I think of the athame as setting apart and directing energy in a much different and concentrated manner with reference to the wand. It would be like exchanging a cartrige pen and a paint brush to my thinking. Can anyone else elaborate?

I think the confusion comes because of the Golden Dawn. In their ritual tool set, they had the Air Dagger and the Fire Wand, which look very different from the athame and wand styles that most Wiccans use. In some ways, our tools go back more to the Solomonic material, though we've simplified things. For instance, in the Key of Solomon, the following tools are described:

The Knife with the White Hilt
The Knife with the Black Hilt
The Scimitar
The Short Lance
The Dagger
The Sickle
The Poniard
The Staff
The Wand
The Magical Sword
The Burin

Of these, we can see that the main ones commonly used now by us are the Black Handled knife (called the Athame now), the White Handled Knife, the wand, and the sword (for coven work), with the sickle and burin sometimes used, but more commonly their functions are combined with the white handled knife.

The BH Knife, when you read the instructions for its creation, has a strong Saturnine connection, and that makes sense, in it's use of creating boundaries and containment (i.e. drawing the Circle) and exercising control over spirits. We tend to use a lot of fire imagery with it's use, such as seeing it drawing the Circle in flame, or drawing glowing pentagrams in the quarters.

The wand, however, has strong Mercury connections in its construction in the KOS, having to do with communication and summoning of spirits, a more intellectual, and air, connection.

The Athame is something we use for exerting our control and authority over something, creating boundaries, and manifesting our Will. The wand is not used to command but rather in a respectful, inviting manner.

Therefore, in my opinion (which carries the most weight with me, though varies greatly among others *grin*), the working Witch who understands the use of the tools will therefore see an athame-fire and wand-air connection. Those preferring athame-air wand-fire are heavily influence by the Golden Dawn rituals and the subsequent applications of their correspondences (such as the Waite and Waite-derived Tarot decks).

Troyce

Another Opinion

I personally can reconcile the differing ascriptions by realizing that different ways of working are like different languages. And inevitably, in the translation process, there are the "false friends" which are words that appear similar but have different meanings. For example, the word "Semester" in English means a term of academic training, while in Swedish, "semester" means a vacation. That sort of thing.

The idea that the blade can be used to define, to cut through confusion is familiar from at least the Tibetan tradition, and because of intellect's association with Air in the Western Magical Tradition, this can justify the athame's ascription to Air. And the wand, reminiscent of the penis and of the passion of love-making, can easily be ascribed to Fire, and its connection with Passion, Love, and Sex.

That said, I will here invoke Branson's lovely simplification of the fact that the two are quite simply a knife and a stick.

For the record, Feri ascribes the athame to Fire and the wand to Air, because of the Hermetic connection of the wand with Hermes, and intellectual allusions. The athame being ascribed to Fire is, I think, a reminiscence of the forging of the blade in the Fires of the Divine Forge, and thus is tied to the Smith-God, Volundr.

The way we use them in circles, however, is that we cast circles and demark/define space with knives, and we invoke spirits and guardians with the wand. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Of course, tools are not required for either of these transactions in Feri, but sometimes help to show our kinship with other Craft traditions.

Blessings,
Tom

Yet Another Opinion

Several others have already made excellent points which I won't repeat. I will simply add that, in my experience, not one of the major tools can truly be said to be restricted to a single element; they all partake of the nature of all the elements at once, and only our perspectives, expectations, and deliberate focus on and emphasis of certain aspects of the working tools can truly limit them to one sphere.

One of my favorite homework assignments is "make arguments for the use of each of the four 'main' tools as symbolic of each of the quarters and elements". >:-)

It's all in the perspective. From one POV, wands were living, breathing things before they were cut, and best suited to air and breath - might be damaged, even, by fire; from another POV, the phallic associations, the sunlight and life energy embodied in their growth, and *the very fact that they burn, like torches*, would indicate that they are best suited to fire.

Then look at the blade - forged in fire, therefore tool of fire? Or is the sharp divisive quality of cold iron more suited to the sharp intellect of air? Both and more, I say - Hel, you can't make the things without all four elements anyway. ;-) An initiate's athame, in particular, transcends the limitations of any specific elemental association, and it couldn't do its job properly if that weren't true. A Craft athame is NOT the same thing as the Air Dagger of Ceremonial Magic.

Magic is ultimately better served by flexibility of thought than by rigidity of attitude. I'm not saying it's not a good idea to have a "standard" or "baseline" way of looking at things (impossible to maintain the coherence of a tradition and group practice otherwise), but I think it's important for people - especially those who would be Witches - to have stretched their minds beyond the basics they are initially given, to feel out the varieties of shading and nuance and paradox inherent in anything truly magical.

Keith