Building your Temple and Your Altar and It's Furniture

Your Altar and It's Furniture

You can use virtually anything as an altar.  If you are holding your Circle outside,
then a large rock or a tree stump is ideal.  If you are indoors, then you can
utilize a small coffee table, a wooden box or even some boards resting on bricks.

It is better to have an altar that does not contain any steel, so a ready made
table is not really the best (unless glued or pegged together).  If there has
to be metal in the table, brass is acceptable. Why is this? It has to do with
conductivity.  The Witch's Knife and Sword (and Wand, if used) are the only tools
that are used for storing and directing energies.  They, then, can be of a
conductive metal iron or steel.  All other items should be non conductive silver,
gold, brass, stone, wood since they are not used in that fashion.
but why not have a little aestheticism with your atar?

Why do not do things properly? You are working in a circle, so why not
a circular altar? To me, a rectangular altar in a circle always looks somewhat
incongruous.  This is one of the reasons a tree stump is so ideal. In
fact a beautiful altar can be made by putting legs on a section of tree
trunk. The legs should be glued on. One such altar I have seen was made
truly beautiful by the maker A Craftsman in both senses carving
figures of the God and the Goddess into the legs.

The "Altar Furniture" consists of a candle, or candles; incense
burner (known variously as a "censer" or "thurible"); two dishes,
one for salt and one for water; libation dish; goblet(s); and figures
to represent the deities. Of course this is not a hard and fast list.
Feel free to add or subtract according to your needs (it is understood,
also, that individual traditions dictate certain items, e.g. Gardnerian
has cords and a scourge.)

Most Witches "do their thing" in the evenings (not a necessity, of course)
and so illuminate with candles around the Circle and on the altar.
A candle on the altar is also helpful so that you can read from the book
of rituals. Whether you have one candle or two is up to you.
An incense burner is pretty much a necessity. Incense has been used
in religious rites for thousands of years.  The old belief was that the
smoke of the incense carried your prayers up to the gods.
Certainly it adds immeasurable to the atmosphere of the ritual.
Since there is frequent need to move the incense burner about the Circle
(e.g. to cleanse. or "cense" the Circle itself during the consecration part
of a ritual), a simple dish to hold a cone or a stick of incense is not ideal.
It is far better to have a hanging (swinging) censer.  Tehse can be bought or can
be made. A special charcoal briquet is then placed in the censer and lit, then powdered
incense is sprinkled on the charcoal.  This is much more economical than burning cones
or sticks and one briquet will burn for two hours or more.
Both briquets and powdered incense can be bought at most church supply
stores. There is nothing against cones or sticks, of course, if you prefer them.
Choose an incense that you enjoy; nothing to sweet and sickly.  If you feel you
must have a specific incense for a particular ritual, fine, but
generally I find it doesn't make any difference which ones you use. I
personally enjoy a good sandalwood or frankincense or one of the better
"high altar" mixtures of the Christian Church. Incidentally, if you have
nothing else, you can burn incense in any saucer like vessel. If you are
using charcal briquets and are affraid of the vessel cracking, simply fill it
with sand and that will absorb the heat.

Salt and water dishes are found on most Witch altars. Salted water
represents life (salt itself symbolizes semen, as is detailed in an intresting essay
by Ernest Jones, titled The Symbolic Significance of Salt). Baptismal water, or
"Holy Water", is nothing more than sat and water. The dishes
you use can be of any type. Some people even use sea shells as containers.

during rituals it is usual to drink some wine (or fruit juice, if alcohol is not
possible). To toast the gods, a libation is always poured first. When
meeting outdoors this can simply be poured on the ground. But when
indoors the best, and usual, way is to pour the offering into a dish; the
Libation Dish. Later, after the ceremony the dish can be taken outside
and the wine poured out on the ground. Like the salt and water
dishes, the libation dish can be of any type.

The wine goblets of the Priest and Priestess stand on the altar; those
of the other celebrants are placed on the ground at their feet. Again the
goblet can be to suit yourself. It could be simply a glass or it could be
 a decorative drinking horn. The latter can be made from cow horns
(obtainable from the handicraft stores, such as the Tandy Leather Company
chain), with stands either seperate or attached, madefrom bent silver
or copper wire or from wood. Some Witches refer to their goblet as a "chalice"
but to my mind, this smacks of the eucharistic cup of Christianity
so I tend to avoid it.

Some Witches do not care to have deity figures on their altar. The
Majority however, do. You can seek out actual statues, though good
ones are not easy to come by (copies of Boticielli's Birth of Venus"
irreverantly known as "Venus on a Half Shell"! are ideal for the
Goddess.) Many Witches search for years to find a statuette that exactly
fits the mental image they have of the deity. Antiueq stores and flea markets
swap meets seem to be the best places to look. Some Wiccans use symbols,
such as a sea shell for the Goddess and an antler for the God.
I have seen candles used, also various chess pieces, rocks, plants, etc.. One
possiblity is pictures. I have seen beautiful deity
representations made by decoupaging appropriate colored pictures to attractive pieces
of wood. If you have the talent of course, there is no reason why you
shouldn't sculpt or draw your own figures.

There are many many stores online you can purchase deity candles from
a simple google search will lead you exactly where to go to find what you
feel suits you and makes you feel comfortable, the important thing to remember
is you are creating an environment that makes you feel comfortable
and confident in your spell workings.