Magical hygiene is what we are talking about here, and if you are going to practice then it's an important topic. In many traditions, esoteric/magical tools are living beings. In others they are like magical batteries, accumulating energies from their environment. In earlier times practitioners would make their own tools, and that process would make the tools theirs. I think today most people buy or acquire their tools as gifts, and that, in my opinion, requires added steps, first to sever the tie to the previous owner and then to make them yours. Once that is done the tools should be guarded, kept apart form everyday life and no one should be allowed to handle them unless it is as part of their magical use, like splitting the deck of tarot in a reading. I have never had to reset a tool. BUT I have been in places where I had to exercise magical hygiene while using the tool. These practices are spelled out in many of the training programs of hermetic and rosicrucian traditions. Many traditions also have talismanic options that are considered safe making. That said, I can imagine a public gathering I might attend, where exposure to individuals of 'colorful' self expression might concern me. In that case I have a travel set of tools and if I need to reset them, it's fine as my main personal set are un affected. As a closing thought, when disposing of a tool, similar 'disconnecting' procedures should be used. Just throwing them away is the spiritual equivalent of leaving you PIN code and Debt card in a bar. Now is all this real, in the physics and chemistry sense, or in the psychological sense, or in the spiritual sense? I'll leave that to your experience. But how would you feel about your grand father's shot gun, if it was stolen and used in brutal senseless murder? Then returned. Would it ever feel the same to you? Would that knowledge interrupt the joy you had hunting with that gun, and the wonderful memories of your grand dad, knowing the last thing someone saw was your shot gun? When you practice spiritually, you are opening your self to the deepest, most personal level. Be careful what you let in there.
I see a couple of my Tarot practices fairly strongly reflected here. I've always kept my Tarot decks for myself personally. They aren't left out, and I don't really let other people play with them or particularly use them in any way. I do keep some 'loaner' decks that I don't read with for when someone wants to look at a deck, or try their hand at something.
I've also never actually discarded a deck that I've used for a reading. I still own the first two decks I bought decades and decades ago. The only decks I have passed along to others are decks that when I got them home I found weren't for me, so were unused in a reading sense.
Your mention of a 'travel set of tools' for large events like the Symposium makes a great deal of sense to me. While I never thought to do it, I think I certainly will move forward with it in the future. Thank you!
Magical hygiene is what we are talking about here, and if you are going to practice then it's an important topic. In many traditions, esoteric/magical tools are living beings. In others they are like magical batteries, accumulating energies from their environment. In earlier times practitioners would make their own tools, and that process would make the tools theirs. I think today most people buy or acquire their tools as gifts, and that, in my opinion, requires added steps, first to sever the tie to the previous owner and then to make them yours. Once that is done the tools should be guarded, kept apart form everyday life and no one should be allowed to handle them unless it is as part of their magical use, like splitting the deck of tarot in a reading. I have never had to reset a tool. BUT I have been in places where I had to exercise magical hygiene while using the tool. These practices are spelled out in many of the training programs of hermetic and rosicrucian traditions. Many traditions also have talismanic options that are considered safe making. That said, I can imagine a public gathering I might attend, where exposure to individuals of 'colorful' self expression might concern me. In that case I have a travel set of tools and if I need to reset them, it's fine as my main personal set are un affected. As a closing thought, when disposing of a tool, similar 'disconnecting' procedures should be used. Just throwing them away is the spiritual equivalent of leaving you PIN code and Debt card in a bar. Now is all this real, in the physics and chemistry sense, or in the psychological sense, or in the spiritual sense? I'll leave that to your experience. But how would you feel about your grand father's shot gun, if it was stolen and used in brutal senseless murder? Then returned. Would it ever feel the same to you? Would that knowledge interrupt the joy you had hunting with that gun, and the wonderful memories of your grand dad, knowing the last thing someone saw was your shot gun? When you practice spiritually, you are opening your self to the deepest, most personal level. Be careful what you let in there.
Thank you for this, I really appreciate it.
I see a couple of my Tarot practices fairly strongly reflected here. I've always kept my Tarot decks for myself personally. They aren't left out, and I don't really let other people play with them or particularly use them in any way. I do keep some 'loaner' decks that I don't read with for when someone wants to look at a deck, or try their hand at something.
I've also never actually discarded a deck that I've used for a reading. I still own the first two decks I bought decades and decades ago. The only decks I have passed along to others are decks that when I got them home I found weren't for me, so were unused in a reading sense.
Your mention of a 'travel set of tools' for large events like the Symposium makes a great deal of sense to me. While I never thought to do it, I think I certainly will move forward with it in the future. Thank you!