It’s hard explaining what i sell in just a few words.

For now I’ve settled on ‘Antique magical objects and Mystical art’. Which is fine (if a bit ambiguous)  except that the next question is usually ‘what is a magical object?’ and that’s where the trouble begins…

A Magical Object is any material item either used in the execution of magical practices, or containing or animated by magical forces, energies, or powers.

 

An ‘Artifact’ (according to Merriam Webster’s) is; an object showing human workmanship or modification, or something arising from or associated with an earlier time.

Mash these two definitions together and you have a Magical Artefact.

Magic, – noun, ‘the power of influencing events by use of mysterious or supernatural forces’

Where do magical objects come from?

Answer; EVERYWHERE,

over years of travel and trade i’ve seen such objects can come from anywhere and everywhere…

For as long as people have roamed the earth they have searched for ways to magically seek protection and influence the world around them. They have called on dead ancestors, and honoured the spirits of earth, animal, water and plant, just as they have tried to read omens for clues to the future.

The ancient antelope and bison cave paintings found all across the world most probably served as some kind of Talisman or charm for the earliest hunters, a way to manifest a successful hunt as well as to honour the souls of the hunted.

The San people of South Africa, and Indigenous Australians, are among the most most ancient surviving cultures on earth, each still carry magical knowledge that reaches back tens of thousands of years. Some of this knowledge is contained within their Sacred Art and artefacts.

When we think of our best known ancient magical traditions, – the Druids of Stonehenge, Picts and Celts, Ancient Egypt, the Maya, and ancient Greece, we are talking about incredible lines reaching back across the last six thousand years. San people culture is at least twenty thousand years old, and Indigenous Australians continue to carry the stories of the last sixty thousand years.

This both humbles me and blows my mind.

But the truth is that at one time or another every land had it’s own Sacred practices and magical knowledge. Every people had a way to commune with or honour their ancestral spirits and the spiritual realms they perceived around them. Every people performed rites to seek protection or guidance or power from the unseen worlds.

No one alive today is without ancestors who practised some kind of ‘magic’.

And the objects and symbols and remnants of the practices they left behind are all around us, We just need to learn how to see them. Sometimes I find pieces over two thousand years old, other pieces were made in my own lifetime.

There is a special quality that only comes from intentional sacred or magical use. Tiny Hindu bronzes with faces worn smooth by adoring hands, a mask that has danced a hundred initiations, the carved and beaded doll who called a baby’s spirit to birth, – each of these things is a doorway, carefully crafted, to the unseen realm. The more they are used, the richer they become. And every layer of intention adds to their strength and to their story.

It’s a strange and amazing thing to deal with objects that have been to someone, somewhere, so very important. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the feeling you get when you find one of these things, no matter how small, pick it up, and realize that what you have in your hands is the doorway that another human being has crafted to interact with an unseen world.

Here’s just a few of the things I’m searching for when out hunting through Antiques Fairs, Flea Markets and Auctions…

nb* This is not a dictionary, a lot of confusion and mixing up of terms occurs in museum curation, anthropology, and even within current living magical and spiritual traditions. – sometimes objects have been wilfully misinterpreted and other times languages poorly translated, some times the truth of a particular practice has just been lost in time. Below are the broad terms I have come to use over the years and how I use them, they are based on experience and study. Many objects and practices have their own very specific words and names which are extremely important in their own right, below are just my own broad ‘working  catagories’!

Some types of object I find frequently, others are extremely rare, but all are still possible to find in one form or another…

Amulets & Talisman

 

 

Need protection on a journey? To keep away a jealous spirit? Or maybe to become ‘invisible’ to the law while committing a Robbery?

Antique, or even ancient Amulets are not so hard to find. From every land and from the first human societies right up to today, Amulets have been made and worn the world over. They are a lovely place to start collecting, small, beautiful, fascinating, and often inexpensive. If you’re just starting out it is perfectly possible to begin a collection on a shoe string with the most simple types of Amulets, – once you learn how to recognize them… The majority of amulets appear as elements of jewellery, its a magical practice as hold as humanity itself. Amulets tend to be for protection or healing.

Talisman are less plentiful, although the two are often conflated. An Amulet has natural or intrinsic protective qualities (the simplest being things like hag stones, red tassles,  or particular types of beads) but a talisman is a slightly different beast…

What is the difference between and Amulet and a talisman?

There are different takes on this depending on who you ask, here’s what I’ve been taught;

A Talisman will have been ‘worked’ on, ‘consecrated’ or ‘charged’ by the maker to gain it’s specific magical property, it may also sometimes be used in ritual. Without preparation the talisman has no power. Some Amulets may have been spoken over or blessed but they are not dependent on these acts for their power, depending as much on the intrinsic protective or healing properties of the materials or colours from which they are formed. Just to confuse matters more, the two can be, and often are combined. A Talisman may be crafted for any type of magical purpose….

>click here to see more on ancient amulets<

Ritual Tools

 

The witches chalice and Atheme, the Phurba of the Jhankri, an Abalone shell or feather fan for smudging sage, a Tantrika’s Kapala skull bowl, and even a Christian Priest’s Baptismal Shell – these all can be defined as Ritual Objects or Ritual tools. Some come squarely under the definition of Magical use others are more for use in spiritual or religious practice, thats often a tricky distinction, and one you will make for yourself according to your own practice and beliefs, – but all are the ‘set pieces’ required for the rituals of any particular path or faith.

Fetishes & Power Figures

 

Although rare, these are among the things that really make your skin tingle…

From the realms of serious magic, a Fetish is made as the physical ‘body’ to house a spirit, providing a physical form that can be ‘fed’, honoured, and sometimes instructed. Power figures are imbued with a particular force and often with a ‘Duty’ to perform for their maker or the community that they were created and called on to serve. A good deal of magical work goes into making and sustaining such figures. Most frequently found today are those from the African Diaspora, but they have been made in traditions from across the world. These types of objects have been much faked due to the strong market for them, authentic figures do turn up sometimes, and they are surely one of the most exciting things to find…

Guardians & Protectors

 

Have you ever been to an ancient church and noticed carved faces peering down at you from the rafters? Maybe you have visited Notre Dam with its famous medieval gargoyles, or a Buddhist temple with lions watching over the entrance? From the days before the Celts right up until the 20th century such Guardians were a common part of the architecture of temples, churches, city gates, and also village roofs, doorways, and animal housing. As these old buildings have collapsed or been refurbished the original Guardians have often been rescued or removed. Many found their way into the hands of antique dealers, museums, and private collections. Some are ‘grotesque’ others beautiful, a few (in the case of gargoyles) doubled up as part of the ancient rain guttering.

There are smaller protectors too, in charge of keeping safe a tiny personal altar or even the contents of a drawer. Some are free standing, some carved into the wooden structures of furniture, others are in charge of bridges, tombs, a fireplace, or a sailing boat. Often in pairs, and usually fearsome, once you start looking, you will begin to see them everywhere…

Votive figures & Offerings

 

Votive figures don’t get a lot of coverage these days, but once they were an everyday part of the magical and religious practices of common folk. We know this because so many have been found buried in the sand and soil, riverbeds and lakes of the world.

In many ancient civilizations they were produced ‘en masse’ – if you needed a favour from your local deity, you could start by bringing them an offering of a votive figure, usually offered for sale near popular temples and shrines, made of clay and terracotta, or occasionally metal, bone, or wood. This could be an image of the deity themselves to show your devotion, a simple gift, or an image of the thing you needed help with, so arms and legs, horses, cattle and babies were all fair game. In parts of Asia it was once popular to offer miniature glazed clay pots, clay tablets, and clay models of plates of food to both ancestors and deities.

The famous silver and Wax models of eyes and ears once so popular around Christian Europe are a form of Votive offering that has it’s roots in pre-christain culture. These days they are associated with the Saints, but like many Orthodox (and Catholic) practices, you can smell the magick a mile off…  The remains of thousands of clay offerings have been found in ancient Greek holy sites, and I know a Holy lake in India that during a drought in the 1990’s began revealing the votive bronze offerings of a thousand years.

Folk Magic & Charms

 

‘Joy Health Love and Peace

Be all here in this place’

 

Where the Amulet is protective, and the Talisman imbued with a particular magical power, a Charm is almost always for attraction, – a bringer of good luck, a rich harvest, true love… Charms can be spoken, sung and written down, or their powers can be embodied in an object. Horseshoes, rabbits feet, old keys, a coin made in a leap year, the likeness of a black cat, elephant, or pig are all everyday charms. Horse brasses with a wheat sheaf or a blazing sun embody very ancient charm symbols for harvest. The old West Country Sea Witches had a Knot Spell Charm that could be bought by a sailor in need of a fair wind.

Much like Amulets, the simplest charms are relatively easy to find, so easy in fact that you may question if they even qualify as magical objects…? Any charm that is handmade, unique, part of a ‘bundle’ – assembled with knowledge and care, associated with a particular life event or profession, made of precious or semi precious materials, or over a hundred years old, has got to be worth a look. A hand written or embroidered charm requires some level of focused (magical) intention, and a charm that has been carefully embellished, bagged, mounted, engraved, hung or hidden, is simple folk magic.

Tools of Divination

 

This is a tricky one for me, Much of the art of divination is intangible and comes from within the diviner – of course there are also many raw materials that have been used in divination down the ages, but how do you form a collection of wild hares, or sand, or animal guts, or grains of salt?

Of actual divination ‘tools’ fairs & markets turn op plenty of second hand modern reproductions; used Tarot decks, Runes, I-Ching, and mass produced ‘Crystal balls’. But the quest for older pieces is a tough one…

Older items that do sometimes turn up include pendulums, dice, early playing card decks, antique Tarot, divination and ‘fortune telling’ books, throwing bones, carved wooden divination boards from African Yoruba culture, Astrology tools and charts, Zodiac figures and art, ancient mirrors, black obsidian (which has fulfilled various magical uses through history including Scrying), and of course the ubiquitous Victorian tea cup.

Magical Workings…

 

 

I remember as a kid once being taken to an exhibition in NYC, the artist had taken big, antique, hard cover cook books, literally Cooked them in their own recipes, and preserved the results.

Bubbling out of a saucepan, dripping with black beans and sauce – the cooking had given them a totally different energy, no longer just static objects they had vigour, spirit, and life-blood. I feel that same thing with an authentic magical working, they somehow feel lived in, with character, and a lingering presence of whoever originally cooked them.

It’s rare to find such things for sale (for obvious reasons) – some are healing workings, some, like the ‘witch bottle’ are more ambiguous, others appear to be made as a kind of emissary from, or doorway to, the spirit worlds. I’ve seen a couple of pieces in the UK said to have been found in old foundations or walls during renovations This includes a beautiful stone carving that looked like spiralling rams horns, found above a window,within an old cottage wall in Yorkshire, which the owners loved and wanted to keep.

Magically worked fertility figures from other cultures also turn up from time to time, perhaps because they are less likely to be destroyed once their magic is done? I’ve also come across marriage or love workings, and a few objects that were clearly involved in some sort of magical-work, but, were keeping their secrets to themselves… When good older examples are unearthed they usually end up in museums or specialist private collections, but for the serious searcher, one who’s not worried about sharing their home with a stranger’s mysterious handy-work….these things can, on occasion, be found.

Grave Goods & Burial Objects

 

There is something strangely compelling about the gifts that we bury with our dead…

Humans have long understood death as a journey, and have sent their loved ones down the road with all manner of sometimes useful, and other times, wildly impractical luggage. Who hasn’t seen images of the Terracotta Army? An entire life sized army of 8000 soldiers, complete with chariots and teams of horses, buried with the first Emperor of China to guard him on his way. Or what about the gold, ivory and gems of Tutankhamun with their attendant infamous curse? For as long as we have buried our dead with gifts, there have also been grave robbers, many of the Long barrow burial mounds of pre-Christian Britain had already been rifled through, hundreds, if not thousands, of years before modern archaeologists even knew of them. And the same applies to tombs the whole world over.

 

Simple folk would often have grave goods too, already mentioned are the votive offerings found frequently in ancient Chinese graveyard shrines, anything from small pots to entire miniature clay farms complete with pigs and grain mills and stables. Simple jewellery, coins, and vessels of clay, metal or glass were common in numerous cultures. As were Amulets, weapons, and household necessities. Some of these objects might be needed by the deceased as sustenance on the journey, or for protection, or even for expenses such as paying the ferryman to cross the river to the underworld.

A great many burial objects have found their way back up to the topside world over the last few thousand years, and not always through acts of skulduggery. It’s a fascinating and deep field to look into, rich in stories, powerful symbolism, and old old magic.

Ritual & Magically used Masks

 

 

Although African ritual masks may be the most famous, they are only one part of a vast world wide practice. This is a huge and complex topic, with experts from every region who’s life’s work is to make, or study, or record their own people’s mask culture.

Ritual and magically used masks undertake every sort of work in the spiritual world – Initiation, protection, war, harvest, celebration, and death, – there are masks to convey messages, pass judgement, tell mythic stories, and embodying every sort of deity, spirit, and ancestor you can imagine. In many functions the mask wearer, when in ritual, temporarily loses their own human identity and is literally the embodiment of spirit while they are masked. The Cham mask dance of the Himalayas requires the dancers to enter a deep meditation trance that may last for several days.

This is one of the most extraordinary visual forms of magical art. Mask cults are alive and kicking in numerous countries even today. Some authentic old masks sell for tens of thousands of dollars and are prized by museums and art collectors everywhere. For a long time I didn’t buy masks, I was intimidated by the sheer depth and complexity involved in the whole business. Also there are very few genuine pieces for sale in a swirling ocean of commercial copies and fakes. But be warned, once you put a toe into this it will grab you and drag you straight down. These days I love to buy masks and have several that live with me full time, they are dear friends who I couldn’t imagine parting with.

I only have two real rules for buying a mask, I need to feel moved by it, and it cant break the bank.

Magical Diagrams, Maps, Illustrations, & Texts

 

 

Now I could have called this section Grimoires or Books of Shadows – but that would have been dishonest.

I dearly wish that it was possible to go out and find a 16th century Italian Grimoire at a flea market, or a cunning woman’s original Book of Shadows, but sadly the chances of this happening in the antiques trade are almost zero. Early magical texts of that type are extremely rare.

One of the reasons that I write these articles is to show that it really is possible for you, me, anyone, who is prepared to put in the work, to go out and find authentic and old magical pieces at prices that wont curl your toes. For lovers of paper and parchment, ink and paint, there are some rare and lovely things out there, but you will need to be both realistic, patient, and a little bit determined too. I have found 200 year old celestial charts and maps for astrology and even antique elemental tables with extraordinary items on them from the borderlines between ‘new’science and old magic. There’ve been several antique Thankas and Tskali cards, a Tantric healing magical diagram, an illustrated description of Mandrake root magic from the 1720’s , and  some beautiful 18th century hand coloured botanical prints with old descriptions of the healing properties of different plants.

I have come across hand-painted-in-gold mantras and ancient Crimson inked Koran pages used as charms and amulets, I met someone who once found a complete 400 year old Tibetan Book of The Dead. There are certainly some early books on Demonology on the market but they will set you back quite a few thousand. Something I used to see often were the elegant early illustrations of great sacred sites and ancient temples, as well as occasional demons and witches, hailing from Europe to japan. All of these things are out there but they are rapidly becoming rarer, and these days some have almost disappeared. If you’re lucky you may only find a page or two remaining of something special, so if its not wildly overpriced, and you love it, I’d say grab it – early pieces will be better  protected and look amazing mounted behind glass in an antique frame, and if you ever tire of them there’s always a buyer out there who will snap them up.

Magical Symbols & Creatures (hidden in plain sight…)

 

Sometimes, while ferreting about in the dusty boxes of a junk shop or those unruly auction Lots listed as ‘miscellaneous items’ – a random, unexpected, but familiar flicker from the magical world will catch your eye…. Perhaps in the decorative carvings of an old wooden jewellery box, or an image on a hand glazed bowl, embossed on a Victorian copper tray, or wound into the design of antique candle sticks.

The Pagan Green Man image turns up in all sorts of places, as does the crescent moon, various Egyptian symbols, and many different versions of the Horned God. There are serpents and sacred bulls, Skulls, and Mermaids hiding in the borders of every day objects… Now its true that many of these were just ‘decorative’ devices, especially for the Victorians who were fascinated with all things ancient and occult. But there is often an element of traditional Folk magic here too… its no coincidence that there are protective symbols on antique door-knockers or hearth tools or a serpent on an early nurses medical kit. I really love finding these things, they’re a reminder that not so long ago the ‘unseen’ world was being referenced, honoured, and guarded against by the general populace pretty much from breakfast till bed.

Although many of these things were not strictly speaking ‘Magically used’ I include them here because of what they represent, they are part of our collective folklore memory, and they tie us back to times when magic was perceived literally all around us.

For other types of objects that represent the mystical world but are not magically used, have a look at the posts on Mystical Art.