’ve seen Fantasia and have no desire to reenact “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
To be fair, most of the problems that magicians have with these kinds of entities are nothing like those in Fantasia. The fact is, angels and the like don’t necessarily make strong connections to what you and I might call “the real world.” They often don’t care to make sure you eat, sleep, or hold a job. It’s necessary to control what your relationship with these entities is like and what limitations are placed on it. If you are in communication with such entities, keep in mind that you have every right to establish your own boundaries and limitations, and those can be negotiated.
It also seems to be true that the dead and other non-physical beings operate at a higher vibrational frequency than we do. Unable to slow their own vibration down, they tend to speed ours up, which has metabolic repercussions. In short, it’s not all that good for your health to be channeling or communicating with such entities on a regular basis. You have to pay a lot of attention to your body on your “off-hours,” and make sure you have off-hours.
Because entire books are devoted to the subject of how to invoke such beings safely, effectively, and powerfully, I won’t attempt to dig into the subject here. As with elementals, you need the ritual skills before you can start bringing otherworldly beings into ritual space. If you develop such skills and work appropriately, the experience can be rewarding and enriching. My own son works as a medium, so I’m not putting it down!
Ancestor Altars
There is an exception to the rule that you need a lot of ritual safety to call upon otherworldly beings—that is, calling upon your own Beloved Dead. Maintaining an ancestor altar is a way to connect to those you’ve loved who have left this world, and to pray for them to aid your magical work as well as your day-to-day life. A loving and respectful relationship with your ancestors can bring you protection, support, and energy.
A huge number of traditions have ancestor worship or veneration as part of their practice. From China to Hoodoo, from ancient Rome to modern Paganism, ancestor altars are widespread. Some of the details vary from tradition to tradition, but many of the basics are the same:
• A permanent altar honoring your beloved departed or your direct kin should be set up and well maintained. If you commit to this, that means it should be clean and cared for regularly. Since you’re committing to the process of caring for the altar, think seriously about who should be on it—lots of ancestors means lots of work.
• “Ancestors” can mean those in your family who have passed on, whether you knew them or not. Some people have altars only for those they knew personally, and some go back generations. Some include non-relatives, either friends who’ve passed on or teachers, known to you or not. A Wiccan might have Gerald Gardner on her altar; a psychiatrist might have Sigmund Freud.
• Pictures and mementos of your dead can be placed on the altar, as well as funerary items (crematory ashes, for example). Something that was known to be a favorite of an ancestor can be included, and that can be anything from a shot glass, to a crossword puzzle, to a baseball.
• Offerings at the ancestor altar should be something your beloved dead would like—don’t offer whiskey to someone who was in AA. Typical offerings are water, whiskey, candy, or flowers.
• After making an offering, simply commune with your ancestors. Allow them to let you know what offerings they’d like and how they want this relationship to go.
• If you feel the need to have a short break from the watchful eye of your ancestors or want some privacy, it’s okay to cover the altar with a clean cloth for a bit.
Supernatural Things
Certain things are considered to have inherent supernatural qualities, just as certain things have inherent natural qualities. Many of the charts and correspondences that a magician uses will be for the purpose of accessing such supernatural qualities.
Numerology is an example: it accesses the inherent supernatural qualities of numbers. Of course, the thing about numerology is that it’s culturally driven—there are various systems from various sources. We will cover cultural power in the “Saved, Accumulated, or Stored Power” section that follows. For now, it’s best to understand that Pythagorean/Western, Kabbalistic, Chaldean, Chinese, and Vedic numerology are all different. If you work with number power, you’re best off choosing a single system and sticking to it.
Planets, signs, and planetary hours are another example of things that can be considered to have inherent natural or supernatural power, and many people do their magic carefully, calculating the planetary hour before proceeding. Color magic is another area where it’s not exactly clear if the power is natural or supernatural—and it doesn’t really matter!
Any of these “supernatural things” work on a sympathetic level, creating symbolic sympathy with the intended subject. In addition, though, they have, or may have, inherent occult power just as other supernatural and natural power sources do.
Saved, Accumulated, or Stored Power
How do you store up power for later use? This is one of the most common ways of accessing power, one with lots of folklore and even pop culture backing its use.
Power can simply be absorbed, and thus accumulated, by happenstance. Things that are hanging around where magic is done might start feeling tingly, acquiring a bit of a charge. In my experience, minerals—stones, metals, salts, and bone—tend to hold on to power more readily than something like cloth or leather. But even a ceremonial robe, perhaps originally worn for convenience, can, over time, start to feel magical, like there’s a little bit of juice stored it in.
A robe that is purposely used for magic is almost a magical tool. So let’s discuss tools next. I’ve been mentioning them all along—it’s kind of hard to talk even briefly about magic without noting that a wand or an athame might be part of the process. Magical tools gain power in a few ways.
First, a tool is created in order to be magical. As you create it, you are imbuing the tool with mental energy—power from the mind, heart, and spirit. You are concentrating on its creation, thinking about magic and about using the tool. You are transcending time: in the present, you are creating the tool, but simultaneously your mind is working with the tool in the future. Obviously, this is a recommendation to make your own tools. Certainly specialized tools—knives and swords come to mind—require a specialized skill set, but you can still customize your tool in some way, feeding your energy into the process of creation. Some people make or finish all of their tools in ritual space to increase the effect of this concentration and focus.
A tool might be a found object, which can also be personalized by you. There is also the deliberate mental process of choosing that found object as a tool; your energy is in the choice you’ve made.
Next, a tool is usually charged or consecrated, sometimes to a specific purpose. Here, you are again using your focused mind and will, as well as spoken words (which we’ll get to in a bit), to bring about a transformed and energized state.
I have a sistrum I made and consecrated to the specific purpose of evoking the Goddess at the full moon. That’s all that instrument does, and all it has done for many years. I think, just reading that, you might feel the power of the instrument. Setting something aside and reserving it for a special use allows the power to accumulate more effectively.
Here’s the thing: objects in general absorb the energy of their surroundings. This is why some psychics can hold an object and tell you something about its owner. (This is known as psychometry.) It’s why some old object from your former home might feel like that home. The feeling is partially a result of your own memories and associations, of course, but there can be more to it than that.
So when you segregate something so that it is only used for one kind of thing, the energy it acquires naturally, simply by existing, is only from that one thing, and that applies to evoking the Goddess every bit as much as it does to wearing your lucky golf shoes.
When you consecrate an object, it can declare that segregation and begin the process of separating out that particular sort of energy. That’s not all a consecration does, of course. In general, it’s a cleansing, removing energy that is unwanted or unconnected to the tool’s purpose. It also brings energy into the object.
A consecration is almost always performed by using other energies—natural and supernatural ones, perhaps power from deities, if you call upon them, as well as power from the self. It’s typical to consecrate a tool using the four (or five) elements. As described in the “Elemental Power” section earlier, the usual procedure is to wet the tool with saltwater while declaring your intention to consecrate by earth and water, then pass the tool through incense smoke, again declaring intent, to consecrate by fire and air.
It’s also typical to consecrate a tool with an already consecrated one—touching a new wand to a consecrated wand, for example. Magical contagion is obviously in effect here, but so is stored power.
Here’s an easy question: Which is more powerful, a brand-new wand or one you’ve had for years? Both hold the power of consecration, but only one has been in use, in a magical space, accumulating energy year after year, spell after spell, ritual after ritual.
Being in use empowers a tool, and you can add to that deliberately. When I finish a ritual, I sometimes find that I feel charged up, full of excess energy, perhaps ungrounded. At such times, I pick up my athame and send the excess energy into it while grounding myself. It’s like packing up leftovers and putting them in the freezer—it’s there for later use.
So magical tools gain power four ways: from being created, from being consecrated, from being used, and perhaps from having additional power deliberately added to them. There’s a fifth source of power, though, which most magical tools contain: historical, archetypal, or cultural power.
I feed energy into my wand when I carve it, when I create it, and when I use it. But Western culture as a whole is continually feeding energy into the thoughtform, or archetype, of “magic wand.”
Anything that has the weight of cultural history behind it carries energy. That is certainly, by the way, a reason not to use some things, if that weight is a burden. Think about marriage. There are lots of reasons, both practical and romantic, to marry your life partner. There’s also a huge amount of cultural and historical energy flowing into the archetype of “marriage.” It’s exactly for that reason that marriage is so compelling and desired, and also can be so completely unappealing. You don’t just get married, you become part of an energy flow, and many people question if they can live within that energy or reshape it to their own ends.
When you do magic, you can use tools, objects, names, or even ideas that have been around for generations or centuries. You can ride the wave of the power that adds to your work.
Think for a moment about each of the following words and phrases. What associations does the word have for you? Does the word feel powerful? Does it feel attractive?
• Witch
• Sorcerer
• Wizard
• Wand
• Cauldron
• Magic spell
• Sword
• Chalice
• Tarot
• Astrology
• Crystal ball
• Full moon
These thoughtforms start with power, accumulated through history and culture. A brand-new, never consecrated or used cauldron carries within it the cultural weight of “cauldron.” It’s the Witches’ brew, it’s the unending source of nourishment, it’s Brigid’s flame, it’s every cauldron in every fairy tale.
This power is one of the reasons I love tradition, although I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
One additional source of accumulated power is that which is accumulated from magic itself. A minute ago, I described how I drain power into my athame when I feel supercharged after a ritual. This feeling of excess charge comes about because magic isn’t a perfectly efficient system. If it was, you’d raise exactly as much power as you need and use 100 percent of it. But that’s not how it works.
Magical energy is left over, not just in the practitioner but in stuff. The leftovers of spells and rituals can become energy-imbued ritual objects themselves.
For example, what do you do with the salt you’ve used for consecrations in ritual? It can be disposed of and it can be reused in the next ritual, but it can also be added to a ritual bath or to ritually prepared food, or sprinkled on your doorstep for protection.
Another example is one often taken advantage of by Tantric magicians, and that is sexual fluids. If you’ve done sex magic, the bodily fluids that are a part of sex are imbued with the power of the ritual and are used to consecrate talismans and the like. You might find this particular example icky and choose not to adopt the practice, but the power is undeniable.
A Magical Tool Set
There are a myriad of things people use as magical tools. The basic set of “necessary” tools varies according to the magical tradition you practice or are influenced by.
Are tools necessary? Many people like to say something like, “The only tool you really need is your mind.” That’s sort of true, but as we’ve seen, tools are a source of power for several reasons. The only transportation device you really need is your feet, but a bicycle or car will get you there faster and you won’t be as worn-out when you arrive.
Because I do love tradition, and because tradition brings a unique power, I think it’s worth presenting traditional tools here. I have been referring to them throughout this text, and will continue to do so, even though their use is entirely optional.
There are four tools that are most common in Western magic. You’ll find them in most traditions of Wicca, in other forms of Witchcraft, in the Golden Dawn, and in most ceremonial magic. They are the four suits of the tarot, and in most tarot decks you’ll see them as the tools used by the Magician.
Sword/Dagger/Athame: In the tarot, the suit is “swords,” but as a rule of thumb, a personal knife is considered the equivalent of a sword for most magical uses. The sword is considered to correspond to air or fire, depending on your magical system. It’s considered male and phallic. In some Hermetic schools of thought, the sword is considered “active male,” meaning it is male in shape (phallic) and in materials (steel/iron) and so represents unadulterated or untampered male energy. It can also be seen as representing heterosexual male energy, or “butch” male energy.
The dagger or athame is a personal blade, while the sword is more typically used for a group working. Traditionally, both are double-edged and straight, and the hilt of a Wiccan’s athame is usually black.
The dagger or sword is used mainly for three things. First, it is used to direct energy. Any time you might point your hands to send energy, you could hold your dagger and point it instead. My teacher really hated when people had curved blades for this reason—she felt that since the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, an athame’s blade should direct the energy to flow in a straight line.
Second, a blade is used to summon and command, as when you summon an elemental or spirit. Third, a blade is used to demarcate space. The sharp edge cuts ritual space apart from mundane space.
Wand: The wand corresponds to fire or air—whichever isn’t the sword in the tradition being worked. It’s considered male and phallic. In Hermetics, the wand is “passive male” and as such is traditionally made from a female wood such as willow (tree lore is a whole separate topic). It is male energy infused with female energy and can also correspond to gay male energy, or two-spirit energy with a male presentation, or “femme” or “swish” male energy.
Wands, like athames, direct energy. They are used whenever a blade might be considered too aggressive, and for many magicians, the wand is the primary tool.
Cup: The cup corresponds to water and is considered yonic and female. As the “active female” tool, it should be made from a female material (silver or pewter) or, if ceramic, glazed or painted a female color. It is the opposite complement to the dagger and can be considered to correspond to heterosexual female energy, or “femme” female energy.
The cup is used to receive and direct water energy, to drink (especially to partake of consecrated drinks), and to make offerings.
Pentacle: The pentacle is a flat disk with symbols marked or engraved on it. It corresponds to the element of earth. As the “passive female” tool, it should be made from a male material (gold or bronze) or be a male color. It is female energy infused with male energy. It can be considered the bearer of gay female energy, or two-spirit energy with a female presentation, or “butch” female energy.
The pentacle is used as a plate, for partaking of or offering consecrated foods, and to transmit earth energy.
Other tools used by magical practitioners include:
• Stang
• Ankh
• Scourge
• Bell
• Staff
• Sickle
• Boline or white-handled knife
• Broom or besom
• Cingulum or cord
• Aspergillum
• Crystal
• Cauldron
• Hammer
• Censer
Accessing Saved/Accumulated/Stored Power
One of the reasons that stored power is popular is because it’s so easy to access—just use the tool or other item! This may be why folklore and pop culture love the concept so much. If you find the right magic object, all you have to do is pick it up. Rub the lamp, open the book, drink the potion … fiction is full of examples of magic just sitting there in an object, waiting to be used.
I’m a big fan of simplicity, and in this case it’s justified. From chapter one we know that power is only one of the things that makes magic work, and we’ve spent plenty of time going over what else is needed. But to access this power, just pick up the already powerful tool and use it in your ritual. You don’t even have to concentrate or focus, meaning that this extra power is accessible to you while you’re focused intently on other things.
Power can also be purposely placed into an object, for later release. We’ll cover this when we discuss sending power in chapter seven.
Magic Words
I decided to put magic words in their own separate category because they don’t have a single source of power. Rather, the power can be from any number of sources, depending upon the specific words and how they are used.
Magic words are a means of accessing power from the mind, because of the effect of meaning on your brain and because of the effect of artistry, and of beauty. Words also have an impact on memory. Words can draw power from the body because of the ways in which words resonate when spoken, vibrating in the chest and throat and drawing upon breath. Words may also have rhythm, which acts on both body and mind. Certain words, in many traditions, are believed to come directly from deity, or from angels or other supernatural beings, and so draw upon those sources of power. And many words draw upon accumulated or stored power—especially from historical or archetypal sources.
Since power from words comes from pretty much every place we’ve already discussed, it makes sense to discuss them apart from any particular source.
There’s no need to talk about how to access the power of words: You speak them. Simply saying the words unlocks the power inherent in them, although—and this is important—you should say them.
Speaking aloud and thinking words to yourself are two entirely different things. There’s good, solid neuroscience behind that: Verbalizing fires many more neural synapses, in more parts of the brain, than thinking does. The thought has to travel to the speech center of the brain, and as it travels, brain cells light up.
Have you ever gone to someone for help with a problem, told her the problem, and immediately seen a solution—even before the other person had a chance to say a word? The very act of speaking aloud opened your mind in ways merely thinking could not. In addition, the physical effect of speech, the impact of breath and vibration, doesn’t occur when you merely think the words.
So even if you are doing solitary ritual, speak out loud.
Incantations, Rhymes, Charms, and Spells
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.14
The original meaning of “spell” in magic is the same as that of a charm or incantation—they are all words that describe forms of verbal magic. An “incantation” is chanted or intoned, a “spell” is spelled out (usually written, but it can refer to spoken words), and a “charm” is a magical object such as a talisman, but also the words used to seal the magic, as Shakespeare gives us here.
Incantations create cadence of speech, and the tempo and rhythm become part of the power. Repetition and rhyme help you remember the words to say, and create a low-level trance that can be part of the power being raised. Think about the Shakespeare quote—you probably knew it before you saw it here, because it rhymes, because it uses repetition (double, double), and because of its cultural familiarity.
Rhythm and rhyme allow you to speak the words of a spell without having to think about it much, and repetition allows you to circle round and round with the words, raising more and more power without ever having to stop and ask what you’re supposed to say next.
Here’s a simple rhyme:
By count of one, the spell is done.
By count of two, the spell comes true.
By count of three, so mote it be!
It rhymes, you’ll never forget it, and you can say it over and over as you do other work to raise power, such as dance, drum, or stir a cauldron. You can adapt the words, changing “the spell” for your specific work, and “count” for whatever you’re doing. (By beat of one, new job is won. By beat of two, new job comes true.) You can add four or five or whatever number of lines if you have more that must be said.
Words such as these help draw power from mind and body, they help focus your intense desire and passion, and they can keep you moving with a rhythm. They also serve to draw a group of people together when working as a group—they keep you all on the same beat, moving, thinking, feeling, intending together.
Calls
A call is a simple word or phrase spoken, often shouted, during power raising. It can be used as a kind of focal point in a spell. For example, in the previous counting spell, I swapped out “the spell” for “new job.” A call would be used by shouting “New job!” or just “Job!” while raising power. A call can be shouted on a beat, or it can be random, as you’re moved, while power builds. Typical calls include the name of the person receiving the magic or a single word representing the goal.
One of the great things about using calls is they help you condense your thoughts and feelings about the work you’re doing into that single word. Ambiguity is the enemy of magic, so getting your mind to focus on this single word, and figuring out what that word should be, is powerful.
Prayers
Prayers are “magic words” that evoke, call upon, and draw the attention of a deity. You can open your working with a prayer, asking a deity to send power. You can incorporate a prayer into a power-raising, using it as your incantation. You can pray instead of doing other power-raisings.
Affirmations
Do affirmations belong in a book about magic? They are decidedly New Agey for an occult book, that’s for sure. On the other hand, magic is about effecting change, and affirmations are words used to do exactly that.
In fact, I think of an affirmation as a kind of spell. In chapter eight, we’ll define the components of a spell in detail, and we’ll see then that affirmations have all of these components. We’ve already defined the basic steps of performing a spell more than once, though: focus, connect, raise power, send power, finish.
An affirmation is a spell in which the words of the spell are the “raise power” component.
The construction of an affirmation is interesting. And magical. It asserts that something is true. Presumably, the only reason you’re using the affirmation is because there’s a mundane reality in which it isn’t true (although you can use affirmations to maintain, rather than create, a truth).
For example, I might repeat fifteen times each day, out loud, while looking into a mirror:
People notice my skills and reward them.
What is happening here? Let’s assert that people haven’t been noticing or rewarding my skills, and that’s why I’m making this daily effort. But I don’t say I want people to reward me. I’m using magical language, and magical language works by creating a reality—an assumption of success—as we’ve discussed. In fact, in a magical understanding of language, if you looked into the mirror and said daily, I want people to notice my skills and reward them, that’s exactly what you’d create—you’d create that you want this to happen. It’s very important, anytime you use magical words, that the words assert the reality you are creating.
Look at the previous counting rhyme. It is done. It is true. So mote it be. All of this language asserts that the spell has already worked. This hearkens back to what we have learned about transcending time. The spell works now, today, in this timeless eternal moment. We are not working toward a future, we are manifesting a present.
So an affirmation uses magical language to transcend time. It uses repetition to raise power and perhaps alter consciousness. It can (optionally) use magical numbers in the repetitions.
Barbarous Words
The phrase “barbarous words” or “barbarous names” comes from the Greek, and originally referred to “foreign” words—anything not Greek was a barbarous tongue.
Such barbarous words were considered powerful simply because they came from another language—they had an inherent strangeness that made them salient and “weird.” 15
In magic, the term refers to any magic word, phrase, spell, or name that has an unknown meaning or, perhaps, is meaningless. Many old spells consisting of barbarous words may be bastardized Egyptian, Hebrew, or another language, mistranslated, miscopied, or misheard. Some are based on magical languages such as Enochian. Some barbarous words may have been invented, knowing they were meaningless, in order to have magical effect. The idea—and it is an ancient one—is that it is the sound of the words that is powerful, not the meaning, and so the words should not be translated into English (or whatever language the magician speaks) even if the meaning is discerned.
Many magical practitioners firmly insist that it is a mistake to ever use words that you don’t understand. Indeed, that’s prudent advice. If you don’t know what you’re saying, it seems quite possible that you could invoke something or someone you had no intention of calling, or otherwise manifest a reality contrary to your wishes. We’re back to “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” biting off more than we can magically chew.
But I confess I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a magical language, one that has power without being understood. Perhaps this comes from my childhood in Judaism. I listened to Hebrew prayers in synagogue, but didn’t understand them. Obviously, Hebrew isn’t a “barbarous tongue”—it’s simply another language. But liturgical language has power when it’s not understood—not despite not being understood, but because of it. I’ve attended Reformed synagogues where the entire service was translated into English. To me, it was somehow drained of some of the religious feeling—some of the magic.
I grew up in northern New Jersey, a heavily Catholic area. In the 1980s, there was one Catholic church in the area that offered Latin mass. People drove many miles to attend, passing a dozen or more Catholic churches to attend that one. The language was magical—and I feel confident that the vast majority of people making the trip spoke no Latin.
The power of language when it transcends meaning is extraordinary. It allows us to use our minds in a way that bypasses cognition entirely. It connects us to something deeper and more mysterious. It is, perhaps, this mystery that barbarous words draw upon.
Flavors of Power
Is all power just “power”? Whatever power is—and we gave up on the science of it chapters ago—it seems to start in a pretty undifferentiated manner. Especially when it is raised from our own bodies, the buzz, the oomph, feels pretty much the same whether raised slowly or rapidly, alone or in a group.
I have talked for years about “flavors” of power—I suspect I got the phrase from Isaac Bonewits. Flavor is a good metaphor for the different sorts of power. Another might be tune or melody, as in fine-tuning the power, or having it be “on key.” My favorite, lately, is to think of power as a stem cell.
Although stem cells do not serve any one function,
many have the capacity to serve any function
after they are instructed to specialize.16
To me, this fascinating description of stem cells is exactly analogous to magical power. Power may come forth in an amorphous manner, being “just power,” but it can specialize once instructed.
How to Give Power a Flavor
How does power get a flavor? You can simply “instruct” it, using your willpower and perhaps your words to tell the power what it is.
Here are a bunch of examples of instructing or flavoring power. You can incorporate the motif into a spell or rhyme. For example, if you chanted, spoke, or wrote “Gentle breeze, blow away trouble” as part of a spell, you’d be instructing the energy to be gentle, and you’d be imbuing it with the qualities of a breeze. If you are working with elements, this adds air energy to your power-raising.
Words in general are a great way to tune your power. When I raise power with music, I am careful to choose a chant or song with lyrics consistent with the power I want to raise.
There is a famous Goddess chant by Deena Metzger that begins “Isis, Astarte …” and continues through cross-cultural goddess names. Raising power with this chant tunes the power toward Goddess worship in general, and toward the energies of those goddesses in particular.
Prayer tunes the energy by request. Prayer flavors the energy with a worshipful quality and also allows the deity or deities to tune the energy as they will.
The source of power often flavors the power, so power from nature will impart a natural quality to the power, and the appropriate element(s) will be present. Power raised in the mountains is earthier, while power raised at the ocean is more watery. Finding an incantation in a book could give power a kind of intellectual or academic flavor.
Why Give Power a Flavor?
Once I was discussing a particular spell with some other experienced Witches. This healing, I explained, should be water energy, gently flowing over the illness (which I then went on to pinpoint). Avoid fire energy, I said, because fire tends to inflame the nerves, and the patient was suffering from severe neuropathy. One Witch asked, “Can’t we just send, y’know, healing energy?”
Honestly, I was kind of appalled. That’s like asking a doctor if you can’t just have, y’know, medicine, rather than a specific prescription.
As with a stem cell, you instruct your power to specialize because your magic is specific. In chapter eight, we’ll get into details about why and how spells must be specific. But let’s look at two aspects of it here, things that relate directly to the idea of flavoring or instructing power.
First, , flavoring power affects the mind of the magician. You have worked on your mind skills from chapter four in order to have fixed intention on your purpose. You don’t want your method of raising power to cause cognitive dissonance.
Sex magic raises sex-flavored energy. If you’re seeking a job in the banking industry, sex-flavored energy is radically inconsistent with your intention, and so, when you’re focusing your intention, it will be dissonant. On the other hand, textile magic has ancient associations with domesticity and would bring the right flavor to magic on behalf of a new home.
So flavor helps intention. Flavor also helps in sending energy toward the target; it aligns with purpose. As you send energy (which we will cover in the next chapter), you’ll find that the energy will have an affinity for a target with similar energy—like attracts like. So chaotic, fiery energy is naturally drawn toward a chaotic, fiery target.
Finally, don’t forget that energy is real. In the example I started with, of a healing spell needing to be gentle, I was talking about the real-world repercussions that energy has on its target. Have you ever seen that cartoon by S. Harris with a formula on a blackboard, the statement “Then a miracle occurs,” then more formula? The punch line is “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.” People sometimes look at magic like that—step one, do the spell; step two, THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS; step three, result.
The fact is, there’s a step two. The energy arrives. It does something. When you’re doing a healing, it is generally true that the patient feels the energy—he may not know what it is, but he feels it. So your energy should be flavored not only in accordance with exactly what the patient needs, but also to accommodate exactly what he can tolerate. Especially when someone has nerve pain, sending hot, forceful, rah-rah energy is too much for that person to take.
Power Flavors by Source
This is by no means a definitive list—more like an inspiration, or discussion material. But here are the powers discussed in this chapter and the previous one, and the kind of flavors that might be imparted by raising power in this way:
• Power Raised from Deity: This kind of power is flavored by worshipfulness, perhaps by humility, and is used for theurgy, for acts of mercy, or for help with personal goals in which the deity may be invested. When power is raised by evoking specific Pagan deities, that power can have almost any energy, since such deities themselves specialize. Examples include Brigid for creativity-flavored work, Sarasvati for education-flavored work, or Thor for weather working.
• Power Raised from Emotion: This type of power is flavored by the emotion: passionate energy for passionate purposes, loving energy for love magic, and so on.
• Power Raised from Meditation or Concentration: There is no inherent flavor to this type of power, which can be used for anything with the exception of purposes around letting go, around not thinking, and around wildness. Concentration on spontaneity is not a natural fit.
• Power Raised from Movement: This kind of power is imitative of movement in general, and can help with anything that is “stuck,” be it emotions or career. Movement can express and create a flavor of joy and freedom; those flavors can work toward personal-fulfillment targets that need those feelings. Movement can instruct the energy to give a vitality to the physical body and thus heal through imitative magic.
• Sex Magic: Flavored by sex, pleasure, and sometimes fertility, sex magic is effective in any attraction spell. Certainly it can attract lovers, but it can be effective even for something less sexy, like companionable neighbors or a bass player for your band, because “attraction” isn’t always sensual in nature. A couple can do sex magic toward things they want to do together as a couple, like being able to take a vacation.
• Pain Magic: Flavored by intensity and sacrifice, this type of power can be used in any emergency situation, for help in a crisis, when the emergent nature of the goal matches the level of pain. The flavor can also be worshipful, giving oneself over to the deity, and so is good for theurgy. Austerities have a similar flavor.
• Aura Work and Rhythm: Both of these kinds of power are fairly “neutral” in terms of flavor and can be used for almost any spell. Rhythm is excellent for cardiac-related healing work. Aura work, flavored by touch without touch actually occurring, is excellent for distant healing and love work.
• Textile Magic: As previously mentioned, textile magic has a domestic quality that is excellent for things related to the home, marriage, or fertility. Bringing things together (as if sewn together) is also energetically and sympathetically connected to textile work.
• Nature as a Whole, and Natural Things: The flavor of this kind of power is consistent with the feeling of or the metaphorical relationship to the natural feature. Ocean magic is rhythmic like the tides; it is connected to the element of water, it is mysterious and “deep,” and it is connected to the source of life (life evolved in the sea). Likewise, mountain magic is connected to the elements of earth (the mountain) and air (the altitude). It is connected to isolation and wisdom (metaphorically—like going up to the mountains on retreat, or the Hermit card in the tarot, alone on a mountaintop).
• Elements: Elements are sources of power and are flavors—Water (or watery) is the flavor of water magic. You’ll find a list of qualities and correspondences for each element in appendix A.
• Accumulated or Stored Power: This type of power is flavored by the object in which the power is stored. You’ll find a list of tool correspondences in appendix A.
1. Make a list of the kinds of spells you think you might do, things you want that you think you might achieve via magic.
2. For each spell on the list, describe its flavor.
3. For each spell/flavor, name a type of power-raising that would help impart that flavor.
13. University of Maryland Medical Center, “Lavender,” https://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/lavender.
14. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 4, scene 1.
15. Patrick Dunn, Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magician’s Exploration of Linguistics (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2008), 110.
16. Peter Crosta, “What Are Stem Cells?,” Medical News Today, last updated on July 19, 2013, www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/stem_cell.