Description
Typescript excerpt from Book of Shadows giving instructions for the consecration of the Athame
Undated typescript excerpted from a Book of Shadows giving instructions for the ritual consecration of the Witches’ knife or Athame, followed by a list of the “eight ways of magic.”
How to cite:
Anonymous, “Athame.” Typescript from a Book of Shadows. Date unknown. Alexandrian Witchcraft Timeline & Archive. www.alexandrianwitchcraft.org/bos-athame/
Transcription
ATHAME
When the Moon is waning put water into your Cauldron, sprinkle in these herbs:
4 parts powdered dragon[’]s blood.
4 parts powdered [r]ue.
1 part dried ground peppercorn.
1 part dried ground ginger.
1 pinch sulpher [sic].
1 pinch magnetized iron filings or powdered lodestone.
Exorcise your knife with water and salt from the Chalice. Cense with some of the herbs mentioned. Heat the blade of your knife as hot as possible, then plunge it into the Cauldron, saying:
“Blade of steel I conjure thee
To ban such things as named by me.
As my word is so mote it be![”]
Now do this three times, then magnetize the blade by stroking it with a lodestone. Hold the Athame in your left hand, magnet in the right. Begin at the handle end and draw down to the tip. Do this for seven minutes at each of the Watchtowers beginning in the East. When you reach the North put on your marks[,] saying: “So mote it be!”
Now bury it point down in earth for three days, then it is ready for use with the Moon Priestess.
Kneeling Man. Kneeling Woman. Power of the Athame.
Horned God. Kanayna. Scourge and Kiss. Waxing and Waning Moons. Arayda.
8 ways of Magic.