One of the practices that I like to do is craft my own magical tools. The benefit of creating your own magical tools is that you have this intimate experience with the entire process where you marry the emotional, mental, spiritual associations and correspondences to the physical tool you are creating. The result is that you know that tool in a different way than one you might be. You’ve created it.
But there’s an interesting challenge with creating a magical tool. What if you don’t have the skill set to tool making tools to create a magical tool? What do you then? For instance I don’t how to work with metal, and while I have limited experience working with wood. I don’t have the tools or space to work with wood. What do you when you want to create magical tools, but can’t create them traditionally?
You get creative.
I may not be able to make an athame the traditional way, but I could create something which represents it and the associations, by creating a painting of the athame and using that painting as the magical tool. I can do the same with other traditional tools and I can also create my own specialized tools using a similar approach.
For instance, I have a timeline painting I’ve created that acts as a magical tool for timeline scanning purposes. when I created the painting I created it as a magical tool. You can take a similar approach to your own magical work and you don’t need to be a gifted artist to accomplish this. You simply need some paints, canvas, and a paintbrush. And also a concept plan for what the tool is and what it can do. Let me walk you through how all that would work.
Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020
When I first decide to create a magical tool, I’ll write out how the tool ought to work and what it ought to do and what types of spiritual influences it connects with and mediates. This helps me get clear on the function of the tool and helps me conceptually plan it out so I can start making it into a reality.
When I create a painting to serve as a magical tool, what I do is connect with what that tool is supposed to mediate and represent and allow it to work through me to create the painting. At the same time, I build specific parameters into the tool, with a focus on how it will help me accomplish specific objectives and how it will allow access to what it represents. I use the concept plan I’ve created to help me program the tool so it performs the specific functions and tasks I want it to accomplish, while mediating the influences it represents.
You don’t have to limit yourself to painting either. I’ve created magical tools from sculpting clay and I’ve also used existing tools, but modified them, such as the case where I took a ouija board and modified it for a type of space/time magic I wanted to work with and another case where I took a wooden box and painted the inside of it with a silver web to represent the web of space and time. And if you want some ideas for how you could apply art magic to magical tools, check out my book The Magic of Art.
