How to Set Up A Wiccan Altar

A Wiccan altar is a place where the witch herself can feel the most at home with the Divine. They usually include special mementos, basic Wiccan tools, and symbols to represent their specific deities. The altar is a place where they can feel the most at home and where he or she can do necessary spellwork, rituals, or simply to meditate or pray.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• surface to build altar on
• Air: incense and censer, feather, wand or tarot cards
• Fire: red candle, red scarves, athame, bolline, matches, or lighter.
• Water: chalice, cauldron, or seashell
• Earth: salt, earth, stones, crystals, herbs, or pentacle
• Book of Shadows
• one silver or blue candle (Goddess)
• one gold candle (God)
• decorations for the altar, depending on season (optional)

1. Choose a place that won't have much traffic in that area. Your sacred space should be only a space for you and the Divine; it's hard enough trying to work magick when you have a family member stumbling past to go to the bathroom. I like to have it near a window so that I can have access to natural light/sounds for meditation and raising energy.

2. * A more permanent altar should be set up on some sort of table or surface. Night stands, coffee tables, trunks, and even cardboard boxes are all good candidates for an altar. The God and Goddess don't care about how fancy your choice of materials are. For portability, some Wiccans choose to use a small cheap rug and put their materials on top of that so that they can roll it up and store it safely when they're not using it.

3. 
   Wand Symbol

   Most Wiccan altars have a physical representation of the elements and deities that they wish to invoke. The four basic elements (Air, Fire, Wind, Water) are each represented by symbol and direction. You can choose to represent Air in the East by burning incense (bought or made), obtaining a feather, or placing other air-related items in the far-right portion of the altar. Some choose to place their wand and divination tools here as well.

4. 
   Athame Symbol

   For Fire (South), the obvious route would be to burn a red candle. However, this is not always the safest option, so you can use an athame (dull black-handled knife used for directing energy), matches or lighter. A boline (white-handled knife for cutting and inscribing) can be placed here as well.

5. 
   Chalice Symbol

   Water (West) is represented by a chalice, a nice cup used in ritual to hold your wine (juice or herbal tea if you choose) for feasting, or a cauldron or water bowl to hold Holy Water. If you can't use water, try using a seashell or water-related gem. (aquamarine, turquoise, sapphire)

6. 
   Pentacle Symbol

   The North Quadrant, Earth, is easy to represent with a dish of earth or salt, a coin, stones and crystals, or a pentacle (a round dish in which a five-pointed star (a pentagram) is inscribed) to consecrate and charge tools. Salt also can be used for purification and cleansing.

7. 
   Triple Moon Symbol Representing Mother, Maiden, and Crone

   Represent your deities however you want. Many Wiccans use a gold candle to represent the God along with his symbol and a silver or white candle to represent the Goddess with hers.

8. You can choose to decorate your altar for each Sabbat to welcome in the new season. Sprigs of mistletoe can be displayed in a festive pencil cup for Yule, a fake jack-o-lantern candleholder for Samhain, fake plastic eggs and flowers can adorn the altar for Ostara, and a corn dollie can be used for Lughnasadh. Altar cloths, which can be either made or purchased, are an easy way to dress up your altar

Tips & Warnings

• Keep your area clean and free of negative energy by purifying it before doing spellwork. Also, if you need to take down your altar between uses, be sure to purify your area too before you set up again.
• An altar is a personal place for you, so if there's anything that evokes a certain emotion from you, or anything that can help you or give you guidance, don't be afraid to use it.
• If you're still "in the broom closet" and don't want an obvious altar, you can put away certain objects (such as a pentacle) when you're not using it and just cleanse it or keep it wrapped up in a white cloth to protect it from negative energy.
• Candles can tip over or hair can be singed. Be cautious when handling fire in any circumstance.
• Before using any new tools, be sure to cleanse and consecrate them. Some divination tools, such as tarot cards or a scrying bowl, should be charged as well.

[stlscientist]

on 7/9/2009 Great alter tips. Well written article.

[digupstuff]

on 3/16/2009 Neat article! Thank you for sharing! <3 Dig :D XOXOX

[italeona]

on 9/19/2008 Wow... That's all I have.