Making An Athame

An athame is traditionally a double-bladed knife with a black handle. Very few people make their own, although it is possible to do so. Most people obtain one and personalize it in some way. This is most commonly done by inscribing symbols or runes on it. In some traditions specific symbols are required and have been handed down through their lineage. In others and among eclectic Wicca groups, these can be personal.

How do you do this? You cover the blade with Paraffin. (WAX) Then you let it cool. Next you take a LONG sharp NAIL and inscribe the symbols in the wax. Then you use dilute Hydrochloric acid - careful, this stuff is dangerous, and drop by drop place on the blade where it shows through due to your inscriptions. When the acid has worked - usually fairly quickly - you rinse the blade under running water THOROUGHLY and then you use VERY hot water and a lot of elbow grease to remove the wax.

If ANY ACID FALLS ON THE SKIN RINSE THOROUGHLY UNDER COLD WATER IMMEDIATELY and if there is a burn of any type, seek immediate medical help. IF it gets in the eyes, again rinse immediately and completely and CALL THE EMT/PARAMEDIC UNITS. It is best when doing this if you wear either some type of glasses or goggles and rubber gloves.

DO NOT INGEST THE ACID OR LEAVE IT WHERE IT COULD BE INGESTED BY A CHILD OR ANIMAL. Also be careful of how you dispose of the rest of it - do so in an environmentally SAFE way.

This sounded like a little too much for me, so I tried another method. Koren made a beautiful athame for me and I personalized it by putting herbs of my choice in the handle and sealing this with a favorite crystal of mine - again with his help.

Oh, if you absolutely can't get a double-bladed knife - in Massachusetts, for example, possession of such a weapon is a CRIME - get a single-bladed knife and grind down the other edge as much as you can.

As I said, the Athame is USUALLY black-handled, but there are exceptions - I saw one Lady use a knife with a deer's hoof for the handle. She was oriented toward her Native American heritage as much as her Craft, so it had deep significance for her. I also saw - in fact a friend of mine was selling it - a BEAUTIFUL homemade athame with copper tubing forming a cross hilt and crystals in each of the three tips for the handle. (this was almost a small sword) AS ALWAYS USE WHAT SPEAKS TO YOUR OWN SOUL!!!!!

The athame is usually NOT used in circle for anything other than ritual and ceremonial purposed. If you need to inscribe a candle for Magick or slice the bread for the cakes and wine part of the rite, you usually use a BOLINE or white - handled knife, often a small dagger or even a pen-knife, set aside for these purposes.

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Feminist Redemption Of The Witch Grimm And Michelet As 19 Century Models

Book: Feminist Redemption Of The Witch Grimm And Michelet As 19 Century Models by Qinna Shen

This article will focus on the reconfigurations of the image of the witch in Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie (1835) as well as Jules Michelet's La Sorciere (1862). It begins with the discussion of the prevalent negative Perception of the witch during Jacob Grimm's lifetime in two iconic texts: Goethe's Faust and Jacob Grimm's own collection of Fairy Tales that he and his brother Wilhelm assembled. In light of his archival work in search of the German national past, Jacob Grimm arrived at a more sympathetic account of the witch. In Deutsche Mythologie, he asserts that the definition and perception of the witch has a history; it is the Christian church that created a witch-phobic culture and labeled non-Christian and un-Christian practices as devilserving witchcraft. The political agenda of Deutsche Mythologie is in keeping with the Romantic nationalist sentiment. To enhance the cohesiveness of the German people, to generate the feeling of Germans as one nation and thus to facilitate political unification of the German principalities, Grimm foregrounds a shared German culture, language and identity through Reclaiming pre-Christian tradition and primitive German religion. Second, the article analyzes Jacob Grimm's influence on Jules Michelet's La Sorciere, and outlines Michelet's atypical 19th-century anti-clerical and anti-medieval attitude that reflects the author's nationalist fervor. Lastly, the article ends with Michelet's influence on feminists who embrace the emblematic subversiveness that the witch brings with her.

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Asatru Traditions Of Witchcraft

Asatru is frequently regarded as one of the Neopagan family of religions. That family includes Wicca, Druidism, and re-creations of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and other ancient Pagan religions. However, many Asatruers prefer the term "Heathen" or "Pagan" rather than "Neopagan;" they look upon their tradition as "not just a branch on the Neopagan tree" but as a separate tree. Unlike Wicca, which has gradually evolved into many different traditions, the reconstruction of Asatru has been based on the surviving historical record. Its followers have maintained it as closely as possible to the original religion of the Norse people. During the early part of the 20th Century, the National Socialist Party in Germany attempted to pervert Asatru by grafting parts of the religion onto Nazis racist beliefs. Today, some neo-Nazis groups are attempting to continue the practice.

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Opening The Circle

The High Priestess goes to each of the four directions in turn, and draws a Banishing Pentacle, saying,

Guardians of the East (South, West, North), Powers of Air , (Fire, Water, Earth),

We thank you
For joining in our circle
And we ask for your blessing
As you depart
May there be peace between us
Now and forever. Blessed be.
She raises her athame to the sky and touches it to the earth, then opens her
arms and says,

The circle is open, but unbroken,
May the peace of the Goddess
Go in your hearts,
Mercy meet, and merry part.
And merry meet again. Blessed be.

***

To watching winds we wish fair traveling;
To sleepless dead sweet rest we send;
Gods and Goddesses, go with praises --
See: the circle is severed thus. [cut with sword at east]

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Witch Warlock And Magician Historical Sketches Of Magic And Witchcraft

Book: Witch Warlock And Magician Historical Sketches Of Magic And Witchcraft by William Henry Davenport Adams

The following pages may be regarded as a contribution towards that 'History of Human Error' which was undertaken by Mr. Augustine Caxton. I fear that many minds will have to devote all their energies to the work, if it is ever to be brought to completion and, indeed, it may plausibly be argued that its completion would be an impossibility, since every generation adds something to the melancholy record "pulveris exigui parva munera". However this may be, little more remains to be said on the subjects which I have here considered from the standpoint of a sympathetic though incredulous observer. Alchemy, Magic, Witchcraft — how exhaustively they have been investigated will appear from the list of authorities which I have drawn up for the reader's convenience.

They have been studied by adepts and by critics, as realities and as delusions ; and almost the last word would seem to have been said by Science — though not on the side of the adepts, who still continue to dream of the Hermetic philosophy, to lose themselves in fanciful pictures, theurgic and occult, and to write about the mysteries of magic with a aimplicitj of faith which we may wonder at, but bound to respect.

It has not been my purpose, in the present volume, to attempt a General History of magic and alchemy, or ii scientific inquiry into their psychological aspects. I have confined myself to a sketch of their progress in I England, and to a narrative of the lives of our principal magicians. This occupies the first part. The second is devoted to an historical review of witchcraft in Great Britain, and an Examination into the most remarkable Witch-Trials, in which I have endeavoured to bring out their peculiar features, presenting much of the evidence adduced, and in some cases the socalled Confessions of the victims, in the original language. I believe that the details, notwithstanding the reticence imposed upon me by considerations of delicacy and decorum, will surprise the reader, and that he will readily admit the profound interest attaching to them, morally and intellectually. I have added a chapter on the 'Literature of Witchcraft', which, I hope, is tolerably exhaustive, and now offer the whole as an effort to present, in a popular and readable form, the result of careful and conscientious study extending over many years. (W. H. D. A.)

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William Henry Davenport Adams - Witch Warlock And Magician Historical Sketches Of Magic And Witchcraft Ocr Version
William Henry Davenport Adams - Witch Warlock And Magician Historical Sketches Of Magic And Witchcraft

Voodoos And Obeahs Phases Of West India Witchcraft

Book: Voodoos And Obeahs Phases Of West India Witchcraft by Joseph John William

1932. Voodoo and obeah are distinct from one another, both in origin and practice, and to understand the force and influence they originally exercised over their devotees, we must disassociate them from the myriad of other forms of magic that have impinged themselves upon them. The author spent a vast amount of time in Jamaica, studying the people, seeking out practitioners and sought to extend his knowledge. He has spent nearly twenty-five years culling the works of others, gleaning the facts from the fiction. This volume is a result of his research and observations.

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Embracing The Witch And The Goddess

Book: Embracing The Witch And The Goddess by Kathryn Rountree

The purpose of the book is to present an ethnography of New Zealand feminist witches – to colour one small space in the global picture of Paganism – and to engage with a number of issues and debates which concern the feminist spirituality movement as a whole. I have also compared New Zealand witches with those in places where the movement is much better known, chiefly the US and UK. The first part of the book deals more with global concerns in relation to the study of witchcraft and the Goddess, while the second part is a close-up study of feminist witches and women involved in Goddess spirituality in New Zealand. Chapter five, which discusses my methodological approach as a feminist anthropologist, introduces the New Zealand ethnography. Because the readership for books about Paganism and witchcraft is wide – including scholars and witches, and readers who are both and neither – I have tried to write in a way that will be useful and accessible for this broad readership.

In writing some sections of the book I have drawn on previously published articles. Chapter four draws on material from two papers (Rountree 1999 and 2001). An earlier version of chapter 11, titled ‘How magic works: New Zealand feminist witches’ theories of ritual action’ was published in Anthropology of Consciousness, volume 13, number 1, 2002, published by the American Anthropological Association. Aspects of this work have also been presented at a number of national and international conferences, and I am indebted to all who have offered insightful and provocative feedback and encouragement, especially at several meetings of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand and at the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of religion Study Group’s conference in 2001.

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