I Don’t Care Where You Get Your Tools: You Do You, Boo

Every so often I see people in the Pagan community start clutching their pearls and sobbing about how the Instagram Witches are ruining everything because they’re buying their sage in a Sephora Witch Kit or they got a cute altar statue at a Harry Potter convention or they picked up crystals that OMG ARE NOT EVEN LOCALLY SOURCED.

Most of the people in the discussions I saw about this topic fell into one of two camps: either “Who cares, just let them practice,” or “THEY RUINED WITCHCRAFT FOR THE REST OF US FOREVER.” This conversation, though, isn’t really so much about Sephora Witch Kits or Whole Foods or whatever per se, but about people — new to the Craft — who are eagerly scooping up potential ritual tools at places that are accessible and affordable, using them in Craft workings, and generally moving away from the notion that magical tools are uniquely personal. Instead, we’re part of a community in which our magical tools are becoming mass produced, or at the very least, they’re not always unique or special.

And to some extent, that’s kind of true. Would we all love to use natural items in our practice, like stones and bones harvested in the wild, or yarn lovingly hand spun from the wool of an organically raised alpaca by isolated priestesses? Sure. That would be freakin’ cool. I’d also like to build a forge and learn how to blacksmith my own nails and tools, I’d love to go out a-gathering crystals straight from the damp soil of mother earth herself, and if I wasn’t sort of allergic to bees I’d maybe have some hives and gather up the wax to make my own candles from scratch, because none of those things take time or money or anything.

But when I first started out as a Baby Pagan three decades ago, the Internet was without form and void, and there weren’t any Olde Witchy Shoppes in my city. However, there was certainly a Walmart that had some cool-as-farq witchy decor every fall, and I think I had a mail-order catalog from some store that sold crystals and pentacle jewelry, and I certainly bought candles by the bazillion at craft stores, and by golly I could (and still can) pop some tags at the thrift store like nobody’s business.

Buying things like this at places like these wasn’t wrong, and didn’t make them less effective for me, because they were just tools. And the best tools are the ones that are accessible to you — for some people, Hobby Lobby (or Walmart or Big Lots or Witches-R-Us) might be the only place around to get what they need. Let’s get real here. Plenty of us aren’t growing our own herbs or pouring our own candles or forging our own cauldrons. No kidding, I wish that we all had a Diagon Alley to go shop at when we need stuff. For a lot of practitioners — especially newbies, who often are younger and generally have less disposable income than us veterans, even a simple wooden or bone handled athame is just not in the realm of affordability.

As an example, when I first started practicing, I bought a very simple athame with a wooden handle — it’s of the variety you see in every single witchy shop, very basic and utilitarian, and probably cost me about $20. I’ve used that damn thing in thousands of workings over the decades, but about five years ago it just decided it had had enough. It was done. I did everything I could think of to recharge that puppy back up but it was all NEWWWWP and so it sat on my altar being more decorative than anything else. I spent the three whole years looking for a new athame. I found one online last summer that looked perfect for me, but turned out to be just plastic and chrome, so I returned it. I found one I kind of liked at the Renaissance Faire, but it was just too heavy and masculine and felt clunky in my hand. I thought about buying one made from a railroad spike, because I love those, but I just didn’t get around to doing it. And then in 2017, I was at a festival in Michigan, and the first vendor table I arrived at was selling hand-crafted athames.

My hand immediately gravitated towards one made of iron and applewood, and it practically hummed in my hand, saying “Haaaaay gurrrrl I’m yourrrrrs” and you’re damn right I bought it on the spot. Was it expensive? Sure — although I think I got a way better deal than I could have, because I’d have paid anything the guy was asking for it. But for a newbie young Pagan, throwing down the equivalent of three full tanks of gas isn’t an option when it comes to buying a single magical tool. On the other hand, if that newbie young Pagan finds a decorative knife they like at Target for $8, who am I to tell them not to use it? Should I tell them that the sage and lavender they picked up at Whole Foods isn’t good enough? No, kids, use whatever trips your trigger.

The reality of it is that the tools you should be using are the ones that are available to you — and if that means you’re doing a bit of binding with some acrylic yarn you got on clearance at Hobby Lobby, or you’re crafting a witch jar with nails you found at Home Depot instead of hand-forged iron ones, then so be it. Our ancestors used roots and sticks and rocks because that was all they had. I promise I won’t judge you for where you got your stuff, as long as you know what you’re using it for and why. You do you, boo, use your tools as you need to, and make your damn magic.

Note: The athame in the photo was hand-forged by the talented craftspeople at Artes & Craft in Hartford, Michigan.