magical tools

What I am re-learning about creating magical tools

Over the years I’ve created some magical tools for myself. I first started creating magical tools as a teenager, first starting out with creating specific staffs and wands, and then in my early twenties exploring how to meld art and magic together to create magical tools with the paintings I created. However of late, I’ve been inspired to explore the creation of magical tools in further depth. Some of this inspiration has come about because of working with my magical partner, and some of it came about because of a recent interview I did on the Random Illusions podcast and some of it has been inspired by Alison Chicosky’s work on practical occult.

One of the challenges I’ve had with creating magical tools is not feeling like I have the requisite skills to do so, but I realized that’s a mental block on my part so I’ve begun challenging that mental block by considering what magical tools I could actually create. For the moment, I am creating those tools for myself, but I’ll probably make those tools for other people down the line.

How I craft magical tools

One of the practices that I like to do is craft my own magical tools. The benefit of creating your own magical tools is that you have this intimate experience with the entire process where you marry the emotional, mental, spiritual associations and correspondences to the physical tool you are creating. The result is that you know that tool in a different way than one you might be. You’ve created it.

But there’s an interesting challenge with creating a magical tool. What if you don’t have the skill set to tool making tools to create a magical tool? What do you then? For instance I don’t how to work with metal, and while I have limited experience working with wood. I don’t have the tools or space to work with wood. What do you when you want to create magical tools, but can’t create them traditionally?

On-going experiments with magical tools

A lot of my magical work, of late, has involved the use of magical tools. In the past, I’ve gone through periods of time where I’ve been very minimalistic in my use of magic tools, but as with anything else, I find it useful to change up my routines, especially if there is justification in making the switch. Over the course of the last year I’ve been working with alchemical substances and pentacles and I thought I’d share an update focused on around how I’m using these tools and how that usage is evolving because of the work I’m doing.

My work with Planetary Pentacles

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I recently acquired two planetary pentacles, The Second Pentacle of Jupiter and The Second Pentacle of Mercury from Alison Chicosky, of Practical Occult. I acquired them because I was curious about how I could apply them to my own ongoing work with planetary magic, as well as for other purposes and so far I’ve been very pleased with the pentacles. I want to share here how I’ve applied them to my magical work, but I also recommend and vouch for Alison’s work.

When I first got these pentacles, I spent a few days just working with them. I kept them on my person during the day and put them under my pillow at night. I had vivid dreams the first couple nights, where the spirits of the pentacles came and instructed me in the basics of how to activate and work with them. During the day I’d touch them and soak in the experience, not just of the metal, but also of the planetary powers the pentacles represent.

The Second Pentacle of Mercury connects you with the planetary spirits of Mercury. It has a feeling of quickness to it, and a quirky eccentric appeal that provides odd insights and unusual perspectives, perfect for someone like me, but it also helps with communication and information gathering.

The Second Pentacle of Jupiter connects you with the planetary spirits of Jupiter. It has a feeling of expansion to it, a sense of opportunity and potential that can be explored and uncovered, if you’re willing to do the work. It’s helped me with some wealth workings and other related matters.

So how have I applied these pentacles to my own workings?

Frequency Manipulation

I’ve treated each of these pendants as dials, that I can use to either increase or decrease the amount of planetary essence being applied to a situation. The dial function also serves as a modifier, in the sense that it applies the planetary power in a way that modifies the situation through the particular lens that the pentacle channels.

Example: I’ve used the pentacle of Mercury to dial down the hostility of customers at my work, coming in hot because of the problem they’re dealing with. In this situation, Mercury has served to cushion and gentle the customer, making them cool down quick so we can focus on solving the problem. Mercury, in this context, has also helped stimulate unconventional perspectives for finding solutions to the problems being deal with.

Example: I’ve used the pentacle of Jupiter to dial up interest in the ads I’m running on Amazon, basically acting as attractor to those ads. Since applying the pentacle for that purpose, I’ve noticed more impressions and clicks, which is useful for increasing sales. I’ve also used Jupiter to enhance an existing wealth magic working I’m using to get more leads at work.

When I use the pentacles as dials, I treat the holes as the dial indicator (see picture) below. Left is used to lower the frequency, while right is used to raise the frequency. I must add that sometimes lower frequencies are better than higher ones, so if you take my approach you’ll have to pay close attention to your desired result and think of the frequency manipulation in terms of that result. For instance, I might lower the Jupiter frequency if I’m doing a working where I don’t want expansion. By lowering the frequency I can actually mitigate or even negate a planetary influence I don’t want at the time. You can apply this approach to any magical working you’re doing where you want to either modify the planetary influences you’re working OR use them to modify a magical working you’re already doing.

Left is less, while right is more

Left is less, while right is more

Answer Generators

I’ve also used each of these pentacles as divinatory tools, around their specific realm of influence. For instance, I posed a question to the Mercury pentacle and then slept with it under my head. That night I had a vivid dream where I got the answer I needed, which allowed me to make a crucial decision around some internal work I’m currently doing. That direction was very helpful and I imagine I could do something similar with the Jupiter pentacle.

The Pentacles and the Sphere of Art

I’ve also applied these two pentacles to the planetary influences I’m workings with in the Sphere of Art, using them to further enhance and refine the alchemical essences that are part of the working. I place the pentacle beneath the respective alchemical essence it represents and what happens is that both the alchemical essence and the pentacle charge and enhance and refine each other further. It’s basically a symbiotic exchange I’ve created and I can then apply to any working I’m doing in the Sphere, but also outside of it. I plan to get other pentacles and do the same thing with them as well, but that’s down the line.

Conclusion

For the moment what I’ve shared above is what I’ve done with the pentacles. but I know I’ll continue experimenting with them, both in conjunction with other work I’m doing and in working with them as singular entities in their own right. They’ve become an invaluable part of my work. If you want more information about these pentacles or others that Alison creates please visit practical occult.

Do the tools define your practice?

Recently I asked people if they thought components such as herbs or candles were necessary to work magic. This question was prompted by reading some of Draja Mickaharic's work. He offers a variety of spells in his various books and all of them inevitably have some physical component. The responses I got mostly agreed with my own perspective, in that they weren't absolutely necessary to work magic, but sometimes using them was more useful than not using them, and just as importantly, it was good to be able to improvise, up to and including not using the usual tools. All seemed to agree that the various tools aided in the focus and concentration needed for working with magic. However all the responses did get me thinking about whether or not the tools defined the practice of the magician. One person offered a quote that the tools don't make the blacksmith, but rather the blacksmith makes the tools, and in thinking about and applying that perspective to magical work, the same principle applies. The magician makes the tools, and what that ultimately means is that the magician decides what tool is significant and why and most importantly s/he realizes that what empowers the tool is not anything necessarily inherent to the tool, so much as the meaning and connection that the tool represents. One person pointed out that as he worked with a specific type of tool, it helped him align with the energies he was seeking to connect with, and consequently brought about changes within himself that aligned with the forces he was working with. Another person shared an example of how using tools allowed a member of her family to connect with spiritual entities that in turn helped him heal the person sharing the example.

To some extent tools do define the practice in terms of what they enable or allow a person to do, but first they are defined by the person, specifically in terms of the actual function they serve in order to focus the person and/or represent a connection with something else that can help them. This recognition however is useful on an improvisational level, because it allows the magician to adapt an item in his/her immediate environment into a tool for use in magical work. Chaos magicians have demonstrated that principle a number of times, as has anyone else that had to improvise on the fly in order to pull off a magical ritual. In the end, our tools can be as flexible as ourselves, provided we have the right mindset when using them.

The Wand chooses the Wizard, or some thoughts on magical artifacts

I just finished re-reading the Harry Potter series, and one of the phrases that stands out in my mind is "The wand chooses the wizard". Yes, I know it's a fantasy series, but you can always find some truth in such writings and HP is no exception to that rule. I have, over the years, created a number of magical artifacts, and had a few gifted to me as well. Some of my necklaces are magical artifacts, as is the elephant bracelet I was given. All of my paintings are magical artifacts, and the memory box, and several others tools I have are other artifacts I created. Yet all of them also have what I would consider to be a distinctive identity and feel. I wouldn't go so far as to say personality, so much as I'd say the magic marks the artifacts in its own way. Certainly, I can tell quite a difference between the tesseract board I have and the memory box. The tesseract board, being the concept of another magician is something I can use, but it doesn't feel quite as responsive as the memory box is, which is one reason the memory box has become my preferred tool for space/time magic.

Magical artifacts, and even the concepts behind them hold at least some of the distinctive signature of the magician(s) who created them. And some of it is the distinctive purpose the tools are used for. A wand is a wand or is it? I wouldn't know, because I've never used a wand, but I do know that the various artifacts I have all have a distinctive feel and I work with some better than I work with others.I've also noticed that when I've been gifted an artifact, it tends to respond more favorably, than if I've just co-opted one, as I did when I created my own version of the tesseract board.

Now we could argue this is all in my head, and maybe it even is, but I also know I've created specific features in my own artifacts to limit who can use them, so it certainly seems plausible that other artificers could do the same with their own inventions and even copies of those inventions made by others.

Magical artifacts aren't discussed too much, but I think there's a whole level of subtle magic that often can go ignored because of that lack of discussion. Certainly, I treat even books as artifacts, under the right circumstances, and have noted, as have others, that some of the books seem to have a more distinctive feel to them, than others. Did their authors create or leave something in them? Certainly seems plausible.