Never Keep An Obsolete Key

Key symbolism is for real. They’re emblems for so many things – eg: Hekate and Mercury.

I hired a Gemini locksmith who naturally knew everything and these are some of the things he told me:

*When you can’t get in your front door because the key does not work all of a sudden, it is time to re-examine your life.

*Keys are an initiation. You can see that in all the fairy tales.

*Keys have the power to open or close things, so they are sacred. You can lock something up forever as in secret inside of a vault, or you can open the door to a new dimension.

*The Ancient Romans invented keys. It was one of the keys to their success as an empire and a big set of keys used to be a status symbol.

*The keys were often ornate and inscribed with magical symbols. Locksmiths in had allegiance to the temple of Athena.

* An obsolete key on your key ring or even just in your house somewhere is not right. It symbolizes that you have the key, but you don’t know what it is for, there is no lock for it. It should be thrown away or even better, buried.

*Everyone should have a master key.

*Always heed key symbolism or omens around keys. Notice, for example, when someone takes your keys ‘by mistake.’

97 thoughts on “Never Keep An Obsolete Key”

  1. Key bent in the lock (inside the house) overnight.
    I woke up this morning to find the key from my kitchen to my conservatory had been completely bent whilst in the door lock. I live on my own and don’t have strong hands at all (jar lids are an issue!).
    This key is on the inside of the house and even if someone had made their way into the conservatory – the key was on the other side of the door.
    Btw when the door is fully open the key area does meet any walls or pieces of furniture.
    What could have happened?!

    1. There are numerous door breaching techniques that do things like slide tools under the door, or through the gaps and via a clever arrangement of wire and steel use the doorkey/latch on the inside to open the door.

      Someone tried to break into your place and failed.

      Your lock/key did their magical function and protected you. Blessings of Hecate.

  2. I was locked out of three wardrobes once. I was running late to an event where I had to dress in something other than grunge casual, I had been away from home and struggled with the back door and may have climbed in an open window. I showered and couldn’t open a single wardrobe, not even hubby’s. I prayed and begged and cried. I looked up spoke to ghosts, ancestors, guides…nothing. So I got a hack saw blade and cut one open. A pair of pink cotton undies holds it shut now 20yrs later. I’m getting my key necklace to wear right now! Ps the rest opened the next day- weird

  3. And on MM’s single tarot card deck, she mentions how some historians think the Ankh is representative of a key… So magic that this article has revived given the current atmosphere. They are definitely amulets and talismans ..

    1. ThisIntuitiveLife

      So, I have this collection of vintage keys that I thought were pretty, and framed because I’m a property manager, and the keeper of the keys. I have some decorative “fake” keys as well. Are these bad juju to keep around?

      Anybody? I’m now worried… 🫣

  4. Today I was driving to work and this man starts honking at me, telling me my keys are sitting on my trunk. Mind you, I just drove 30 minutes and took 2 freeways. I pull over and my keys are there! This isn’t the first time I’ve had an odd experience with keys. One time in high school, I couldn’t find my keys anywhere and something told me to look in the hood of the jacket I was wearing and there they were. I feel like I keep almost losing my keys, but I don’t. I would appreciate some feedback, if any of you out there have any type of insight for me. 🙂

    1. My SO misplaces his keys often, but usually finds them in his clothes. I try and have always the same spot at home so it becomes ingrained like brushing my teeth.
      as for omen-wise, you seem to have someone looking out for you!!

  5. as I was leaving the house today there was a tiny key on the doormat. I had my hands full so thought i would pick it up when I returned and promptly forgot about it. Later after being home for a few hours had to go and pick my husband up and on the doormat were now two small keys! I’ve since realised that they are tiny suitcase lock keys. I did have them on my house keys and have no idea how they’ve ended up on the doormat especially one at a time. The ring they’re kept on is tight and no way could they have ‘dropped ‘ off. Very odd…..

  6. OMG,I love this. And, it is so apt for me at present, I just found a key on my keyring that I didn’t know wtf it is was for and chucked it a few days ago! I am going to hide spare keys from now on and not give them to people…

    I once had a falling out with someone who had the spare keys to my apartment, and I had hers. We were no longer on speaking terms. I returned her keys in a mutually accessible place, with a simple polite note asking for mine to be returned the same place asap. Over a day later, she had not returned my keys, even though she was easily able to return them immediately. So unsettling. I didn’t wait and knocked on her door and asked for them, she asked me to wait a minute – and went and got them and handed them to me with two page letter (instead of a conversation I had requested a month before). This was definitely Single White Female territory. Some time later It dawned on me to check the keys – the screen door key did not fit the lock (and I always check spare keys when I get them cut) it was not the right key. I was on edge for ages after that. She was a qi vampire extraordinaire, with multiple personality disorders I figured out. Have since left the place.

  7. Keys have been on my mind a lot lately so glad you relinked to this post. I’ve left a set of keys in my work apron, dreamt I found a part of my car key under my car, locked myself out of my house and had a key thrown at me in a dream. Going inside to get rid of any loose keys hanging around right now!

    Also tickets have been a big symbol lately…

    1. So happy it is resonating! I love that you’re getting such clear mercurial direction. I’d say there is definitely something being unlocked here.

      1. Weird. I was just telling my son to go run off and play, but what he wanted to show me was a drawing he just did of a lock and key…………………

  8. I lost my keys a few days before New Years. Down at the local water and play park. Thankfully a week earlier I’d listened to an intuitive prompt to install the spares in the shed.
    A few return visits to the park turned up nothing. Last Monday after collecting my bi-weekly espresso, another vibe says, just drop into the local Police station. You’ll be surprised.
    Sure enough, some kind anonymous stranger had handed my keys in, at precisely the same time as I first returned to the park to look for them.
    The whole time my keys were gone, this post of yours kept popping into my mind. It made me wonder what metaphorical keys I had actually lost.
    Perhaps the keys to the life I had just escaped from? or the keys to the future I plan to manifest this year?
    Or, perhaps just the simple reminder that good people still exist in the world, and that they too understand the vital importance of keys!
    Love you all xx

    1. Keys are a really weird but constant part of our lives. Too mercurial! I want to know where is your Mercury, Virgo and IC, along with Gem, of course, and maybe Scorpio.

  9. Electric Eel Libran

    Science Ninja Team Gatchaman fanart???! Lovely! (might have been called Battle of the Planets in your area.)

  10. Lol! Love that the locksmith was so epic. Do you ask/divine the sign of everyone you meet, Mystic, or do they blurt it out when they find out you’re an astrologer?

    Also, what is it with keys these days? My partner left for a trip recently and left me her car, but forgot to leave the keys. I didn’t realize this until I needed the car, was super stressed because I couldn’t get in touch and remembered that there was a spare but couldn’t find it, and then finally she texted me the hiding place (it was still unpacked – we recently moved – in a giant box packed with exotic and sacred objects, inside yet ANOTHER box with an engraved leopard that her grandmother made. I guess this is what I get for dating an ultra Scorp lol).

  11. I’ve always kept keys. People I know give me their old keys, I have them from old cars, old apartments, old trucks I’ve never owned, old handcuffs that don’t exist anymore and skeleton keys to locks I own but don’t have access to anymore.

    I once came home and found a key on my patio table with a red plastic house as a key marker and still haven’t found the door it will open. And last week during my move I turned in keys, got new keys and lost the keys to a job that I abhor. The universe speaks, and I will listen.

  12. Mystic, do you use the yellow pages, or do you hold a seance when you need to locate a tradie? It sounds like you got Hermes himself.

  13. Funny I am waiting on my removal men to arrive back at the flat to help me find my three wardrobe keys! Great big three bay heavy wooden wardrobe and I cannot get into it to use half of my clothes still stuck in there. I have always loved keys, very symbolic and releasing. But I will go throw out any I have no idea about these days. That seems like a good idea as they bug me subconsciously. I love trades who bring authentic selves with them.

  14. Seriously… all this from a locksmith?!?

    This guy is a freakin guru and/or immersed in his craft from a state of being that many may dismiss or trivialise. What a special exchange this is… omens (or should I say keys) ahead on your journey!

  15. There was a door to which there was no key
    there was a veil past which i could not see
    some spoke a while of thee & me
    there was and then no more
    of me & thee.

    Omar Khyam…..astrologer, poet, mystic between 10-12th century Persia.

  16. A couple of years ago I was camping alone in a remote location on an island off Tasmania. I went on a 7 hour bushwalk and somewhere, somehow I lost my car keys along the way. No way to leave, no phone reception. Big problem. There happened to be a very nice guy camping nearby who did his utmost to help me get into the car and get it started (we failed). Because of that we had an incredibly romantic and memorable night and he moved in with me for the last 5 weeks of his holiday. We weren’t destined to ‘be together’ but 2 days ago he told me on the phone how much i influenced his life for the better. Its not the first funky (pardon the pun) experience I’ve had losing keys, so don’t despair if you do!

  17. My Goddess, everyone should have pithy Gemini locksmith, is that Magically Mercurial or wot? I’d love one. But I do have my landlord who is fantastically quick when it comes to changing keys as relates to having dumped an awol lover who possesses a copy. All he says is, Break up? (grunt, proceeds to change locks).

    Haven’t been here in ages, inter-galactic flights from Uranus and back don’t exactly work on a set schedule. One minute, it’s kismet, the next it’s a fuq no moment. But speaking of keys, I just lost half my keychain.. it had Angel on it in Chinese writing that I got from HKG in 2008. Now all that’s left is half of a clear plastic case with nothing in it.

    As if on cue to ask, so who are you now?

    1. Do you know how to do those Hourary Charts that Myst & Kim can do…seems to work finding for lost objects, even lost lovers even?
      Ooops misplaced him so now i’ll replace him.
      A Chess game came to mind, the gods of olympus moving us around like chess pieces purely for amusement.

      1. Or did we write the Gods in for OUR amusement? Not sure..but either way works, if it provides meaning no?

        Lost lovers are lost for a reason. I think it was Steinbeck in his letter to his son Thom about love who said, “nothing good ever gets away”…and look we’re all still here 🙂

    2. Jinx! I have a Honda Fit too..and I just had to replace 2 tires, and service the other 2 due to a “supposed act of vandalism” where the techs think someone let air out of my tires.

      Long story, but you know.. so AAA rescued me 3x last week. Wasn’t sure what the message was? You’re not going anywhere?

  18. I’d be interested to know if he was strong Scorp as well. All the strong Scorp people I know love locks/keys. Years ago I gave my multi-Scorp niece one of those lockable diaries and she LOVED it 🙂 Scorp rising / 8th house moon ex had hundreds of locks and was obsessed with keys, locks, safes, fake decoy safes etc etc.

  19. The Leo Socialite

    Yet again i am left to wonder if mystic has a spy camera in my house.

    i found two small keys on my key ring yesterday and have been trying to work out what they are for but they fit nohing and i do not recall ever being told what they are for or why they are there.

    and for some reason this felt significant to me THEN I SEE THIS POST

  20. I got a new set of keys today just before reading this post . Ran around like a little kid trying each one. Have a spare that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. Hidden door waiting to be freed.

  21. Like Pegs, I am sans key for both home and bike. I have discovered a way of fiddling with a damaged padlock that imitates the bike being locked up with a chain. Sag midheaven.

    But Mystic, as I read this I couldn’t shake the suspicion that he was actually playing a game of trust me, I’m a locksmith.

        1. To Calypso & Twinny: it subconsciously means you dislike keys and their meaning just like me. Believing ideally we should not have to lock house, car and bike in a honest world.

          Conscientious Objector to anything that is locked 🙂

          1. you’re right Pegs – was that the hangup that James Spader’s character had in Sex, Lies & Videotape? I don’t recall, just remember him saying “too many keys….”

        2. it means you are trusting? Or trust the Universe will look after you 🙂

          Katakan tried to convince me to change the locks after my tenant moved out, because apparently that’s what tenants do – they get a copy of the keys and come back months later to rob you 😯

          I said she can’t get a copy of the building front door key because permission from the body corporate is required. He said she could have a locksmith friend who might bend the rules. Sheesh, and they think Scorps are paranoid. Well, “security” is associated with Cancers.

          Who could be arsed worrying about that kind of thing?? The tenant had already cost me a fortune on the bloody lock. Not forking out more money out of paranoia or fear. Case closed. End of story. Thank god for my Saggo moon. 🙂

          1. or absentminded….lol 🙂

            Re: the Katakan’s theory or vulnerability 😯 This Scorp couldn’t live with that kind of paranoid energy!

            Which I guess means you’re right Scorpy, I an conscious about my rejection of the discourses of fear and insecurity because I believe it’s no way to live. So Pegs is spot on too, but strangely I don’t have anything in Sagg! Just my Sagg-envy which has returned since Prog Moon went into Cap recently 😀

            1. vulnerability does not go down well with my Cap Asc or my Sagg moon 😐

              Prog moon in Cap eh… cool!!
              You’ll be super earthy with your Toro Asc! Hmmmm don’t you just love the smell of earth?… I do 🙂 My progressed Sun is in Cap.

              Looking forward to my progressed Moon in LIbra Counting the days!! Been so serious and nit-picky with Virgo moon. Have enough Virgo in my chart already thank you!

                1. Oh good to hear FF. 😀 I could do with a breathe of fresh air!! It’s been so heavy lately. My natal Virgo stellium is in 8th.
                  Thank goddess for my Venus in libra! but with Saturn turning the screws (2° off my sun and applying) I need a lot more air!! Prog moon floats into Libra on Dec 17. Too far away 🙁 Maybe I should plan my short trip away to coincide & make the most if it.

                2. Hey Scorpybot – I can tell you I LOVE the move of my prog Sun into Libby Fleur from my natal virgo packed 7th house. I have nothing in Libra (8th) and goddess I can feel the difference. My chart lacks air – only Gem Venus – so you can imagine the breathe of fresh air 🙂 x

          2. I was advised by the (hot married) real estate agent who sold me my palace to change the locks so ex rental tenants can’t come back and rob me.

            Meh, no Saggo moon here, but I can’t be arsed worrying about that sort of shit either! (Even the fact that my palace was a local drug house at some stage of its history is not enough to make me want to call in a locksmith!)

            1. So refreshing to be among like-minded souls 🙂
              What’s that saying about fear?
              Focus on them long enough and they will be realised. You know what I mean…

  22. WOMAN YOU ARE SPOOKILY on point – as usual!!

    have spent much of life self-diagnosed as ‘key phobic’ – an affliction now DELETED thanks to this post MM!!!

    early Saturday morn – on an airport collection mission post house clean blitz – SLAM – car door auto locks. keys inside.

    worse – spare set was weirdly in my bag on passenger seat!!

    burned $150 releasing them, half what the car club charge – but the process of releasing keys was surprisingly cathartic. key dude effortlessly unlocked & the eureka flash was – it’s easy = not hard – to release …. lock unlock – shut open – gold!

  23. Hmm.. I have lost the keys to my padlocked storage unit – where almost all my (very few) earthly possessions have resided for the past nine months while I lived on the yacht in Antarctica, and then roadtripped around America. What does this mean? I am trying to resettle in Melbourne and resume a somewhat normal life but I appear to be thwarted at every turn. Losing the storage unit keys is symbolic. Either I don’t need the stuff in there or I should be following my northern star in another direction?

    1. Years ago I was upset at losing a set of keys (mainly because I had a kick arse key ring that couldn’t be replaced) and I remember some of the Japanese peeps at my Aikido dojo telling me it was good luck to lose your keys as it indicated new beginnings. NFI if that’s any help, just thought I’d throw it out there though…

      1. Oooh, thanks Saturnalien. I’ll take it as good luck and find some bad ass bolt cutters to access my stuff.

  24. huh. I’ve been deliberately keeping a lot of keys I find, as the nucleus of an art project idea thing.

    Mystic, your FB post about Cameron Conaway. Just read a bit about him. I think I am in love. Cage fighter? Writer and social justice type? award winning poet? OMG have you *seen* the images where he is in the ring? cage, whatever? HOT
    Makes my pisces sun /Venus in Aries go a leeeetle bit crazy

  25. You’re tripping my head out again Mystic; first with a key illo on one of the scopes and now this post! I had this whole weird ‘key’ symbolism synchro shizz going on for a while a few years ago, and it just started up again recently. I need to go de-clutter my key ring and ponder the wisdom of your locksmith…

    1. me too! 🙂 It’s just something that’s always come naturally.

      Just realised Katakan lover has my spare keys (he was helping me renovate). Must get them back. He doesn’t have the key to my heart.

      1. me three! i get scared of random keys that open nothing…i think, what gate are you waiting to open when i’m unawares? Never keep one once i’ve tried it in everything.

  26. At the start of my psychotic brain snap, I took the keys to the swimming pool and buried them in the dry hard earth. The story about these keys was that they had been missing for about a year before I found them and then buried them.
    With hindsight I see this action as my physical self still trying to keep those buried secrets.

  27. Lux Interior is My Co-Pilot

    ha! Genius! I must toss my obsolete keys.

    I’m guessing you live in the kind of area where you are likely to find loquacious, mystical locksmiths. Heh.

  28. Spookily apt. I get the keys to my new abode (and, arguably, life stage) tomorrow. I’ve been wondering what to do with the old keys on my keyring…

  29. Hope he wasn’t charging by the hour.
    What is it about locksmiths, everyone I’ve met has strange story’s ? And they charge like wounded bulls.

    1. Raché (Aqua/Tauri)

      It’s quite an odd job, imagine it attracts odd people…and that they all have crazy stories from on the job!

    2. Same. It’s like they think they are super trustworthy and all-knowing like (some) shrinks. Personally I would have internally freaked out listening to this locksmith if it were me right now. Have a LOT of schizz going on and just would not want that kind of boundary transition from paid tradie.

    3. Current affair had story on locksmiths, David, cowboy unprofessionals who will just unlock your house with
      asking for you ID, so if you were a housebreaker, viola, unlocked for a callout fee.
      Locksmiths United want all in their line of work, registered & licensed now.

  30. What an interesting locksmith who has researched his career (not ‘job’ if it’s worth going deeper into your work.)
    Personally dislike keys coz it means LOCKING when prefer to leave all open (a Sagg trait?). Then again did feel quite important back in the days of 2 premises & 2 cars, very 80’s ideology that no longer grows corn.

    After 10 months the road to me is opened, the local dog walkers were out last night celebrating, freedom! No longer have to navigate 5 sets of lights, 1 train track & 2 tram tracks by car just to go to the village shops, normally a pleasant kilometre walk daily.
    NOW i can resume work as easy to get to or as soon as my aching back
    re-aligns itself, rest it doesn’t need, movement is required so as it synchs
    back into what it loves to do.
    Open road = my key to LIFE.

    1. That is the Ultra Sagg being sagacious! Yes, when in pain, move. Stopping only induces paralysis and who wants that?

      1. The body wants what the body wants, not so Angel?
        Digging deep into the cause emotionally, physicaly & spiritually. The coiled serpent making itself known, having a hissy fit about being woken by Spring 🙂

  31. Scorporation, Inc.

    Far out.

    When I moved into this 100 yr old house, I was given a skeleton key that would unlock all of the original locks on all of the interior, original doors of the house. The doorknobs & plates are brass, very ornate, gorgeous. The skeleton key looks equally ethereal; magical, like it transcends space & time. I’ve hid it away for safe keeping. It doesn’t belong to me: it belongs to The House.

    I’ve changed many houses, cars, etc & have never kept the keys to those things when I’ve moved on. They were never mine in the first place. Were just on loan to me.

    Once I met a soulmate who had been holding one of my keys. It unlocks an interior door of me. I recognized the key instantly & asked for it: she said no. But it belongs to me! I said, & still she refused. Even today she keeps it to herself, somewhere, unless she nonchalantly tossed it out with the garbage one day. Or purposefully buried it in her garden. Who knows? All I know is that it wasn’t hers to keep. She was an Aries, I remember.

    My Plutonian locksmith carries one tool: a crowbar. Some of the jambs get knicked in the process. It’s a small price to pay, though.

    1. I once met a soulmate. One of the first things i said to him, joking, when I heard what his job was: “Maybe you’re the key to my future”.

      After talking to him a couple of times: “I think maybe you’re the key to me.”

      Last time we spoke. Spooked.

      1. damn and blast these spooky men. What a profound thing to say… how beautiful. I despair sometimes I really do. I have a puzzle piece I’m missing right now. You could call that a key to creating the whole picture.

        1. thanks eng, it was a beautiful connection but not to be. I’ll admit he inspired my last real trek through LZ territory, and now I like to think he taught me the folly of the zombie trap.

  32. Aw. I kind of like hanging on to old keys. I do like the idea of burying old keys as a way to purposefully let go of something from your past though…. if you want to. 😉

  33. Raché (Aqua/Tauri)

    Hah! Just before I went to ask for help for my severe depression and addiction issues I lost my car keys. Looked EVERYWHERE for them. I had heard they would cost hundreds of dollars to replace because I drive an old BMW and that is common with the newer sets. So I stayed holed up in the house for WEEKS avoiding it, avoiding everything, hitting bottom, freaking out.

    Finally I decided to get keys and get help/help myself, face things head on. When I went to stick my new set (which was only $50! Freakout for nothing…) THE OLD KEYS WERE IN THE FUCKING IGNITION. I looked everywhere but where they are supposed to go. lol

    Now I’m happy all that happened because it was the start of change but it was so terrible and humiliating at the time. Agoraphobia is real.

  34. Domestic Triffid

    Oh Thankyou Gorgeous Lady !

    I was *just* looking for a spell for a new house 😀

    Bury the old keys – New Moon coming up.

    Make a Master Key – Full Moon Eclipse.

    The odd thing is that I’ve been madly buying key-ring charms for the last couple of months. My keys actually look like some sort of ju-ju fetish *anyway*. Time to hone and focus !

    1. Beads ‘n bones, feathers dropped by a parrot, an i ching coin and a sliced shell entwined in plaited chamois/leather?

      O that’s not you DT…….it’s ME in a Sagg time lapse.

      1. Domestic Triffid

        LOLZ ! I wear the parrot feathers plaited into my hair 😀

        But yeah – various blingy things, many different rocks, a silver teapot… gotta get me to Benjamins crafts and pick up some supplies and do it properly. Think I might add sacred jewellery to my repertoire 😀

    2. your keys represent the complexity of your life .. currently I have four …. my life most simple right now ????

  35. Taurus Midheaven

    The Key and the Fountain was one of the most memorable books from my childhood. Very apt for NN-Mercury-Venus-Saturn at the home base of my chart.

    1. One of my favorite things about this web site is how many good book recs I get through the comments section. Am off to the library to check this one out. Thanks!

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