See, I like the idea of objects having intrinsic characteristics.
I see two major ways of looking at things: the first is that things are symbols, in which case, any power they have comes from the mind, belief, and will of a person -- they are conduits for Will, but are otherwise unremarkable.
If your athame is a bread knife, it works because you use it as an athame -- it also works perfectly well for cutting bread. You can use a deck of cards to tell the future, or play poker. Either way is fine. Consecrating a specific item helps you focus your will through it, because the ceremony of consecration is a way that you change how you think of the object: it makes no change in the object itself, only in your experience of it.
That's the first option, and the one that, I think, is more natural to modern Pagans and magicians and spiritualists. And if you're going by this theory, your only question is, "does the Will have to come from the person using the symbol, or can it come from the person the symbol is used upon?" Either works, and you can make perfectly good vampire motifs using either version of this theory.
But the other way to think of it is that objects have some sort of qualities that are intrinsic to them, and do not depend on belief or relationship. They simply are what they are, and, if they have a characteristic of sanctity that is inimical to demons, that characteristic does not depend on any quality of the user.
And I like where that theory takes you. Because, to me, objects can have inherent holiness. And other objects can have reflected holiness because they are copies of even holier objects. For instance, a Torah scroll has inherent holiness. That's independent of any human belief or attitude towards the Torah. It has to be manufactured in a specific way, with holy intention, but, once it's manufactured, its holiness is inherent. It doesn't change in its holiness because it's around people who believe in it or not.
A chumash, the same words as in the Torah, but in book form, has reflected holiness from the Torah. It's not its own holiness, but, again, it is intrinsic to what it is -- it is a copy of the Torah, so it intrinsically has that reflected holiness.
A set of tefilin which has been handed down from father to son for six generations, and has been owned and used by the holiest of devout men has no more or less inherent holiness than one that was written and sold yesterday. The holiness is in what it is, not in its history, not in "accumulation of belief" over the centuries.
no subject
I see two major ways of looking at things: the first is that things are symbols, in which case, any power they have comes from the mind, belief, and will of a person -- they are conduits for Will, but are otherwise unremarkable.
If your athame is a bread knife, it works because you use it as an athame -- it also works perfectly well for cutting bread. You can use a deck of cards to tell the future, or play poker. Either way is fine. Consecrating a specific item helps you focus your will through it, because the ceremony of consecration is a way that you change how you think of the object: it makes no change in the object itself, only in your experience of it.
That's the first option, and the one that, I think, is more natural to modern Pagans and magicians and spiritualists. And if you're going by this theory, your only question is, "does the Will have to come from the person using the symbol, or can it come from the person the symbol is used upon?" Either works, and you can make perfectly good vampire motifs using either version of this theory.
But the other way to think of it is that objects have some sort of qualities that are intrinsic to them, and do not depend on belief or relationship. They simply are what they are, and, if they have a characteristic of sanctity that is inimical to demons, that characteristic does not depend on any quality of the user.
And I like where that theory takes you. Because, to me, objects can have inherent holiness. And other objects can have reflected holiness because they are copies of even holier objects. For instance, a Torah scroll has inherent holiness. That's independent of any human belief or attitude towards the Torah. It has to be manufactured in a specific way, with holy intention, but, once it's manufactured, its holiness is inherent. It doesn't change in its holiness because it's around people who believe in it or not.
A chumash, the same words as in the Torah, but in book form, has reflected holiness from the Torah. It's not its own holiness, but, again, it is intrinsic to what it is -- it is a copy of the Torah, so it intrinsically has that reflected holiness.
A set of tefilin which has been handed down from father to son for six generations, and has been owned and used by the holiest of devout men has no more or less inherent holiness than one that was written and sold yesterday. The holiness is in what it is, not in its history, not in "accumulation of belief" over the centuries.
And that way works interestingly.