Start by asking yourself some questions about love:
•Do you love yourself? Do you have self-esteem and pride in your own being?
•Do you like yourself? While it is possible to love someone without liking that person, it’s very hard to love yourself and not like yourself. What about yourself do you not like? What about yourself do you fear or wish you could change? Are these intrinsic qualities and characteristics, or are they changeable behaviors and actions? If they are intrinsic, you must learn to accept yourself to truly love yourself. If they are changeable behaviors, set goals to change them.
•Do you really want love? If so, what kind of love are you looking for? How would you describe it? How do you envision it?
•Do you fear those you are attracted to? If you have self-esteem and self-confidence, you should be able to approach someone you are attracted to without a lot of drama. While this is easier said than done for most of us, it’s part of the self-mastery that comes with a serious pursuit of magick. You are confident in yourself and know that if you are rebuffed, there is simply not a connection between you, but that doesn’t make you any less of a person or any less attractive.
•Are you really ready for love if you want it? Do you have the space and time in your life, and if not, are you willing to make it? Have you worked on the things about yourself, both personally in the internal world and in the external world, to make sure you are in a place for love? If you are looking for a serious partner, have you “sown your wild oats” and are truly mature and experienced enough to settle down? Do you need that experience, or are you looking for something else? Whatever you are looking for, imagine it happening today. How would your life change? Are you ready for that change? If you truly want it, how would you prepare for that change so you are ready for it when it comes?
•Are you happy and healthy alone? Though you can still want a partner, do you feel secure in yourself and fulfilled in your life? Those who don’t feel secure in their life and are seeking to build their life around a partner usually cannot detach from their desire to manifest a successful spell. They are locked in a love poverty consciousness, contracted by the fear of being alone. If you are not happy alone, what steps must you take to gain a greater security with yourself and your own life before finding a partner?
While spells are no substitute for introspection, self-improvement, and, if needed, therapy, they can put in motion the forces to heal and improve issues that can be revealed with the previous questions. Introspection can reveal self-esteem problems and what some would call negative emotions in regard to love—fear, jealousy, loneliness, envy, and a need for control. While such emotions are not helpful in the short term, integrating these feelings into a complete and whole self-image is very important. While many seek a magickal shortcut to banish them completely, healthy Witches know that one cannot be divided from the shadow; we must be aware of it and integrate it.
spell } Healing
On the new Moon, prepare two healing potions. One is to cleanse and clear, and the other is to bless and bring harmony. Mix three tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and one tablespoon of sea salt with at least three cups of hot water. Make a second liquid of one tablespoon of honey and one tablespoon of orange juice with three cups of hot water. Also obtain a small rounded stone, such as a white river stone or a tumbled quartz.
Add the vinegar potion to a hot bath. Soak in it and think about what issues you need to transform and reconcile. Let the water drain while still sitting in the tub. Then fill the tub again with hot water and add the second potion to the bath. While in the bath, hold your stone and think about how you would be healthy, whole, and at peace with all your issues, totally prepared for a loving relationship, first with yourself and then with a partner. Carry the stone with you in your left pocket if you are right-handed or your right pocket if you are left-handed.
Repeat this process on every new Moon for five lunar cycles, and you will notice a significant shift in your healing process. Issues of jealousy, loneliness, fear of being touched, and unresolved past relationships will all shift.
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Magickal Partners
Most of us performing love magick are seeking a partner on some level, someone to be in relationship with. We seek to share our life with another. Understanding our views on relationships and both what we expect from a partner and offer to a partner is critical in performing successful love magick. Otherwise we put potential problems on hold for the future. Part of our preparation is understanding ourselves to better understand our desires and what we create.
Relationships
While our culture generally doesn’t examine the range and meaning of the word love, we also don’t look at our relationships with clarity. Before we can do magick for anything, we have to be sure of what we are manifesting. If you are doing love magick with the hopes of a relationship, you need to know what kind of relationship you are looking for. When finding any type of partner, long term or short term, you need to know that both you and your potential partner are viewing the relationship in the same way. If not, you must at least understand your partner’s perspective on the relationship if you hope to build something healthy for both of you. Miscommunications and assumptions, both of yourself and of others, are the root for much of our failed relationships. Being honest with yourself and your partner about how you view a relationship is critical in building one and doing magick to manifest one.
Think about how you view a relationship, and see if any of these perspectives fit your view, or is there another way you see a relationship?
Complete Me—Our romantic sense of love, perpetuated by movies and television, tells us that we are incomplete without a romantic partner. Our partner must be our perfect match to us, like the other half of our soul, and once we meet, we are complete. We are looking for someone to bring us happiness, health, and wholeness. Though this is a popular notion, I think it’s one of the most harmful views to have and an impediment to a successful relationship. We must complete ourselves, but a partner is a complement to us.
Expectation—A relationship isn’t something you have an option about, it’s something that you must pursue. Everybody wants a relationship, and if you don’t, then there must be something wrong with you. The “normal” thing is to find a partner and settle down for life. Our culture not only expects it, but rewards it. While this view is a norm, it is not necessarily a truth, particularly in our modern society. There are many roles available, and if you don’t want a relationship, you don’t have to have one. Your first and most important relationship is with yourself, and through your self-relationship, you can find the Divine.
Investment—A relationship is like an investment. When you build a relationship with another, you are both investing in a future together. Your time and effort is like adding to a bank account, and when enough has accrued, you have created stability, a foundation to build the rest of your life on. While this can also be true, it isn’t necessarily so. Bank accounts can be dissolved when necessary, and time and effort doesn’t guarantee security. While love can be seen as an investment, that puts a lot of conditions and future strings on it, creating a pressure to commit before you are sure you want to commit. To experience unconditional love through relationship, you have to change your expectation of conditional love.
Adventure—Life is an adventure, and every relationship is an adventure. There is no map; there is no goal; there is simply the journey. When two people come together, they are journeying together for as long as they choose, walking side by side. Relationships are exciting and mysterious because you never know what comes next. While this is also true for some, there is a time in a relationship when it can still be an adventure, but the adventurers can have a commitment to plan their journey together, rather than walk blindly without a map.
Hunt—Seeking relationships is like big-game huntin
g. The thrill and excitement is in the hunt itself and in catching a partner. Many romantic self-help books give you the view of catching a man or woman, as if you have to trap them or become a catch yourself to lure them to catch you. While it might be a fun view for a time, it puts all the emphasis on the dating experience leading up to a relationship but not a lot on actually developing the relationship. If your romantic worldview is centered in the hunt, then you constantly seek out new relationships to be in that “hunt” mode rather than develop any deeper relationships.
Laissez Faire—From a French term meaning “hands off” or “let do” and most often applied to free-market economics, generally meaning to let the economy roam free, hands off. The same idea can be applied to relationships. Some look at relationships in a very relaxed way. Whatever happens, happens with no expectations, commitments, or beliefs. Things will unfold themselves, with no planning or forethought. While that’s a nice idea, it doesn’t always work in the long run, but those with such a view are not necessarily looking for a long relationship.
Spiritual Work—Any relationship, including a romantic one, is an opportunity to grow and evolve spiritually. We each have something to teach the other, and we stay together as long as we are learning and teaching and growing together. Though this is the ideal for many spiritual workers, it can leave those who are looking for more long-term security feeling insecure, yet life is insecure. Just because someone promises to stay with you for their entire life, should they really if it becomes harmful for them or you? The spiritual view of relationships is both a fulfilling and a difficult one.
All of these relationship views have their benefits, but all of them have drawbacks as well. There really is no one perfect way for us to view our relationships, but these are some common paradigms. Your view can change or develop over time, or you can have more than one. Knowing how you look at it, and what benefits and drawbacks your view has, as well as your partner’s view, really helps you prepare for a deeper relationship.
In looking at the relationship views you have and the relationships you want, it’s important to note there are many different types of relationships out there, and as a general rule, Witches do not discriminate. A modern Witchcraft ethos from the Wiccan Rede is “An’ it harm none, do as ye will.” Many assume romantic relationships are strictly between a man and a woman, yet most Witches do not discriminate against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgendered people, both in the Craft and in their use of love magick. Some lore dating back to the ancient world gives love spells specifically for attracting a same-sex lover. Specific herbs and spells were used for homosexual love. This doesn’t mean that such love is any different from heterosexual love, but it’s a different vibration. It’s a different expression of love; you are attracting something different, yet both are love. But there is an amazing crossover of correspondences used for both gay and straight people alike, showing that love is love, and the spells contained in this book can work for anyone. For a much more detailed examination of the topic, I suggest my previous book Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe.
Witches are not biased against alternative relationships. Many people in the Pagan community identify as polyamorous, whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Polyamory is a term meaning “many loves,” and today it denotes a wide range of relationships but generally means that two lovers are not completely exclusive to each other. This can work out in many ways but is usually a relationship of two individuals who are free to pursue sexual and/or romantic relationships with others independently, or a relationship consisting of more than two committed partners, such as a triad. While much of the grammatical bias of this book denotes finding a single lover or partner, not multiple ones, the ideas and spells can be applied to any situation or relationship. The dynamics are different and the challenges are different, but relationships are relationships, and there is much that is the same. You may think that such relationships would never be for you but later find yourself in a situation where the opportunity and desire arises, so don’t be quick to judge. The wisdom of The Witch’s Heart will help all Witches’ hearts: monogamous, open, or polyamorous. As long as you are able to pursue your longings in a way that doesn’t hurt yourself or others, then it is fine within the morality and ethics of the Witch. Many Pagans and Witches have championed for the rights of those involved in polyamorous relationships and educated the public about misconceptions, particularly the Pagan elder Oberon Zell-Ravenheart. For deeper wisdom specifically on polyamorous relationships, I refer you to the excellent book Pagan Polyamory by Raven Kaldera.
Some in the British Traditional lineages are not as open to polyamory, and some are not open to homosexuality or bisexuality, as many of these traditions focus on the polarity of one man and one woman, or several couples in a coven setting, to work magick. Thankfully, many in such traditions are realizing what works for them both magickally and personally is not what works for all magickal people, and you can separate a traditional teaching for a specific tradition from a guide to life that everyone must follow. If you are practicing those traditions or training in them, it’s good to explore the traditional roles in such settings, but it doesn’t have to be your lifetime choice. I know many gay Witches who have explored “straight” roles in Gardnerian Wicca and naturally polyamorous people who have focused on a single magickal/sexual partner while training in such traditions.
Understanding “nontraditional” relationship views and the possibility of them in your life, even simply as friends, helps widen your view of love and relationship, and teaches you how to be more open and wise in all situations.
What Do You Really Want?
In my magickal teachings, I tell my students all successful intentional spells have three components in common, regardless of the tradition or method: you must have a method of altering consciousness, clear intention, and a method for directing energy. We use meditation and ritual for the first and third step, but the second step is the hard part: you must have a clear intent. What do you want? What is the purpose of the spell? When you are doing love magick, what do you want? If you don’t know what you want, at least on some level, you will never get it.
A traditional method in love magick to help you prepare and become clear in your intent is to make a list of what you want in a lover or in a relationship.
exercise} List of Qualities in a Partner
In a magickal journal, notebook, or in a computer file where you keep your special and sacred writings, make a list of all the qualities and attributes you would like in a romantic partner and relationship. Your only limits are the ones you place on yourself, but I’ve found that when you focus on what is truly important rather than on the minor points that don’t matter as much, or you phrase your wants in a manner that leaves them more open, you have a greater chance of success.
Simply put, I think it’s best to choose qualities more than physical attributes. Only when I let go of my own image of the ideal partner—the stereotypical blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall boy-next-door type—did I open myself to the right person with all the right attributes. Rather than putting specific hair color, eye color, height, and weight for a partner, you could make one of the qualities “is physically attractive to me,” and you might discover something beyond your perceived “type.” Everybody wants an attractive partner, and there is nothing wrong with that. I think mutual physical attraction is almost mandatory for relationships to work. You can have anything you want but sometimes, by being so specific, you miss out on some amazing people who don’t fit into a stereotype.
Once you have made the initial list, go over it a few times, add to it things you might have forgotten, and cross out things that, upon further reflection, don’t seem important. Refine your list until it becomes solid and stable.
When you first make the list, reflect on it, then go back to the beginning of the exercise and repeat it. What do you want to keep on the list, and what do y
ou want to change? Rather than rushing into it, give it thought. A new relationship can be a life-altering event, so take some time to make sure you are getting what you want and need. If you prepare and get your intention set beforehand, you will soon be ready to do effective love magick.
Popular author Dorothy Morrison reminds us, in her book Enchantments of the Heart, to make sure the list of qualities also includes something to indicate “human,” as focusing on the qualities of loyalty or companionship could bring an amazing, loving pet to you, but not necessarily a mate. This may sound silly, as you’d think that many of the other qualifiers would clue the universal powers in on the fact that your goal is a human romantic relationship, but if your own list of qualities is too sentimental and doesn’t include things like “has a job” or “someone I’m sexually attracted to,” then your spell might work, but you might not get you what you intended. I do know one person who quite successfully conjured a loving Dalmatian with her spell. It was truly guided by divine will, as they make a great pair, and it was also a powerful learning experience. A few years later, she was able to successfully conjure the right man for her and the Dalmatian, and they have all been happily together ever since!
Sometimes making the list of qualities is enough to get the magick started. I have a non-Witch friend who asked me to do a love spell for him. I had him write out his list so it would be clear in his mind what type of person the spell would be attracting. Then I had a family emergency and was out of touch with him for a while—and I never carved, anointed, and consecrated the love candle spell as promised. But he later told me that someone came into his life the next week that matched his intentions, and they began dating. The list really began the magick for him.
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