Athame

An **athame** is a ceremonial blade used in demonic rituals, though non-demonic versions of them exist and used by mundane "witches".

## Overview

An **athame** is a ceremonial blade, generally with a black handle. It is the main ritual implement or magical tool among several used in ceremonial magic traditions, and by other neopagans, witchcraft, as well as satanic traditions.

The proper use of the tool was started by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for the use of banishing rituals, and was later adopted by Wiccans, Thelemites and Satanists. The athame was their most important ritual tool, with many uses, but was not to be used for actual physical cutting.

On the other hand, the athame stands as one of the four elemental tools in modern occultism, traditionally standing for fire, for witches, and air, for ceremonial magicians. The other three elemental tools are the wand, the pentacle, and the cup or chalice. These four magical tools correspond to four "weapons" of significance in Celtic myth - the sword, the spear, the shield, and the cauldron (and/or grail).

The same four ritual tools also appear in the magical practices of the western hermetic tradition, derived from The Golden Dawn, who pioneered the modern occult tradition and new age spirituality; and they appear in tarot decks as the four card suits: swords, cups, wands, and pentacles. The athame is an elemental tool, while the sword is often a tool representing power, used to keep Spirits in check during goetic Evocation. Wiccans sometimes use the sword as a substitute for the athame.

## Summary

The athame is one of the most basic equipment used by witches, warlocks, and magicians who practice Dark Magic since the beginning of their crafts, with the earliest recorded usage of an athame dated back to the Late Uruk period with an ancient clay tablet depicting a warlock using one to slice the throat of her husband, the Sumerian king Enmerkar, in a lost ritual. Similarly, athames are typically used in demonic rituals where a blood sacrifice is needed, where they would use the ceremonial blade to slice the throat of the living sacrifice and collect their blood.

As time went on, from an item used by practitioners of witchcraft and Dark Magic, the athame slowly became attached with the notion of magic as a whole, as even among the earliest books about witchcraft - albeit, ones written by mundanes - have mentioned the usage of athames. In the Renaissance period, certain versions of the "Key of Solomon", a greatly abridged and mundane version of the true Key of Solomon, have required the usage of black-handled athames in its so-called rituals.

In the early 20th-century, to prevent misguided mundanes from using actual athames while attempting to practice "witchcraft", the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn began to propagandize the "proper use" of the tool for the purpose of banishing rituals instead of physical cutting among the occultic mundanes. This was later adopted as genuine practices by Wiccans, Thelemites and Satanists, much to the confusion of true magicians.

## Appearance

Athames are double-edged daggers that usually have a black handle and are carved with runes. Its blade are often made from metals such as silver or bronze which hold great supernatural and religious symbolisms, though ones used by High Witches have the blades made out of celestial metals infused with demonic power instead.

The ones used by mundane witches are various in forms and appearances, depending on the user's spiritual and religious beliefs.

## Abilities

While there are many believed usages and symbolisms of the athame within the mundane world's modern witchcraft and typical wiccan beliefs, its true and original purpose among witches, warlocks, and dark magicians is to be used in demonic rituals. Its most common usage is to slice open the throat of the human sacrifice, which is often little children or young maidens, in order to collect their blood, though in some rituals, it is used to cut open their body to take their organs such as the heart, lungs, or liver.

For the athames whose blade is made of demonic power-infused sacred metals, they are also used to carve boundaries of Security Magic or of magic circles on hard surfaces. According to Magnus, the some athames created from scraps of divine metals are rumored to be capable of cutting into the ley lines running beneath the Earth's texture and severing them completely and permanently.

Because of their main purpose as ritual tool, their blade is often tempered with witchcraft spells during the smithing process while the handle is usually carved with infernal runes for better results in ceremonies. However, as a side-effect, athames become solely useful for ritualistic and ceremonial purposes, as all of their demonic power will disappear if used in combat and the blade will immediately shatter afterward.

## Trivia

* The name, "athame", may derived from the Late Latin *artavus* ("quill knife").
* True magic practitioners can differentiate between a real athame and a fake one on sight, mundanes cannot. This leads to mundanes sometimes possessing real athames.