Magic 501: The Language of Work
Having a magical practice is a strange sort of thing. We get recipes directly from the spirit as well as general correspondences—use this herb for this sort of thing, etc. We get recipes from each other. We end up with bits of esoteric knowledge of all sorts, and as a syncretic religion, vodou is not above borrowing shiny things from elsewhere.
It is whatever works, with heavy preference given to what the spirits give us and what we learn in our lineages. We just aren’t above picking up a little of this or that. The point of magical works is to work, and if it works and does not contradict what we’ve been given to work with, we tend to borrow it.
If you go into the private altar rooms of the vodouizan who can have an altar, you’re going to find some things which are both personal or particular to them and some things that don’t quite look like they belong. From pictures of Catholic saints to prepared resevwa (reservoirs of power or spiritual presence) or pwen (ditto), from statues belonging to a variety of religions being used to pakets, it’s a bit ecclectic in there.
Interestingly enough, in addition to being a creative collaboration between the witch and the spirits, there is something of a language at work in magic—and not just the langaj (magical language) which we may be given by the spirit and/or our lineage. A magical work can be thought of as an expression: the herbs, the oils, the waters, the fire, the powders, or any physical components are a part of that expression.
The spirit or spirits we call are a component, calling them based on their domains and our relationships with them. A pwen, paket, or resevwa can be a part of this.
Time and various numeric measures are another component. The duration of a magical work speaks to the spirits called, the difficulty of the change we want to make, and the source of the change.
Symbols are also a part of that process, from the veve we might use to what might be inscribed on a tool.
I will not use the word ‘intent’ or ‘manifestion’ to describe the mental component, since it is very different than imagination. Imagination is not the combination of visual, mental, and spiritual phenomena which a witch can feel as a part of their spiritual body, as opposed to being merely a ‘picture’ they construct as a mental image. The things we say or believe are, of course, a part of the mental components associated with a spell, but the idea that all you need to do is imagine something to create it is delusional. Literally, it ignores the necessary work on the spiritual body which is required to be able to use the combination of visual, mental, and spiritual phenomena which makes up the mental component of magic. Instead of that work to strengthen, attune, and focus the spiritual frame of the witch, just imagining something and trying to convince yourself it will happen is delusion.
If you have to convince yourself, etc—it is less having doubt, which can happen from time to time but will fade with work on the spiritual body. The problem lies in trying to convince the rest of your soul, which knows better, something your consciousness would like to be true. This is a thing which quite a few negative spirits will also use as a tool: they can see the state, more or less, of your spiritual body, and will know when you do not have the capacity to do what you’d like to do. Since they draw energy from delusion and especially the emotional states that delusion can induce, they will use this on budding witches or people who have no business being a witch for a quick ‘meal.’
A magical work is a statement of meaning, an expression we make into the chaotic flow of energies which make up the seen and unseen worlds. The components are all a part of a language, spoken into the spiritual world, which affects the physical world.
Learning to speak that language well is the lifetime pursuit of a witch.
