Four Laws of Magic

Late last year I dove into the stacks at the Wonderella Library of Art and Arcana with the intent of finding books that outlined the utter basics of magic -- its history, the way it interacts with the human mind, and any rules it seems to follow. One of the books I found was my old paperback of Kathryn Paulsen's The Complete Book of Magic & Witchcraft. I bought this book as a teenager and worked through some of the demonology exercises at the time. Since then I hadn't picked it up too often, because it always seemed a little sensationalistic. But when I opened it up this past autumn I found her writing to be straightforward enough to help me get started writing about the basics. The following are some notes from November 14 on four basic laws of magic:

Scottish anthropologist James Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, cites two basic principles in the magical systems of aboriginal peoples around the world. The first is that of homeopathy or imitation. The second is contagion.

The Law of Imitation (my phrase, after Bonewits) states that there is a sympathetic relationship between like things. A doll or drawing or other representation of a person, for example, will transmit manipulations done to the representation to the person himself. From this law we gain some of the most potent imagery of magic, including the voodoo doll and the ornate sigils of ceremonial magicians.

The Law of Contagion (again, after Bonewits) states that objects retain their relationship after separation. Hair cut from a person for whom you wish to perform magic will transmit effects to that person along the same lines as in the Law of Imitation. The contagion principle may be combined with the imitation principle -- adding the hair to a doll sewn to represent the hair's original owner, for example -- and the magic will be strengthened. The vitality of the recipient is inherent in the hair, fingernail clippings, or other substance taken from their body. I am reminded of the 16th (17th?) century use of the weapon salve, which could aggravate wounds at a distance, when I think of Contagion.

Outside of Frazer's findings we discover a third principle in magical theory -- that of antipathy as described by Cornelius Agrippa in his 16th-century writings.

The Law of Antipathy -- also called Banishment -- states that some objects are magically opposed to one another. If a particular force or being (an enemy, for example) is hoped to be countered or stymied by magic, this can be done with an antipathetic object or substance. Often these associations seem arbitrary. (The example in Paulsen is that of an emerald incorporated into a charm for finding an adulterer. When you write about Antipathy for your book, go to Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy and find a separate example.

Early practitioners of sympathetic magic, it is believed, added an intangible element to their Imitative representations -- desire. Without desire, their spells would be nothing but faulty science, chemistry with cat's blood and emeralds. But each magician, sometimes on behalf of the tribe or a client, put their hopes for the outcome into the working. Because this could be expressed in verbal or written form (even if spoken or inscribed solely in the magician's imagination), we assume that the magician also believed there was someone, or something, who could receive the message. Be that recipient a god, angel, monster, devil, or Nature itself, perhaps it was the force which made the magic happen. The hairy voodoo doll was a message to that god -- "Here is my goal. Make it happen." In Egypt, the early priests had a co-equal relationship with their gods and under the right circumstances could control their actions to magical ends. In later magics, it seems the gods aren't quite so chummy, and need to be petitioned with greater deference. The intensity of the desire, or of the belief that the desire would be fulfilled, provided a greater or lesser enhancement to the magic. It is easy to see how ceremony and aesthetics were developed along these lines.

Similar to the Law of Imitation is the principle of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, developed by the Babylonians. To paraphrase Paulsen:

The Law of the Microcosm and Macrocosm states that man himself is a representation of all of Creation, and that there are correspondences in his physical body with that of the planets in the cosmos. Later developments of this law led to correspondences being made between parts of the body and certain herbs, stones, and other natural objects, or between natural objects themselves. The Doctrine of Signatures provides one such listing. [I think so, at least. I have not researched this further.] A person's heart was thought to be directed by the gyrations of the planet Venus. Golden-colored stones and flowers were affiliated not only with the Sun, but also with every other object of solar sympathy -- the head, wealth, vitality, etc.