Spells
Throughout the previous chapters, we’ve mentioned spells, but we haven’t really created any, or talked about what a spell consists of or how to devise one. Raising power is not a spell, and neither is sending power, although both of these are components of a spell.
As defined in chapter one, a spell is a series of steps taken to achieve a magical goal. We’ve defined these steps broadly as: focus, connect, raise, send, finish.
Now we’re going to fill in these steps with other necessary components and discover how spells become more intricate and specific.
“Spells” are often defined more strictly than the definition I’m offering. You will find magical practitioners who refer to spells only if something is “spelled out”—if there are magical words or magical writing used. By using a broader definition, I am encompassing a lot more of what you may consider to be a spell, and I am providing more options for your spellwork—that is, I’m saying, go ahead and construct your magical operation as suits your needs, and feel free to call it a spell regardless of whether or not it is “spelled.”
Fine-Tuning a Spell
As you’ve been reading along, you’ve seen examples of spells or spell scenarios (such as healing our buddy Mondo), but we haven’t executed a spell from beginning to end. It may occur to you at some point that raising power and sending power are actually pretty simple, and you may be wondering how spells get so complex.
First of all, spells don’t have to be complicated. Simplicity is often a wonderful asset to bring to your magic, although complexity can be powerful as well. As in art, music, or cooking, both can have great appeal. In fact, I like to mix up how I do spells, because boredom is the enemy of staying focused and therefore of raising energy. So in my day-to-day practice, I’ll use a variety of techniques, some simple and some complex.
Spells seem complicated when we look at all the necessary steps, but that’s the danger of analyzing anything. Sentences seem complicated when you break them down grammatically, but “I am fine” is still a perfectly grammatical, and uncomplicated, sentence.
So let’s not fear complexity, but let’s examine the reasons that a spell is more than just sending power in a direction.
First, we are fine-tuning our understanding of both target and goal. As discussed in the previous chapter, this can require a lot of thought. A spell requires knowledge of how and where to focus; you need to know both what to focus on and what technique will impart the appropriate flavor.
Circumstances surrounding the spell should be examined. This includes the circumstances of the target, the conditions of the goal, and, of course, the circumstances of the magical practitioner. Here are some questions about these circumstances, the answers to which will contribute to fine-tuning a spell:
• What will it be like when the goal is achieved?
• Where is the target?
• How can I connect to the target?
• What are the physical, magical, and timing conditions?
Examining these circumstances will influence how to raise and send power. When you add power from natural or supernatural sources, or stored power, you’ll be adding a variety of ingredients, and these contribute to the “window dressing” aspect of a spell. Power from herbs, crystals, and magical tools make a spell more complex to put together, but can also make it more powerful.
In addition, many of the bells and whistles of a spell come from creating a sympathetic connection. We talked in chapter two about “layering” connections. This could cause a spell to require a lot of ingredients. Use as many ingredients as feels right and are needed to establish a strong connection.
As you can see, the so-called complexity of spellcraft is actually the work of making a spell more specific and more powerful.
The Components of a Spell
Let’s break down a spell into all of its parts and then go over the parts individually. Here are the components of a spell:
1. A stated goal
2. A target
3. Intention
4. Ingredients gathered beforehand (possibly none)
5. Raising power
6. Sending power to the target
7. Finishing the spell
The Goal
It seems obvious that a spell needs a clear goal, and indeed you may be thinking that it’s hardly worth a mention. Of course you have a goal for your spell—otherwise, why do it at all? But in ten years of teaching classes on spell construction, I’ve found that the number-one stumbling block for people is figuring out what the real goal is, and getting specific about it. We have mostly used healing as an example throughout this book, because it is almost always the case that the goal in healing is unambiguous. In many other spells, this is not the case.
In chapter seven, I mentioned a job spell that changed from earth to water in its flavor. The earth spell was brought to my class on magic by the person who wanted the new job. Even though he was the one telling me that money mattered less than emotional satisfaction, he was also the one who created a money-oriented spell. In class, we worked on uncovering his true goal, and as this became clear, the entire construction of the spell shifted.
This is more typical than not, especially because a goal should be specific. When you want to achieve something magically, the first step of any spell should be to ask yourself a series of questions designed to uncover your true goal as clearly as possible. If this process leaves you thinking you’re not ready to do a spell just yet, so be it.
When you start a spell, the first thing you should do is state the goal out loud.
Example 1: A Job Goal
•What is the job I want? What’s the job title? In what industry?
•What is the salary range?
•What is the commuting distance?
•Do I want freelance or full-time work?
•Are there other must-haves, such as medical benefits, a 401k, teamwork, solo work?
•Are there dealbreakers, such as very long hours or working for the military, or other things that would make an otherwise perfect job unacceptable?
In this case, a resultant goal might be a full-time job as a systems analyst in the healthcare technology industry, paying at least $85k, with a full benefit package, within forty minutes from home, and with a company I consider ethical.
As you can see, examining this desire closely produces a much clearer goal than “a new job”!
Example 2: A Relationship Goal
•What do I want from a relationship? Am I looking for something now or for a lifetime? Do I want to marry the right person? Is marriage off the table?
•Do I want children with the right person? How many?
•Do I want a relationship that is monogamous or polyamorous or flexible?
•What gender is my ideal partner?
•What values must we have in common?
•Are there physical, cultural, and/or sexual must-haves?
•What are the dealbreakers?
•What are the things that feel really good in a relationship, that make me happy, that I hope to have?
•What are the things that make me feel bad in a relationship, that I hope not to have?
Notice that my relationship goals include must-haves and must-not-haves, and also include nice-to-haves and nice-to-not-haves. You’re not negotiating a contract, where you only get the bottom-line stuff; you’re doing magic, and you can ask for more than your rational mind believes you can get. It also doesn’t have to be all serious and “meaningful.” If you want a relationship with a Trekker, go ahead and add “Trekker” to your list.
Here, a goal might be this: The partner I will spend the rest of my life with, who laughs at my jokes, who thinks I’m sexy; a masculine, open-minded, liberal Pagan with a compassionate heart and a strong libido.
Note that you can leave things out if the answer to a question is “it doesn’t matter to me.” I’m a bisexual woman who prefers both men and women who are masculine-of-center, so “masculine” is an important word for me, but “man” or “woman” is not.
The Target
In the previous chapter, we learned that a target should be specific, local, and informed. I also stated, and it bears repeating, that the target is the single most important factor in determining the flavor of energy you will be raising and sending, and therefore it will start to shape how you raise, how you send, and all other steps of the spell. It’s by understanding the target and goal that you will understand what the rest of your steps could or should be, and how to construct your spell.
Example 1: A Job Target
For the previous job goal, what’s the target? There are a number of ways to work out a job spell target. If you have a specific company in mind, target the company—the hiring director or the physical location. Or target your résumé, making it attractive and compelling. In a pile of résumés (digital or physical), yours is the one that stands out. If your résumé gets responses but you struggle with interviews, then your target is yourself, and your goal is narrower: to be articulate, effective, and appealing in job interviews.
Example 2: A Relationship Target
For love spells, the target is usually yourself. A love spell can also take the form of a prayer—a request to God, a god, or your guardian angel to bring you and your “soul mate” together. In a spell of prayer, the target is the deity or your own higher self.
Both of these examples might toy with the idea of Fate, or what is “meant to be.” This concept might be impossibly vague for you, and it might not even be something you believe in. On the other hand, it might be something you visualize clearly, a shining path through the universe. If this visualization is vivid and real for you, then it can be effective to use in targeting magic. Fate itself isn’t the target; the target is pushing you and your goal together along the path so that, for example, you and your beloved inevitably meet on your fated love path, or you are drawn to apply for the right job, just as the right recruiter is drawn to you, on your fated career path.
Intention
In chapter four, we defined intention as follows:
To intend is to focus fixedly and consciously on a firm desire, with determination and with absolute confidence.
It’s crucial to understand that every spell must be performed with a focused mind and firm intention. Often, you will read a spell in a book that doesn’t say anything about “focus your mind”; you have to assume it. I’ve contributed to Llewellyn’s Witches’ Spell-A-Day Almanac a few times—spells are restricted to 150 words. Thus, I’ve omitted things like “ground and center,” “focus your mind,” “visualize your target,” etc. You should always read any spell as if such phrases were included.
Intention means two things. First, it means that you are fully committed to the goal. Second, it means you focus your mind firmly on the goal during the course of the spell, as just defined (fixedly, consciously, etc.).
In almost every spell, splitting focus is necessary, as discussed in chapter seven. You must focus your mind firmly on the goal while also clearly imagining the target. The next step, gathering ingredients, is where you will determine if a focal object and/or an object of stored power can be used to represent one point of focus.
Examples
For both of the examples we’ve been working with, the job and the relationship, now is the time to review your goal and make sure you are really committed to it. Review the particulars of your goal, fine-tune the goal if necessary, and be able to fix it firmly in your mind.
Ingredients
There is perhaps nothing so associated with the idea of “magic spell” as the various ingredients a spell might contain. While it is true that you can do a spell without any ingredients at all, the “stuff” of a spell has a lot of value—in adding power, in creating a sympathetic connection, and in focusing the mind.
Collecting ingredients actually lends power to a spell, which I’ll explain shortly. In addition, the process of slowing down and putting a spell together allows you to really consider what you are doing.
Magical Tools
Magical tools are a source of stored power, as described in chapter six. Using them brings that power to your spell.
In addition, the power of preparing for ritual as an aid to focusing the mind cannot be discounted. The use of magical tools serves as a trigger to induce the appropriate state of mind. This is an effect that will become apparent over time. Obviously, the first time you use a tool, you will not have the trigger in place from repetition. What you will have, though, is the knowledge that this tool is associated with magic, and the psychology of working with something laden with archetypal power will serve your purpose.
Preparing your ritual space, setting up the working area, putting on magical garb or jewelry (or disrobing if you work skyclad), and assembling and then using tools all help to lead the mind into the proper state for focused intention, while also bringing stored power to the work.
Power Objects
Objects that have inherent power are obviously of great use in spells. I keep reference books in the house to help me figure out the appropriate herbs, stones, colors, numbers, and so on to use in magic. You may be thinking, “Reference books? Why not use the Internet?” But often there is as much wrong “information” online as there are reliable resources, particularly in the occult, so a well-worn favorite volume is my go-to (see appendix C).
Virtually every spell I use will have the four elements on the altar, so the minimum, for me, will be to select incense (which I’ll be using anyway) that is appropriate to the occasion.
Sympathetic Objects
You already know that creating a sympathetic connection is vital to the success of a spell. Sympathetic objects can create many connections—to the goal, to the target, to ideas inherent in the magic—and naturally you needn’t choose just one of these. For example, if you are doing magic to help a couple, you can have a sympathetic object for each person.
Sympathetic objects can be symbolic or direct.
Direct: Photos, mementos, directly connected objects (nail or hair clippings of a targeted person or animal) or indirectly connected objects (soil from the path of a targeted person)
Symbolic: Colors, elements, runes, astrological symbols, tarot cards, abstract ideas (a pen representing inspired writing, a rattle representing babies, etc.)
Collecting Ingredients
One of the first things my teacher told me was that a spell might start working even before you do it, but that you had to follow through and perform the spell or else the effect would dissipate. So if you’re planning to do that love spell, you might suddenly get a spate of first dates, or if you’re preparing to do the job spell, you might start getting interviews. But if you don’t proceed to actually perform the spell, you won’t get the second date or the second interview (or you will, but not the end goal—the job or the long-term relationship).
Eventually I came to understand why this “pre-spell” effect was occurring. Partly, of course, spells transcend time, so the linear order of “before the spell,” then “the spell,” then “after the spell” gets a little screwy. But a lot of it has to do with planning the spell and gathering its ingredients.
As you plan and gather, you’ll be thinking about, focusing on, meditating on, mulling over, and visualizing the spell. You can’t help but do so! Suppose a spell calls for cinnamon and a green candle. You go to the supermarket and find the cinnamon, but they have only white and red candles, so you make a second stop for the candle. The entire time you’re out and about, you’re thinking about the spell. While finding your ingredients, you’re thinking about how you will use them. While standing in line at the store, you recall that cinnamon draws money, and that relates to your goal. While driving from the supermarket to the candle store, you think about how green is also associated with money, and you picture lighting the green candle. You imagine the shade of green you will select (you hope the store has that shade!), so your thoughts are suffused with green and drawing money.
It is primarily the power of your focused mind that creates the pre-spell effect. Follow-through is vital, though. Consider that if you don’t do the spell, that fact will remain in the back of your mind. It will feel, perhaps, like a failure, or an incompletion, and the energy of your prior focus will dissolve. Also consider that the energy of preparing for the spell had the quality of reaching toward something, and the “something” was the performance of the spell. Without follow-through, that energy will fall flat, as if the target was removed while the arrow was mid-flight.
So even if you actually get the job offer or meet “the one” before you actually do the spell, be sure to go ahead and do the spell.
A Magical Chest
Naturally, you’ll end up with a stock of spell ingredients you use often. You will not always have the luxury of carefully planning a spell. If you get an emergency phone call that so-and-so was in an accident and needs energy right now (and I’ve had several of those phone calls over the years), you should have what you need at hand (or enough to improvise). In chapter ten you will find a list of basic ingredients to keep on hand that will allow you to do almost any magic on the fly.
You’ll acquire additional ingredients because you won’t use everything up in a single spell. Herbs and oils in particular are bought, grown, or made in quantities larger than any one spell will consume, so you’ll have leftovers. In addition, it’s probably smart to buy extra quantities of ingredients you need. When you’re at the store getting your green candle, get a few. Candles (especially tapers) have an unfortunate tendency to crack on the way home, so you don’t want to buy just one, and since green was useful once, it may come up again, so buying for a rainy day is a good idea.
Eventually, you’ll end up with a magical storage chest, closet, or shelf. Now, here’s a cool thing about that: The magical chest will, itself, become an object of accumulated power. Every time you do a spell, you go to your magical chest, with your mind on your work. Whenever you’re in that state of mind, buzzing with focused energy, you’re there, putting something away or taking something out. Eventually, the act of opening the magical chest will be one of the ritual steps that gives you power.
Example 1: Ingredients for a Job Spell
You have a goal and a target. Now it’s time to devise the actual spell.
Since your target is your résumé, the first ingredient you need is a printed copy of your résumé. Keep in mind that this is a sympathetic object—it isn’t necessarily the one you will send out. In fact, if you’re going to anoint and cense it, it shouldn’t be, since you don’t want to send a résumé with water stains and the scent of incense. Rather, “That which is like a thing is the thing.” A printed copy of your résumé is like all other printed and electronic copies, and the magic you do on this one printout affects them all.
The two most common spells throughout history are to bring love and to bring money, so you’ll have a wide selection of incense ingredients to choose from. Since (in this example) you are looking for a job in the healthcare industry, you can add healing herbs to your mix and perhaps something associated with your planetary ruler as well.
I’m a Taurus, a sign ruled by Venus, so I might choose mugwort, plumeria, rose, or some other Venus ingredient, plus cinnamon to draw money, or vetivert, which is both ruled by Venus and associated with money. Cinnamon also has associations with being on a higher spiritual plane, which is great because I’m looking for a company with high ethical standards. I might add marjoram for healing and happiness.
You might have a batch of incense you use on a regular basis—I do. In that case, you can take some of it, mix in your extra ingredients that are specific to this spell, and voilà! Shortcut to spell-specific incense!
Green is the color of money and career, so that would be a good color for a candle or candles and for my altar cloth.
What spell am I actually doing, though? These ingredients could be generic to almost any spell. As I look, I notice a lot of my ingredients are kind of watery and soft—healing and Venus both bring a kind of sweetness, as well as the element of water, to things. Thinking it over, I realize I need more fire in my spell. Fire is intense and passionate. I want go-getter energy and the quality of strong attraction. I also want the element of earth, which is associated with career, stability, and money. I decide to use fire during the spell and earth at the finishing stage.
A simple way to bring fire into a spell is to burn something. I will need a cauldron, dish, or container large enough to hold two pieces of flaming paper (my résumé) without getting out of control. The container should be resting on a ceramic tile so it doesn’t burn the altar cloth or floor. I also need a fire extinguisher nearby just in case.
Here are the ingredients for my job spell:
• Résumé
• Green candle
• Green cloth
• Matches/lighter
• Cinnamon, marjoram, vetivert
• Cauldron and tile
• Fire extinguisher
• Censor and charcoal
Example 2: Ingredients for a Love Spell
I am targeting myself in this spell.24 The idea is to become an attractant to the kind of love, and the kind of loving partner, I’m seeking. There are lots of ways to do this, but one method is a magical bath.
Love is associated with the element of water. I want to suffuse myself with a particular kind of attraction, so “soaking in it” can work both metaphorically and literally—joining the metaphor to the literal is an effective magical technique that I use often.
In the previous example, we used the planet Venus because it is the planetary ruler of my astrological sign (Taurus). Now we can use Venus again, because she is the planetary ruler of love. In astrology, the number of Venus is six, but in the Kabbalah, the planet Venus is associated with Netzach, which is the seventh sephirah. For this reason, the spell can utilize either six or seven candles, depending upon which association you’re using. Let’s assume we’re using six.
Pink is associated with love, and red is associated with passion. In my goal, I identified “strong libido” as part of what I’m looking for, so I want to include both colors.
Many plants attract love, including rose, patchouli, jasmine, gardenia, and rosemary. Plants and oils that incite lust include clove, musk, cinnamon, hibiscus, patchouli, and rosemary. Some of these can go into the bath as herbs or oils, and some can be burned as incense.
I want to maintain the idea of surrounding myself with love through the end of the spell, so wrapping myself up in love after I get out of the bath feels powerful. A new pink towel or bathrobe, never before used (you’ll find this called “virgin” in old spellbooks), will allow me to step from my love bath into more love.
Here are the ingredients for my love spell:
• Sea salt
• Six candles: three pink, three red
• Censor and charcoal
• Matches/lighter
• Pink and red rose petals
• Vanilla and patchouli oils
• Incense, including cinnamon, rose, and jasmine
• A new pink towel or bathrobe
Raising Power
Where in your spell are the sources of power, and how will you access them?
At a minimum, every spell must have:
• Power from the mind through concentration and focus (visualizing the target and goal)
Almost every spell has:
• Power of repetition and power of suggestion through going through steps, using tools and objects that are familiar and associated with magic
Any spell can have:
• Power of deity, gained by evoking or petitioning the deity or deities as a preliminary step
• Supernatural power from evoking or petitioning other supernatural beings
• Stored power from using magical tools
• Natural power from using incense or aromas, and potentially from using other natural objects on the altar
• Supernatural power from the four elements, by balancing a spell in the elements as a preliminary step or from one or two elements specifically needed by the spell
Why would an evocation or petition to deity be a preliminary step? In part, this is out of respect for the entity summoned. If God or a god is called upon, it is polite to honor that deity by placing him/her/them at the head of the line. In part, it’s practical. You can pray to a deity at the end and say, “Bless what I have done here,” but if you pray to a deity at the beginning, saying, “Bless what I am about to do here,” then you (theoretically) have the deity’s attention throughout the spell. It’s kind of like saying, “Hey, watch this.”
In addition to these, you can add other power sources to your spell. Will you chant? Play the drum? Dance? Use meditation and deep trance? Weave? Use sex or pain? Go out in nature? Use barbarous words? Or meaningful words? Will you act out your goal, using imitative magic? Every spell is different. Your power should come from a source that has an appropriate flavor.
Example 1: Raising Power for a Job Spell
As with every spell, I will raise power in this spell from my mind, by concentrating on my target and goal. I recommend starting every spell with a stated intention, which will add the power of words immediately. By having the spell include some speaking, I can use the power of meaningful words. They help create the intention of the spell, while raising additional mental power.
One technique I like very much—an age-old magical technique—is to repeat a simple phrase over and over. The idea is to reduce your intention to a word or two, and repeat that as a chant, an incantation, or in writing. In this case, I’ve decided to chant or intone my intended job title, which is two words. This uses rhythm and repetition as well as language.
I can easily access stored power from one or more magical tools. An athame to direct my will seems an obvious choice. Perhaps I’ll be able to add items to my altar that I’ve used before, which have accumulated power from use.
I’m going to burn incense, and the qualities of the herbs and spices I burn are a natural source of power. I can also add power from the four elements (a supernatural source). It makes sense to balance this spell, because a good job uses all the elemental qualities: air for intelligence, fire for energy and passion, water for a job I love, and earth for money and stability. I often start spells by charging up symbols of the four elements for balance and to bring this power to the spell. Since I’m consecrating the résumé, the elements should be present anyway, to use during that step.
I’m going to bring the résumé to the four elements, charging it with the power of each. This raises more power from the elements, flavors the spell, and brings repetition to the spell. Any time the elements are used, there’s an ability to use repetition. For example, look at these words to charge my résumé with the elements:
I do charge this résumé with air, that it capture the thoughts of those who read it. O air, O communicator, let this résumé be a powerful messenger, bringing swift communication from the employer I seek.
I do charge this résumé with fire, that it be a force of my True Will, awakening and enlivening the employer who reads it.
I do charge this résumé with water, that it open the heart of the employer I seek, that deep satisfaction be a part of my work.
I do charge this résumé with earth, that it bring stability and prosperity. O earth, make this new job a home for me!
Because “I do charge this résumé with (element), that it” is repeated four times, it has a sing-song quality that alters consciousness. This is a technique I almost always use.
Any spell can include power from deity, by opening with an evocation or prayer. In this case, I’ve chosen to evoke the Roman god Mercury. He is often used nowadays as a god of digital technology—computers, wireless communication, telephony, and so on. He’s also generally a god of swift communication, and I want to hear back quickly from a prospective employer.
I’ll flavor the power with a sympathetic object—the résumé—and with color—the green of the candles and altar cloth. The deity I’ve chosen to evoke also flavors the power. Of course, by using the job title as a magic phrase, I cannot avoid imbuing the power with the flavor of the job!
I’ve also decided to burn the résumé to bring more fire to the spell, and to bury its ashes to seal the spell with earth, and these are part of flavoring it.
Example 2: Raising Power for a Love Spell
Flavoring a love spell is very important. Every part of it has to feel romantic and beautiful and be oriented toward love. Unless you want an asexual relationship, the spell should feel sexy as well. In this example, I’ve chosen myself as a target, so my state of mind is especially important. It’s not enough to concentrate on my target and goal; I have to feel romantic, I have to become and embody romance. So I will design a spell with a heavy emphasis on atmosphere. I’ll make everything lovely, in soft, romantic colors. I’ll use flower petals and sweet smells to beautify the experience. This raises power in a psychological sense, by concentrating the mind on love, but the primary purpose is symbolic and sympathetic.
As with the job spell, this spell raises power from the mind through concentration and meditation, and power from words through stated intention. Because I want to call someone to me, I’m choosing words in this spell that are meaningful, connecting again to the mind and heart as the beloved is described in the spell. This will be part of creating the atmosphere, so I’ll want my words to be beautiful and appealing.
I almost always use an athame or wand in my spells, accessing stored power from a magical tool, and I’ll do so here as well.
This spell can easily use the power of deity, for a number of reasons. First, because finding your true love or soulmate is something seen as spiritual, as tied up with your Fate (capital F!) or life’s purpose. Thus, God, your guardian angel, or some specific deity can be thought to be interested. Second, there are many deities who rule over love, including the goddesses Aphrodite, Ishtar, Áine, Freya, and Erzulie and the gods Kama and Eros, so it can be fitting to evoke them in a spell where they can be expected to want to lend energy. Finally, in this particular spell I’ve stated as my goal a “Pagan” partner, so evoking gods we might worship together would be appropriate.
This spell relies heavily on natural and supernatural power. Flowers, oils, and incense are natural, and the balance of the four elements is considered supernatural. Since I’m using the element of water as a bath, the elements won’t be perfectly balanced: water will be disproportionately present. But I want a long-term relationship, so I want something that also has air, fire, and earth qualities, as all lasting relationships will have all four.
Once I decided to use six candles, I went down the road of numerology and will repeat six as a motif in the spell. Numerology can be considered a supernatural power source as well as a source of symbolic sympathy.
A love spell has a target that naturally works with sex magic, so let’s add that to the sources of power in this spell. Orgasm is one of the greatest means of accessing the body’s power. Since this spell will be done alone, in the privacy of a bath, and since it is meant to draw a relationship that is, in part, sexual, it’s a perfect fit.
Sending Power to the Target
As our “male” and “female” metaphors emphasized, sending power to the target is the climax of the spell. Often, a spell has a bunch of steps, and it is easy to get caught up in the execution of these steps. So it’s important to understand a kind of through-current of energy from beginning to end. No matter what the steps are, how simple or how complex, no matter whether you’re using a spell from a book, one you’ve written yourself, or one you created spontaneously, on the fly, there is always a stream of energy. From the moment you first begin to focus your mind, that energy builds, full of the flavor and imagery of the goal. It builds and builds until it is finally released toward the target. Building the energy is like pulling your arm back in archery: ultimately you let go and let the arrow fly.
We’ve described a number of different ways to raise and send power:
• In a burst (male)
• In waves (female)
• With split focus, either with a partner, with a group, or solo (the sending can then be burst or wave)
• Into storage for later release
• As a coordinated working among many people in disparate locations
When creating a spell, choose your method based on practicality (like how many people are present, how much noise can be tolerated, how long the ritual should last, etc.) and on matching the style and flavor to the purpose of the spell. If you are sending out an urgent call for justice, then a gentle series of waves is a bad match—a burst is a more urgent energy. On the other hand, some healings demand gentle energy that can be tolerated by a frail patient. Political magic can be forceful, like a boisterous protest march, or gentle, like persuasion and influence. Consider the intent and the way you want your energy to manifest.
Example 1: Sending Power in a Job Spell
Looking at the components of the spell I’ve put together, I find that the energy is building through preliminary steps: the charging of the elements, the evocation of the god Mercury, and the charging of the résumé. My concentration and focus increase with each step, as more and more power is brought to bear.
At this point in creating the spell, I ask myself, how can I push this power out, in a burst, to the target (my résumé)? It seems, looking at the spell components I’ve put together so far, that the whole thing is kind of quiet. With the candle, the four elements, and a sympathetic object, I can put together a decent spell, but I want more. I want some oomph. While thinking about this, I came up with the idea of chanting the job title. Since I’d previously thought of burning the résumé to bring extra fire into the spell, burning it at a peak of power seemed like the ideal way to send power. Raise and chant, raise and chant, and at peak, set the document on fire. Mentally and emotionally push the energy through the document, through the fire, up through the smoke and out into the world, where it can do its work, borne on the smoke.
Example 2: Sending Power in a Love Spell
This love spell is a perfect example of how preparing for the spell can be part of the power-raising. All this beautification and preparation feels like an anointing of the self, bringing love in. From the time you first clean the bathroom, to bringing in the flowers and the pink towel, to the first declaration of intent, everything seems to move me toward receiving love, until I get into the bath and I’m soaking in it, literally and magically.
How, then, do I prevent the bath from kind of fizzling out? After all that build-up, how do I make sure that simply sitting in a tub, focusing, receiving, stays powerful?
There are a number of options, including singing, meditating, gazing at the candles, etc. I’ll probably start with that, but I’m choosing to culminate this spell with an orgasm. Again, since I’ve specified that I want a lot of libido energy in my lover, this is a great way to summon that energy, and orgasm naturally flows to peak-and-release. A lot of time, people lose mental focus during or leading up to orgasm, so I have to make sure I fully meditate on and absorb the idea of myself as a target, drawing a lover to me, before beginning the sexual part of the spell.
Finishing the Spell
Many people think that a spell is finished when the power is sent to the target. Mostly it is, but what happens next is important. After you finish a meal, clearing the plates is different from lingering over a cup of good coffee. After sex, throwing your clothes on quickly is different from cuddling. After you fill your tank, screwing the gas cap back on is important. Finishing matters.
Declared Success
The first thing to know about finishing a spell is this: Always declare success. This is the seal on the mental focus you’ve given the spell. As soon as you remove yourself from the mindset of the spell, doubt may begin to appear. Perhaps it’s doubt about the result or about your skill as a practitioner of magic, or maybe it’s skepticism about magic and the occult arts as a whole. These doubts are the natural activities of an intelligent mind, but it’s easy to see how they can undermine your work. Therefore, as soon as you are done, declare success. It is the final use of focused clarity during the course of the spell. Your subconscious mind will hear that declaration while you are in an altered state, and it will have a powerful impact.
Phrases such as “So mote it be,” “So be it,” or “It is done” are often used to finish a spell for exactly this purpose.
Often, when working in a group, nothing more is needed at this point. We exchange glances or nods, affirming that the work is complete, and then declare success. Immediately, we ground.
Grounding Out
When you ground and center at the beginning of the working, you are bringing your energy into a still place that is connected to the earth. At the end, though, you are doing something that is also called “grounding” but is a little different. You are again connecting to the earth, but this time you are doing so in order to release residual energy and come back to yourself. This is also known as “grounding out,” “grounding down,” or “earthing” the energy. A useful phrase here might be “Come down to Earth.”
When I complete a ritual, I touch or slap the floor or ground and/or stomp my feet. It brings me back to my day-to-day self in a hurry, and it feels great. Sometimes, though, I’m in a Wiccan ritual of which a spell is just a part. The spell is done, but the ritual will continue. In this case, I will do something quieter and less disruptive. Physical contact is often very grounding in this way. In a group, holding hands or hugging after a spell is done is effective. Touching the ground or the floor is good. Eating and/or drinking is not only a great technique but often is necessary after a spell—magic works up an appetite!
In the typical Wiccan rituals I have at home, I consecrate cakes and wine and then do any works of magic afterward.25 Even though we’ve symbolically partaken of the consecrated food and drink, I ask participants to avoid eating until after the magical work is completed.
Food, especially, tends to go a long way toward making you feel earthbound. That’s helpful at the end of a working, when it’s time to ground out, but beforehand it makes your job harder. You should feel light, able to travel in the imagination (if not the astral), when working magic. There’s a dual advantage to saving the cakes and wine until after magic, though: when magic is done, we’re invariably ravenous!
The Remains
Many spells leave something behind, and a spell isn’t truly finished until you’ve figured out what you’re doing with that.
I will never forget the first conversation I had with my teacher on this subject. She was explaining poppet magic to me, and I asked what happened to the poppet when you were done. She said, “Oh, you put it in a shoebox under your bed. And eventually you have a bed with lots of shoeboxes underneath.”
So, that’s no good. Seriously, my teacher was fantastic, but I knew right away that I didn’t want the rest of my life to include an ever-growing pile of shoeboxes. So I started thinking about what gets done with the remains of spells, what could get done with them, and what it all meant.
There are usually remains from the four elements. Consecrated water should be poured out onto the earth or into natural water; dumping it in the sink or toilet is inelegant and maybe a little disrespectful to the whole idea of consecration. If you’ve created saltwater in the course of your ritual, be careful not to pour a large quantity of it onto living plants. Ashes from incense can be taken outside as well. If you burn incense in a censer, tamp down the ashes and place the next charcoal, next time, right on top. Salt and incense can simply be reused.
Then there are the ingredients specific to the spell.
The easiest spell to discuss here is the one with no remains. A simple candle spell burns the evidence, so to speak. The candle is burned all the way down, and there is nothing left. If the incense has been consecrated specifically for the spell (as opposed to consecrating it as a representation of air), then just consecrate a small amount and burn all of that as well.
Other spells create talismans, tokens, or other objects meant to be kept, to keep the spell working. Some such talismans are kept indefinitely. For example, a dreamcatcher might be hung over the bed; you’d keep such an item more or less forever. A protective item (such as a dreamcatcher) can be recharged periodically, but its usefulness remains. A protective talisman for a car or a home, for example, can be cleaned and recharged when you get a new car or move to a new home.
There are a vast array of spell ingredients, though, that don’t need to be kept forever—at least not in order to fulfill the purpose of the spell—and aren’t self-disposing like a candle. For these, some thought should go into how the remains are to be handled.
Offerings can be made from the remains of a spell. For example, you can do a money spell using coins as sympathetic objects. At the end of the spell, the coins could be given to charity. Spell remains can be placed upon the earth, provided they’re not pollutants or litter. This can symbolize offering them to the gods or to Mother Earth or setting them free.
Burial does a number of different things, depending upon the intention. It can stabilize a spell, allowing its energy to partake of earth elemental energy; a spell is made strong and permanent by being made a part of the earth.
Similarly, many spells take advantage of the idea of the land, and buried spell ingredients are “planted” like seeds or placed into the ground like a foundation. The Catholic tradition of burying a Saint Joseph statue in order to sell a house partakes of this; the saint is made a part of the piece of real estate. A protection spell for a piece of property or a home often involves burying something on the property; the protective power becomes part of the land.
Burial can also allow the energy of a spell to dissipate slowly. This is applicable when you want to achieve a long-term goal. Suppose, for example, you did a spell to maintain a high GPA in college. Since the spell has to continue working for four (or more) years, you might choose to make burying a talisman a part of the spell.
To put something into the earth can also be to hide it, to make it secret. The concept of earth as a dark and secret place is leveraged. This can be anything from burying a real secret, to something working on an “out of sight, out of mind” principle, to a trap laid for an enemy.
Finally, to bury something can be to put it to rest, to kill it off. Here, burial as in a funeral is the imagery being used.
The specific use of burial is invoked by whatever is said during the process or, if silent, by the concentrated thought behind the act. Location also makes a difference in burial. Burying something on your own property has a different connotation than burying something in a remote woods, which is itself different from burying something in a churchyard or at the edge of a cemetery.
Burning also has different meanings under different circumstances. To start with, it imparts fire energy, and thus passion, will, and intensity can be brought to bear.
Burning something can be seen as distilling it into its purest, noncorporeal form. In the job spell, for example, we turn the résumé into all résumés, into the quintessence of “résumé.” Burning also allows something to travel throughout the world, or to the heavens, carried on the rising smoke. So you can write down something you wish to come to pass and burn it, sending the message to God or the gods, to your guardian angel, or simply out into the universe where it can become manifest.
Fire can also be the means of an offering. Some ancient pagan cultures—such as Hellenistic Greece—treated a burnt offering as that which sent the essence of a thing to the gods. Gods cannot eat actual meat, for example, but their burnt essence is consumed. This was done in the Greek ritual of thysia; the inedible portions of the sacrificed animal were burnt and offered to the gods, while the humans feasted on the rest of the meat. It was not just the burnt portion that was an offering, though, but the burning itself; the fire transformed inedible meat into something fit to offer the gods. Conveniently, this leaves the physical meat for the worshippers to consume thereafter.
Burning can also be treated as negative. Fire devours and destroys. People write down things they wish to be removed from their lives and then burn up the paper.
The ashes that remain after you burn something are usually considered to be waste and don’t have to be disposed of ritually. However, they can be used ritually—buried or scattered—in order to finish a spell.
Running water can be used to purify or release the remains of a spell. Obviously, if you’re using a natural stream to dispose of a spell’s remains, you should be conscious of not polluting. The elemental quality of water used is usually purification, but there’s also a sense of travel, which is why running water is often specified in old spells. The item used in a spell is released to go somewhere. By contrast, if an item was dropped into a lake, it would pretty much always be in that lake. Dropping something (non-polluting) into a lake might have a quality similar to burial, in that the object is hidden away.
Exposure can use the air to scatter something or leave its fate to God or the gods. Something is left on the ground to let the wind, or birds, or just entropy scatter it wherever it will go. Again, be conscious of pollution and litter if you use this technique.
The Rule of Silence
The rule of silence is something discussed in many books on magic and by many teachers. It has a range of variations. The basic principle is this: Don’t talk about a spell after you’ve done it. The variations go like this: Don’t ever talk about a spell after you’ve done it, or don’t talk about it until its goal is accomplished (or until it has been proven to fail 26), or for the next twenty-four hours, or for a full cycle of the moon (that is, until the moon returns to the phase it was in when the spell was performed). You get the picture.
What is the purpose of this rule?
My teacher likened talking about a spell to throwing a baseball and then plucking it out of the air to see how fast it was going. However fast it was going, it isn’t going that fast anymore, and by your interference you’ve ensured it will never reach its intended target.
It’s important to let the energy go, to release it from the confines of your conscious mind. To devote any thought to it is to impede the flow of that release. Naturally, you will sometimes think about it, but you can more easily set those thoughts aside if you know you will definitely not speak about it. The minute you speak about it, any doubts you have (about the potential results or about how well you performed the spell) will unavoidably creep back in.
You have been working on your mind skills, but you’re not actively applying them all day, every day. There are times when you are relaxed, when you are goofing off. By putting the spell out of your mind and not engaging with it, you avoid having your thoughts poke around at the spell when they’re not being actively disciplined.
Let it go.
24. In fact, I have both a good job and a happy marriage, so I’m not performing either of these spells for myself. But let’s use me as our fictional subject anyway. I’ve performed similar spells in the past.
25. A detailed examination of Wiccan ritual, the order of the steps, and the reasoning behind them, including cakes and wine, can be found in my book The Elements of Ritual.
26. By “proven to fail,” I mean, for example: You did a spell for a specific job for which you interviewed, and you’ve received a call from the recruiter that someone else got the job. You did a healing and the patient died. You did a fertility spell for a woman and she tells you she’s having a total hysterectomy, thus ending the possibility of her becoming pregnant. Or, you did a spell with a time limit built in, such as “XYZ will happen by the next full moon.” The time limit has passed and XYZ didn’t happen. Even if XYZ might still happen, the time limit means the spell has “expired.”