Sympathetic Magic: The Secular Side of Spellworking
AUTHOR’S NOTE: It’s fascinating how dreams can unearth old memories that are still germane to present conditions, figuratively “turning over rocks to see what crawls out from underneath.” Last night in one such nocturnal interlude I was discussing with an unknown savant the assumption that object-oriented magic is best performed with “power items” that hold intense personal value for the magician or the subject due to being created and “charged” by that individual or empowered through long association and use.
It has been decades since I last performed ritual magic, and back when I did it was mainly of the talismanic variety focused on invoking friendly forces and banishing unfriendly ones. (I’ve been criticized for using the sacred arts in this way since it is supposedly an affront to the gods; so be it, but I’m not worried even if it does suggest “swatting a gnat with a sledgehammer.”) Unlike my younger brother, I was never much into evoking astral entities to do my bidding since one careless slip can bring a very angry demon down on the summoner’s head. But I’m at least somewhat conversant with a number of grimoires for that purpose, and have kept up my studies over the years, particularly in the area of natural magic promoted by Scott Cunningham. I was also impressed by the Guillermo del Toro film Pan’s Labyrinth, in which a young girl hid an energized mandrake-root homunculus under her bed as a healing agent, feeding it with milk and blood; its presence was at first unknown to her sadistic military stepfather who eventually found and destroyed it.
As I see it, the entire premise comes down to intention. Aleister Crowley observed that “Magic is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will.” The impetus for this transmutation is not the pursuit of petty desires and urges that gratify the ego but rather the fulfillment of the exalted Magical Will (or “True Will”) that has as its goal the spiritual edification and ennobling of the magician, similar to the alchemist’s quest for the symbolic “Philosopher’s Stone.” However, in folkloric terms, the aim is usually much more utilitarian, frequently involving burning, burying or cutting an object that immerses the target of the operation in a form of sympathetic magic.
The concept of sympathetic — or “imitative” — magic underlies all such pragmatic initiatives: we substitute a minor consideration for a major one and then assume that there is a causal link between them such that, when manipulated, the lesser will impel the greater in our favor. A more academic definition is:
“Primitive or magical ritual using objects or actions resembling or symbolically associated with the event or person over which influence is sought.”
A common way to proceed is to write one’s objective (the “spell”) on a piece of paper or inscribe it on a candle of the proper color for the procedure, then “release” the problem by solemnly burning the object to ashes or melted wax, or in some cases burying it far away from one’s location. Another is to tie a knot in a duly-consecrated string to represent the obstacle and then sever it at the knot with a sharp knife or burn it between candles, intoning appropriate ceremonial invocations.
While this approach can be used unethically to create an effigy or surrogate of an offending party in an attempt to physically harm or at least terrorize the perpetrator (such as the so-called “voodoo doll” that is jabbed with pins), it is best employed to ameliorate one’s personal hardships by mystically disabling them. Rather than seeking explicit revenge against evildoers, invoking the Wiccan “Three-fold Law” is a less morally-repugnant way to visit retribution on miscreants by psychically returning their nastiness to them thrice-over. I’ve seen this in action to good effect.
The principle of transference supports the act of placing sacrificial offerings on an altar as a means of religious supplication that superseded the more direct methods of animal (and before that, human) sacrifice: we give up a small portion of our physical sustenance and hope to receive Divine munificence in exchange, an idea that persists in secular form as “leaving treats out for Santa.” This also extends to the ritual ingestion of edibles such as ayahuasca, peyote, “magic mushrooms” and, of course, Crowley’s ghastly-sounding “Cakes of Light” with their impure blood (I’ll leave that last one for my readers to investigate) as a non-recreational way to transport the consumer to an altered state of consciousness that invites the intrusion of interactive experiences into our “head-space” (in other words, engaging in the “knowledge of conversation” of disembodied beings who will ideally be moved to aid us if our intentions are sufficiently pure). Think of it as “scrying” — or if you prefer, astral projection — “on steroids.”
On a more ghoulish note, it drove the abhorrent practice of primitive cultures in which warriors allegedly carved out and ate the hearts of vanquished enemies while the organs were still warm, with the goal of acquiring their virtues before the assumed benefits dissipated, something that is echoed in the peculiar “ritual cannibalism” of the modern Catholic Mass with its “body-and-blood” references (although only the priest has access to the “blood”). Pardon my cynicism, but I have little tolerance for theological (or for that matter, any metaphysical) nonsense, no matter how venerated.
Photographic portraits and small personal items are used in the performance of psychometric divination under the assumption that they will serve as a psychic link between the seeker and a higher source of wisdom. The same is true for all objects that are “charged” with intent for a particular magical purpose, such as lucky coins and — in times past — horseshoes or, in “black magic,” locks of hair. Even cards that typically sport an established definition can be imbued with topic-specific inflection apart from their accepted symbolism; all it takes is a little intuitive inspiration, imagination and ingenuity.
Furthermore, it could be argued that every time we make a wish however idle or unrealistic, with no inkling of its credibility we are seeking the miraculous intervention of a presumably compassionate Universe, up to and including the “power of prayer” and the claims of the Law of Attraction. While positive thinking certainly can’t hurt, it has long been discredited as an infallible source of wish-fulfillment. Those who rely on fortune-telling of the “confirmation bias” kind often fall into this trap.
I’ll close this rambling discourse with a personal anecdote. When my brother and I were kids we were consumed by playing with fire. We would take a couple of model cars we had labored to build but no longer valued, get their front ends blazing briskly and then smash them together to simulate a twisted automobile wreck. I have no clue what we hoped to achieve by this since at that tender age we had no serious enemies whom we might have proposed to eliminate in a car-crash expedited by our fledgling act of unpremeditated sympathetic magic. Maybe we were rehearsing for a lifetime of esoteric experimentation with the elements, but it was probably just a symptom of misspent youth. I once read an opinion that “There is nothing on Earth crueler than a little boy.” <Raises hand a bit ruefully in acknowledgement.>
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on September 4, 2024.
