Altar

An Altar is a structure that is used to give offerings to gods or serve as focus for religious, magickal or otherwise spiritual ceremonies. Most traditional altars were basically blocks of stone or shaped earth, more or less decorated.

Purposes of an altar
For a magickian, altars are a multi-purpose item - they serve both practical and spiritual purposes:


 * Practical
 * An altar provides a useful holding area for an Atheme/Magickal knife/wand/crucifix, incense burners, relevant books, offerings/ornaments.
 * the nagging presence of the altar may make it easier to keep up a daily routine of prayer/ meditatation/ ritual/ whatever


 * Spiritual
 * An altar provides a central focus for a ritual - basically, it gives you a place to look.
 * An altar can hold religious significance and be a place of worship.
 * An altar can help to focus the mind on the task at hand by providing clear imagery of what you wish to achieve.
 * The act of maintaining an altar, including the efforts to keep it clean and appropriately decorated, may be a form of prayer or even a ritual in itself

Altars in daily life
Altars also seem to be semi-instinctual. A place to arrange precious items. Many children have a box or shelf of "special things". Interesting shaped rocks, ticket stubs from a favorite film, polaroids of friends. joss-sticks and candles seem to naturally belong to the same grouping of precious kipple.

Altars in religion
Most religions use altars of some form, Notable exeptions are nature religions like Druidism or Shamanism which also don't use temples in the strict sense of the word. The Bible for example goes to great length to describe what a proper altar should look like and what additional equipment should be present.

Altars in Magick
Many forms of ceremonial magick consider the maintaining of an altar an indispensable part of the practice. Some describe the required altar and other equipment in detail, others have it that an altar is a very personal thing and can take any form the practitioner sees fit.

Another thing about having an altar is that it may be an obvious clue about the owner's magickal or religious practice. That can be nice if the owner is very out-of-the-closet. But for many, that's a real problem.