The altar is the heart of any witch’s life. Even if you belong to a coven or group of witches, you will still want your own special sacred place at home, as well as a communal one.
WHAT IS AN ALTAR?
It is any table or flat supported surface on which you arrange and display your special magickal tools, crystals, statues, and spell or ritual ingredients, and that is used as a focus for your spells and rituals.
Altars can be circular, square, or rectangular. Generally, an altar is positioned in the northern part of a room or area, though some traditions use the east.
Choose a cloth for your altar, perhaps embroidered or of silk. You can again vary it according to the seasons and change the color as appropriate to the ritual.
Setting an Altar with Magickal Tools and Materials
Whether you use a full-size or miniature altar, you will need ceremonial tools and materials for more formal magick. Use a compass or assess approximate directions on your altar and make the directional markers halfway at four equidistant points around the altar.
I will mark with an asterisk the essentials for any altar for Wiccan rituals. You can include the rest as is appropriate for your practice.
The Substances and Materials that Make Up Ritual
*One or two central altar candles in white, cream, or natural beeswax. From the central altar candle(s), you will light all the other candles used in the ritual. If you begin with two candles, place them centrally but a little farther to the right and left on the altar than if you use a single candle. In my tradition, I place the Goddess candle on the left and the God candle on the right. (The two candles represent the Goddess and God energies, respectively. If only using one candle, it signifies the God and Goddess energies united.)
God and Goddess representations. For balance, these I reverse from where I placed the central candles, with my God statue on the left and the Goddess statue within the central candles. But again, it is your choice. You can use statues from any culture and can, if you wish, mix the cultures. You can also use a large conchlike shell for the Goddess and a bone horn or small antler for the God. (Conch is a tropical marine mollusk with a robust spiral shell.)
Four elemental candles in appropriate colors set at your directional marker points. The colors are: green or brown for the north and Earth; yellow, purple, or gray for the east and Air; red, orange, or gold for the south and Fire; and blue or silver for the west and Water. Alternatively, you can set these elemental candles around the perimeter of any circle you cast or in the center of each of the four walls of the room in which you are working. If you are casting a simple spell, you would use just the four elemental substances listed below on your altar plus a symbol or offerings dish in the center and, if you wish, a single central candle to represent God and Goddess energies combined.
*A dish of salt representing Earth will be in the north of the altar.
*Incense (a cone, stick, or a dish of non-combustible incense powder or granules) burned on a dish of charcoal in the east for Air.
*A candle in red, orange, or gold, or, if you are using elemental candles as well, pure-white for the Fire element in the south.
*A bowl of water or rose or lavender fragrance in the west for Water.
WICCAN MAGICKAL TOOLS
I have listed first the four essential tools traditionally used in more formal Wiccan rituals, noted with an asterisk. The others can add to a ritual but are not as necessary.
*Athame/Knife
This is set in the eastern corner of the altar, to the right of the incense, and represents the element of Air.
Athames are traditionally double-edged and black-handled, but a single-edged blade is safer (some Wiccan traditions begin the ritual in the east and not the north, and so use the athame for Fire in the south). However, the blade that corresponds with the tarot suit of Air seems to me most natural in the east.
You can obtain an athame from a specialist magickal shop or online. Alternatively, buy an ornamental knife in souvenir stores or in antique or hunting equipment shops, or you can simply use a carved silver paper knife. The latter is ideal for a miniature altar.
Sword
The sword is a more elaborate form of the athame and is usually reserved for larger-scale indoor or outdoor ceremonies. Like the athame, the sword is placed in the east (or in the alternative tradition, the south) of the altar, to the right of the incense (the left if you have the athame as well). It is a tool of the Air element if set in the east.
Swords can be used for drawing magickal circles on a forest floor, in the earth, or in snow (my favorite). They can also be used for greeting the Guardians—the traditional protectors of the four directions—in formal rituals. The Guardians are often regarded as four Archangels, four deities, four Power animals, or as the Elemental Spirits, who signify the four forces: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.
You can easily obtain reproduction ceremonial swords that are not sharp. Military museums may sell ornate ones.
*Chalice
The chalice or ritual goblet represents the Water element and is placed in the west of the altar, to the right of the bowl of water. On a smaller altar, it can be used to contain the water instead of a bowl.
The knife, sword, or wand is ceremonially plunged into the chalice as a symbolic union of the God and Goddess energies, which is the climax of a ritual (especially love rituals).
The chalice is also central to the sacred cakes and ale rite that occurs at the end of very formal ceremonies and is in this case filled with red wine or fruit juice that is blessed and passed around the group to drink, or carried around by the High Priestess (who represents Goddess energies) for everyone to drink. The chalice is traditionally made of silver, but you can also use crystal glass, stainless steel, or pewter. This corresponds with the Water suit in the tarot.
*Pentacle/Pentagram
The pentacle—a pentagram or five-pointed star enclosed within a circle—is a symbol of the Earth and is placed in the north of the altar.
The pentacle may be found as a freestanding item but is more usually painted on a flat round dish or disc. The pentagram itself is protective or empowering, depending on which way it is drawn, and has many uses in ritual.
You can buy a pentacle dish made of metal, wood, or pottery from a New Age store, or paint or etch your own pentagram/pentacle on a plain glass or ceramic dish. If you prefer you can trace an invisible invoking or attracting pentagram on any plain dish with the index finger of the hand you write with each time before use (see page 56 for an example of an invoking or attracting pentagram).
This corresponds with the Earth tarot suit of pentacles or coins.
The wand is a symbol of Fire in many traditions and should be placed in the south of the altar, to the right of the candle. Wands can be obtained from New Age stores or online, but if possible, try to handle a wand before buying it in order to make sure you’re choosing the one that’s right for you. Alternately, you can use a long, clear quartz crystal, pointed at one end and rounded at the other, as a wand.
While wands are traditionally made of wood, they can also be made of metal, and especially copper. However, if you don’t find the right wand in stores or online, you can easily make your own. The wand is used for enchanting or filling a symbol with power in a spell or ritual by making circles over a symbol (clockwise for attracting energies and counter-clockwise for banishing energies). It can also be used for raising and releasing magickal power.
Bell
The bell stands in the north of the circle, to the right of the salt, and is an Earth symbol. Use a silver- or gold-colored bell or a Tibetan pair of bells you can strike together. The bell is often rung nine times at the beginning and end of each ritual while standing in the south of the circle, facing north, or at each of the four directional points to call the Guardians.
This is a three-legged iron pot. It is one of the most versatile items of magick since it can be set in the center of a large space indoors or outdoors or in its true elemental position in the north. In less-formal rituals, it can sometimes form the central focus of a ritual instead of an altar, and this works especially effectively outdoors.
Cauldrons can be bought in New Age stores, by mail order, or from antique markets. If you look around cookware or even gardening centers you may find your cauldron under a different name.
PURIFYING AND EMPOWERING CEREMONIAL TOOLS AND THE ALTAR
The first time you use an altar, you should dedicate it. This ritual will also empower your magickal tools if you set them ready in their positions on the altar before beginning the ritual. Thereafter, whenever you get a new tool, you can set it in the center of the altar and it will be empowered during any formal ritual you carry out.
Step 1: Preparing the Altar
Make sure you have your tools and materials set in their places on the altar. The only addition is the bowl of perfume. Put it in the south of the altar. For perfume purification, use any cologne, such as sandalwood, rose, or lavender, or rose or lavender water.
Ring the bell in each of the four Quarters—the four main directions—from north going clockwise and then return it to its place.
Light the altar candle(s) left to right and then the elemental candle in the south, saying for each: May light illumine and fire purify this altar. I dedicate this altar and my work to the highest good and the purest intention.
Now move the salt and water bowls so they are side-by-side in front of the altar candles, with the salt to the left.
Make a cross on the surface of the salt, either an equal-armed or Earth Mother diagonal cross, with a silver-colored knife or an athame, asking the blessing of the angels, the Goddess and God, or a favorite deity on the salt and the ritual.
Now stir the water three times clockwise with the same knife, again asking the blessing of the angels, the Goddess and God, or a favorite deity on the water and the ritual.
Take three pinches of salt and add to the water, swirling the bowl thrice clockwise, thrice counter-clockwise, and thrice clockwise, again asking the blessing of the angels, the Goddess and God, or a favorite deity on the now-sacred salt water and the ritual.
Sprinkle a few drops of sacred salt water in each of the four directions on the altar, saying before you begin: May the power of the earth and waters empower and purify this altar. I dedicate this altar and my work to the highest good and the purest intention.
Now sprinkle a little sacred salt water over each of the tools, going clockwise around the altar, saying: May the power of the earth and waters empower and purify this tool, [name it]. I dedicate this altar and my work to the highest good and the purest intention.
Next, take the incense and light it from each of the candles, or sprinkle your granular incense on preprepared and now-glowing white-hot charcoal in the dish.
Beginning in the east and moving clockwise, make smoke spirals over the four main direction points of the altar, wafting it with your hand or a feather if you are using granular incense or incense cones, saying before you begin: May the power of the sky empower and purify this altar. I dedicate this altar and my work to the highest good and the purest intention.
Waft it next over each tool in turn clockwise, saying: May the power of the earth and waters empower and purify this tool, [name it]. I dedicate this altar and my work to the highest good and the purest intention.
Next take the perfume bowl and, beginning in the south and moving clockwise, sprinkle a few drops of perfume in each of the four directions on the altar, saying before you begin: May the power of this fragrance empower and purify this altar. I dedicate this altar and my work to the highest good and the purest intention.
Sprinkle perfume over each tool in turn, again moving clockwise, saying: May the power of the earth and waters empower and purify this tool, [name it]. I dedicate this altar and my work to the highest good and the purest intention.
When you are ready, blow out first the Goddess candle, then the God candle, then the Fire element candle in the south, which will spread the light around the altar and into the tools and yourself, saying as you do: So may my altar and my magickal tools be blessed. I dedicate them and myself to the greatest good and with the highest intent, healing all and harming none. So shall it be.
Ring the bell in each direction, starting this time in the west and moving counter-clockwise to end in the north and return it to its place. Then say softly: May blessings grow. It shall be so. So ends this rite.
Sit quietly in the darkness, inhaling the residual fragrance, and anoint your main inner energy points—the center of your hairline, your brow, the base of your throat, and your two inner wrist points—with drops of perfume from the dish. Say: [at the hairline] Above me the light, [at the brow] within me the fragrance, [at the throat] that I may speak truly [at each wrist point] the love in my heart.
Leave the incense to burn and thank any deity or angel to whom you dedicated the rite along with your altar and tools.
If possible, leave everything in place for twenty-four hours and then wash the salt, water, perfume, and salt water away under a running tap and tidy everything away.
Step 3: Cleansing Your Magickal Tools and the Altar After a Ritual
Spiral a clear crystal pendulum over each tool and then over the four main directions of the altar and the center, making nine counter-clockwise circles over each one.
Plunge the pendulum in cold running water to cleanse it, and shake dry. Move the pendulum nine times clockwise, this time first over each artifact, the four directions of the altar, and the center of the altar again, to restore energies.
Wash the pendulum under running water.
In the next chapter, we will learn how to cast a Wiccan magickal circle.