Everyday use: practices that mark them
Small habits kept at home: the horseshoe, the salt over the shoulder, the evil-eye bead.
Everyday magic is the small habits kept at home: the horseshoe, salt over the shoulder, knocking on wood, the evil-eye bead, a lucky number, a morning prayer, the red thread, a bowl of water at the door, a charm in the car. People keep them without making much of them. This page looks at what these habits are, why they last and where they fit alongside religion and science. It is the commonest magic of all.
What it looks like
Daily practice is ordinary. In India, a lemon and chillies hang at shops, and a rangoli drawn at a doorstep welcomes luck. In Turkey, a nazar hangs near the door. In Britain, people say touch wood. In Japan, a lucky cat sits in the shop window, and in Mexico an egg may be rolled over a child. Many of these customs use cheap, available things. Many habits are older than the people who keep them, and nobody can say who started them.
Why people keep them
Researchers describe such habits as low-cost ways to cope with uncertainty. They give a feeling of control, mark boundaries and bring people together at little risk. Studies of lucky charms show they can raise confidence. Most people hold small customs with a light touch, half serious and half playful, and would not say they believe in them. Practices come in several types: some are protective, some bring luck, some help the household keep track of time and weather, and some are no more than a habit of speech.
Names, religion and class
Customs are shared across religions with different explanations. The evil eye is feared by Muslims, Christians, Jews and Hindus in the Mediterranean and beyond. Religious reformers often attack such customs, and educated people sometimes mock them as rural. Women do most of the work of keeping them going, within the home. The home is also where these customs meet money, since shops sell everything needed, and some of the items on sale are made far from their cultural homes.
Shops and screens
Ordinary habits are now a market of charms, apps, horoscopes and online readers. Small purchases are harmless, but large payments for luck or protection are a warning sign of fraud. The customs also spread online, where they can lose their origin. Whether or not they work, they remain a way people say that they care about each other. In the end, the most common magic in the world is neither dramatic nor secret, and it is practised by people who have no wish to be called magicians.
Everyday use on EveryJaadu
The entries written up so far, best known first.
馃嚠馃嚦 India and 5 moreAstrology
A divinatory practice that reads human fate through the positions of celestial bodies.Belief 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Luck and prosperity Living
馃嚞馃嚪 Greece and 2 moreNumerology
The belief that numbers hold hidden meanings and influence human events.Belief 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Luck and prosperity Historical
馃嚚馃嚦 China and 5 moreKau chim姹傜堡
A divination practice using numbered bamboo sticks to seek answers from deitiesOracle 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Living
馃嚭馃嚫 United States and 4 moreFortune-telling
A practice of predicting future events or personal details through various methods and tools.Rite 路 Seeing and foretelling 路 Power and authority Living
馃嚫馃嚦 Senegal and 5 morePentagram蟺蔚谓蟿维纬蟻伪渭渭慰谓
A five-pointed star figure used across history for protection, ritual, and cosmologyCharm 路 Protection 路 Binding and oaths Living
馃嚫馃嚘 Saudi Arabia and 1 moreDhikr匕賽賰賿乇
Islamic remembrance of God through repeated recitation and prayerRite 路 Speaking with spirits and the dead 路 Power and authority Living
馃嚭馃嚫 United StatesFeri Tradition
An American ecstatic witchcraft tradition founded on the West Coast in the mid-twentieth century.Tradition 路 Power and authority 路 Change and initiation Living
馃嚭馃嚫 United StatesAshtar
A channeled extraterrestrial figure central to mid-century American ufology and New Age spiritualityBeing 路 Speaking with spirits and the dead 路 Seeing and foretelling Living
馃嚭馃嚫 United StatesLaw of attraction
A New Thought belief that focused thoughts draw matching experiences into lifeBelief 路 Healing 路 Luck and prosperity Living
馃嚠馃嚦 India and 3 moreAstral projection
An intentional out-of-body experience where consciousness travels through the astral planeTradition 路 Speaking with spirits and the dead 路 Change and initiation Living
馃嚭馃嚫 United States and 1 moreDianism
A 19th-century American practice of sexual contact without ejaculationTradition 路 Power and authority Historical
馃嚭馃嚫 United States and 3 more11:11
A clock time believed to signal spiritual alignment or synchronicity in numerology and New Age thoughtBelief 路 Wonder and entertainment 路 Power and authority Living
馃嚭馃嚫 United States and 1 moreChurch of Satan
An atheistic religious body founded in 1966 that practices ritual magicTradition 路 Power and authority 路 Change and initiation Living
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Numerology: Pietro Bongo, Public domain, source
- Astral projection: Hereward Carrington, Sylvan Muldoon., Public domain, source
- Astrology: Wilfredor, CC0, source
- Kau chim: No machine-readable author provided. 9old9 assumed (based on copyright, Public domain, source
- Church of Satan: Palnu ., CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Pentagram: Tomruen, Attribution, source
- Dianism: Guillaume Seignac, Public domain, source
- Ashtar: Evedawn99, Public domain, source
- Fortune-telling: Taras Shevchenko, Public domain, source
- Dhikr: Eug猫ne Baugnies, Public domain, source