Is consecration necessary? Like all similar questions in the Craft the answer is both Yes and No.
No, because you can absolutely do magic without consecration. Technically no one *has* to do anything. Your Craft is your own, and you’re the one that decides what to do. Period.
In the same breath however: Yes. Yes because, sure, you can do magic without consecration, but it’s an opportunity to amplify and refine your magic in a rather significant way.
To consider it in a mundane way: it’s not too dissimilar from naming something. Take yourself for example: you function by a name. Whether that be given to you at birth, something you adopted as your own (such as marriage), or something you picked to be identified as, you have a name. That name has an identity and resonance behind it. You’re not just “human” or “being” or “person”. Sure you are a person, but having a name gives you a unique and personal identity. There is a sense of strength and power behind that name.
When we consecrate an item we give it specific and special magical significance. In essence we are rebirthing the object, space, or even physical body to give it its own unique magical purpose and identity. One of the liberating things about consecration (albeit, for some frustrating), is there is no one right way to go about it. Consecration is an act of your personal power and its paths are bountiful.
It’s a type of creation, and someone could no sooner tell one the correct way to paint a picture than they could how to go about blessing something with specific magical power.
That said, as painting has its guidelines, so does consecration.
The first and foremost: prior to consecration you need to cleanse and neutralize the energy already found within your object. What is meant by cleansing/neutralizing here is similar to performing a system wipe on your computer or resetting your phone. You’re taking everything that was there and getting rid of it. Starting fresh. When you’re using a physical item in your magic you want specific energy and function attached to it, and nothing else. Think about how your phone works when too much of its memory is being used in the background. It’s slow, ineffectual, can easily glitch, or is frustratingly unresponsive. Magical tools are no different. Clean that shit first.
After the object in question is physically and energetically clean there are two primary paths that consecration typically follow:
Consecrating through the elements
Consecrating through willpower
Now, willpower is essential for all magical workings. Regardless if working through deity or not, our willpower, which is the action of our intent, is the catalyst. So even utilizing the elements, your willpower is involved.
To consecrate with the elements is often seen in practices that utilizes a lot of ceremonial and high magick such as Thelema and Wicca. In Thelema the use of Fire is quite traditional, while in Wicca, and Wicca inspired traditions, we see the use of five elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit.
Now when we talk about consecration through the elements this can happen in a number of ways, but what you will see more often than not is a ceremonial style ritual where the object in question is “passed through” or encompassed within a physical representation of said element combined with chanting or spoken words.
Common examples are:
Earth: earth or a leather cloth
Air: incense or feathers
Fire: fire or soot
Water: blessed/holy water or shells
Spirit: energy work or essence of self (blood/menstrual blood, saliva, sexual fluids, etc.)
The idea here is to take these energetic qualities and imbibe them into the object itself, thus raising its vibration, and changing not only it’s purpose, but also what it is at its very core.
Using willpower removes the elemental ceremony but can be just as meaningful. In many traditions this route will also include some form of prayer or petition to deity, or visualization techniques that add in the non-physical energetic frequencies of elements, but not always. Sometime consecration happens through simply sitting with the object, connecting with it, communicating with it, and building a relationship with the item based off the role you want it to fulfill.
Regardless of which path you choose, there is one thing that is happening. You are taking that which was and creating something new with defined purpose.
Because of this, within my personal practice I use the symbolism of life cycles to consecrate. How I go about performing my consecration rituals wildly vary depending on what I am doing, what I am doing, what the item in question is, and what I am preparing it for. One common denominator (environment excluded here) is a black cloth that I use as a representation of The Void (or womb, if you will). I send the item in the void to die, and the item comes out of the cloth rebirthed as something new.
Whichever path I chose to perform my consecration certain things are always the same. The cloth for one, but I never do consecration hastily. It’s a very personal process, and I always approach it with care, affection, and no sense of hurry. I take my time here and express myself very thoughtfully and very personally.
Consecration in many ways is an act of life-giving, which is certainly not something to take lightly, treat casually, or “do real quick”.
Take a look at your magical tools, your altars, your books of shadow, sacred spaces, the candles you light, the sigils or words of power you create. Have they been consecrated? How do you think your magic would be different if you were to rebirth these things for specific magical purpose?
How do you think you would feel using them?
