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What to do with ritual objects once they're no longer of service?

16:01 / 03.08.03

A friend posed a question over some wine last night - how to properly dispose of a handmade Ouija board that has some uncomfortable associations attached to it? The board was created to talk to a recently-departed relative, which was a sucess, but that relative wasn't the only contact that came through... and now the board feels like it's an open conduit for random crap to come through, even though it's been packed away in storage. Any suggestions on how to close that conduit, decommission and dispose of the board itself, and disperse any little uglies that might be hanging around?

The friend isn't a practising magickian but has a fair amount of natural talent, and I don't know yet if I'm going to be assisting or just creating the ritual, so a range of suggestions from kitchen magick to full-on robes&bells ritual would be helpful.

06:20 / 04.08.03

What about thanks and notice of dismissal to any other entities who've turned then thanking and closing contact with the relative in the form of prayer- could be followed with destruction of the board through fire, or immersion in holy water or somesuch? Could follow it with the LBRP or something with the right note of relgious solemnity.

Tryphena Absent

08:47 / 04.08.03

What Illmatic said.

Seriously though I wouldn't touch holy water- I'm of the opinion that any type of Christian ritual should be steered clear of unless you're out to deal with the most frightening God imaginable. I'd burn the thing on a very hot fire and then scatter the ashes as I would scatter those of the person your friend was meaning to contact.

09:19 / 04.08.03

I think there's plenty of magicians out there who would love such a useful item, why not gift it to someone who can put it to good use. Alternatively, you could try bottling and taming the spirits yourself, give them a job to do rather than just sending them off elsewhere to hang around making everybody miserable. Or if you have issues with the ethics of that approach - you could always try making a delivery to the afterworld of your preference. Sounds to me like a really useful item that just needs a bit of, potentially fraught but ultimately educational, kicking into shape.

Seriously though I wouldn't touch holy water- I'm of the opinion that any type of Christian ritual should be steered clear of unless you're out to deal with the most frightening God imaginable

I'd have to disagree there. I think Christianity is what you make of it, certainly seems to be for most Christians who quite happily take the bits they like and ignore the bits they don't. My spin on Christianity is that most of us, to one degree or another, have been brought up in a culture that is absolutely saturated with Christianity - no other belief system has had such a profound effect, for better or worse, on western culture over the last 2000 years. So it seems to me like a waste of a useful resource to ignore that level of untapped magical clout, so I try to put some of this ingrained cultural conditioning to good use.

The use of holy water is really no different from using something like the LBRP, which includes elements of the Lord's Prayer and calls to the Archangels. I think it's what you consider GOD to be that matters, and to my mind it currently seems very workable to think of GOD as something like the manifest universe from KETHER to MALKUTH - or the Supercontext if you like. Which automatically takes away the problematic angry guy with a beard in the sky aspect and leaves you with something you can work with. Incorporating Christianity into a larger framework rather than shutting it out and pretending it never happened strikes me as a more practical approach. Sorry about the thread rot.

Tryphena Absent

10:26 / 04.08.03

I'm just a great one for the Christian God within his church. Understand it's not that I don't love parts of Christianity because I really do, including I might add the scariness of the God, but holy water out of the context of the Catholic Church would never work for me. It is meant only as grace as I walk in to the house of God. It's one of the most beautiful things about Catholicism- respect and a blessing as you walk in to a sacred place.

Having said all of that I have and would continue to use images of the Madonna and the crucifixion (rosaries mainly) in ritual workings... I just don't believe that you should adopt Christian iconography/symbollism when working with an object like the ouija board. They feel far too at odds with one another, too aggressive. Oh and I don't like and will not use the LBRP... instinctually not my thing but it's one of those personal, inexplicable little things you know.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:52 / 04.08.03

It's a bridge-object, so I'd say do some bridge magick. Take it to a beach or a level crossing (or any place which is routinely deluged with fast-flowing energey) and do your working there. The Celts were very big on this kind of thing, so you might want to use a Celtic worldview. Myself, I find that stuff a bit "Welcome to Merlin's Cave" (overexposure, I suppose), so I'd use something drawn directly from the setting; Industrial Revolution for the level crossing - Old Father Diesel and Grandmother Steam - or something profoundly elemental and raw for the beach. The point is to feel the sheer white noise energy of the place, then use it to clean the board - make it tabula rasa. Bury it in the sand at the low-water mark, if you like. Exactly how is up to you.

11:07 / 04.08.03

I just don't believe that you should adopt Christian iconography/symbollism when working with an object like the ouija board. They feel far too at odds with one another, too aggressive.

I know what you mean, but if you're coming at Spirit work from a perspective influenced by Vodon/Santeria - then Catholicism and working with Spirits go hand in hand. I often use florida water in rituals which acts as a kind of store-bought substitute for Holy Water to consecrate the temple space prior to any major work. I can see how, within the framework of this, the use of Holy Water as a cleansing in magic can carry a lot of power - and I've been meaning to acquire a bottle for special occasions.

I think it needs to exist within a workable frame of reference in order to not feel somehow cheapened though. I think you have to feel as if by weilding the tacky little plastic bottle full of blessed water, you're literally providing a channel for the cleansing power of the Divine. I'm currently researching a lot of the old hoodoo sorcery stuff that treats the Bible as a kind of grimoire for practical sorcery - which is fascinating, Moses turning his staff into a snake leading to him being thought of as 'the grand old voodoo man of the Bible', etc... There's a lot of material in Christianity that seems to work really well at a magical level, so I'm interested in looking at this and bringing the religion I grew up with into my magical work. Religions like Pocomania, Santeria, etc.. can almost be considered heretical Catholoc demoninations, yet involve a strong aspect of communication with the dead, often using devices as commercialised a Ouija boards, so it's not without precedent.

11:09 / 04.08.03

Burn it. What Anna said, echoing what Illmatic said.

16:15 / 04.08.03

Having known someone in the same position, a ritual banishing followed by burying the thing in the woods by a stream and then "forgetting" where it was buried at worked very well for them.

Tryphena Absent

17:32 / 04.08.03

Hmm I thought about burial but it tends to work best with objects that may have come from the earth or tend to contain something. I'd bury a chalice or a crystal or an athame because they are items of focus but also relate to this level of existence. I wouldn't bury a ouija board because it's a gateway device and needs to be treated accordingly. Throwing it in the sea perhaps might do, it seems to need to be discarded in a fluid way.

*

18:40 / 04.08.03

Hmm. I've got no problem burying it, if it's banished and "closed" properly. It's a ouija board; it's probably made of tree in one form or another, or some other material with close earth associations. I'd look out that I didn't bury it someplace particularly special, sacred, or sensitive, even after closing it.

Of course, I tend to bury stuff at the beach-- all junction of three worlds sort of thing. Stuff also decays well there, and there's an abundance of salt water to sweep away and cleanse anything undesirable. Most of where I live also happens to be beach, or at least bordered by some kind of salt or brackish water, so that's a plus from my perspective.

I'm not sure, Anna, why you view it as inappropriate to bury a former gateway device, provided it's banished and closed down properly. I could see a problem if it were left active in a certain locale (oh boy could I!) but a careful banishing and decomissioning ritual (perhaps "killing" it by breaking in two and burying the pieces separately) should take care of that.

Ideally, and particularly with something like a ouija board, I'd thank it for its service, cleanse and banish, close and lock it, kill it, burn it, cleanse and banish the ashes, and then scatter them at the beach, but I'm a hopeless paranoiac.

Shanghai Quasar

21:53 / 04.08.03

http://www.angelfire.com/nv/sotalytober/disposal.html

According to Sotalytober, you should cut it into seven pieces and bury it, as burning it will cause the spirits of the Ouija Board to haunt the owner for the rest of their lives. You have to trust them, because they're working with angels to get the message out.

Though angelfire could be fallen angels, or devils. Re-evaluating theory. Disengage. Disengage.

I'd say wait until winter, sometime around midnight, somewhere in a northerly direction, then break it in half and toss it out into the sea.