MAKING MAGIC

Practitioners of spellcraft believe that their rituals work by using a symbolic language of associations to enhance their will. They take advantage of what they believe are optimum times to cast certain spells, based on the season, the zodiac, particular festivals, the phases of the Moon, the time of day or night, and even what the weather is doing. They then use particular objects and symbols including plants, crystals, incense, candles and colours that they believe ‘resonate’ with certain concepts. These are called correspondences (see p70), and their use has built up over centuries across different magical traditions.

This practice is called sympathetic magic, and it works along the principle that like attracts like. For example, water is traditionally associated with washing, so it would be used in a spell for spiritually cleansing or purifying. This is a fairly obvious association, but others can be more obtuse. For centuries, ritual magicians and alchemists associated emeralds with the planet Venus. Venus rules the star sign of Taurus, so in some traditions, emerald