I have heard the discomfort that many modern people of Pagan or Magical practice have regarding the use of bodily fluids in magic. I have been asked, “What if you knew someone was going to be touching your magical tools? Would that not be unsanitary? Are you not concerned about that?”

To answer, no, I am not concerned. I would not

be touching others' magical tools because unless that person is a very close working partner of mine (a lover, partner, or a covenmate), I have no business touching a tool that has been so profoundly charged with someone else's energy. Because I understand that when one charges something with that high of a level of personal energy, it very much becomes a part of the magician. To touch another person's wand is to touch, in a sense, their phallus - and I don't do that to just anyone.

To touch someone's personal tools that have that level of power within them is to touch that person incredibly intimately. Once, and only once someone touched one of my personal tools without asking, and I was so irritated with her action that I couldn't use that tool again until I cleansed it immediately after she left. My public set of tools I'm not so picky about because not as much of myself is in them (especially if I want to show off some of my crafty handiwork), but I keep my personal athame on my hip at all times.

I have a working set of tools which I take out with myself to places where someone might handle them if needed. I have a personal set of tools which is for my own hands, only. One set, I bless with earth (salt) and water, and air and fire (incense), will rub with a tear from my eye and breathe upon. The other set is more personalized and not for just anyone's hands.

Please understand that I am not saying that the only way to charge magic is through using bodily fluids. What I am saying is that when we use bodily fluids in a magical act, it should be an incredibly sacred one and nothing less. I would not rub blood all over my car to protect against speeding tickets; in fact, it might get me stopped more frequently! However, I would say that it is perfectly appropriate to use bodily fluids in the invoking of the most profound and subtle energies of the great Cosmos whose body is the Great Goddess in Her Eternal Dance into an object which is to be a psychic extension of myself and a holy tool to be used in the deepening of my connection with Her.

All magical symbols are triggers for deeper parts of the mind; they are shortcut keys and because the brain is the most powerful and complex computer known, I will go with a technical analogy. magical symbols access those parts of us which typically lie dormant, underneath the barriers of the ego, sleeping deep in the unconscious. There is much power to be found there, but it is typically difficult to reach, lying elusive just beyond our grasp. Through divination, we get the map on how to find them, and through the use of magical symbols we create our direct route for access to them.

Some people on the Aspberger/autistic spectrum have phenomenal mental abilities. There are cases of Aspies who can calculate amazingly large numbers in split seconds, who can hear a complex piece of music once and recreate it immediately, and in the case of Rain Man calculate blackjack odds. Unfortunately, for many of these good people, it is more difficult to access some of the more commonly-used parts of the mind, such as speech and social understanding. Magic is the process of working the mind, heart and body towards achieving its greater powers at Will. I have not been able to do crazy math calculations in my head or develop a photographic memory (I haven't needed to), but I have been able to achieve certain more optimal states of consciousness for doing my Will to do as a result.

Magic is a means of accessing that power and harnessing it, under Will. Look at the yogis who can do amazing things like withstand extreme temperatures, be pierced with large objects and apparently feel no pain, fast for weeks on end and apparently suffer no ill effects, and many other feats of the much-more-than-natural. The magic happens with them because they have learned ways to access those parts of the mind and body which control the reactions it has to those effects. Often this sort of thing is done through mantra, which is, again, a shortcut key to achieve a certain desired effect. Western Magic (specifically Ceremonial Magic) has been described as the Yoga of the West, because its approaches and effects, goals and means are similar.

Throughout the ages, mystics of cultures the world over have been searching out what these shortcut keys are. I study a lot of world religions, and many many things beyond just my personal path of Wicca. I find it phenomenal that certain symbols keep appearing over and over again. Yet, when I realize that we are all wired pretty much the same inside, it doesn't surprise me. To continue with my technical analogy, you might run XP, she might run OSX, and I might run Damn Small Linux, but we're all sitting on the same basic architecture underneath. If we were to program in assembly language to bypass the operating system and access that hardware architecture directly, the code would look similar on all of the above systems.

When we see things that repeat in the discoveries of these symbols which trigger those deeper parts of the mind, we need to pay close attention to them. Carl Jung did, and he put this idea together beautifully into his writings on the Collective Unconscious, which explains many things which I consider to be absolutely fundamental to the successful practice of magic. He speaks of archetypes, symbols which are universally recognized in some form or other. The Divine Child, who is Mithras, Horus, Dionysus, Jesus, and many many others are examples of this archetype. So also are the Shadow, the Mother and Father, the Divine Couple and so on, and we see these characters again and again in stories told by humans the world over.

In magical practice, we extend this concept to encompass symbols and practices. Have you ever looked at the vévés of Voodoo practice? If we compare those side-by-side with the sigils of the Goetia and the mandalas of the Buddhists, we will find striking similarities. Through extensive research on the parts of mystics and mages of these various traditions, we've come to learn that symbols that are in this format are useful in accessing those deeper parts of the mind. Rhythmic chanting (and a percussion to go with) is used by Catholic monks, Tibetan monks, indigenous mystics in Africa, Australia, the Americas, Europe and Asia, Santeria priests, Sufi Dervishes, and the list goes on. There is a pattern here. People have found that rhythmic chanting and percussion is a powerful means of accessing certain parts of the mind. (In this case, it's to get into alpha state, that state between the pillars of dream and wakefulness where the magic happens.)

Then should we not look at the practices of using bodily fluids in magic, which have been used throughout time and by peoples all over the world in much the same way? As people have been using these symbols in their practices, repeatedly, should we not look at that and say, “Hey, maybe they know something there? Maybe that is worth learning more about?” But if we are afraid of our own bodies, we will never get the chance to find out.

While magic is so much about overcoming limitations and those needless taboos that we place upon ourselves so that we can embrace all of our power, it is certainly important to be reasonable. If I knew someone else would be touching or using that tool, I would not put so much of myself into it. If I were positive for or at risk of having some communicable disease, I would never put anyone else even remotely at risk of contracting it through my actions. There are actions that are taboo for very good, real-world reasons. Everything must be balanced with an understanding of real-world concerns.

Ultimately, though, we should not let our fear of something control whether or not we can use it successfully. Through understanding, responsibility, and respect, and by gaining knowledge and wisdom of that thing which we fear, we can gain the power to have access to anything which we find that can be potentially valuable.

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