Conductor
A conductor is any ritual tool used to direct and manipulate naphsha during rituals, naphsha exercises, and other spiritual practices. The most common types of conductor are the wand, the staff, and the ritual knife. While conductors exist in many religious traditions, this article will focus on their use in Satano-Grigorism.
Conductors act as physical tools to direct and manage naphsha and to affect things spiritually. They are usually rod-like and pointable in some way, aiding the practitioner to perform gestures with them and to touch them to items or people.
Human body
A dedicated tool for naphsha work, or even multiple for different applications, can certainly be convenient. However, most Satano-Grigorists start out simply using their own body parts, most commonly their hands and arms. This is a skill that should not go unlearned, as over-reliance on a tool leaves one vulnerable if one does not first learn to use the tools built into their
Knife
Wand
Staff
Other conductors
In other religions
While the category of "conductor" may not be explicitly recognized by all religions, it serves as a convenient category to group together certain ritual tools. Many religions from all over the world have ritual practices that involve tools believed to conduct spiritual power or "energy," the same concept that Satano-Grigorists refer to as naphsha.
Occult traditions
Eastern religions
Several Eastern religions use conductors during meditation and rites. Although Vajrayāna Buddhism has the most diverse arsenal, other Dharmic and non-Dharmic religions of the region also enjoy their utility.
- The khaṭvāṅga: In left-hand tantric practices of Vajrayāna Buddhism and Hinduism, the khaṭvāṅga, a staff with three skulls upon it, is a potent tool as well as a symbol widely found in artwork.
- The ōnusa: In the Shintō faith, which originated in Japan, the ōnusa — a wand with streamers attached, traditionally made from a branch of the sakaki tree — is used in purification rituals to cleanse a person or thing of negative spiritual burdens. It is either shaken loudly or quietly stroked, depending on the context of the rite.
- The phurba: Tibetan Vajrayāna Buddhists use the phurba, a three-sided dagger-like object, as an active directing especially in wrathful tantric practice.
- The vajra: In Hinduism as well as Vajrayāna Buddhism, the vajra is used as one of the most important ritual tools. It is said that the original vajra was a weapon of the gods, made from the bones of a sage and used to slay an asura (malevolent being); in artwork, the vajra is a potent symbol of power and divine triumph.
Pagan religions
- The lituus: In Ancient Roman paganism, a spiral-ended staff called the ritual wand lituus was used in augury, the art of divination using the flight of birds. It was used by the augur to mark out an area in the sky, called the templum ("temple"), which was the zone in which birds' flight paths could be interpreted as omens.
Yahwism
- The aspergillum: In Christianity, Catholic and high-church Protestant (Lutheran and Anglican) priests use the aspergillum to sprinkle holy water. Arguably, it can be classified as a conductor, since its utility and symbolism are clearly not only limited to the physical action of dispersing holy water; it serves to spread Yahweh's spiritual influence over the person or thing being blessed with it.
- The arba'a minim: In Judaism, the arba'a minim ("four species") are pieces of four different plants — willow branches, a closed date-palm frond, myrtle branches, and a citron fruit — that are used together in a ritual where Jews wave them in each of six different directions for the Sukkot holiday.
- The Levitical bird-blood staff: In ancient Yahwism, people with skin diseases were considered both physically and spiritually unclean. After their physical sores had healed, they were still considered spiritually unclean until they had been purified by a priest through a special rite. To create the staff needed for the rite, the capture of two small birds was required, and one had to be slaughtered. The live bird was then tied to the tip of a cedar staff along with a sprig of the herb hyssop, dipped in the blood of the slaughtered bird, and used to spatter the blood onto the person being purified. Leviticus 14:1-7 describes Yahweh's exact orders regarding the creation and use of this staff.