Athame

An athame is a double edged steel ceremonial knife. Wicthes often use Athames in their daily practice and rituals to direct energies with. When a being is stabbed with an athame their powers are sucked into it, whether they die or not is irrelevant. Both of these uses for Athames were seen in the pilot episode "Something Wicca This Way Comes".

Jeremy killed a witch with the power of Pyrokinesis using the athame and therefore obtained her power. Later, when he had cornered Piper he showed her he could light the ends of his finger tips with this power as the witch used to. Near the end of the epsiode Jeremy used the Athame like a wand to shoot a Fire ball at the sisters, a degree of contorl he was not exhibited to have over his new Pyrokinesis before using the Athame and since Athames are used to direct energies it is not too much of a stretch to assume that they can be use to focus ones power and stregthen it temporarily by increasing the degree of control one has over their powers.

Athames are also shown to be a way of killing powerful demons, in the episode "Charmed and Dangerous", Piper destroys the demon gaurdian of the hollow using an Athame.

Lastly, Athames can also be used in conjunction with scrying, once again hinting at their ability to channel and direct energies. If demon blood or any other liquid is smeared on the Athame then one may hang the crystal's chain from the blade and one can scry to find the being.