Cleansing your tools

Cleansing tools that you have not made yourself is a given. You don’t know what that tool has been through in the past. The obvious exception to this rule is herbs, oils, and incense, as they by their very nature are “clean.” You can bless them for clarity – which I always do – but it’s very unlikely that they have picked up any negative emotions or spirits in their travels.

There are many ways to cleanse tools. The most basic way is to bury them in clean, wet sand near a living body of water (such as a natural lake or a river or an ocean). This is the way that I favor.

When cleansing your tools this way, you ought to bury them on the new moon and dig them up no sooner than the next day. I prefer to leave mine there for a solid two weeks or so, digging them up the day before the full moon. Some witches like to bury theirs for a month, from new moon to new moon, as the new moon is the “banishment” phase and the full moon is the “summoning” phase.

If you don’t live near any bodies of water, or there’s no clean sand surrounding them, or you just don’t want to be asked awkward questions, a good way to deal with it is to use salt. Salt – regular, unorganic table salt that you can get in bulk at many grocery stores – is the absolute best, most cleansing mineral on the planet. You’ll need a lot of it. You’ll have to “bury” your item in it, once again, at least overnight, on the new moon. When you have successfully consecrated your item, dispose of the salt in an economically friendly way, but do not keep it around or re-use it.

Some materials don’t react well with salt. Silver, for one, cannot be cleansed with salt as salt combines with silver to form sodium nitrate. Silver also ought to not be buried in sand. And in the case of your grimoire, you cannot bury it in the first place, as it is often made of paper (or in this case, a digital form) and can’t be cleansed.

In that case, you use incense.

The two previous methods – wet sand and salt – use water and earth, respectively. Incense is an air. You may see a trend here.

The easiest way to cleanse a tool via incense is to cast a magical circle (seeing as you don’t have tools yet, you can do this with your finger. Draw the circle in the dirt around you and then cast the magical circle in your preferred method using your finger as direction) and call the corners as you would in a normal ritual. Then you light the incense, stating your purpose, and pass the tool through the incense smoke several times, making sure to hit each surface of the item with the smoke.

The last method is fire, which completes the circle of the elements. Fire should only be used to cleanse hard metal objects, such as an athame or a sword. The same basic principle for incense goes here, only instead of lighting incense, you are setting a small fire. You can use a fire pit or a hole in the ground to accomplish this. The surface of the item must pass directly through the flames, quickly so that you don’t get burned handling them.

Now that we’ve discussed cleansing items, we can go on to consecration. Consecration is the process by which tools are charged with your energy and purpose to direct magic with. The tools are important, but not nearly as important as the magic-caster themselves. The tools are simply there to help you focus your energies.

In my experience, cleansing an item ought to take place at least two hours before the consecration. Jumping directly from one to the other has the unfortunate side-effect of draining a new magic user. In between, store your items in clean cloth, wrapped securely, preferably in a safe place or within a magical circle. Make sure to rest. Take a bath (you must be physically clean for the consecration process). Clear your mind and meditate if possible. Eat something nourishing, and make sure to give yourself plenty of water.

I don’t, being an atheist by nature, hold a lot of stock in uttered words. To me, the will of the caster is the most important. If you feel the urge to chant useless words to consecrate your tools, you are welcome to look for them elsewhere. Very few of my spells – and they are all successful to some degree or another – involve spoken words.

When I consecrate a tool, I am charging it with my own magical energy – my spirit energy, if you will, the energy that flows from every living organism in the universe that makes it a unique individual – and creating an object to focus that energy. Essentially, I am bringing that tool in sync with my own energy.

There are several ways to do this. The easiest is with blood, tears, or hair (or any bodily substance, really), because your physical body vibrates in sympathy with your “soul.”

Cast the magic circle and call the corners, as usual. When you’ve done all of this, sit or stand at the exact center of your circle, facing whichever element your tool is associated with (for instance, a chalice is a water item, so you would face west). Take whichever substance you have decided to use to make your tool sync with you – tears, blood or hair) and, carefully, focusing on the item and imbuing it with your power, spread the substance on the item. Focus very hard on the fact that this tool is now your companion, and will help you achieve your magical goals. Promise it that you will not misuse or neglect it.

At this point the ritual is complete. You can consecrate other items if you wish, in the same manner, at the same time. Just make sure you’re focusing on the correct element as you do it.

When you are done, you can clean your new tools off, close the circle, and tear down your magical area (if it’s not a permanent one). Tools should be stored in a clean area and used regularly. You should handle them often even if not using them magically, so that they stay in sync with you.  Make sure to keep them clean.