The Tools, Are all of these props really required? Options

Okay, I'll be the fool for five.

In all of me 'extensive' research I'v come across several methods of evocation. The Golden Dawn seems to the the most popular.

My question is, whats with all the tools? I mean, sure I know they can help the summoner and all, but do you really need an elemental weapon for every direction as well as a sword and a dagger, in addition to a magick wand, a blasting rod, a rainbow wand, a banishing wand and well, the list goes on.

Maybe it's just me. I'm more of a simple is better kind of guy. I have one dagger. I have one bowel and a small scrying mirror. Not too big into tools, as useful as they can be. My great luxery is a sword (I love my sword! ^_^).

I have yet to do an evocation, I'm working my way up to it very slowly, but the huge amount of stuff that seems to be required (at least in popular use) is a little big baffling to me.

Are they really all required?

Sincerely, an eternal newbie.

The way I've come to regard this subject now, is much like a martial art philosophy.

There was a kendo master who started out with a 3 foot long sword. As time progressed and he improved, he used a 2 foor sword, then one and a half feet, then one, then a half, until he did not need a sword any more. Not saying that the ritual tools will one day be obsolete. It's more like, a complete understanding on multiple levels for each tool, and an integration with them, so the physical tools are not really needed.

Now, with that out of the way, I also believe it beneficial to use the tools in rituals, especially formal ones, becasue they represent universal principles.

Anyway, I'm all for ritual use of the tools--the more you use them and contemplate them, the more you will understand them. The better you understand the more Powerful (?) your magick. Then you will not need them, but will understand the value of using them.

Hope that makes sense!


PAX

That does make sense to me, Jabberwock.


The essential concern I have regarding this is in light of a fad that flared up about fifteen years ago - when some people who never so much as did a basic breathing exercise jumped up onto nearby tall pieces of furniture, bared and beat their chests, threw their hands up into the air, and loudly proclaimed how they did not need tools because tools eventually could cease being necessary.

They twisted the reasoning for why some tools eventually could cease to be necessary, to proclamations that tools never are necessary. A kind of ego game started being played based upon that twisted reason - where those who revealed that they used tools were deamed somehow less spiritually accomplished, advanced, evolved, etc... compared to those who advertised that they did not need to use tools. The emphasis on whether one does, or does not, need to use tools then became associated with the analogy of whether one does, or does not, need "crutches" - which further fueled that ego game.


Note - I am not saying here that you are supporting that twisted logic with what you wrote, Jabberwock.


I am pointing out here that, given where this has gone before in the past, taking care with such reasoning is wise.

In the end, I suspect that one of the best things that could be done would be encouragement for practitioners to be clear about the purpose for tools, what they respectively represent, and how they can be useful - instead of focussing on the issue of need, which seems to invite premature proclamations of needlessness at the expense of growth.