Not everyone can openly use magickal tools because of the people around them or attitudes to magick where they live, and some people just prefer not to use them, so for situations where you can’t use a magick wand, pendulum, or healing crystal, your fingers will make an effective substitute.
This is a beginner-friendly (I hope! ) tutorial that moves onto slightly more advanced ideas, based on my own childhood intuitions and the many methods and ideas I’ve worked with, successfully, since then.
Hands As Magickal Multi-Tool:
I prefer to use the first and middle fingers, pointed, thumb neutral or tucked in resting lightly on my ring finger.
The first (index) finger is conventionally associated with Jupiter, and the middle finger, with Saturn – two planatery heavy-hitters governing, among other things, expansion, growth, and wisdom (Jupiter is considered the Guru Planet in Indian Vedic astrology) and Saturn with time, limitation, and endings – Saturn as Chronos, the original model for the Grim Reaper.
Combined, they provide a polarity of growth and limitation, pouring creative power under command of will into your work.
The main gestures I use are clockwise, and counter-clockwise, circles – most people know what they are but just to make sure we’re all on the same page, here’s an illustration:
Uses:
These are the times I use them the most:
☞ Blessing something as an offering:
I will use the 2 fingers of my right hand, circling them first three times counter-clockwise over the item, visualising my fingers drawing any “gunge” or negativity from the item in the same way a cotton-candy man uses a wooden stick to swirl the sugary web onto it:
Then I will point my fingers towards a window or door, or a flame or even a lightbulb if that’s all that’s handy, releasing the negative energies through the portal and away from my blessed offering. (More on my experience of doorways as metaphysical portals here.)
I do this because in most cases, items we offer have been through many hands en route to us and some were not happy hands – the parchment paper stacked by a weary work-experience kid who’s resentful of the weight, the tumbled crystals picking up the disinterest of the person tasked with raking out the drum, even food offerings have probably been handled by someone with one eye on the clock, unless you’re using stuff grown lovingly in your own garden. And I’m usually just a belt & braces kinda gal.
To bless the item, I will then use the same motion in a clockwise direction, placing my love, intention, gratitude, whatever is appropriate into the offering – again I’ll usually visualise this, for me it takes the form of translucent shimmery golden-white energy, kind of thick like honey, a lot of the time, what you see or perceive may vary and it doesn’t have to be anything more than KNOWING you’ve placed your love or thanks into the offering.
☞ Closing sigils or sacred art to dipose of it.
I never like to just take something I have been using as the interface, or physical base of, a spirit or other force and just chuck it in the trash with the tealeaves and veg peelings, I always like to close the interface down, and since this is something I started doing intuitively as a child I believe it has merit – certainly, no spirits have ever politely tapped me on the shoulder and told me to let it be.
To do this, I’ll use, again, my two fingers, right hand, in a counter-clockwise motion – this time you’re not twirling for gunge, you simply want to release the connection to the spirit. You may feel the spirit’s presence arise from the item, but don’t let it bother you if you feel nothing, this is an act of courtesy and the spirit may largely have already withdrawn from the item.
Using, again, a flame, light, window, or doorway (can be internal, maybe to a hall, the concept of “portal” matters more than the other room, though probably best not to cast out a death spirit into someone’s bedroom), swirl three times and state aloud or in your mind, “I release the forces (or presence) of N. spirit to depart about your business.”
Then you’re back to holding a piece of paper, or parchment, that has nothing left in – though if I don’t burn the item, I do like to at least wrap it in a sheet of clean paper before placing it in the trash.
There are some other ideas for disposing of used items that base the method on the element that spirit is most associated with, listed here.
If you can’t dispose of a seal or other item right away, or if you may want it later, sealing it in metal – a couple of layers of aluminium cooking foil, or a biscuit (cookie) tin, or a tin bought for that purpose – is sufficient.
I also like to keep my Tarot deck, which can act as a portal, and some other objects sealed in metal (biccie tin) and it’s advisable to do this if you find you get poltergeist activity, or other unwanted phenomena.
Going back to the offerings, above, once the spirit has had enough time to enjoy the item (this varies based on spirit preference – some like the item to be removed before any taint of decay sets in, whereas others – some demons, especially – seem to like the object to decay a little on their altar) I do the counter-clockwise motion to remove any traces of the spirit’s energy, before disposing of it.
Regarding that – personally I found that food offered to beings often considered demonic, with the exception I have found of Bael, who is a god – are generally best disposed of where they won’t be consumed by a living being afterwards, but food offered to gods (Hathor, Freya, Parvati) can sometimes be consumed as “prasad” – blessed offerings, where the god’s consumption of the item has elevated it to a higher state.
Prasadam is offered on Banana leaves after a Puja ceremony at a house in Guntur, India, by Gpics
Check with the spirit before doing this, because there are always reasons to do something differently on occasion, or state the intention to consume the items afterwards, and for goodness sake don’t do this with Belial without his clear express consent, he’s a VERY determined guy when it comes to keeping what’s been offered to him, and you’ll really mess things up if you try to take something back in any way.
If you wish to share food or drink with a spirit without snaffling up the offering yourself afterwards, make two portions, and give them the nicer or larger one as a mark of respect.
Thes are some basics I picked up in childhood, and have used ever since – obviously, not all magicians view spirits as distinct beings with preferences and whatever who will be watching to see what you do with their property, this is just how I like to work most of the time, and I get results from it, plus it’s a friendly and companionable way to do magick and be respectful, since I feel genuine love for some of these beings as though they were my own kin.
Making the case that they could be aspects of me, changes nothing about that, since they still represent aspirational and inspiring energies worthy of love.
Advanced:
The use of your fingers to consecrate, cast out, and generally direct energies can be taken to a more advanced level once you’re able to sense energy, or at least once you feel confident that your ability to command it is up to the job, to heal and to harm.
To heal, you can use the candy-floss twirl method to remove negative (or over-stimulated) energies from someone’s chakras or other areas during energy healing, and then use the clockwise gesture with light channelled from the Sun, Moon, “Universal Love” or “Universal Light” and other sources to infil the space with healing energy.
You can also do this with pets, locations, objects, any manner of things, once you’re confident in your own mind that you have the right and the authority to start changing reality.
Somewhat related to this, with time and intention, you can link your solar plexus chakra to the same sources of Love (you want the archetype of that, or, if you’re religious you can link it to your vision of the Divine, or simply draw on it direct from Source) or, alternatively, you can also command Dark, Hate, Malice, and use them for baneful acts.
It’s sometimes good to use your left hand, because of the numerous associations and also because of the subtle energy flows of the body, when using darker or malevolent energies in this way – and for either hand, a ring kept only for this purpose, ideally silver, and with a crystal in it, worn on the index finger has been my preferred method for this.
Again, if you prefer to live tool-free this isn’t essential, it’s just a nice thing to possess, kept in its own box when not in use, and maybe on a standing altar or shrine to a spirit, force, or even Rune or A.O. Spare-style sigil (for which a tutorial by forum member thatrandomguy can be found here) dedicated to baneful work.
If you’re worried about that kind of energy “spilling over” place the image, Rune, or sigil inside the lid of a tin, with your ring and any other tools used for baneful work, sealing these in metal until needed.
There are methods of alchemically converting, or linking, your chakras – all of them – into direct links to various forces, that is a little beyond the scope of this post, but I’m mentioning it here for the more creative person who may want to explore it.
In general I use my solar plexus as the workhorse chakra for directing energy under will, and link that with my heart chakra when sending love, healing, or protective energies, either to a person (animal, object, location) in my presence, or at a distance – like muscles, they develop better with use, working close to burnout on occasion and then resting to let your body adjust.
It’s also worth reading up on the vagus nerve, the “magick wand” within the body, again that’s a little outside the scope of this post but it’s a powerful energy tool in its own right. There are some links at the end of this post for that.
Fingers As Divinatory Tool:
A final way you can “train” your fingers is to get really regular using a pendulum – pendulums, like all ideomotor (controlled by muscular influence) methods don’t always get a lot of respect, and your certainly in most cases won’t be able to pick up a pendulum and just start throwing 100% accurate predictions on sports, lotteries, or life and death decisions, BUT if you make it a habit without getting too attached, to dowse on events, items, yes/no questions, your accuracy will increase over time.
Begin by calibrating to know what represents a yes/no for you – the common ones are clockwise for yes, counter-clockwise for no, or horizontal swing for one answer, vertical for another – again, this is why using the pendulum a LOT will help you understand the impulses your own mind and body use for this.
You’re basically trying to tap into the same kind of innate human ability that lets us know when someone’s looking at us, gives us a feeling of foreboding ahead of a crisis, or makes us think of someone moments before they phone us unexpectedly – again, it’s something we all have and can be developed with use and attention, allowing and encouraging it to grow.
I’ve been using this method for years now and have come to rely on it – and while there are some very attractive pendulums designed with an elegant plumb-bob type weight, or with crystals and silver, any flexible cord or chain, and any reasonably symmetrical weight at the end, will work for this, so a bracelet with a charm that’s heavy enough, or even a ring quickly popped into an innocent-looking necklace, will make for a decent pendulum.
Again, you may want to quickly, and if witnessed, unobtrusively, “cast out” negative energies from the pendulum, if you’re using a ring and chain put them together first so they’ve “become” a pendulum, and then do your reading.
I wrote some more about pendulums here, and how to make a simple crystal point into a pendulum here.
With time, and if your pendulum motion (circular, or up-down and across) is consistent, you will be able to reach out your index & middle finger as though holding the pendulum between them, and feel faint pressure or energy – kind of hard to describe – showing you what motion the pendulum would make, if you were using it.
This can be very handy if you’re in a shop, for example, faced with buying something on offer, with time-pressure and no chance to bust out a full-on evocation or Tarot spread, and requires no tools that might incriminate you if people aren’t cool with that where you live.
Further reading:
On hands and palmistry: Palmistry - Wikipedia
Personal recommendation: Practical Palmistry, by David Brandon-Jones
On pendulums: Pendulum Dowsing – An Introduction to Using a Pendulum - Holistic Shop
On ideomotor methods of divination: Ideomotor phenomenon - Wikipedia
On the vagus nerve: The Vagus Nerve and the Healing Promise of The Sudarshan Kriya