====== Gold ======
---- dataentry metal---- latin_names: folk_names: energy_tags: Projective gender_tags: planet_tags: Sun element_tags: Fire deity_tags: effect_tags: Power, healing, protection, wisdom, money, success, male sexual dysfunction ----
===== Magical Uses ===== Gold, perhaps the most magically potent of all metals, is utilized in magic to lend its energy to rituals. Worn during magic, gold jewelry enhances the magician's ability to rouse and send forth power. Wearing gold during your everyday life increases your personal power, thus promoting courage, confidence, and will power. As mentioned above, gold tools were traditionally used to collect herbs. I say "traditionally" because pure gold is too soft for this purpose. If you happen to have some gold-plated knives lying around the house, they would be ideal for herb collecting. Strictly speaking, use these to gather projective (masculine, positive, or electric) herbs. Silver knives are better suited symbolically for the collection of receptive (feminine, negative, magnetic) herbs. Chains of gold are worn around the neck to preserve health, and gold bands are worn to alleviate arthritis. Gold worn habitually is said to ensure a long life. Owing to its solar gleam, gold is a protective metal. Plain gold can be carried or worn as a guardian. A special ring made of gold and studded with gold nails is also protective. To this day, small children in India are guarded by tiny gold amulets. The gold crucifixes and crosses worn today by Christians are a survival of ancient pagan customs. During protective or defensive magic, place gold objects or jewelry on the altar. A simple gold chain placed around a white candle can be the focus of protective rituals. Gold is also utilized to promote wisdom. For this purpose it is not carried but given to another, with no conditions. This is done to bring illumination to the giver. Since it has long been used as a medium of exchange, and due to its great value, gold often figures in money rituals. This may seem strange. If you have gold, why perform money rituals? Actually, the smallest amount of gold, even a fragment of gold leaf, is all that is required. You might work out rituals involving gold, money-attracting gemstones, and candles. Gold-nugget jewelry is worn to bring a continuous flow of money into the magician's life, again by those fortunate enough to possess such rings. It is thought to be particularly potent for miners and for those investing in mines or precious metals. As a symbol of the Sun, gold is utilized in success rituals. Wearing specially empowered gold has also been found to be helpful in relieving male sexual dysfunction (impotency). ===== Ritual Lore ===== Gold is intimately linked with divinity, particularly with gods associated with the Sun. Throughout the ages, wherever it was found or obtained through trade, gold was often the material of choice for fashioning sacred images and decorating altars. It was also considered to be the highest offering to the deities. During recent times, gold has soared from an American value of about thirty dollars an ounce to an incredible one thousand dollars. Gold prices continue to fluctuate. Though the reasons behind this price increase need not concern us here, such worldwide interest in this precious metal is indicative of the power, if only financial, that gold possesses. Today, gold continues to be the symbol of wealth and success to many. Gold jewelry is worn as if to say, "I'm successful." Few today seem to know its ancient magical properties. When visiting cathedrals in central Mexico several years ago, I was amazed and saddened by the lavish use of gold on the altars. The meager wages of peasants have built monuments to the financial power of organized religion. In Mexico, as elsewhere, gold continues to be linked with religion. Magicians working almost exclusively with solar energy wear gold ritual jewelry to attune with that power source. In Wicca, high priests and those who revere the Sun as a symbol of the God often wear gold. Legend states that the Druids collected mistletoe with sickles of gold. Herbalists in the Middle Ages also used gold implements during herb harvesting to strengthen the powers of the plants they collected. ===== Notes ===== ==== Related Metals ==== * [[metal:lodestone]] * [[Pyrite]] ==== Related Stones ==== * [[herb:crystal_quartz]] * [[gem:lapis_lazuli]] * [[gem:olivine]] * [[gem:peridot]] * [[gem:sardonyx]] * [[gem:sunstone]] * [[gem:topaz]] * [[gem:turquoise]] * [[gem:zircon]]