Original Magic: The Rituals and Initiations of the Persian Magi - Michael M. Hughes 2018
Altars: Creating Your Magical Dashboard
Toolkit for Magical Activism
If you’re going to take magic seriously, you’ll need to set up a proper workspace. As with any endeavor, having a space separate from your day-to-day activities and the proper tools at hand will allow you maximum effectiveness in your magical workings. In most traditions this space is called an altar, and I like to think of it as my ritual dashboard or spiritual cockpit, the control center from which I launch into, and navigate, magical space.
It’s helpful, but not necessary, if your altar occupies a permanent space in your home. Obviously, a permanent altar is not always possible, whether due to a need for secrecy from roommates or spouses, to keep away from pets, or simply because of space constraints. In that case, temporary altars may be set up when necessary and taken down and packed away into a suitable container.
The altar serves as a focal point for your energy and sets aside a sanctified space for magical workings. It houses your working tools and, over time, will acquire a palpable energy. Merely standing or sitting in front of it will allow you to quickly slip into a heightened state of consciousness.
You will need to ensure privacy while working at your altar. Nothing kills the magical vibe more quickly than a roommate or child wandering into the middle of a ritual. Do whatever is necessary to ensure your absolute privacy—make it known to others that they are not to interrupt except for absolute emergencies. If you have a companion or roommate who is antagonistic to your practice, tell them you are meditating or working. If you have young children, you may need to wait until they are asleep. Of course, privacy means shutting off your phone and other electronic devices, too. Time at the altar is sacred and should be treated as such.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a secluded yard, beach, or nearby field or wooded area, you can set up an outdoor altar, though you may want to carry your working tools with you versus leaving them exposed to the elements or to curious people or critters.
Options for permanent or semipermanent altar spaces may include the following:
• A section of your desk
• The top of a dresser, cabinet, or table
• A dedicated section of a bookshelf
• A hearth or mantle
• A specially constructed altar of wood or other materials
• A slab of stone or wood
• A large rock, tree stump, or other flat area outdoors
If a permanent altar is undesirable or impossible, find a suitable spot where you can set up a temporary workspace. Some people use a covered box, crate, or other unobtrusive container (such as a plastic tub) to store their working tools, perhaps covering it with a cloth during rituals to make it less drab and utilitarian. When finished, the tools go back in the container until the next working.
You may sometimes find the need to construct a temporary altar outside of your home. For a protection ritual for an endangered wooded area, for example, you may want to build a temporary altar for your spell on a rock, stump, in the crook of a tree, or just on the ground. You might even set up a temporary altar in front of you on a sidewalk during a protest ritual, as many witches did outside of Trump Towers in New York and Chicago during the very first binding spell in 2017. Just be sure to take all of your components with you when you’re done—the “leave no trace” ethic should be part of magic, too (with certain exceptions, as detailed later in the book).
Sometimes you may want to construct a secret or hidden altar, perhaps to protect an area from development or to bind the energies of a corporation on its property. Archaeologists and historians have found evidence of hidden altars and other magical tools made by enslaved African Americans in a number of historic residences. You may want to do rituals at the site of an injustice in a surreptitious way by creating an altar that blends in with its surroundings, but at which you can perform regular workings to keep it empowered.
You may also put together a portable altar, especially if you are traveling as an activist or want to do regular rituals at different locations. Any easily carried container works, or you can simply keep the required altar materials safely wrapped in your backpack.
The key to creating your altar is to make it truly yours, reflective of your personality, your aesthetics, and your magical affinities and goals. Strive to make it a singular work of art. After each monthly Trump binding spell, members of the official Facebook group post photos of their altars. Their beauty and diversity are breathtaking. Some have specific themes, whether Egyptian, Wiccan, or Greek. Others are composed of shells, plants, rocks, crystals, wood, and other natural materials. Many are very simple, with just the spell’s components artfully arranged, while others use a collection of colored candles, deity statues, personal symbolic items, and handmade art.
Work to make your altar beautiful so that even if someone didn’t realize its magical nature, they would see it as a work of art (and if a nervous fundamentalist Christian neighbor visits for coffee, you could tell him or her that’s exactly what it is).
Your altar may include any or all of the following:
• Candles
• Representations of the four classic elements (earth, water, fire, and air), as detailed below
• Incense burner and incense
• Deity, animal, saint, or other statues (any of which may be animated or “enlivened”—see Chapter Nine)
• Flowers
• Gemstones and crystals
• Shells, feathers, bones
• Herbs, roots, leaves, seeds
• Small bell
• Personal items and mementos
• Photographs or illustrations of target people, groups, or institutions
• Drawings, sigils, or other power images
• Cloth covering or special altar cloth
• Broom
• Magical tools from your tradition
Many of the spells in this book require specific items that may temporarily take a prominent place on your altar, and they are noted in the instructions.
The Four Elements
Many of the world’s magical traditions honor the four classical elements: earth, water, fire, and air. I recommend giving them each a place on your altar. If your tradition has an association for each element and direction (such as air in the east, water in the west, fire in the south, and earth in the north, as found in many Western esoteric and witchcraft traditions), then you should arrange them as such. Otherwise, simply having the four elements present and arranged in a pleasing manner is sufficient.
Some suggestions include:
Earth: Container of soil or salt, rock, crystal, geode, petrified wood, plant, pentacle
Water: Chalice or other container of water, cauldron, glass bowl of blue gemstones or crystals, seashells
Fire: Candle (red, yellow, or white), container of ash or burnt wood, volcanic rock
Air: Feather, incense or aromatherapy burner, fragrant herbs or flowers, wind chimes
You may want to align your altar to the four cardinal directions if you are part of a tradition (like Wicca) that is directionally based. Otherwise, you can decide to follow the broad esoteric tradition that aligns altars facing the east (where the sun rises and the metaphorical source of spiritual light). But directional alignment is not necessary because your altar becomes the symbolic center of your spiritual practice wherever you place it. The key is to locate it somewhere you can have privacy when doing your ritual work.
My Basic Altar Arrangement
A white “spirit” candle (seven-day glass prayer candle) goes in the center and toward the back of my altar and also serves as the symbol for elemental fire. For special workings, I will sometimes swap it out for a similar white candle with a sigil affixed it (sigil creation and use is detailed later in this chapter).
Arranged artfully in front of the white candle are these:
A feather, representing elemental air. My old neighborhood hosted an enormous number of crows, so I have a collection of beautiful crow feathers on hand for rituals.
A chalice, representing elemental water. My chalice is a relic from the days when I practiced the Golden Dawn system of magic and is hand-painted with sigils and Hebrew lettering.
A small dish with consecrated coarse sea salt, representing elemental earth.
I also have a classic three-legged copper cauldron, which I serendipitously found in an antique shop when I started practicing Wicca as a young adult. It serves as an incense burner (I place disks of charcoal in it, on which I burn loose incense) and also a place to dispose of burnt materials.
Looking on over the elements is a statue of the ancient Greek god Hermes (also known by his Roman name, Mercury), the patron of magic. It’s a reproduction of an ancient statue that I ordered from Greece, and as with many of my magical “action figures,” it has been enlivened—a process you can read about in chapter 9. I have a number of enlivened statues and devotional candles that I swap in and out depending upon the job that needs to be done. When they’re not “at work” they rest on a special shelf of their own. And even when they’re not actively working, I make sure to give them regular attention, as I would any guest in my home.
Next to Hermes sits a very special monkey I named Voodoo Monkey when I received him as a gift in my early twenties. He didn’t need any enlivening—the person who sculpted him was clearly a magician and knew how to imbue spirit into wood (or call the spirit out of wood—either way, an artistic genius). Ever since the day Voodoo Monkey came into my life, he has been with me, following me through multiple moves, relationships, traumas, and joys. He’s as dear to me as any of my human or animal friends, and once, while I was under the influence of a magic form of fungi, he opened up and shared some of his secrets. Maybe you have a similar object in your life, and maybe it already occupies a space on your altar. You know it if you do.
Depending upon the season, I may have fresh or dried flowers, leaves, or herbs. Since I often employ tarot cards in rituals, I frequently have a tarot card in place. A couple of very special shells and rocks round out the tableau.
And that is my basic altar. What will yours contain?
Ancestor Altars
Many cultures keep altars to their ancestors. It is probably one of the oldest extant spiritual practices, and you can see it in our era in African spiritual traditions, in Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, among Spiritualist churches, and in some nontraditional Christian homes.
For a number of reasons, some simply intuitive and aesthetic and some traditional, I do not believe in mixing working altars and ancestral altars. First, your ancestors may not care for your type of magical practice—Great Grandma Judith, who went to Mass every Sunday, may not be too keen about hanging around while you’re doing your skyclad Wiccan rituals.
There is also a strong prohibition in some traditions against mixing photos or mementos of living people with the dead. I agree. It makes me uncomfortable, and I suggest keeping the living and the dead separate.
The spirits of the dead who went before you are some of your most important and useful magical allies. But if you want to work with them, give them their own sacred space. Keep it simple—photos or items from their lives, special food or treats (like cigars for my dad), a cool drink of water, and a plain white candle.
A Living Altar
An altar is a living being. Like all living things, it will grow and evolve as you grow and evolve. Just as your body sheds hair, perspiration, and skin, your altar will shed candle wax, ash, husks of flowers, crumbled herbs, and evaporated water. While some elements may remain for years, others will change, mutate, or go away completely as you grow in experience and your needs shift. If you’re engaged on a long-term campaign for racial justice, for example, a statue or tarot image of Lady Justice or the Egyptian goddess Ma’at may take up long-term residence. When that campaign ends and a looming confrontation with a developer over a local forest demands your attention, a blown-glass image of the earth or a Neolithic goddess statue may take her place.
The world changes, you change, and your altar will change in response. Let your intuition and your artistic, aesthetic, and metaphorical impulses guide you in creating your ever-evolving magical dashboard. Before long, it will be a glowing power center, always on, always ready for you to go to work.