#sympathetic magic

[jareckiworld]

Jeremy Olson — With Sympathetic Magic (oil on panel, 2021)

#Jeremy Olson #american contemporary art #sympathetic magic #grotesque #american art

[elminx]

Since I have seen a lot of posts about correspondences in witchcraft going around again, I wanted to stop for a minute and talk about how correspondences work and why you might want to make sure that you understand the correspondences you are using in your own craft.

This is likely an oversimplification, but I think that we can break down correspondences into three main categories:

Cultural Correspondences - these are often heavily steeped in the mythology and folklore of a particular region. They are often but not always correspondences of items found in that region. This is where correspondences become the most varied because, despite what you may have read in Those Bad Witchcraft Books, culture is not universal. A great example of this is that most Western cultures associate the color black with Death and Mourning but a lot of non-Western cultures have the same association with the color white. It stands to reason that this type of correspondence will work the best for you if you are sticking as close to the correspondences of the bioregion that you grew up in as possible (1) and that they will be most effective when used magically on somebody else from that bioregion (2).

Material Correspondences - these correspondences are based on the physical properties of the item in question. Some plants are edible, some medicinal, and some poisonous. Things with thorns can hurt you when you touch them. Quartz has high levels of electric conductivity. The idea here is that if Rosemary repels insects, it can be used in a banishment spell to repel that unwanted "insect" from your life. These are, in my opinion, the immutable correspondences - the item you are using will ALWAYS carry its physical characteristics with it into your magic. Spicy peppers will always be Hot and Burning, so-called "Weeds" will always grow tenaciously, and Sugar will always be Sweet. It is worth keeping in mind here that when using plants, the part of the plant may affect whether it carries that correspondence. Sometimes only one part of the plant carries a particular property - consider the difference between the sweet scent of rose petals that we use in love spells versus the sharp thorn that would be better used for protection. 3. Sympathetic Correspondences - The base concept behind sympathy is that two things that are alike in some way share a connection with one another that can be harnessed magically. The more alike that two things are, the deeper the connection. There are many ways that this is used in magic. A lot of herbal correspondences involve sympathy through the Doctrine of Signatures. This is the thought process that anything shaped like an ear can be used to affect ears/hearing magically. The Doctrine of Signatures gets rolled in a little bit with Cultural Correspondences as it is heavily rooted in Western herbalism, but it deserves a mention on its own. Another way that sympathetic magic makes its way into correspondences is the idea that an object from a particular place carries some of the energy of that place which can be harvested for magical intent. You see this in the use of bank dirt in money spells or cemetery dirt in baneful magic. This is also where Holy water, moon water, and stormwater come into play - here we are assuming that something that has been done to the water (being blessed by a priest, charged in the moon, or collected during a storm) carries an inherent energy that can be then transferred to your spell. Depending on your viewpoint, you may or may not agree with the concepts of sympathetic magic.

And that's the whole point of this. Witchcraft, as a whole, isn't the sort of path where you are supposed to proceed based entirely on blind faith. If you're flipping to a certain page in Scott Cunningham's infamous Green Book and finding the first money herb you come across to use in a spell, you are probably doing yourself a disservice. I suggest that you look closer. Not only will the physical correspondence change how your spell manifests (I've written about this before) but you may find that you don't even BELIEVE or AGREE with that correspondence at all. And maybe that's not important to you (but if that's true, why are you even reading this?). But I suggest that it should be. That understanding of a correspondence deepens your connection with the energy of the item you are looking to use. Moreover, exploring it further may give you all sorts of juicy ideas for spellwork to augment that energy.

Do you like my work? You can support me by tipping me on Kofi or purchasing an astrology report written just for you.

#witchblr #words #mine #correspondences #sympathetic magic #folk magic

[coinandcandle]

Sympathetic Magic - Coin's Notes

Hi-res download of infographic available on my ko-fi for all supporters!

What is Sympathetic Magic?

The idea of sympathetic magic, the term was likely coined by James George Frazer in his book The Golden Bough (1889). Though Richard Andree wrote of sympathy-enchantment in 1882, and the idea existed in some form or another since ancient times.

The definition of sympathetic magic in the merriam-webster dictionary is magic based on the assumption that a person or thing can be supernaturally affected through its name or an object representing it.

Types of Sympathetic Magic

Similarity: That which resembles something can represent or substitute that thing. Such as a citrine to represent the sun or a walnut for the brain.

Contagion/Contact: That which comes in contact with something can represent or substitute that thing. Such as moon water, water that is charged under the moon to hold its power and likeness.

Imitation: Close to similarity except it often involves specifically creating something to look like that thing such as idols, effigies, poppets, etc.

Correspondence: The idea that something can influence another thing due to their resemblance or relationship. Such as oranges and the sun or Aphrodite and roses.

#coin's notes #sympathetic magic

[rudjedet]

Wednesday Egypt Fun Fact

In ancient Egypt, jewellery wasn't worn purely for decoration - the purpose of jewellery was specifically to provide the owner with magical protection, good luck, and health. Through sympathetic magic, jewellery was believed to attract benign forces that would protect the wearer. This doesn't mean every piece of jewellery was an amulet or contained one: specific materials also had specific magical properties, especially with regards to colour. Gold, lapis, carnelian, feldspar, faience, amethyst and turquoise, to name a few, all had their own religious and protective connotations and were thus popular in use.

#egyptology #ancient egypt #jewellery #sympathetic magic #heka #incidentally this is why D stealing rich people's jewellery in the egypt novel isn't her being a bog standard jewellery thief #she's technically stealing their health and protection and luck rather than just something shiny and expensive #yay layers

[nile-the-empathy-cleric]

Putting my anthropology degree to good use and compiling a bunch of credible sources documenting real life Balkan folk magic traditions in one easy, convenient article!

I know so many sources about witchcraft are inaccessible and or culturally appropriative, so I did a lot of research and wrote this easy to digest article covering some basics of South Eastern European folk belief. I’m thinking of writing more articles about various European folk traditions (when I have time!) so this will be an ongoing project. I hope you learn something new and meaningful to incorporate into your craft 💗

An Introduction to Balkan Folk Magic

Like many old world practices, traditional Balkan magic has historically been carried out by cunning folk, healers and seers who were gifted in communicating with the “other world”. These community healers practiced generational family knowledge, remedies and prayers passed down from elders. It is important to note that most cunning folk did not view themselves as witches, rather they were seen as conduits for god’s miracles. Within a historical context, these practitioners very much considered themselves Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Elements of paganism lingered in many rural regions, though they were absorbed into the social-religious fabric of the day. Rituals performed by cunning folk were typically protective, either preventative or as a treatment for supernatural maladies. Spells shielded people from harm, physically or spiritually.

Many of these traditional healers and diviners were women. They passed down knowledge to their daughters, granddaughters, and nieces. Men weren’t barred from practicing, it was just rarer for them to perform these rituals. These traditions are often tied to the family, home, or the community. Many magical rituals shared common themes, but were often specific to a singular family. The women who performed these rituals and divined their neighbors’ futures are known as bajalica, bajanje, basmara, bajarica, or bajaluša — or “conjurers that heal with words.” Bajalica and those they helped held the belief that spirits have the power to afflict illness, charms, and hexes. Bajalica are the mediators between the spirit and human worlds.

In Serbian folk belief, each family has their own protective spirit or slava. Families would celebrate them with dedicated rituals in which they made offerings of bread, sacred water, wine, and oil, as well as lighting incense and sacred candles. These spirits or saints are associated with the hearth, the heart of the home, which is considered the most sacred ritual space. During healing rituals bajalica call upon the slava, drawing and channeling their power to strengthen spells. These spells typically involve a verbal component, whispered incantations that call upon saints and spirits for help in casting evil away. These verbal formulas are highly specific to each bajalica, often times mumbling well remembered words to rid patients of their misfortune.

Spiritual afflictions are found through various means of divination, digging for the root cause. Divination has long been used to predict the fates of those who seek out the conjurers. These methods include reading tarot, casting beans and interpreting patterns (also known as favomancy), molybdomancy (casting and reading molten lead), reading tea leaves and coffee grounds, and gazing into copper bowls filled with water beneath the moonlight and interpreting patterns in the reflection. Divination was and is, the main way to discover the root of “spiritual sickness”, who hexed whom, if one was afflicted with the evil eye, the urok. Much of Balkan folk belief centers around protection from the evil eye, with the majority of spells dedicated to banishing or warding.

Various regions and countries have their own means of protecting oneself from the evil eye. In Albania people use dordolec, house dolls, that are elaborately dressed and displayed in gardens or atop homes to protect against the malicious urok. In modern times most dordolec are stylized scarecrows or stuffed animals, but the intent is the same. It is believed that the doll reflects the covetous gaze back on the perpetrator and shields the home’s inhabitants. Other amulets in Albania, Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and various Balkan countries are dried snake heads between two holy medals made of silver, objects made of iron, cloves of garlic, the hand of Fatima or hamsa, and the nazar.

Again, most rituals heavily focus on protection magic — not just from the evil eye, but malevolent spirits as well. Bajalica will employ the ritual use of knives, broom whisks, sickles, and axes in healing and warding spells. Though these are physical implements, they are tokenistic, a form of sympathetic magic. Knives and other sharp implements are used symbolically, cutting away illness and curses from the spiritual self by slashing bowls of water or the air around the afflicted person in increments of 3 or 9. These are considered sacred numbers. After the symbolic cuts are made, the water is spilled at a crossroads away from the home. This leads the evil away from the community.

Healing rituals have many intricate components. Conjurers often employ various herbs in healing and blessing water such as basil, thyme, oregano, Saint John’s-wort, sage, and mugwort. Other healers might cleanse spaces and energies with a smoke bath made of similar herbal blends. Not only do healers use ritual tools, they often perform physical acts, such as performing knot magic and binding spells using colorful yarn. The yarn is typically red, black, or white. White yarn is used in healing rituals, red in binding magic and love spells, and black is used in binding as well — though it is sometimes used for darker, malicious purposes.

The folk practices of South Eastern Europe are heavily entrenched in doing acts of good. Healers serve their communities, curing ailments and casting protective spells. Many of these traditions still exist in some capacity and are practiced equally among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Balkans. Though many of the rituals have a religious faith based element, they can be adapted to secular, agnostic, or polytheistic belief systems. These practices date back hundreds of years and by choosing to incorporate them into your craft, you are helping keep rich and beautiful traditions alive.

(sources available at the end of linked article)

#folk magic #folk healing #witchblr #witchcraft #balkan folk magic #balkan culture #my writing #eclectic witch #wicca #pagan #divination #tarot #tasseomancy #tasseography #sympathetic magic #book of shadows #grimoire #knot magic #anthropology #beginner witch #baby witch #witchcraft basics #evil eye

[sapphyreopal5]

I posted before about Gen partaking in witchcraft here back on November 3, 2023 in the hopes that she had not dabbled into black magic while she was at it. Unfortunately, I was merely hopeful in making that statement when I made that post. I suspected she indeed has when I was making that statement but hadn't known enough about her to know for sure. In this podcast I made a post about a couple days ago Gen made, she made this statement:

6:15: Dave said "talk a little bit about the ways you have had to be creative in maintaining the relationship that you have, the love that you have with the distance that has historically existed and the complexity of what it means to do the work that you both do. To which Gen responded "yeah I think it's finding the little things and I always enjoyed having a long distance relationship with him. It's kind of silly 'cause like it's in some ways it's like this vacation you have when you're together and then they're gone and so it's almost like super- not superficial but but it's not realistic and when we were apart, what I would do is create boxes. I mean he still has this box from um when we first met he was a port drinker. And he had a bottle of this Pinto port that he loved and so I took the box and I put in you know love letters and n' what have you and then once we had kids you know it obviously gets a little more complicated and you're strapped but just making that time. It's so silly but it's work and you have to treat it as such but without it becoming monotonous I guess.

7:25 (con't from above) I'm finding creativity in that work and you have to work on, on that relationship and um find creative ways to 'cause you know especially after the two of use have been together for 12 years, we're really different people and you grow at different times and sometimes you are like "I really don't like you right now" and then the other person grows in a different direction and you kind of have to find the balance and that creativity to come back together and that commonality to come back together and you know..."

Ladies and gentlemen, what she is describing above here is in fact a type of spell, specifically a box spell. It also seems it is a type of "love spell" if you will based on the fact Gen uses these to "keep the relationship alive" since this is the context in which she discussed this "creative way to keep the marriage alive" with Dave Hollis. According to this site as an overview of what box spells are, "A spell box is, well, a box that is intended for spells. It’s quite simple. You choose a box, put ingredients inside that correspond with your intent, put a lid on and voila! Your spell is contained and therefore will continue work until you disassemble the box. The ritual to set the spell into motion be as elaborate or simple as you wish. I like to write my intent on a little piece of parchment paper, which I then fold neatly, draw a sigil on the outside and place in the bottom of the box. Then I will add crystals and herbs, sometimes trinkets like bracelet charms or make clay discs or figures especially for the spell. I have two subcategories of spell boxes – a single purpose or theme."

As an overview of how love spells work which I derived from this website here, "You can already take a wild guess on what a love spell does. It is supposed to help you attract love. You need to remember one important thing: love spells are not going to make someone fall in love with you to the point that they never want to leave. A spell to make a man love you will help your paths cross. You can build a stronger connection than what you have right now. It will still be up to you to ensure that the relationship will last. Love magic is going to work better when an initial attraction is already there. This means that spells will have a higher chance of working if your crush already likes you back. It will also work better if your ex has always wanted to get back together with you. The person is just waiting for an opening to get back into your life. Spells to bring back a lover will need proper connection and genuine care or love to work."

Because Gen used a box that Jared had for one of her boxes along with letters they had written, photos, etc., there are elements of sympathetic magic. A synopsis of how sympathetic magic works and what it is: "Frazer broke down the idea further into two distinct parts: The Law of Similarity and the Law of Contact/Contagion. He said,

“From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not.”

As you can see, it seems that Gen indirectly admitted to using boxes to conjure a love relationship between her and Jared and to "keep the relationship going". Call it taking things out of context if you want and perhaps she doesn't/didn't know this is technically witchcraft. It is not however about knowing whether or not this is witchcraft so much as it is about intent. Her purpose of making these boxes from the get go as straight from the horses mouth was as a creative way to keep the marriage and relationship going between them.

Also, I initially posted this J2 magazine interview "A Walk on the Dark Side" back on Nov 18, 2023. A couple of quotes from other posts of mine I found from various sources (podcasts, magazine interviews, etc.) looking back should be of great interest given this context. This one comes from that J2 magazine interview "A Walk on the Dark Side": "Ever since we learned that Sam had demon-given powers, fans have been wondering Just how far the writers will take his journey to the dark side. Not that long ago, many people - including Padalecki himself - assumed that Sam and Ruby would never hook up. He said he didn't think that storyline would pan out. Of course, the writers did go there. "I thought it was interesting," Padalecki reflects. “Supernatural is not, and never has been - and hopefully never will be - a show about sex and lust and all of that kind of stuff that you expect on teen melodramas." The episode in reference here is Season 4 episode 9 "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Hmm, seems to me he didn't quite have the same excited response to being asked about this scene in comparison to Gen.

She said about this sex scene also in a Supernatural Magazine interview in response to the question "I'm sure you protested when you had to kiss Jared!" to which she said: "I know! I’m going to get roasted! I have a great sex scene with him [in I Know What You Did Last Summer]". According to this filming schedule, this took place sometime in Fall 2009. I also had read somewhere it took on average between 8-10 days to film an episode and I believe they had weekends off. With this being said, it seems to me that this was a few episodes before Thanksgiving where they had the whole week off (November 26, 2009). Therefore, we can guess that it was about a month and a halfish or so before Thanksgiving so this would put it probably between the 2nd and 3rd week of October or so. This therefore means it was about a month and a half before they became "official" in terms of dating according to this timeline post where I have multiple sources linking to their said relationship timeline. Which by the way things moved WAY too fast, especially given Jared had not too long before meeting Gen broken up with Sandy. Hmmm...

3 days after I posted the J2 interview aforementioned above, I noticed a story Gen made where she was reading a particular book and reblogged it with that book and some screenshots of different stories pertaining to the book. I reblogged it on Nov 21, 2023 specifically in light of a witchcraft themed book called "The Lost Apothecary" I spotted that Gen made a post while reading in her Instagram story from this day, 3 days after I shared that J2 interview. Interestingly enough about this book, the synposis of the book says via the first thing that shows up on Google: "A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them - setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course. Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman." As one of my good friends mentioned in context of the show itself: "She's poison Sam she's manipulating you!" (in reference to drinking Ruby's blood and her manipulating him). Life imitating art perhaps? Well another interesting tidbit, this type of phrase was used in that same Rise Together Podcast I mentioned before but in the context of Gen's role as Kris Furillo (and yes the host Dave admitted he never saw Supernatural but perhaps he should). Oh if only Dave realized just how much art really does imitate art.....

21:20 Dave mentions Gen's first role as Kris Furillo who "was a troubled teen that worked at a horse ranch and as you said, you were born in LA, moved to Montana and then Sun Valley. It feels a little bit like art imitating life how does the saying go? I don't know but outside of the troubled teen part your career feels like it's mirrored a little bit with some of the moves you've made". Gen agreed saying "Yeah absolutely. You know what the craziest part is that so I was born in the Bay area and the same mountain. So this girl Kris Furillo steals this horse, she's sent to juvie or something and ends up going on this horse on this crazy ride up Mount Diablo and that's where I lived. So it's so crazy to be reenacting this story." She did say also "I don't know if I'm that troubled but I feel I felt the role at that time I think." She mentioned talking to Nicole and doing a rewatch and "reviving the show or something".

Yet another quote from that Rise Together Podcast post I made that should be of great concern here:

"26:25 Dave asked Gen what it's like joining a show and then creating a life with them. He also was wondering about what it's like working with Jared while married and such. Probably the very best part of this whole thing in my opinion and what really made me want to watch this podcast from that post you shared Anon: "I was just talking to someone about this that my favorite relationship with him is a work relationship. Sometimes it's hard to be married to him because he's like, Jared is so interesting because he's so analytical. I mean my husband, I'm going to toot his horn because he's literally one of the smartest human beings I've ever met in my life and it's annoying because he will correct you on words you think he didn't even know. I have a book of SAT words just because I'm like I am going to get him. And so I'll just casually talk about something and use a crazy word in a sentence and he'll be like well you pronounced it incorrectly. It's so frustrating. Also in our marriage he's very giving and emotional and supportive. He's supportive in everything that I've done and I feel really lucky and grateful. I think even more so when it comes to work he is your biggest cheerleader and it's going to be a lot of time together. But funny enough, I think we'll be better at work than sometimes we are at home. Because I'm like, this is how the kids are, this is how I like them, this is the order that I like things in. And it's hard for me to let go I think, at home. but at work, it's just a really nice exchange and I feel really lucky, and he'll sit there too. If he's not working, he'll take it, pull up a chair and talk on the phone and watch at me and I can hear him bragging about me and whether he's doing it for my benefit I don't know but it makes me feel good and I feel really lucky that he does stuff like that."

Is it possible Gen used some kind of witchcraft to make this hookup scene become part of the script? Is it also possible she has used it in other unpleasant ways as well (ex. the car accident from April 2022, the 2015 breakdown while in Geneva alone)? Can't prove it for sure nor can we say when exactly she got that used up pinto box but I can say to grab a box like that when first dating tells me she had some magical intentions with Jared, not to mention is kind of creepy no offense ha ha. I 100% believe she has used it to maintain their "relationship" like she said about making those boxes. Then again if she really doesn't like him being at home that much, maybe she just wants his estate and the lifestyle his money provides(?).

#anti genevieve #black magic #love spells #supernatural #spn family #gen padalecki #jared padalecki #pada marriage is a mess #box spells #sympathetic magic

[blairstales]

Scottish Folklore of Cursed “Dolls”

There is a rarely talked about (though seemingly uncommon) historical custom in Scotland that will likely sound a lot like the exaggerated “voodoo dolls” (which, despite the name, are not prominent in Haitian Vodou or Louisiana Voodoo) of media.

The Scottish version is a doll that is a form of sympathetic magic(a magic category invented by Scottish folklorist James George Frazer).

Sympathetic magic has two varieties; one of which requires similarities, and the other requires contact or “contagion.”

“The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not.” “The Golden Bough” by James George Frazer(1878)

The dolls of this topic are a form of imitation type sympathetic magic. For these, the dolls were crafted with ill-intent in the likeness of the person you wanted to curse, then what was done to the doll was thought to harm who it was made to look like.

While they are called dolls, they are not really what you might expect a child to have. Instead, they are sculpted of clay but not cured in an oven.

“An image of the victim was made of clay, and because it had a certain resemblance to him (likeness denoting real connection), it was believed that whatever was done to the image would produce a similar effect on the person whom it represented. “ “The misty isle of Skye : Its scenery, It’s people, Its story” by Eneas Mackay, Stirling, (1927)

It could be stuck with pins and needles to cause aches and pains, or you could do far worse. For example, if you put the doll into a stream, as the clay broke up in the water, so was said to gradually happen to the targets health.

“When any one wished evil to another he made a clay image of the person to be injured, and placed it in a stream with the head of the image against the current. It was believed that, as the clay was dissolved by the water, the health of the person represented would decline. The spell, however, would be broken if the image was discovered and removed from the stream. In the counties of Sutherland and Ross the practice survived till within the last few years.” “Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs” by James M. Mackinlay (1893)

It is perhaps no surprise that this was not a type of magic talked fondly about, and is instead classified in books as an evil act of black magic.

#scottish folklore #scottish customs #scottish magic #scottish #scotland #folklore #cursed doll #cursed dolls #magic #black magic #Sympathetic magic #folkmagic #folk magic

[gaycactusscoundrel]

Song of the Day 03/18/2024

#Sympathetic Magic #Charming Disaster #Music #Musique #Song of the day #Chanson du jour #Spotify

[lilithsaintcrow]

They probably want the same guy to plant the zucchinis and leeks, too.

#beltane shitpost #sympathetic magic #plant that cucumber baby

[whatithinkaboutdarkshadows]

Episode 389: Samantha

Like every other episode of Dark Shadows, this one opens with a voiceover delivered by a member of the cast. The voiceovers in the segment of the series set in the year 1795 usually begin thus: A séance has been held in the great house of Collinwood, a séance which has suspended time and space and sent one girl on an uncertain and frightening journey into the past, back to the year 1795. There,…

View On WordPress

#angelique #barnabas collins #ben stokes #dark shadows #dark shadows before i die #dolls #iconography #joan bennett #literacy #london bridge #matthew morgan #naomi collins #opening voiceover #reading instructions #repertory theater #sarah collins #sarah says barnabas name #sharon smyth #supernaturalism #sympathetic magic #two spirit vampire

[booksandwitchery]

On the Power of Intention

It occurs to me I am not reading fast enough to keep up with these posts! I will have to pick up my pace. I am currently reading DIY Magic by Anthony Alvarado, which I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in secular witchcraft or witchcraft for skeptics. The author is good at explaining how "magic” serves us from a rational and empirical perspective. 

Something I’ve noticed as a common thread that ties these texts together is the power of positivity and intention. A lot of manifestation deals with the belief that you can do something--believing in yourself, reconnecting with your inner child, and strengthening your imagination.

At the very beginning of DIY Magic, Alvarado says that magic is the “fine and subtle art of driving yourself insane--it is a con you play on your own brain.” I believe that this “con” is just the unerring, steadfast decision to think positively, believe that your intentions are possible and that you have the power to make them real. This definitely calls for reconnecting with our inner child because the older we get, the more we let doubt creep in--we begin to think skeptically about everything. Some refer this as “negativity bias,” and it is an evolutionary trait that humans developed as a defense mechanism. If we connect to our inner child again, maybe we can keep some of the doubts away that weigh us down and keep us from performing at our best. Is this making sense? I’d love to hear somebody else’s thoughts on this. Isn’t this what “magic” really is? For me, magic is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will, the power of intention, self-belief and positive thought. Maybe I can’t brew a magic love potion, but I can actualize my goals--that’s enough for me.

#writing #writers of tumblr #women writers #spilled ink #write #thoughts #spilled thoughts #reading #pagan #magic #witchcraft #witch #witches #sympathetic magic #paganism #naturalistic pagan #atheopagan #atheopaganism #atheist witch #secular witch #secular witchcraft #skeptical witch #spirituality #search for meaning

[sinjones]

#sin jones #the poison apple #Sympathetic Magic #folk practice #the great work

[elminx]

In relation to the magic soap article I just read (it's linked in the last post)...

That particular person said that it was sympathetic magic to use a soap with a photo of something that you want on it to get that result. And, by my definition of sympathy...that would work...sort of?

But it would be a pretty weak connection.

Not to say that magic soap is wrong or doesn't work, just that I would never have defined it as sympathetic magic. This also doesn't mean that my definition of sympathetic magic is RIGHT, either.

I define sympathetic magic as making connections - the stronger the connection the better the result. Some easy examples that I can think of: masturbation when you are trying to draw in a lover, burning something that you are trying to destroy, putting something in the freezer to cool it down, using a poppet or a candle shaped like a person in a spell to affect a person, using a skull or a candle shaped like a skull to affect the MIND of a person.

Part of my view of how sympathetic magic works is that you need to wake up the connection between two things. When you create a poppet, it is just a doll. But when you wake it up and name it and give it the taglock of a particular person - it becomes the effigy of that person. (Side note and witch tip here: play the voice of the person for your poppet as you awaken them if you can, it's amazing how much social media can help with finding this)

Another example would be that back when I had just planted my now massive rose plant that I use as a protective guardian of my yard, I wasn't picking flowers, leaves, or thorns to use in the magic because the plant was still new. But I was bringing other dried roses, thorns, and leaves of other roses to the plant and connecting them - my waking up of THOSE plant parts was a connection with my new plant guardian.

I don't know where I'm going with this here and I'm just rambling but I'm curious about other people who use sympathetic magic in their craft and how they use it/define it. Is it like the magic soap? Is it like what I do? Is it something else entirely?

#witchblr #words #mine #sympathetic magic #spell crafting

[friend-crow]

um. whats a taglock ? in the magical sense i mean. i feel like that name is related to a mundane thing similar to a ziptie and i’m afraid if i look it up i’ll just get ads for zipties i’m so sorry for being like this

Haha, well I believe the dictionary definition is something like a matted lock of hair, which does have some bearing on the magical meaning, as hair is a classic taglock!

Basically it's something that connects a spell to its target, so if the target is a person, then DNA is going to be a very powerful option, hence hair (or spit, or blood, or nail clippings, etc.). A name or a picture can also work. Personal items are also good.

You can have taglocks for other targets too, though. If you were trying to do a protection spell on a house, for instance, you could use the address, but a stronger option would be something from the location, like soil from the grounds.

I hope this helps!

#ask #anon #taglocks #sympathetic magic

[vacantwoodsenthusiast]

Modern sympathetic magic in a covid world: Scooping out the dirty dish water from a sink that hasn't been touch in a week due to the person being sick and dumping it in the garden with the intent of burying the sickness itself while also doing the dishes for them

#sympathetic magic #folk magic #conjure faith #appalachain folk magic #granny magic

[scroll-of-thought]

Any advice for what to do with a poppet after casting? I know that discarding it is go-to for curses, but if I’m casting a positive spell, should I do something else with it? Thanks :)

I don't often use poppets, but it would make sense to me to treat the poppet nicely. Symbolically the poppet represents the person you're casting the spell on and is a link to them.

Typically if you're cursing a poppet you want to get ride of it because that person is beneath you, so you toss them in the trash. You don't want that negativity around you and they don't deserve to be in the same space as you. That's not always the case, you might want to keep your enemies close and there's plenty of situations where you'd want to keep that cursed target in eye sight. It's all about symbolic gestures.

So, if you're using a poppet as a way to sympathetically link to someone you want to help, then how would you like to treat that person. Just because the spell has been cast doesn't mean that the spell is over. Maybe you'll put the poppet in a place of veneration, let it hang out of an altar, if you have one, for your deities or spirits to work with it, maybe stick it on a shelf a with some stuffed animals or something. You can do whatever you want with it, but you can keep working that spell continuously until it works by taking care of the poppet.

Now, when you're done with the spell completely you can always undo the poppet's connection to the person, and then you can reuse it for someone else if you ever need to. People do this for curses too, and sometimes they'll keep one poppet for a long time, and that poppet will absorb that negativity and become an ingredient to the spell on it's own. No reason you can't do the same with positivity, or just cleans it after use for a fresh start. A poppet is just a tool for making a symbolic link to someone so there's no real absolute right or wrong way to do these things, so long as you're not trying to follow a specific tradition, and you keep in mind what it is and what it's for.

Hopefully that helps give you some direction and ideas of what you can do.

#witchcraft asks #asks #anon #poppet #sympathetic magic