by Raven Digitalis
Used commonly in metaphysical circles, the term empathy denotes the phenomenon of experiencing the emotional state of another (usually another person). While sympathy involves “feeling for,” empathy can be called “feeling as.” Empathy is concerned with sensing and absorbing the emotional energies of people, animals, or environments around you. Those who are particularly sensitive and who consistently absorb the emotions of others can be called empaths.
The Empathic Experience
Empathy isn’t limited to metaphysical analysis. The empathic experience is physiological, being deeply embedded in our biology. Empathy is a daily experience that emotionally bonds humans (and other animals), ensuring our success as a species. If we didn’t have empathy, we would be walking around in disconnected fogs of self-focused survivalism. As an evolutionary aid, empathy ensures the development of familial bonds and social cooperation.
Indeed, our brain’s mirror neurons allow for an experience called emotional contagion. Do you ever unconsciously turn your head if the person you’re talking to turns their head? Do you ever yawn if someone else yawns? These are example of emotional contagion, which is related to empathy. By “catching” external emotions, we can easily step into a state of reality separate from our own. From there, we can learn the interconnectedness of all things. This realization of nonseparateness is an ancient, mystical truth.
Empathy involves stepping into an alternate emotional landscape and having a compassionate response. It’s not enough to merely feel external emotions; true empathy requires that we respond with compassion. This ability can be an invaluable asset in our everyday lives and in our magickal work.
Empaths
With abilities sometimes considered to be related to psychic powers and ESP, empaths not only sense the emotions of a person, animal, or environment, but they instantaneously absorb or “catch” the surrounding emotional energy and take it on as their own. This can lead to depression and confusion if not controlled, yet it can also lead to deep levels of healing, compassion, and interpersonal engagement if harnessed and understood.
Though there are no strict rules to being an empath, certain experiences are undeniably shared among them. The same can be said for psychics or clairvoyant intuitives, who all share some abilities even though they are not tuned in to the same sensations and may receive, express, and channel their messages in different ways. All psychics function with some amount of empathy, and all empaths function with some amount of psychicism. Many empaths feel a direct correlation between magickal spirituality and their empathic abilities. However, as humans, we all possess some degree of empathetic ability that can also be used in magickal work with great success.
Empathy in Magick
While it’s of utmost importance for us magickal folk to exercise emotional awareness and thought control, the experience of empathy can have resounding effects in our daily lives and in our magick.
It’s not enough to simply realize that we are experiencing emotions while we are meditating or spellcasting—we have to own those feelings on a deep level. It’s imperative for us magickal workers to follow our trains of thought and observe how our emotions develop. When an emotion has arisen, it’s our duty to fully connect with that part of ourselves. The emotions we are feeling (or aren’t feeling) will dictate the direction of our magickal intention. Because prayer, spellcraft, and magick are meant to be precise, we must have precision in our emotional awareness.
As we more accurately become aware of our emotional responses and their influence in our lives, we can actively choose which kinds of emotions give shape to our magickal work—and our daily perspectives. When we intentionally invoke empathy for others and for ourselves, the magickal work we perform becomes more spiritual and less “needy.”
Hop online and you’ll find countless spells for cursing someone into ill health, for manipulating people’s freewill, for making someone’s cattle barren, for causing explosive diarrhea—the list goes on. But when we add a component of self-awareness and emotional humility, practitioners of magick who are spiritually progressive can bypass all these karmic messes by empathically empowering our rituals. By humbly utilizing empathy, we can actively control our thoughts and can invoke a higher level of magickal experience whose energy is more karmically advanced—and thereby more deeply spiritual.
What follows is a list of common spellcasting intentions. Empathy can uniquely apply to each intention, strengthening and clarifying our connection to the energy at hand. In the course of our regular magickal practice, we can extend our own emotions into the situation we aim to influence. We can utilize empathy toward another person’s emotions, toward our own emotions, or simply toward a certain energy, all of which can serve to strengthen our magickal work and keep it karmically pure.
Intentions
Clarity, Personal: The empathic key to invoking personal clarity first requires an objective view of what’s cluttered. Bring your attention to the unclear situation at hand, empathizing with the manner you are perceiving the situation. Accept your feelings of struggle or confusion as natural and normal. After you’ve sat with this energy for a while, skillfully invite clarity into your sphere through any magickal methods you deem appropriate. (Planetary association: Sun)
Cleansing and Healing: Whether working for yourself or others, begin by emotionally merging with the scenarios you are working with. For example, when energetically cleansing a house, open yourself emotionally as you enter each room so that you can accurately perceive which areas need to be cleansed. Where do you find “pockets” of residual emotional energy? If you are performing healing work for another person, merge your consciousness with that individual’s chakras, auric layers, and so on, in order to see which work should ensue (in addition to the advice of a physician as needed). Additionally, exercise empathy by affirming your client’s feelings and by providing emotional understanding alongside a good dose of optimistic hope. (Planetary association: Jupiter)
Communication: First, forgive yourself and any missteps you feel that you’ve taken in the course of communication. Extend this empathy to the other person or persons, stepping into their shoes and trying to consider the root of difficulty in communication. As part of your magickal work, vow to “see through the eyes of the other” in every conversation. (Planetary association: Mercury)
Cursing: Cursing is tricky because it’s usually the last thing an empath wants to do, but it does have its time and place. For curses to be successful, the practitioner must make a concerned effort to emotionally connect with the other person’s emotional body. Empathizing with the perspective and plight of the other allows one to step into their consciousness and cause influence accordingly. This can also allow the practitioner to reconsider the curse before acting on impulse. Also, keep in mind that a temporary binding spell is more benign and often a better option. (Planetary association: Mars)
Death Magick: Using a representation of death and dying, emotionally connect with the overarching energy of death through deep meditation, reflection, stillness, and the slowing of your breath. Both sorrowful and beautiful at once, death is the subtle plane of existence just behind life. Emotionally opening ourselves to this gentle energy connects us to the hidden realms and helps enrich our own perspectives on life. (Planetary association: Saturn)
Divination: Divination should be objective. For this reason, it is wise to not overly empathize with a querent (client), but to instead extend your emotional awareness to the spirits you are employing to assist with the divinatory work. (Planetary association: Moon)
Emotional Magick: When facing difficult emotions, empathy allows the practitioner to feel and accept the sensations that are being worked with. A bit of compassionate understanding goes a long way when faced with darker emotions like anger, shame, and sadness. When something is truly and deeply felt, it can allow the door of alchemical transformation to occur. Without the step of empathetic connection, emotionally charged magickal work falls incomplete. (Planetary association: Moon)
Employment: Emotionally step into the occupational situation you are seeking to manifest. Feel the emotions created within this job, not the details of the job (this can limit your intention). Sit in this energy as long as possible, pulling it toward you with joy. Invite this feeling to recur anytime you contemplate work. (Planetary association: Earth)
Faery Work: When working with the hidden realm of Fae, go to a natural environment where you can feel their presence. Gently channel your own emotions and cognitive awareness into their world, abandoning your own insecurities and sense of time. In order for communion to occur, you must try to see how they see and feel how they feel—but always come back to yourself, lest ye be taken away by the wee folk! (Planetary association: Moon)
Friendship: If working to rekindle a friendship, take time to understand the other person’s motivations and perspectives. If inviting new friendship, feel the emotional qualities you seek in the other person while you perform sympathetic magick aimed at attracting this individual. (Planetary association: Venus)
Happiness and Inspiration: After feeling, accepting, and channeling your darker emotions, think back to times where you felt completely happy, secure, inspired, creative, and at ease with life. Next, forget about the details and simply sit with that emotion of personal fulfillment. Reinvoke this raw emotional energy when you are feeling down, discouraged, or pessimistic. (Planetary association: Sun)
Hex Breaking: If you’re feeling safe and confident, place your emotional awareness into the curse or hex that may have been cast on yourself or your client. Try to objectively feel its intention. But do not stop there, or it becomes a dangerous situation. Use your magick to ground the curse into an inanimate object that you will bury, burn, or sink, or you can use a mirror to “return to sender.” If you can first safely feel the intention that may have been cast, you can then take control of that energy and conduct it accordingly. (Planetary association: Jupiter)
Love: Undoubtedly the strongest force in the universe, love can be invoked by first loving yourself. The process of self-directed compassion can be difficult in practice but should be applied daily. During those times that you feel content and confident with who you are, use magnetic magick to attract that same force from others in the world. Practiced regularly, it may surprise you to see the ways in which the vibration of love manifests itself. (Planetary association: Venus)
Memory and Study: When you are working to commit something to memory, utilize your emotions to forge a link with the information itself. Whether you’re studying a period in history, a meticulous math problem, or a foreign language, get creative to draw some kind of emotional association with the details you’re studying. We are likely to have better memorization abilities if we can associate minor emotional responses with cognitive information. (Planetary association: Mercury)
Prosperity and Luck: As a complicated subject linked to our survival, prosperity magick requires that we spend time emotionally disconnecting from ideas of worth. Reconsider idealizations you may have about both poverty and wealth. Aim to replace feelings of desperation with feelings of spiritual trust. Emotionally feel your worthiness and your ability to be financially responsible while you invoke energetic prosperity. Tap into overarching energies of abundance and draw that emotional fulfillment toward you as a daily routine. (Planetary association: Jupiter)
Protection: Emotionally merge into the need you have to create protection. It doesn’t matter what is being protected: yourself, a client, a pet, a house, or a situation. The most important aspect of this magick is to feel the need and trust yourself while you craft the intention. (Planetary associations: Mars and Saturn)
Sleep and Dreaming: When working magick aimed at sleep or the realm of dreams, it’s essential to make your thoughts “fuzzy.” By calming the rational mind and letting the creative take hold, we begin to step into the terrain of the unconscious. Empathically, you may extend your emotions to the experience of sleeping itself. Feel the emotional fulfillment that comes from rejuvenating the body throughout the night. (Planetary association: Moon)
Spirit Work: Whether you’re working with ghosts, deities, guides, or guardians, take some time to emotionally merge with their realm and sidestep your own fleeting emotions. Once you have empathized with their spiritual essence, step back into yourself and respectfully perform your work and communication. (Planetary association varies)
Travel: Empathically connect with your future self while you perform any magick associated with travel. See yourself happy, content, and safe in your destination. Draw an energetic link by feeling those emotions yourself in the present moment. Regularly reinforce the visualization before and during the course of travel. (Planetary association: Mercury)
Feel free to utilize these suggestions in your own magickal work and add to the list based on your own reflections and experiences. This list is designed to serve as an empathetic point of reference to incorporate with your personal spellcraft, ritual, prayer, meditation, and creative visualization.
For Further Study
Aron, Elaine N. The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You. Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press, 1996.
Belanger, Michelle. The Psychic Energy Codex: Awakening Your Subtle Senses. San Francisco, CA: Weiser, 2007.
Digitalis, Raven. Esoteric Empathy: A Magickal & Metaphysical Guide to Emotional Sensitivity. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2016.
McLaren, Karla. The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2013.