The Witch’s Altar: The Craft, Lore & Magick of Sacred Space

186 Pages·2016·6.25 MB·English

by  Jason Mankey

J M
ASON ANKEY has been a Pagan and a Witch for
over twenty years and has spent much of that time writing,
talking, and ritualizing across North America. He’s a
frequent visitor to a plethora of Pagan festivals, where he
can often be found talking about Pagan deities, rock and
roll, and various aspects of Pagan history. He is currently
the editor of the Patheos Pagan channel and can be found
online at his blog, Raise the Horns.
L T Z
AURA EMPEST AKROFF is a professional artist,
author, dancer, designer, and Modern Traditional Witch.
She holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design,
and her myth-inspired artwork has received awards and
honors worldwide. Laura blogs for Patheos as A Modern
Traditional Witch and for Witches & Pagans as Fine Art
Witchery and contributes to The Witches’ Almanac. She is
the author of the bestselling book Sigil Witchery: A Witch’s Guide to Crafting Magick
Symbols as well as The Witch’s Cauldron: The Craft, Lore & Magick of Ritual Vessels.
The Witch’s Altar is her third book, and her fourth, Weave the Liminal: Living Modern
Traditional Witchcraft, will be released in early 2019. Find out more at
www.lauratempestzakroff.com.
Llewellyn Publications
Woodbury, Minnesota
Copyright Information
The Witch’s Altar: The Craft, Lore & Magick of Sacred Space
© 2018 by Jason Mankey and Laura Tempest Zakroff.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet
usage, without written permission from Llewellyn
Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied
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Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written
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copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.
First e-book edition © 2018
E-book ISBN: 9780738758336
Cover design by Shira Atakpu
Cover illustration by Mickie Mueller
Interior illustrations by Mickie Mueller and Llewellyn Art
Department
Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide
Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mankey, Jason, author. | Zakroff, Laura Tempest,
author.
Title: The witch’s altar : the craft, lore & magick of sacred
space /
by Jason Mankey and Laura Tempest Zakroff.
Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn
Worldwide,
[2018] | Series: The witch’s tools series ; # 7 | Includes
bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018027545 (print) | LCCN 2018035816
(ebook) |
ISBN 9780738758336 () | ISBN 9780738757964 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Witchcraft. | Altars.
Classification: LCC BF1566 (ebook) | LCC BF1566 .M2764
2018 (print) |
DDC 133.4/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027545
Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or
have any authority or responsibility concerning private
business arrangements between our authors and the public.
Any Internet references contained in this work are current at
publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a
specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer
to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.
Llewellyn Publications
Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
2143 Wooddale Drive
Woodbury, MN 55125
www.llewellyn.com
Manufactured in the United States of America
C
ONTENTS
I
NTRODUCTION
O : What Is an Altar? (Tempest)
NE
T : The Altar in History & Other Traditions ( Jason)
WO
T : The Pentacle ( Jason)
HREE
F : Building an Altar (Tempest)
OUR
F : Daily & Seasonal Altars (Tempest & Jason)
IVE
SIX: Devotional Altars in Action ( Jason)
S : Outdoor Altars (Tempest)
EVEN
E : Altars for the Dead (Tempest)
IGHT
N : Altars on the Go (Tempest)
INE
T : Troubleshooting an Altar (Tempest & Jason)
EN
Resources
Bibliography
JASON MANKEY: TO all of my roommates over the years and whoever
gave me the altar. Also special thanks to the many cats who have
been a part of my life—Scarlet, Princess, Evie, and Summer—all of
whom climbed on at least an altar or two.
L T Z : For all of the new Witches out there
AURA EMPEST AKROFF
figuring out how to do the thing—may you find your own way with
both confidence and grace. Also to my beloved cat Sam, who
managed to smash a statue of Lilith and lived to meow about it.
Sacred things go on altars, and clearly that includes him.
I
NTRODUCTION
Two Witches, One Book
(Tempest)
ost books that are written by two authors in the Witch/Pagan world tend to be
M
by people who are partnered, or by people who work together in the same
tradition, coven, or similar group. Well, that’s not us, in either case. Jason is a
Gardnerian Witch and I’m a Modern Traditional Witch, so we usually come at
things from very different backgrounds. But we have found that besides both of us
having long, curly locks, we often share common ground in vision, practicality, magick,
and sarcasm.
Writing a book together started off as a bit of a joke around the time Jason was
working on his second book in this series (The Witch’s Book of Shadows, his first being
The Witch’s Athame) and me on my first (The Witch’s Cauldron). We were each writing
contributions for the other’s book, and started trading thoughts about the series in
general. In sharing our most and least favorite parts to work on, we realized maybe we
could collaborate on a book! We carried the laugh over to our beloved editor, who
probably rolled her eyes at the email (with love) and then told us to finish the books we
were working on.
We eventually wore down the resolve of won over our editor with the idea for this
book. (I’m not saying it was cat photos that did it, but it may have been cat photos.) I
believe it’s fair to note that this book may have been inspired by whiskey, shared ritual,
and late late nights with Pwords.
We both geek out hugely about altars and share an addiction to statues. The ideas for
this book just flowed out of us. The fact that we come from different paths and
backgrounds only helps strengthen the breadth of material presented here for you, the
reader. Whether you work in a group or by yourself, practice ceremonial magic or fly by
the seat of your cauldron, there’s advice in here just for you. We think it’s especially
helpful to recognize that there isn’t just one way to use, view, or build an altar. When
we present different perspectives, it’s not meant to confuse you, but to illustrate that
there are many options and ideas at your disposal. That sense of awareness and freedom
truly is the spirit you want to tap into when crafting and working your own Witch’s
altar.
The Old Trusty Altar ( Jason)
My wife, Ari, and I have seven altars in our house. Some are dedicated strictly to
magickal operations and others are representative of the changing seasons and the
deities we personally honor. One of those seven altars is in my office, and is stocked
mostly with magickal items that are meant to spark creativity and keep me writing. (The
fact that this book is in your hands means they’ve probably done their job.) But one of
our altars means more to us than the others, and it’s such an important part of our
practice that we refer to it as the altar.
The altar is a rather banged-up rectangular table that is two feet high and measures
thirty-two by twenty inches. It’s surprisingly solid for such a small table, and we’ve had
people sit on it during ritual without any problem. I have no idea what type of wood it’s
made of, but that wood is rather pale and sometimes hard to see under the paint
splatters. Yeah, the altar has a lot of white specks of paint scattered all over it, not to
mention multiple dings, nicks, and scratches. (Thank the gods for altar cloths.)
The weirdest thing about this particular altar is that I have no idea where it came from.
During my college years and for about ten years after that, I generally lived in large, old
houses with several roommates. In one of those houses our altar showed up one day,
lost to the passage of time as an ordinary end table. For several years it did very little
but collect magazines and serve as a home for the lamp parked next to the couch.
Altar, before and after
One of those houses hosted dozens of Witch rituals over the years, almost always in
our living room, where the end table sat. Originally we used the table as an altar
because it was convenient. It was right there in the room we were doing ritual in, so
why would we use anything else? Once the ritual ended, the magazines and lamp went
right back on the table, but somewhere along the way I realized that I really liked using
this little table as an altar. It was just about the right size, and was tall enough that I
didn’t have to bend over every time I had to pick something up.
A few years after we started using our end table in ritual, we moved into a new house,
one with a more dedicated working space. Our table still pulled double duty, but we