Love and attraction: magic for this purpose

Love magic covers attraction, courtship, marriage and fertility. It includes the Hoodoo and folk charms of the American South, the love spells of the Greek Magical Papyri, the Italian and Spanish traditions of amulets and saints, the Indian use of mantras and charms for a wedding, and the Afro-Caribbean rites for Erzulie and Oshun. This page covers what people ask for, the consent problem, and the stories told about it.

What people ask for

Requests are varied: to find a partner, to keep one, to mend a quarrel, to conceive, to have a safe birth. Many customs are playful, such as young women in Europe watching for omens on certain nights to see a future husband. Others are weighty, such as rites to protect a marriage from a rival or to cool a husband's anger. The practices often mirror a society's anxieties about marriage and family.

Consent and coercion

Magic aimed at making a particular person love someone raises questions of consent, and many practitioners and traditions regard it as wrong or dangerous. Historical records show people accused of using love potions, and some trials of women in Europe included such claims. Today, many practitioners say they only work to attract love in general or to improve their own confidence. Examples include a Hoodoo sachet, an Italian saint's novena, a Greek papyrus recipe and a Hindu mantra, all of which are recorded as customs and none of which are recommended here.

Gender, religion and law

Women have often been the customers and the specialists, and also the ones blamed. Medieval clergy lists included love magic among sins, and the Inquisition tried people for it. In some Muslim societies, charms for love and marriage are sold at shrines, while scholars object to them. In Hindu and other weddings, protective rites are woven into the ceremony. In most of these places the stories are cautionary: the charm works too well, or goes wrong, and love obtained by trickery is shown as empty.

Commercial love

Love spells are a major online product. The market is full of promises, and some sellers ask clients to pay again and again as the spell is said to need more work. Scholars read love charms as a way to speak of desire and risk. For real distress in a relationship, counselling and support are the reliable routes. Rites for fertility and a safe pregnancy are also grouped here, and for these, couples should of course seek medical advice and not rely on a ritual.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Swan maiden: Walter Crane, Public domain, source

Witchcraft in Latin America: Unknown author, CC BY 4.0, source

Fox spirit: Chen Menglei, Public domain, source

Imbolc: Culnacreann, CC BY 3.0, source

Statue rubbing: Matthias Rosenkranz, CC BY-SA 2.0, source

Fern flower: Antoni Piotrowski, Public domain, source

Yue Lao: 仔仔好帥, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Sânziană: Saturnian, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Fish in Chinese mythology: Daderot, Public domain, source

Legend of the White Snake: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Witchcraft in ancient Greece and Rome: Wilhelm Tischbein, Public domain, source

Wedding superstitions: Anonymous Unknown author, Public domain, source

Lock of hair: Unknown author, CC0, source

Love and attraction