In Wicca, wands are traditionally used to summon and control angels and genies, but have later come to also be used for general spell-casting. The ceremonial magic of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn uses several different types of wands for different purposes, the most prominent of which are the fire wand and the lotus wand. In Levi's 1862 book Philosophie Occulte, he wrote a fake excerpt of a Hebrew version of the Key of Solomon, and that fake excerpt was part of the inspiration for the Golden Dawn's ritual objects, and especially their lotus wand. Levi himself mentioned most of those objects (all except for the cup) in his writings because they are in the Key of Solomon, whereas he got the cup from the tarot suit of cups. The creators of the Golden Dawn got their idea to use a wand, as well as their other main ritual objects (dagger, sword, hexagrammic pentacle, and cup), from the writings of the mid-19th century occultist author Eliphas Levi. That 1888 English version inspired Gerald Gardner, the creator of Wicca, to incorporate the wand and various other ritual objects into Wicca. In 1888, there was the publication of an English translation of the Key of Solomon by Samuel Mathers (one of the co-founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), which made the text of the Key of Solomon available to the anglophone world. The Key of Solomon became popular among occultists for hundreds of years. The wand idea from the Book of Honorius, along with various other ideas from that grimoire, were later incorporated into the 16th-century grimoire The Key of Solomon. Wands were introduced into the occult via the 13th-century Latin grimoire The Oathbound Book of Honorius. Wands are used in The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Thelema, and Wicca, and by independent practitioners of magic. Īce of Wands from the Rider–Waite tarot deck While the Barsom is not a wand itself, it was also used for divination purposes, and may be a form of prototypical wand from which later magical wands descend. The Barsom used by Zoroastrian Magi is a bundle of twigs that was used during religious ceremonies. It seems that the use of these objects in Egypt declines after this point. The latest apotropaic wand found belongs to the Second Intermediate Period king Senebkay. These apotropaic wands were also inscribed with protective text on the flat side, such as "Cut off the head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children whom the lady. most of whom carry knives to ward off evil forces". The earliest apotropaic wands used in Egypt were undecorated, but "from around 1850 BC, they were usually provided with decorations of apotropaic figures directly related to the sun religion, or particular aspects of it, inscribed on the convex upper side. Hippopotamus tusks may have been used to invoke Taweret the hippopotamus goddess of childbirth. Due to the curved nature of a hippopotamus tusk, these wands were curved, with one pointed end (the point of the tusk) and one blunt end (where the tusk was removed from the hippopotamus). These wands were made out of hippopotamus tusks which were split down the middle lengthwise, producing two wands, each with one flat side and one curved side. It is mentioned by the author in Gower - A Guide to Ancient and Historic Monuments on the Gower Peninsula that these might have been wands and are depicted as such in a reconstruction drawing of the burial of the 'Red Lady'.Īncient Egyptian apotropaic wand carved from a hippopotamus tuskĭuring the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, apotropaic wands began to be used during birth ceremonies. It is mentioned that 'rods' (as well as rings) were found with Red Lady of Paviland in Britain. It is possible that wands were used by pre-historic peoples. A stick that is used for reaching, pointing, drawing in the dirt, and directing other people, is one of the earliest and simplest of tools. In modern times, wands are usually associated with stage magic or supernatural magic, but there have been other uses, all stemming from the original meaning as a synonym of rod and virge. Long versions of wands are often styled in forms of staves or sceptres, which could have large ornamentation on the top. The Magic Circle, by John William Waterhouse (1886), portrays a woman using a wand to create a ritual spaceĪ wand is a thin, light-weight rod that is held with one hand, and is traditionally made of wood, but may also be made of other materials, such as metal or plastic.
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