The Wand

Its gender is not particularly stressed, though if anything we would regard it as masculine, both because its shape is phallic and because Air is the element of the left-brain, linear-logical faculty.   It is a 'quieter' tool than the sword or athame. As the Book of shadows says: 'It is use is to call up and control certain angels and genii, whom it would not be meet to use the Magic Sword.' It communicates by invitation, not by command. When it and the scourge, is held in the Osiris Position, the scourge represents Severity and the wand Mercy.   

The Key of Solomon says that the wand should be 'of hazel or nut tree, in all cases the wood being virgin, that is of one year's growth, only,’ and should 'be cut from the tree at a single stroke, on the day of Mercury, at sunrise' - the day of Mercury being Wednesday. This is the universal magical tradition, and witches follow it too. (One tradition insists that the 'single stroke' should be made with a golden sickle, but we hardly think that is obligatory!) 

  The Key of Solomon gives markings for the wand which appear to be in one of the many magical alphabets.  High Magic’s Aids offers none. Markings, if any, would again seem to be a matter of personal choice. We have given our own wand a male/solar and a female/lunar ends, so that it may be held either way round according to the, emphasis required, and marked the shaft with the planetary  

For certain rituals a phallic wand is used. Ours is the usual nut-wood shaft tipped with a pine-cone and bound with black and white ribbons interweaving like the snakes of a caduceus The traditional length of a wand is from elbow to fingertip of the owner. For a coven wand, eighteen inches is a handy average.