The purpose and function of magick is a spiritual science. It is a technical system of training which has a divine objective, rather than a material or terrestrial one. Likewise, the equipment used in ritual magick is not the sole means which the magician utilises, nor the only instrument used to achieve his ends.
But why is that the magician does use such props as an Athame (dagger), cup, bell, incense and so on?
Simply put, it is the means by which he is able to understand himself and commune with the invisible but no less real parts of nature. Magick has already been defined as science having for its objective the training and strengthening of Will and Imagination. More than anything else, it is thought and will which really count in magick and the magickal hypothesis is that it is using tools that the enhancements of creative abilities is obtained.
The important point is that tools, robes, incense and so on are symbols representing either an inherent occult force as man or an essence or principle obtaining as an intelligent moving force in the universe. The prime intention is to arouse a harmonious thought or impetus in the imagination which exalts the magician’s being in the direction arranged by the character of the ceremony and by the individual nature of the symbols.
The elemental tools, which are those which are placed on the altar during magickal ceremonies: the wand, sword or dagger (Athame), cup and pentacle which represent the letters of Tetragrammatron and the four elements from which the cosmos has been built. Fire is attributed to the wand which is placed in the south, the cup is water (the west), air is allocated to the Athame (the east) and the pentacle symbolises earth and is placed in the north. There is no weapon representing the fifth element, spirit, for it is invisible.
There is a whole series of correspondences which come into play. For example, each god is characterised by some particular tool which expresses its essential nature: when using the wand, the magician takes on the authority and wisdom of Tahuti before the council of the gods.
The wand is the will, representing the wisdom and spiritual presence of the creative self and it should be used upright. The cup or chalice is receptive and a symbol of the intuition and understanding which is ever open waiting for the supernal dew which, according to the Book of Splendour, descends from the highest regions of the pure soul.
In ceremonial magick, the cup is rarely used, and then only in the highest invocations, to hold the libations.
The blade of the Athame is of cold steel, and hard and sharp like the all pervading air, ever in a state of flux and motion. By this symbol is understood the mind which, without training, is volatile and in a state of constant motion, without stability or easy concentration. Since it is a cutting instrument its prime function in ceremonial magick is banishing.
Finally, the pentacle is a token of the body. It is the real expression of a complete thought and act of will.
