“A woman could want a man so much she might vomit in the kitchen sink or cry so fiercely blood would form in the corners of her eyes. She put her hand to her throat as though someone were strangling her, but really she was choking on all that love she thought she’d needed so badly. What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for it’s sake.”
~ Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic
WHAT THE HEART WANTS
The first spell many of us perform is a love spell when we are young and magic is shiny, new, exciting and limitless. Some of our spells worked and we now have horror stories or cautionary tales to tell. Some of ours didn’t and years later we are relieved about it. The yearning for love magic doesn’t disappear with youth, however. It isn’t the teenage heart that desires another to fall madly in love with it, it is every heart.
The old blind seer who can no longer see the tarot cards or read the tea leaves, her face sagging with a thousand wrinkles, knows it was love keeping her pockets and larder filled through the years.
The aging conjure man held up by his gnarled wood cane has no illusions that love kept his hands busy making mojos and his wallet full of bills.
“Does she love me too?”
“How can I make her love me?”
“Why doesn’t anyone love me?”
“Does he cheat on me?”
“How can I make him faithful?”
“How can I get him to leave his wife for me?”
“She broke my heart. How can I make her hurt as much as me?”
“I can’t stop thinking and dreaming of him. Can you make it stop?”
“Make my lover come back to me. Please. Please”
Have no illusions, these are not questions or work for a white witch. Love spells are black magic. Love spells to manipulate the body, heart, and soul. Love spells to dominate, to bind, to cause destruction and madness and pain.
Love spells are not about love, they are about the lustful eye and the selfish heart. Be honest with yourself about it and then move on to the work at hand.
LOVE ME / WANT ME
The most honest loves spells are ones of intoxication. Think of me, dream of me, want of me, lust for me.
Braid their hair into yours, wrap them in red cloth, and keep it close to your skin or under your pillow. Invite them into your dreams at night or let your soul take flight to visit within their dreams. Touch your intended lover as often as you can, sweetly, sensually, gently, unintrusively. Think of them when you touch yourself and cry out their name when you reach the ecstasy of climax. Get them to drink from the same cup or share food with you as much as possible. Secretly swipe your sexual fluids onto their skin or slip it into their food or drink. Taste their sweat, taste their blood.
No, it is not clean or safe or pretty or moral. Love makes you blind, makes you do anything to win it. Love spells aren’t supposed to be beautiful or ethical. Love spells are dirty and dark. You may feel ashamed or you may feel a thrilling hot rush at its illicitness making your eyes dance and sparkle.
If you want it to work you must be willing to go all the way and accept the consequences. How badly do you want their heart? How badly do you want their body? Do you care that it may only be temporary? Will you do it anyway if it only lasts for a month, a year? Love spells can’t last forever if the desire is not mutual, but especially not spells of lust. Once it wears off it will be replaced with disgust. But if the spark is already there, such magic can only intensify it.
Just be careful you don’t overdo it as love and lust spells notoriously lead to dangerous obsession when they spin out of control and, on rare occasions, murderous jealousy.
DON’T LEAVE ME / DON’T CHEAT ON ME
Find an object symbolic of your partner’s genitals and an object for your own: an immature magnolia seed pod, a baculum, or a root for a penis and a flower, pelvic bone, or fruit pit for a vagina. Another option is to sew two small poppets together facing each other. Bind them together with red, pink, or white string or your hair if it is long enough. Wrap it tight then wrap it up in cloth or paper. Dress it with both of your sexual fluids. Dress it once a month if things are rocky. Dress it once a year if things are good. Burn it to break the binding. Put it in the freezer temporarily if you are just pissed off.
LEAVE HIM/HER
Have competition in a wife, husband, girlfriend of boyfriend? Write your target’s name on one end of a branch. Write their partner’s names on the other. Hawthorn with its Mars ruler and heart association works well, but any stick will do. Break it in two, forcefully and with anger. State your intent aloud and really mean it – no regrets. Bury the end with your target’s name in your own yard (or a flower pot in your apartment and water it) and bury their partner’s name on the outskirts of town or in another town if possible. As the sticks rot, so will their relationship.
Take two small poppets, sewn together. Name one after your target and one after their partner. Snip them apart while stating your intent. Burn the partner. Release the ashes into the flowing water of a river or stream. Sew your target’s poppet to a new one named for yourself. Bind them with your hair and string. State your intent. Keep it under your mattress.
Heard a car crash near your house? Go out to the spot after the cars have been towed away but before they clean it up well. Gather up any broken glass. Put it in a small jar of iron water (put iron nails in a jar of water in the fridge until they rust) and then hide the jar on the couple’s property (especially under the front doors or stairs) to cause them to break up.
The caveat? You must not care what this spell leads to – what has to happen for their partner to leave – whether it is simply a break up, an illness, or their death. You don’t get to choose even if you try to.
HEARTBREAK
They left you. They hurt you. You can concentrate on nothing but the pain. Your world is taken over by your breaking, selfish, angry heart. You want them to hurt as much as you. Maybe they are, but you don’t know and you don’t trust maybes. Every night before you go to bed you take a photo of them or a poppet you made for them, stuffed with their personal concerns, and you hold it over a lighter or a candle flame. Not burning it up, just singeing it each time. “Think of me, feel my pain. Feel guilt, feel heartbreak. Hurt.”
Maybe you want them to hurt so they will come back to you. This is one of the hardest love spells; to get a lover to return who doesn’t want to. You can try, but keep in mind you’ll likely fail or if you succeed the results won’t be as you desired and the relationship may end up dark and twisted as a result of your magic.
Take something broken, name the pieces after you and your ex lover, glue or sew them back together. Bind it with string, seal it with dripping wax, and put it under your bed. Send them dreams of you at night. Make a wax poppet for them and hold it near a candle flame or lighter, not to destroy it but just to melt it a little. Stick it with a pin in the brain or the groin. Do it each night for one or two weeks. State your intent for them to feel restless, to burn with guilt or desire without relief until they come back to you.
Make a honey jar for them, placing their photo and personal concerns into its sticky sweetness. Seal it. Bind it with red thread. Light a red, pink, or white candle on top of it, dress it with oil or rosewater and state your intent. “Think sweetly and fondly of me. Speak sweetly of me. Soften at my name, at my memory.” Leave it on your altar.
BREAK IT UP
Have an urgent need to undo what you have done? Burn all the poppets or other bindings you made and release the ashes into a flowing river or stream. Break what you have built together, burn it all. Burn what they have made you or gave you. All of it, no exceptions. Leave it all behind. Leave no trace of them in your belongings.
Write your names on the branch this time and break it to destroy your own romance, burying the pieces as far apart as you can.
Invisible threads from everyone we interact with, whether friend or romantic partner, link us together. When you perform love magic and binding magic you strengthen this thread and stain it red. Name a thread after your lover, cut it and burn it. Tell your spirits to carry the thread back to them as you no longer desire for that connection to exist between you. Burn a purification incense afterwards, particularly one good for banishing evil.
THE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE
Not all love spells are black magic. You must feel relieved at hearing me say that… but love spells that aren’t dark aren’t truly love spells — they are prayers, petitions, and healing spells. Your pray for good love to find you, a good partner you deserve. You light a pink or white candle carved with your wishes to do so. You petition deities of love with sweet offerings so that they favour you and send you healthy love and good sex or maybe you present them with a list of attributes for your perfect/preferred lover (I’ve done this and highly recommend it if you’re getting frustrated with a string of bad romances).
You and your partner broke up and you take cleansing ritual baths with rose petals and rosewater for six days in a row, submerging yourself in the fragrant water six times for each bath. Maybe you take a tincture, elixir, or tea of rose petals, heartsease, bleeding heart root, or hawthorn berry too to help ease the pain in your heart.
You place gentle herbs under your mattress or pillow so you don’t think of them or dream of them at night. So you feel peace.
You promise yourself you will make sure the next one puts just as much effort into loving you as you do into loving them.