The Truth About Love Spells

The truth about love spells is that they’re usually unethical, and you shouldn’t do them.

Love spells are old, old magic. I won’t pretend otherwise. Love spells have been part of human culture for basically as long as human civilization has been around, because unrequited love is a nearly ubiquitous human experience, and it always stings. But love spells are awful, for many reasons.

Take, for example, this love spell from the Greek Magical Papyri:

*Love spell of attraction:

Offering to the star of Aphrodite (i.e. the planet Venus): A white dove’s blood and aft, untreated myrrh and parched wormwood. Make this up together as pills and offer them to the star on pieces of vine / wood or on coals. And also have the brains of a vulture for the compulsion, so that you may make the offering. And also have as a protective charm a tooth from the upper right jawbone of a female ass or tawny sacrificial heifer, tied to your left arm with / Anubian thread.

Compulsion element of the rite:
“But, if as goddess you in slowness act,
You will not see Adonis rise from Hades,
Straightaway I’ll run and bind him with steel chains; /
As guard, I’ll bind him another wheel
Of Ixion, no longer will he come
To light, and he’ll be chastised and subdued.
Wherefore, O Lady, I act, I beg: Attract
NN, whom NN bore, to come with rapid step
To my door, me, NN, whom NN bore, /
And to the bed of love, driven by frenzy,
In anguish from the forceful goads — today,
At once, quickly. For I adjure you, Kythere,
NOUMILLON BIOMBILLON AKITOPHI ERESCHIGAL NEBOUTOSOUALETH PHROUREXIA THERMIDOCHE BAREO / NE.”

— PGM IV. 2861–2915

The PGM, if you don’t know, is a set of ancient Graeco-Egyptian magical texts. (If you’re familiar with the Bornless Ritual, it’s originally from the PGM.) This is a real ancient love spell. It’s one of my favorite examples of a PGM spell because it’s got it all: weird ingredients, invocation and compulsion, barbarous names, the whole nine yards. And from the perspective of modern magical ethics, it’s full of red flags. Firstly, there’s the obvious. The brains of a vulture? “Double double toil and trouble” is not an unfounded stereotype, nor are the weird ingredients that witches throw in their cauldrons just spooky names for daisies and buttercups. Old spells have a lot of disturbing ingredients. There’s also this gem from PGM VII 191–92:

*Eternal spell for binding a lover: Rub together some gall of a wild boar, some rock salt, some Attic honey and smear the head of your penis.

How does that sound, gentlemen? Are you so desperate for love that you’ll smear your dicks with bile?

Going back to the PGM IV, the first thing the conjurer does after offering all the weird ingredients to Aphrodite is threaten her. The conjurer says that if Aphrodite wants to see her lover Adonis return from Hades, she’d better obey, or else Adonis will be tortured for all eternity. At best, it’s pretty ballsy to threaten a god. Most would consider it outright hubris. (This is why magic has a bad reputation in some Hellenic pagan communities, despite the fact that not all spells do this or have to do this.)

Then we get to the actual intention of the spell. The conjurer wants Aphrodite to afflict the target (“NN” means “insert name here”) with frenzied lust for the conjurer. The Ancient Greeks understood lust as a kind of affliction or madness, so it’s described as such in these spells. The target is to be tormented by lust to the point of anguish, as if she were being driven by a whip. Do I really need to explain why this is unethical? You’re threatening a god into tormenting your crush until they break and sleep with you.

You may think that love spells might have changed in the millennia since that was written, but… not really. This one, from the Picatrix (a medieval Arabic manuscript) sounds a lot like the PGM one:

Take gazelle marrow and mutton dung, two drams of each, blend them together, and add camphor and the brain of a hare to them, two drams of each. Place it all in an iron vessel that you will place over the fire until all its contents have liquefied. Add crushed camphor to it. When everything is well mixed together, remove it from the fire. Then make an image from new wax, that is, wax that has never been used, while thinking of the one you desire.

Make a hole in the mouth of this image down to the belly and pour in the above-mentioned liquid remedy while saying: Dahyeliz, Hanimidiz, Naffayz, Dabraylez. Next, place two drams of white sugar in its mouth. Take a silver needle, stick it in the chest of the image until it reemerges beneath the shoulder blade. And when you stick the needle in, say: Hedurez, Tameruz, Hetaytoz, Femurez.

Once this has been done, wrap the image in a white cloth, and place over it another silk cloth that is white in color, which you shall attach with a silk thread. Tightly clasp all this to your own chest, and attach two hairs to it in which you shall make seven knots. And you will say these words over each of them: Hayranuz, Hedefiuz, Faytamurez, Arminez.

Next, place the image inside a small earthen vase that you shall seal up with emery. Make a hole in the house where this woman lives or where she spends her time, bury the image inside it with its head up, and seal the hole back up. Then take incense and galbanum, two drams of each, and cast them into the fire. When the smoke is rising from it, you will say, “Beheymerez, Aumaliz, Menemeyduz, Caynaurez, turn the mind of this woman, N, and her desire towards this man! By the power of the above-named spirits and by the power and the force of the spirits Beheydraz, Metlurez, Auleyuz, Nanitaynuz!”

Once this is done, return home. Know, indeed, that all the spirits will turn the thoughts and desires of this woman, for whom this operation has been carried out, towards this man for whom it has been performed. She shall not be able to rest, nor sleep, nor do anything whatsoever until she obeys the man for whom this has been done. And this woman shall be guided to the home of the buried image by the above-named forces.

(Copied from The Book of Grimoires by Claude Lecouteux.)

This spell would not be out-of-place in the PGM. It’s got the same weird ingredients, barbarous names, invocation of spirits, and the indented effect of the spell is the same. This one involves the creation of a poppet, and also throwing incense on a fire. Once again, the poor victim is compelled to submit herself to the man for whom the spell is cast.

Fast-forward a couple centuries. This is a love spell from the early 20th century:

Buy three pennyworth of dragon’s blood. Don’t eat or drink between eleven and twelve at night; as the clock strikes twelve place the dragon’s blood on a piece of white paper in the grate and set it alight. While burning keep the name of your lover in mind and repeat the following:

Dragon’s blood, dragon’s blood.
Tis not your blood I wish to burn
But my true love’s heart I wish to turn.
May he never sleep, rest nor happy he,
Until he comes or send to me.

(Copied from The British Book of Spells and Charms by Graham King)

This spell has a similar intention: to torment the victim until he’s compelled to come to the conjurer, except now the conjurer is a woman and the victim is a man. As in the Picatrix spell, the conjurer throws resin on a fire; dragon’s blood isn’t actual blood, it’s a flammable resin that smells nice. I think this spell is far more practical than the others because it doesn’t involve any disgusting ingredients. On the other hand, the spell listed directly after this one in King’s book asks you to put a frog on an anthill and let the ants eat it alive, then grind its skeleton with bat’s blood and add it to the food of the person you wish to attract. Eww.

And so we come to the present day, and the most recent evolution of folk magic: WitchTok. (I’m completely serious. In a couple hundred years, the same scholars who study the PGM and grimoires and English folk spells will be looking back at WitchTok.) I found this WitchTok love spell in a YouTube reaction video, and it really stuck with me. Warning, this one (yes, the modern one) is the most NSFW one yet:

Okay guys, so today, as you can see, I’ve made a love potion. Now, I get kind of a lot of questions about love magic, like ‘how effective is it’ and ‘does it really work’? And the answer is yes, of course it works. How do you think I got my man, by showing off my titties on the internet? Well, I did, but this is how I made sure he’s gonna be bustin’ nuts on my face and no one else’s for the rest of his life. Now, all you’re gonna need for this is water, some glitter, a couple of heart-themed decorations like, I used some beads, and then about half a cup to a cup of his [semen]. Then add all those ingredients into a jar or a little jug like I used, and mix it up really well, you want all of these ingredients super integrated. Then, seal the jar, and you need to seal it really tight you do not want it to leak like your p*ssy when he chokes you. Then, you are all set, just give it a little shake whenever you need some love.

There’s a lot to unpack here. In terms of its composition, this spell is actually very old-school. Believe it or not, semen is the least weird of all the weird ingredients that we’ve seen so far, because it has more visible logic behind it. There’s a concept called “sympathetic magic” that describes using a symbol to affect a target by means of a “sympathetic link,” i.e. whatever you do to the symbol, you do to the target. The Picatrix spell utilizes a poppet in this way — sticking a needle in the heart of the poppet is meant to afflict the target’s heart with infatuation. Using the man’s semen in this spell works in the same way. Having some piece of the target person will allow you to link your spell with the target. Clothing, hair, or fingernails are the weakest link, saliva is stronger, sexual fluids are even stronger, and blood is the strongest. For a sexual spell, using semen makes sense. That doesn’t make it any less gross, though (and how is one supposed to acquire a cup of it?).

It’s the intention behind this spell that disturbs me. This time, it’s intended to keep rather than attract a lover, but it’s just as bad. Why would you feel the need to cast this type of spell, unless you didn’t trust your partner? If you’re insecure about them leaving, then that’s a “you” problem. If they really are untrustworthy, then you should break up with them. And that leads me to my next point — for the rest of his life? How long do you expect this relationship to last? If the spell is meant to make it last forever, that might not be a good thing. Maybe you’ll want to move on in a couple years, but your boyfriend will be magically compelled to only lust after you. Maybe it’ll last forever and maybe it won’t, but let that happen naturally instead of forcing it. A relationship is unlikely to last forever if there’s this much mistrust in it. At best, this spell is extremely unfair to him. At worst, it’s downright creepy. No amount of glitter and pink dye is going to make this any less horrifying.

But what do I know? I’ve never been in love. Love is irrational, and being in love might very well make you want to control your partner’s emotions and behavior because you love them too much to let them go. Your emotions and your passion for them might seem more important than their free will. But if you don’t trust your partner, can’t communicate with them, and feel the need to control them, that makes you a toxic partner. And that leads me to my final point about love spells: Love, real love, cannot be faked or forced. Don’t you want someone who loves you for you, and not someone who has been magically brainwashed? Or physically afflicted with lust, instead of genuinely desiring you? In no way can a relationship created or sustained by love magic be healthy.

I think it’s possible to do some love-related spells and have it not be unethical. If you cast a spell for a new relationship without naming anyone specific, that might be fine, because then you’re not directly interfering with someone else’s free will. Let the gods decide who your love will be, or use magic to arrange the circumstances in which you and your love will meet. As long as you leave your partner the ability to walk away, it’s fine. Better yet, use love magic to work on yourself. If you know you’re insecure about your partner leaving, do a spell to banish your insecurity. If you just went through a breakup, do a spell to help you move on instead of paying a scam artist to get your ex back.

Maybe I’ll feel tempted to try and control my partner with magic once I’m in a relationship and subject to all the throes of passion. But I’m sure I’ll remember that, as with anything of this nature, consent is key.