Waking Up Materia

Enliven the herbs.
Awaken the stone.
Vivify the candles.

You’ve likely heard all this and more in spell instructions over the course of your life. Certainly, if you’ve taken any of my classes you’ve heard me harp on about how you need to wake up the materia you’re working with to get the most out of the spells that you perform, particularly in a folk-magic context. This article aims to elaborate upon that.

From grimoire consecrations enchanting, purifying and enlivening anything from charcoal discs upon which incense is burned (I conjure you, creature of fire) to the candles you use (I conjure you, O creatures of wax) to preparing lamens to aid in the summoning of spirits, every aspect of the work is seen to this way. Everything is given special magical attention and rightly so. Everything, simply put, is called to action to better aid your spiritual endeavor.

In terms of conjure, it’s common to see a worker whispering to a small pile of herbs in their hands before adding them to a candle or into a bundle-spell. To make a conjure lamp, even, it’s useful to empower each part of the apparatus itself towards the magical ends of not merely containing the spell but, in a burst of genuine practicality, not burning you when you operate it. Even the naming and calling of promises made, dates of birth and more are common while working a spell, making a doll of someone or linking a casting to a bagful of soil from a property.

In short, as a true operative animist, I’d entreat people to remember that everything has a spirit. Plants, animals, parts of animals, soil, stones, your smartphone, your car, the water in a pothole on the side of the road, a novel you’re reading, an internet meme… The world is, well-and-truly, ripe with spirits and spiritual activity of various kinds. It’s your ability, as a magician, to tap into that and call it to aid and empower.

But how, I am often asked, does one actually do that? Are there energetic practices? Does one simply “play pretend” faking it until one makes it? What gives?

Well… the answer to both of those is simply yes. Yes there are and yes you do. Can you wash the handful of hyssop in pranic force, vital energy, aetheric current, etc and call its spirit to action? You surely can. What about chanting mantras over it and encircling it with the astral form of the letters that build that phrase? Oh yes. Can you also baptize and awaken it with the sign of the cross or psalm 23? You better believe it. You can even just whisper quietly to the herb “hey, hyssop, wake up and help me do this because the bible says you can” and it will know, called by its own legacy, that it is here to work it out.

The trick, though, to getting good at this as well as any skill, sorcerous or otherwise, is practice. Every time you apply one or several of these methods, observe the item in your hands or before you on the altar. Does it feel different? Did its weight change? Does it seem to have a fuzzy aura around it now that you can swear you see but might also be making up? Has the room changed in some appreciable but ephemeral way we often associate with the term “spiritual tension?”

This aspect of sorcery is one of the more idiosyncratic. It’s different for each of us and, thus, it’s all the more crucial to get practicing to see how it feels.

You’ll know when you’ve got it working.

---

For more information about various techniques that enhance the practice of operative animism, consider taking my Magic of Land Spirits class or the ever-popular Spirit Diplomacy Course. Both are excellent aids for the discerning individual who wants to delve deeper into these subjects and more.