Ingredients in magic

[Erebus]

A lot of magical systems will make use of physical elements during ritual, ranging from plants, candles and stones to blood, bone and feathers. Often the ingredients used are burned, buried or disposed of in some manner. This thread is here to discuss the use of ingredients in magic in general. Why are they used? Which ingredients are best? Are they necessary?
Any point you have about ingredients, post it here. It doesn't matter whether you post a recipe for incense or simply explain why you don't use ingredients at all. This is an all purpose ingredient thread

Let me start off by saying that I myself do like to use ingredients, though I generally keep it simple. In my opinion there is a danger in using a shopping list of ingredients for two reasons: The first is that you could bankrupt yourself buying everything you need to use (I feel it's far better to collect your own ingredients if you can). The second reason is that there is a temptation to focus solely on the ingredients used. Burning a mandrake root wrapped in black silk and anointed in blood isn't going to curse anybody if you don't apply the mental and emotional elements required in the ritual.

There are three ingredients I use in almost every ritual though. Candles, paper and blood.
Candles are wonderful for several reasons, firstly they set the atmosphere perfectly and help you get in the right frame of mind for spellwork. Secondly, they can be used as a basis for the ritual by themselves depending on what colour, scent and style of candle you use and what you associate with those elements. Finally they can be used for burning requests. The very act of transforming a request into smoke and ash (I tend to scatter the ash into the wind myself) is a fantastic way of releasing an idea/desire into the aether.
Paper is useful for writing requests and creating sigils. It's cheap, easy to burn and allows for a huge variety of expression whether you simply use it to write a name or go one further and create a poem, picture or sigil. I will typically burn or hide any paper I use in ritual.
Blood is a controversial topic and I personally don't see much point in taking blood from an animal and while a drop of another person's blood could be used, I've no idea how you'd acquire it legally if they weren't present during the ritual. This makes it more difficult to use another person's blood if they are an unwilling/unwitting target. Having said this though, a drop of your own blood seems to help a spell take effect far more quickly. I will point out that in my opinion it's not a good idea to use your own blood in a curse, some magicians do it and that's fine, but as for me I don't want any part of myself going into a negative spell.
I feel that blood is effective for a couple of reasons. Firstly, spells require intent and desire to work. If you aren't willing to suffer a pinprick do you really have enough desire to perform the spell? Secondly, blood is life and by sacrificing a small amount of it for your ritual you add that extra bit of your own being into the spell.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Foci/ingredients are tools for visualization. Magic may be performed better by a more hands-on person in a more hands-on way, such as candles, wands, writing, robes, etc. They're nothing more than helpful illusions.

 

[Erebus]

Foci/ingredients are tools for visualization. Magic may be performed better by a more hands-on person in a more hands-on way, such as candles, wands, writing, robes, etc. They're nothing more than helpful illusions.

Got to agree with you there.

 

[Sylvan]

Foci/ingredients are tools for visualization. Magic may be performed better by a more hands-on person in a more hands-on way, such as candles, wands, writing, robes, etc. They're nothing more than helpful illusions.

Here's where I disagree. I think there are qualities to the substance of the objects themselves, which we are tapping into and working with. It's a collaboration, or can be if we would like. That being said, the perspective that all these connections to the physical world are just illusionary is certainly one I keep in my paradigmatic toolkit, as it were, but is no longer my primary. I have found the old school "rootworker" attitude of talking to plants, particularly those you grow and harvest yourself, and honoring the substance of the objects you are working with as a "creature of [wood, glass, stone, etc]" to be a powerful and personally satisfying way of working.

I don't have a lot of tools, certainly not conventional ones. A few stones, a brass key, candles and glasses of cool water. A wooden pentacle. Some old tokens from past initiations. As I work on things objects begin to accrue. I inherit things like my greatgrandfathers 32nd degree Masonic ring and several old netsuke. Drying herbs to be used in later baths, teas, or incenses are arranged around candles, pools of wax drip across sigils, shots of rum are poured to spirits, protective and purifying scents are flicked across the surface of it all with quick fingers accustomed to the gesture. The whole thing just starts humming. This may be all just to psyche myself up, and I certainly have done plenty of work no tools other than paper, runes, sigils, and seething (this was my MO for years), but there is something to all this stuff.

Let me start off by saying that I myself do like to use ingredients, though I generally keep it simple. In my opinion there is a danger in using a shopping list of ingredients for two reasons: The first is that you could bankrupt yourself buying everything you need to use (I feel it's far better to collect your own ingredients if you can). The second reason is that there is a temptation to focus solely on the ingredients used. Burning a mandrake root wrapped in black silk and anointed in blood isn't going to curse anybody if you don't apply the mental and emotional elements required in the ritual.

This is key and I agree completely. Getting lost in the ephemera is a real danger here. I would also add to the mental and emotional elements required the connection that one should make with the mandrake root as central to what I'm talking about here. The root is working with you to do this thing, becoming the stand in for the person or what have you. For some reason (for now lets not speculate about why or how our ancestors came to this conclusion) its nature is consonant with the nature of the change that needs to be wrought to the wyrd for this curse to take place.

On subject of blood magic, and btw Shyanekh I find it funny you break your own blood magic rule in your example spell there (unless you're talking about the targets blood), we should discuss another personal substance which can be produced and is considered by most to be far more.. uhhh... pleasant in the method of extraction. The condition one enters while preparing to produce said substance is quite consistent with certain sigil charging procedures and is known, with a little discipline, to produce magically useful state of consciousness. Godforms or spirits can be interacted with in hypercharged "pathworking" scenarios and so forth. Fun times.

To go back to the subject of blood though, my old coven hooked me up with some of those little disposable testing needles for diabetics which produced the perfect amount of blood for the purpose of a small anointing. I have long since run out and was wondering if anyone knew where to get some of those without being a diabetic or seeming sketchy? Aren't similar things used in certain s&m circles?

 

[Erebus]

On subject of blood magic, and btw Shyanekh I find it funny you break your own blood magic rule in your example spell there (unless you're talking about the targets blood)

Haha well spotted In all honesty the example I gave was intended to sound dramatic more than anything.

Sexual fluids can indeed be useful, though I myself find blood to be more suitable for all purpose rituals. Again, this really depends on personal preference.

 

[Adramelek]

My ideal ritual chamber:

A small windowless room with black or dark red carpeting, walls and ceiling painted ultra-flat black. A trapezoidal shaped altar placed against the north wall, on the wall above the altar a large, thin-lined black light white or red inverted pentagram (in my case the Pentagram of Set). A black light, a can of sterno at the center of the altar (the Black Flame) and two black candles, one on either side of the altar for better illumination for rites which require reading from a manuscript.

Other ingredients or implements can be added in accordance with a particular rite - music, incense, bell, chalice/Grail, sword or dagger, statuary, etc. I personally don't need a whole lot of external visual stimuli to gain a Sense of the Powers of Darkness and to establish the Magical Link during my own rites. I try to keep it simple.

Xeper.
/Adramelek\

 

[darkstar]

Ingredients are useful but not really necessary.
I find that all the foci make things much easier to accomplish my goals. They help to channel and do their job quite well.
That being said, I think people get far too attached to these items. You won't always have them on hand and may have need to conduct a ritual without them at some point. This is why I force myself to conduct ritual both with and without my tools.

Also, I find that some people take the eclectic thing a bit far with tools. I'm all for finding your own way, and using what works for you. But at the same time, people should put more effort into researching various magic forms and WHY something is used for a particular purpose. I use the following example to anyone I am teaching the basics to. "If you need to cut something, you use a knife. You wouldn't use a spoon. If you did use a spoon, you may be able to eventually get through whatever you were trying to cut... but you're using more effort than it's worth."

Anyway these are just my basic thoughts on magic and foci. Just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in

 

[Gjallarhorn]

My ideal ritual chamber:

A small windowless room with black or dark red carpeting, walls and ceiling painted ultra-flat black. A trapezoidal shaped altar placed against the north wall, on the wall above the altar a large, thin-lined black light white or red inverted pentagram (in my case the Pentagram of Set). A black light, a can of sterno at the center of the altar (the Black Flame) and two black candles, one on either side of the altar for better illumination for rites which require reading from a manuscript.

Other ingredients or implements can be added in accordance with a particular rite - music, incense, bell, chalice/Grail, sword or dagger, statuary, etc. I personally don't need a whole lot of external visual stimuli to gain a Sense of the Powers of Darkness and to establish the Magical Link during my own rites. I try to keep it simple.

Xeper.
/Adramelek\

I read "trapezoidal shaped altar"...Haunter in the Dark reference?

 

[Adramelek]

I read "trapezoidal shaped altar"...Haunter in the Dark reference?

In some ways, yes. Plus a windowless ritual chamber i.e. the Windowless Crypt where the Pharaoh Nephren-Ka kept the Shining Trapezohedron. Primarily though it is my practice of the Magical "Law of the Trapezoid" developed by Anton LaVey.

Xeper.
/Adramelek\

 

[Gjallarhorn]

In some ways, yes. Plus a windowless ritual chamber i.e. the Windowless Crypt where the Pharaoh Nephren-Ka kept the Shining Trapezohedron. Primarily though it is my practice of the Magical "Law of the Trapezoid" developed by Anton LaVey.

Xeper.
/Adramelek\

Right, trapezohedron...and I just read that a month ago...

 

[Adramelek]

Right, trapezohedron...and I just read that a month ago...

If you're curious as to what a trapezohedron looks like go to my personal page and in my "Spiritual Black Dimensions" album there is a drawing of a trapezohedron, a 3 dimensional geometric object with 24 trapezoidal faces.

/Adramelek\

 

[Sylvan]

That's a good Lovecraft story. I am more interested in your use of a black light. Is that a common Setian thing or a personal innovation? I can't stand electrical light when I'm getting into the work. Try to turn off every machine in my immediate vicinity unless I'm using my electronics setup to do some corresponding sound-work. Or yeah that's another one of my tools: nord modular synthesizer. But a black light in a black room? Might be cool.