Shake It – Sistrums Are The New Sage

Fine, I am being facetious. But to the extent that trends – even in magic – are tidal, I’m predicting a new wave of interest in sistra – aka the rattles that the Ancient Egyptians and others used magically.

It’s natural to step up one’s housewitchery practice when the hyperflux is full-on and so why not a sistrum? I recently got one and it’s unreal – as in amazing. I’ll explain why in a moment but first – what is a sistrum*?

It’s a handheld rattle that could be called a percussion instrument but it’s core purpose was to stir up vitality and scare off low-life entities, ghosts, mood and what-not. 

In one description, it’s described as  facilitating the opening of the ways between the mundane and sacred worlds. While most often associated with Hathor, the sistrum is also a favored accessory of the goddesses Sekhmet, Ubasti, Isis and Seshat.

They’re traditionally wound with copper – the Venusian/Hathor metal – and feature the goddess herself, big cats, snakes and well, they’re are many variations. This one at the Metropolitan museum has an enscription that says it belonged to “the chantress Tapenu” and others have referred to “prophetesses of Hathor.”

How do you use one? Intuitively. There are no ‘instructions’ as such. However, Coptic churches still use them to this day and they shake into each cardinal direction and FYI, a historic account described a procession for the goddess Isis in which the priestesses went with a sistrum rhythm of three beats then a pause.

But if you get one, you’ll find they’re surprisingly cool to wield and that you’ll find your own rhythm. Sistra – the plural of ‘sistrum’ – are also extraordinarily powerful. Unlike incense or even sage, which you can just leave to do its own thing, working a sistrum is an active practice – you’re either striding around with it shaking things up or nothing is going on.

It makes a distinct, strangely satisfying, sound and I can attest to it’s stir-things-up effect. The first thing it will shake off is your torpor or any mental impasse – it’s a great inspo tool at the very least – but the stir is real. Sistrums – sistra – are energizing, not calming – as such.

They’re sold in all sorts of places and I don’t know enough about them to recommend any particular style or quality check. But I just got mine from Sacred Sources, who seem to make everything from Nebra Sky Disc replicas to Hecate fridge magnets, and I love it.

Etsy has more artisanal options that you would be able to get customized and if you were time/cash rich, you could pick up an ancient antique version from Sothebys or similar but bear in mind, it would probably have been taken from the spell-bound tomb of a woman well-schooled in magic – I wouldn’t.

So if you have a sistrum already, how do you find it?

*Sistrum is the Latin word for it and it comes from the Greek seistron – that which is shaken. But the Egyptians called it sesheshet – which relates to papyrus reeds, writing, magic, knowledge and the scribe goddess Seshat.

“The sistrum makes it clear that all things in existence need to be shaken, or rattled about, and never to cease from motion but, as it were, to be waked up and agitated when they grow drowsy and torpid. They say that they avert and repel Typhon by means of the sistrums, indicating thereby that when destruction constricts and checks Nature, generation releases and arouses it by means of motion.”

– Plutarch, Moralia, Book 5, “On Isis & Osiris”
Circa the 11th Century.

Note: I’m moving away from using images of the original ancient Egyptian/Kemetic art as so much of it comes from opened tombs and so forth. They are archeologically significant and fascinating, of course, but energetically I am uncomfortable with posting them.