Sympathetic magic
The practice of magic is a rich and evolving area, ranging from simple visualization work through more elaborate practices involving cords or candles up to high ritual working where a group works together to raise power for some purpose. Techniques have evolved over the years drawing on many different traditions and have now evolved to include techniques derived from our new understanding of how the universe works such as chaos magic.One area of magic that almost certainly been around and practiced as long as humans have been around is Sympathetic magic. This area of magic has a rich and complex past and ranges from the very simple spell created and cast by and individual to a complex group ritual involving many people raising power.
The basic principle of Sympathetic magic is rather simple. Simply stated it is "Like works with like". This is very similar to the foundation principle of astrology, "As above so below" and to an extent astrology can be considered as a branch, or perhaps cousin of, Sympathetic magic. The idea is that making a change to one thing can affect another. For example the concept of using a poppet to represent another person is well established in western magical principle. Indeed during the witch hunts being found in position of a poppet was seen as sufficient proof that a person was a witch.
Sympathetic magic has two main branches. These were described by Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) in the book The Golden Bough as Law of Similarity and the Law of Contact or Contagion. The law of similarity simply stated is that if two things are alike then you can produce an effect on one by imitating it on the other. Sticking pins into a poppet with the expectation of producing pain in the subject is a good example of this. The law of contagion suggests that two objects once in contact will in some manner retain a link even after they have been separated. Here something owned by a person could, if it fell into the wrong hands, be used to affect the person. If the object was a part of the body, hair or nail clippings for example, then the link and hence the effect on the target would have been that much the stronger.
The use of both types of sympathetic magic is well established with evidence that Law of Similarity was used by our earliest ancestors. The cave paintings in Lascaux in southern France include depictions of animals being successfully hunted it is thought that these images formed part of the hunting ritual. Simply by creating an image of a successful hunt they could help insure a successful outcome to the 'real' hunt. In fact it is likely that there was little or no difference in the minds of the people of Lascaux between the images on the cave wall and the physical hunt, each would have been just as important and equally necessary to the outcome.
Other archaeological evidence, such as masks made from animal skills, suggests that more physical rituals where the hunters would enact the successful hunt, took place to help ensure success.
The other branch of sympathetic magic, the law of contagion, has a similarly long history but interestingly has perhaps a greater resonance today than the law of similarity.
With the law of contagion the basic principle is that two object once linked, or in contact with each other, in some way maintain that link when they are separated. It is this link that can then be used to cause some sort of effect on the linked individual. One example of such a spell can be traced back to 77 CE which would transfer an illness from one person and onto another!
" Take the parings of the toe-nails and the finger-nails of a sick person, and mix them up with wax…then stick this wax, before sunrise, upon the door of another person." Highly criminal, if they really do thus transfer diseases from one person to another!
Interestingly it is this branch of magic that seems to have maintained its resonance with the modern world. Homeopathy is a branch of 'Alternative' medicine that works on the principle of contagion here pure water is used to repeatedly 'dilute' a small amount of the active ingredient which is then vigorously shaken between dilutions. In the end it is thought that there would be very few, if any, molecules from the original substance contained in the homeopathic medicine. The principal here is that in the repeated shaking and dilutions the effects produced by the active ingredients 'rubs off' onto the water molecules. The water retains this effect even when no longer in contact with the active ingredient.
Not only has the magical principle survived into the 21 century but in the last 20 or 30 years physicists have discovered that at an very fundamental level the laws that govern the universe operate in a way that shows just such a link between objects. We have discovered that two objects that were once in contact with each other can retain a link and that that link can be used in exactly the way that the law of contagion suggests. Quantum entanglement has allowed scientists to separate objects, particles, atoms and even molecules, and then use that link to cause a change in the distant object by doing things to the object they have locally.
Sympathetic magic has a long history. It has been uses by peoples from at least the stone age and is beginning to form part of our fundamental understanding of the universe. However the practice of sympathetic magic has, it would seem, been eclipsed by the more visually appealing magic of candles, the glamour of ritual magic and other popular magical principles. It is I think time that the ancient techniques of sympathetic magic saw a resurgence, its study would bring us closer to both our ancestors and the working of the universe as we understand it today. It is a complex and powerful branch of magical practice and one that modern witches would do well to work with.