Sympathetic Magic

   “Sympathy or empathy”: A question of just a few letters and a tweak in meaning that confuses, in my experience, the vast majority of people. Personally, I normally hesitate to use one without looking up the definition just to be sure I’m not going to make myself look stupid. After all, I’m the vocab-guy in a lot of my friend-groups. So, for those that are unaware of the difference themselves, sympathy is feeling a sense of compassion for another, and empathy is being able to put yourself in the shoes of another person to understand their situation. Now, with the grammar lesson out of the way, we can move on to what this post is actually going to be about. Empathy is the odd-man out here: It just gave me an easy way to bring up sympathy. Now, sympathy. More specifically, a brand of magic known as Sympathetic Magic.

The Facts

   Sympathetic Magic is one of the oldest types of mysticism in the world. “Sympathy”, as we’ll call it, operates heavily on two major principles. The first, imitation, is an idea that is likely familiar to many people. Here’s the clue as to where the inspiration for this post came from: Voodoo dolls are an example of imitation-based Sympathy that have pervaded popular culture in recent years. The idea that physical representations of people or places are able to, through their shared connection (a lock of hair, a piece of clothing, etc.) Exert some degree of influence over a target is the core belief behind imitation. Second, we have correspondence, the slightly vaguer, more nebulous cousin of imitation. Correspondence deals more strongly with relationships between objects, and how those can be magically exploited. A famous example of correspondence exists within the universe of Patrick Rothfuss’ King Killer Chronicles series, where, by convincing oneself that two separate things are innately connected, someone is able to lift a coin on the opposite side of a table by lifting another, individual coin. Granted, that sounds fairly underwhelming, but its a tame example.

Now, lets move on to something more interesting. We’ve heard the lengthy mental acrobatics to allow me justifying this post, and the brief historical lesson is finished. We can move on to something a bit 

more interesting, finally: Some examples.

Examples: Historic and Modern

Imitation

   As I’ve stated, the most famous type of imitation is the image of a Voodoo doll. A movie may depict some stereotyped Creole individual stabbing needles into an effigy, but that is far from the case. The concept of a “Voodoo” doll originates more accurately within Europe. Should an individual fear that they had caught the attention of a witch, they would create a doll out of rags. The classic image of needles is accurate however, as the needles were meant to cause physical harm to the witch and keep the individual safe.

   Once again, Europe brings us the concept of another form of imitation Sympathy: The Clay-body. A creation of Scottish origins, the Clay-body, or clay corpse, was an effigy of a target that a witch would make with killing intent. The Clay-body would be placed under a slow flowing stream or another body of warm and slowly erode. The erosion of the effigy was thought to cause the body of the target to waste away.

Correspondence

   Something of a boring example of correspondence Sympathy is prominent within eastern medicine. For the sake of an amusing example, I’ll use a rhino horn. Once upon a time, it was believed that, based solely on the somewhat phallic shape, grinding a rhino horn to dust and consuming it would fix male impotence. If its shaped like a genital, it must be good for your genitals! Right? Yeah, the committee is still out on whether or not that tracks. But, various other examples of consuming vaguely body shaped objects exist: walnuts increasing brain strength and the ability of yellow sap being just the right cure for jaundice are two others I find especially silly.

   Another form of correspondence Sympathy is something that just about everyone has heard of in some form or another. For the nerds out there, we have a lich, undead creatures common in the game D&D. They house their souls within objects known as phylacteries, making them effectively immortal. This has gotten a more modern spin in a small indie series from Britain: Harry Potter. Yes, horcruxes are a form of correspondence Sympathy. The connection between the item and the practitioner allow their souls to be transplanted into an item, making it their only true weakness in life.

   Finally, taking it back a couple thousand years, we have our oldest known form of Sympathy magic. There are historians that believe that many ancient cave paintings are in fact not depictions of great hunts, but rather a form of shamanistic Sympathy. The paintings are thought to have been made with the intent of influencing events in favor of the hunters.

This attempt to exert influence on the world outside the control of humankind is one of the hallmarks of magic throughout the entirety of time the world over. In times when people had less of a grasp on the mechanics of the world, it was the belief in magic’s abilities that gave people a sense of control they felt the lacked.