Using Your Wand
Wands are used in many ways, both presently and historically. In Harry Potter novels and films we see the wand used as a pointer and Professor Flitwick advises us to "swish and flick." That is one example of where J.K. Rowling, the author of these novels, does offer some reasonably good advice.
Wands work as symbolic tools. They are not exactly like "tools" in the usual sense of screwdrivers and hammers, which engage the material world in a material way. Rather, they engage the astral and metaphysical world in a metaphysical way. They act as conduits of the wizard's intention and imagination. Which is to say, imaginal power.
I use the word "imaginal" to distinguish what we are talking about from "imagination" in the usual sense which has come to mean "something that doesn't really exist." We often say, "it's just imaginary." Well, that is true, but we seldom stop to explain to our children or students what "just imaginary" means and why we append that dismissive "just" to the front of it. The psychologist Carl Jung and his followers have used the word "imaginal" as an alternative to "imaginary" which does not carry the dismissive connotation. When I say "imaginal power," I am suggesting that images in the mind can extert power, or in other words, act upon the world. They act upon it in non-material ways, and our language has become so constructed to describe the material world as if it had no astral underpinnings that we often must struggle to find a terminology with which to discuss magic.
When you use a wand for magic you are indeed using it as a pointer. But what words you utter and what images you conjure in your imagination will determine the extent to which your intention actualy passes through the wand into the world. Alas, J.K. Rowling, however entertaining, has not done service to real magic by leading her readers to suppose that saying an incantation correctly (that is, pronouncing it right) and focusing the attention on the result is all their is to magic. If you read between the lines of her stories, you can see that she knows or suspects this to be the case. There is some inner work going on that determines the success or failure of a spell, but Ms Rowling does not explain what that is.
Nor can I blame her. It is very hard indeed to use English to explain what that inner work is. And indeed, it pay be hard for any language except it be of a people who all share the experience of interacting with the material world of causality on an astral level. Again, I must point out, as I did in my essay on Alferic magic, that I use the term "astral" rather loosely where some other Theosophically-minded writers might say "etheric" or even "archetypal" to distinguish the layers of Otherworlds. Kabbalistic and Theosophical thinkers go deeper than I care to here to help us understand where our consciousness is when we are performing different kinds of magic and where in the cosmos different powers reside, so to speak.
The key business of using a wand is to project through it your intentions. You do not need to point it at an object, but if you want to act upon an object, by all means point. You may be spell-casting at a considerable distance and only be able to point in a particular direction. One of the fundamental traits of magic is that it does act at a distance, and you do not need to be standing within "firing distance" of a "target" to affect it.
However, just in that last sentence, we see emerge one of the basic difficulties with our language. We do not have terms for magical operations and so resort to metaphors and all too often this takes the form of metaphors of weaponry. A wand is not a weapon, nor is a spell a projectile or missile. If we think of them that way, we are engaging in metaphorical thought which itself will affect the magic we do. We imagine a wand to be a weapon, and then will struggle with making it do anything else but cause harm. Similarly, magic is very unlike arrows or bullets. A magical spell is a very complex entity, an extention of one's soul, and highly dependent upon both the conscious and unconscious intentions behind its construction. Wizards and witches -- as almost every fairy tale will tell you -- frequently run up against the problem that they do not themselves know the full intentions they put behind a spell and fail to control its results.
This is where both intuition and divination come in. As a wizard, you need to try to predict the outcome of a magical working. Divination is the tried and true method of doing so, but divination is also dependent upon intuition and the ability of the seer to correctly read his or her omens. This aspect of using your wand for magic is, obviously, a very complicated field of study in itself and is partially dependent, as most things, on the individual's talent in this direction.
The physical motions made with a wand are in fact the least significant aspect of how to use your wand. Pointing or tapping an object, touching the tip of the wand to an object, or waving it in circles or spirals over an object are all useful and valid gestures, but there are many more possibilities. Many ceremonial magicians use a wand of a special kind as a symbolic instrument much as a king would use a scepter. The wand has an elaborate design on the top and is held upright. Think of a caduceus or the traditional fairy godmother's wand with a star on top. Such wands (even the fairytale sort) are not silly, but illustrate the use of symbols. What better symbol of astral forces than a star? It is not more silly than using snakes to symbolize healing.
Pictured below, examples of wands used in Golden Dawn magic.
The question often arises what to do with your wand if you are not "aiming" it at something. Spells of circumstanciation and information seldom have a simple object. They are intended to influence the flow of causation and so there is no particular direction in which to aim the wand. In such cases, I have found that an upward spiraling motion is practical and effective. The thought in such workings is to assemble the pattern of intentions carefully, relate it to the world of time (the present moment's configuration of influences) and then release that intention or pattern into the cosmos to work upon the larger pattern of causality. The releasing of the pattern through a spiral form is analogous to the casting of a circle and its uncasting: It imitates the motion of the heavenly bodies and the form of the most fundamental determining factors in nature.
In the creation of potions or tictures, oils or other admixtures as vehicles to hold magical properties and intentions, the wand is best used by tapping the vessel or pointing at the mixture rather than dipping it into the liquid, especially if hot. Oils can be put onto the surface of a wand but placing a particular spell oil on your wand may end up by limiting it to the working of that single spell, so I couldn't advise it. In some symbolic rituals, the wand is placed into an empty cauldron as a symbol of the generative force entering into the womb of the cosmos. This is one of the traditional gestures that may be performed with a wand in ritual drama, which is another sort of magic that serves to connect the wizard or witch with the great forces and patterns of the cosmos, such as the union of apparent opposites.
These are just a few ideas or pointers, if you'll for give the pun, and are by no means to be taken as a comprenhisve guide. Every particular magical tradition may teach specific ways to use a wand and you are advised strongly to seek out a teacher well-versed in a particular magical current in order to learn more of these matters.
©2006 The Bardic Institute
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