Lotus Wand

What the source describes

Manuscript D makes the Lotus Wand a personal implement of the Zelator Adeptus Minor: made and consecrated by its owner, carried at Second Order meetings, wrapped when stored, and not touched by anyone else. Its white and black ends frame twelve zodiacal bands. The lotus's ten inner, eight middle, and eight outer petals are interpreted through the Sephiroth and the balanced elemental forces.

Historical setting

This implement belongs to the Golden Dawn's initiatory and ceremonial system. That system reorganized earlier ritual objects into a coordinated elemental set; the resulting assignment should be dated to the order rather than projected backward into medieval grimoires.

Common uses

The white end normally points outward in invocation and the black end in banishing, although the wand is never physically inverted. For zodiacal work it is held by the relevant sign-band; for planetary work, by a sign ruled by the planet or occupied by it at the time; for elemental work, by a sign in the appropriate triplicity. The white portion is used for spiritual or Sephirotic work and rising on the planes, while the black portion is reserved for material affairs. It is also the principal directing implement throughout the consecration of the sword, Rose Cross, and elemental weapons.

Form, materials and reconstruction

The wooden shaft is specified as roughly twenty-four to forty inches long and about one inch thick. From top to bottom it carries a long white section, twelve clean and brilliant zodiacal colour bands, and a shorter black section. The flower has three whorls—ten, eight, and eight petals—white within and olive green outside with five markings; its four-lobed calyx and centre are orange. The owner's motto may be placed on the white portion. Our drawing compresses the twelve bands but preserves the manuscript's white-to-black order and orange-centred lotus.

Element: No fixed element

This source does not assign this particular instrument a fixed element. Its materials or effects should not be turned into an elemental correspondence without a named source.

Sources and variations

The Lotus Wand is not the scarlet Fire Wand. Its bands let one implement be keyed to zodiacal, planetary, elemental, Sephirotic, or mundane work, while the Fire Wand has one fixed place in the four-weapon set.

Primary account used here

Golden Dawn manuscripts, Manuscript D, 'Lotus Wand,' construction, symbolism, and use ↗

Further references

• Crowley, Book 4, Part II ↗A later ceremonial interpretation of the wand, cup, sword, pantacle and temple furniture.
• Book 4, Part II: 1913 first edition ↗Bibliographic record and page scan for checking Crowley's later illustrations and wording.