A Witch's World of Magick (14 page)

While the sympathetic action of inserting and/or puncturing still has a prominent place in the magick, ill-chosen materials can indeed wreck the spell through the pitfalls of mismatched mediums. For instance, if you wanted a warring country to become more peaceful, you might make a clay model of the nation and then insert into the image a piece of rose quartz, a stone with a very loving, contented energy. The symbolism and inherent energies of the stone are harmonious with the goal of the spell; the medium matches the intent. On the other hand, if a person were to cast such a spell using instead of rose quartz a nail from a shipwreck, the resulting magick would likely cause more chaos. Even if the energies of the shipwreck nail had been tempered and empowered to a new purpose beforehand, chaotic and baneful energies tend to linger and return.

By inserting an object with inherent attributes already in line with the spell, or an object that’s void of any particular signature, a blank slate to empower as you wish, you’re giving your magick a greater chance for success. Most definitely, objects with energies incongruous to the spell at hand can be transformed and adapted, but why take the chance and go through the trouble when efficacy matters? Save those tricks for your magickal training sessions, but leave them out of your puncturing and insertion magick if the spell is relying on energy combination or transference. The magick here is in the materials used and in the intent conveyed through the manipulation of those materials, and as puncturing and insertion at their most basic imitate stabbing, piercing, and other painful sensations, the sympathetic attributes of your spell components will need to be strong enough to outweigh this symbolism. Actions speak louder than words, so when you’re using puncturing and insertion magick to combine, transfer, or transform, it’s wise to supplement your well-chosen words with equally well-chosen spell materials. Keep these ideas in mind when considering the methods outlined below, and you’ll gain a stronger sense of how these techniques might be useful in your own magickal practice:

Infiltration through Insertion Spell

Infiltration through insertion is a magickal technique you can use for getting you where you want to be. Want acceptance into an inner circle, or secret society? Craft an emblem out of clay to represent the group you’d like to be a part of, then write your name on a toothpick or flower stem and stick this into the clay. Alternatively, you might make a mini mock you out of clay and use that for the spell in place of the toothpick or flower stem. Want to break into show business? Draw your likeness on a pushpin and poke it into a map of Hollywood. Wish you could be at the beach? Create a twig man representative of yourself and insert it into a pot of sand enchanted to symbolize the beach of choice. Simply craft a representation of the entity or place you’d like to infiltrate, then custom-craft a toothpick, twig, or similar skewer to represent yourself. Use this barb to pierce through the image of where you want to be. You might even use the infiltration through insertion principle to help baby sea turtles reach the sea, placing a tiny model of a baby turtle within the mini-ocean of a cup of salted water.

Infiltration through insertion can also be used to bring about change and transformation. For instance, if you wanted to get some toxic coworkers to chill out, you might empower a piece of sage with a peaceful, diplomatic energy, and use this to sympathetically infiltrate an image representative of the violent regime. Want more confidence in your dealings with others? Charge up a ball of clay to represent yourself, then anoint a citrine crystal, jade stone, or oak twig with a confidence-inducing oil such as frankincense or cinnamon. Insert this into the clay to infuse your daily actions with confidence.

Sticking It to the Man Curse

Through the magickal act of puncturing, you can really “stick it to the man,” so to speak. Not just for undoing personal enemies, puncturing is a technique useful for taking on larger foes, as well. Whatever your political persuasion, there are a few things we can likely agree on. Hunger sucks. Oppression sucks. Needless violence against the weak sucks. The continued destruction of the environment sucks. We might not agree on a single political solution to these problems, but as witches, we can agree that using our magick to fight such ills could help. Give it a go—cast a traditional curse upon one of the major banes of humanity and see if it works. With the puncturing technique, the process is simple and straightforward. Create an image (a clay doll, a drawing, etc.) to represent the thing you wish to get rid of, be it poverty, hate, HIV, domestic violence, or whatever other evil you want destroyed. Choose a sharp nail, a piece of iron, or an especially wicked-looking thorn to do the dirty work—stick it into the image deep, affirming that just as the barb pokes holes in the image, so too will the evil that image represents begin to break down and fall apart.

Points to Ponder

• In this chapter, we’ve explored some ways to use puncturing and insertion to manifest change, combat enemies, and get you where you want to be. What other applications of puncturing and insertion can you think of?
  
• In addition to twigs, needles, pins, thorns, nails, toothpicks, and flower stems, what other types of barbs might you use for puncturing and insertion magick? Could using different types of wood or metal make a difference in the magick? What oils or herbs might you use to enhance a puncturing or insertion spell for love? How about for a defensive spell?
  
• Principles of sympathetic magick, combining magick, and containing magick provide a strong basis for puncturing and insertion techniques. On what other principles might such spells operate?
  
• How might a person with a passion for sewing or cross-stitch incorporate a little puncturing and insertion magick into their hobby? How might a tattooist or henna artist apply these magickal techniques in their craft? Could something as simple as stirring a pot of soup or cutting a loaf of bread be transformed into an act of puncturing or insertion magick? How might a witch do so, and what purposes could such a magickal action serve?
  

[contents]

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This archaic formula is included for purposes of discussion only; please do not harm any animals in the making of your magick!

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Six

Naming Names:
Identification in
the Magickal Arts

O
ne tool for magickal accuracy that we seem to be losing in our practices is the art of naming the target. In magickal practices of the past in cultures far and wide, the importance placed on effectively identifying the point of focus in a spell is apparent. A name, a mother’s name, a place of origin, an energetic signature provided in the form of hair or nail clippings—these are the tricks up the sleeve that can give a magician power and sway over gods and enemies alike. While these techniques can certainly be applied toward dark ends, the same methods can be easily adapted to help the modern spellcaster achieve magickal success for aims in line with personal ethics. Understanding and using magickal identification is an asset to the witch, whatever his or her dark or light persuasions may be. It makes spellwork more precise by telling the magick exactly where to go, who or what to affect. The magickal “target” or focus of a spell need not be a specific person. It can be a place, a thing, an idea, an ill of society. By learning some tricks for making a more precise, specific, and magickally effective identification of just where a spell should go, the magician is able to give their chances for accuracy a boost. In this chapter, we’ll examine some of the tried-and-true techniques used to effectively identify the target of a spell, and you’ll discover how using such methods can help ensure the success of the magick.

Magickal Identification Around the World

One way spell workers around the world have identified their magickal targets is through the very straightforward approach of incorporating the name of the person, place, or thing to be affected into the magick. Curse tablets, we have seen, often listed the name of the victim, with some early tablets consisting of nothing more than a list of names.
⁷⁹
In Celtic culture also, knowing the name of the spell target was an important aspect of magickal procedure. In
The Religion of the Ancient Celts
by John Arnott MacCulloch, the following account of a curse-casting method performed by the guardian priestess of a well is given: