Sympathetic Magick

The saying "fake it 'till you make it" can be said to be a corollary of the laws of sympathetic Magick. The essence of Sympathetic Magick is to manifest the energy we wish to attract. We are sending out a beacon to the universe so that what we desire can find us. When we call upon sympathetic Magick we are making use of the laws of attraction: we are providing a comfortable space for the energies we desire to have in our lives to manifest. In order to achieve our goals we are living and bringing into our lives elements which are in harmony with the goals themselves. We are using personal energies/attitudes and magickal correspondences to create this welcoming space.

Magick is a clearing of the path for our goals to realize. It is not the twitching of a nose and making them appear. There is still work involved but Magick attunes our work and our environment to better serve our needs. The better the road the easier the journey. So let us build a Magickal superhighway to our goals.

I believe the most important yet often neglected component of sympathetic Magick is the energy we possess within ourselves in relation to the goals we have set. Magickal correspondences: combinations of colors, candles, herbs and so forth that we use to set the stage for Magicks of all kinds, are important and their energies cannot be disregarded. However the underlying energies that come directly from us are the most influential. It is, as most Magickal practitioners will tell you, essential to believe that you will succeed.

Our attitudes regarding our success, regarding the nature and substance of the goal we are working toward are as much a part of the Magick as are the Magickal correspondences and so forth that we may use to coax our goal into fruition. I call this assemblage of energies and attitude our Magickal Intent. It is both the most crucial and most difficult part of sympathetic Magick. Sympathetic Magick is aided by using Magickal correspondences but its core is our Magickal intent. If this is strong and unwavering the Magick will also be so.

If your intent is to increase your wealth for example live as if you had already accomplished this. No I don't mean go out and buy a Yacht and rely on the Faeries to pay for it! What I mean is, no matter how difficult it may be, don't worry over money. Be frugal, diligent in your payments and budgeting but don't pour destructive energy into your Magick by staying up at night worrying about your bills. This is absolutely the hardest thing to do. Training your mind not to wander to the negative aspects of our lives is very difficult. If we were not worried about money we probably wouldn't be trying to use Magick to increase our wealth would we?

Another common example is the need for love. We all need to be loved. But If we are lonely and want to meet someone, we must act as if that person is already in our lives. We have to act "loved". The first step towards bringing someone into our hearts is to make room for them. We mistake loneliness for an absence of companionship but it is not. Loneliness is not a state of purely someone not being there: it is an energy keeping someone from being there. If we are feeling alone and unloved our energy will reflect that and attract just that.

What is it then that we have to do? We have to eliminate the effects the absence of our goal has on our attitude, on our emotions, moods and behaviors. Only after we are fairly successful with this will there be room in our lives for the goal to manifest. We have to remove the rust from metal if we want to paint it : we have to remove the energies opposing our goals if we want to achieve them.

I'm not saying that this is simple or easy. It isn't. It is not likely we will tell ourselves:" be happy" and immediately be so. It takes a conscious continuous effort to attune our energies to our goals. Visualization is a good aid to use in this endeavor. Fantasy is a way for us to live out the life we desire without it yet being so. We do this naturally when we are children and the thing that makes fantasy so much more alive for children is that they don't go telling themselves : " ah that was nice but it will never happen" right after they entertain it.

If by attuning our energies to our goals we are opening up room in our lives for them to realize then Magickal correspondences are the sign posts we use to guide our desires to us and to focus our intent on those desires. Colors, sounds, elements, candles, gems, crystals, Runes, sigils, herbs, incense and on and on all are methods by which we can call to our desires.

When we wait for the Sun to be reborn at Yule we light golden candles : we are signaling the Sun to return. The flame and the color gold or yellow are correspondences to the Sun's presence in this case. This is only one of many wide spread Pagan sympathetic Magickal ritual practices.

What could we use to signal our desire for love? Typically the color red, a rose quartz perhaps... rose petals.. there are endless methods for us to use to assist in our Magick. Many times Witches mistake the use of these tools for the Magick itself. The Magick is actually the energy of our Magickal intent. Our tools and correspondences can give this energy a boost and a better direction but the Magick comes from within us.

There is a multitude of wonderful books out there on the subject of the many Magickal correspondences so I will not delve into them. Besides this plethora of choices we have in correspondences we each must find the ones that work for us. Personally I use Runes and sometimes I supplement them with herbs, candles and incense. Much of this is personal trial and error.In fact not only must the correspondences be attuned to the goals we seek but they must be attuned to us as well. If I am performing Magick for someone else I use correspondences which will focus me on the goal added to correspondences significant to the goal for the person for which the spell is performed. This is why the exact ingredients of a spell work best when selected specifically for the spellcaster and canned spells are difficult to work successfully.

We now are ready to call wealth into our lives! We have gold colored sheets upon which to dream, a gold candle and frankincense. We have endeavored to eliminate worrying over money and we have organized our finances. The highway is open the signs are there. Why aren't we rich?

Magick can direct elements of wealth to us and eliminate some obstacles to achieving it. I had despaired in the usefulness of Magick once upon a time, when none of my prosperity spells seemed to work. Besides the fact that my worries were torpedoing my Magickal Intent severely, I didn't need to be rich. When I finally realized that what I really needed was to be able to pay my electric bill my focus was more direct and my need more precise and shortly there after I found my long lost coin collection which I was able to sell easily and have a considerable amount of money left over. After paying my bills I spent a bit of it on myself and gifted some more and saved a little too. I set this up as a pattern for future wealth to manifest.

I see in my life that, when I truly need something: need not want, it is easier for me to use Magick to realize that goal . This, True Need, is the third element of sympathetic Magick; the first being Magickal Intent, the second Magickal correspondences. Will this always add up to success? Not always but more often yes than not.

The key here is our definition and perspective on need. Over all,true need is not determined by us alone. True need is in perspective with the overall purposes and paths of our lives. It may be that we need to suffer certain pain to achieve these. It may mean we need to pay our electric bill. These are factors contributing to the energy path our Magick takes.

It is here that our faith and beliefs come into play. Here is the final and most fickle factor in our Magickal works. Here where the deities move their hands and where and chance, karma, orlog, fate, however we call it comes into play. We can but ask for them to be favorable. depending on the Deities involved and why we can seek their favor.Being that I follow an ordeal path dedicated to Odihn, I sometimes marvel at the fact that my Magick works at all!

The many factors which contribute to Sympathetic Magick may make it seem unwieldy and untenable . It is not. Though some of the concepts are complicated the performance of the Magick is not. In fact the simpler the better. Live your intent and manifest it thus.

Blessed be