Category Archives: Magic

Ritual actions engaged in to effect changes in the outside world.

Gacha Gaming Luck Rituals

The Informant

CM is a long-time gacha player who players multiple different gacha games and stays up to date in the community news of gacha games he doesn’t even play. The informant admits to doing one of the following rituals in the past, having played the game genre since he was 13.

The Text

“Gacha” games are a from of video games that involve a “gacha” element, deriving from the Japanese toy-capsule vending machines of gachapon, in which rewards are drawn through lottery as a monetization system. As a very luck-based system, it lends itself to superstitions and magical rituals, particularly when players are investing their in-game resources into “pulling” for gacha. Most gacha games tend to sell particularly desireable limited characters or equipment, and the lottery mechanic incentivizes players to quite literally perform summoning rituals to “pull” the right character or equipment.

According to the informant, there are two big ways to perform a luck ritual in gacha community. In the past, one method was to change your social media profile picture (Discord, X, etc.) to the target character before you pulled for them. Other people draw summoning circles, placing the phone in the middle of the diagram with merch on the periphery. Some people would assemble entire shrines in dedication of the target character before they roll. The informant recalls an episode where a particular player put their phone into a circle of salt to keep away bad luck before rolling.

In Grand Blue Fantasy, a particular gacha game, the most incentivized way to pull would be to pull 300 pulls at once for an incentivized reward, and you must play a song, like related to the target character, on loop as the game rolls through the 300 pulls. If the player ever repeats a song used for a previous character, the rolls would be atrocious, from an anecdote. The informant also recounts a method where the player would go to a specific location important to the target character or have related characters active in the party while pulling for the character.

Analysis

What I find most interesting about this ritual is the homeopathic nature of summoning for a fictional character, as described by Frazer’s sympathetic magic, despite the target of the homeopathic connection being completely fictional. This operates off the belief that the target character will be bound to other characters, locations, and merchandise that have a connection to them. Setting one’s public profile picture also morphs the player’s cyborg identity to be closer to that of the character, again evoking a homeopathic bond. Because the user’s are invested in the characters and want them to “come home” to their account, they will perform rituals to improve their odds, especially as losing to the lottery odds can be quite costly to an account, forcing the player to either pay for more rolls or miss out on the character. As many gacha games sell their characters through story, the narratives the players experienced with the target character also incentivizes their investment on pulling for the target character, going as far as to perform rituals to better their luck when rolling.

TTRPG Dice Superstitions and Rituals

The Informant

E.T. is a long-time tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) hobbyist and player who has played in several games at real life tables using real physical dice that must be tossed by hand as opposed to digital random number generators. TTRPGs rely on sets of dice of various face sizes in

Text

Amongst E.T.’s collection of dice sets include favored dice sets such as his “pansexual dice.” He insists on carrying the dice, or else “they’ll misbehave.” He “trains” his dice, ritualistically pulling them out one at a time, grouping and categorizing them by face number. Then, all the die are placed highest number up to condition them to roll that number more in the future. He notes that he does not utilize “dice jail” that often, only when a particular dice is especially egregious for a session. Although he reports that trained dice tend not to perform that poorly, the pansexual dice notably acts up every now and then. He insists that training dice work due to the estimated measurement comparison where his digital dice underperform compared to his trained physical dice.

E.T. has a cat that passed away a couple years back, and he uses her food bowl as the “dice jail” for misbehaving dice. The cat had no quality that would help the dice rehabilitate, but it’s a sentimental use for the bowl he’s held onto since. If he’s hosting a game session with players he is not fond of, he will give them dice that have a history of poor performance. Apparently, it is necessary to keep them in specific bags along with charms for “positive vibes.” The favorite dice gets a more spacious satin satch instead of the usual velvet one. He also reports a friend and fellow TTRPG player who puts dice in a mason jar under the full moon to absorb of the power of the moon. This can be either to cleanse unlucky dice or to bless dice.

Analysis

Dice rituals and magic can be fairly easily categorized as Frazer’s sympathetic magic, particularly contageous magic that associates good luck with particular sets of dice. The process of trying to enchant dice by imbuing it with moonlight is contageous magic that attempts to rub off the cosmic force onto the statistical random number generator by association. The idea that dice can be trained to roll higher numbers simply by “conditioning” them with deliberate face placement as a ritual similarly hopes that the time spent on the face with the biggest number will persist in future uses of the dice. Conversely, dice with historically bad luck becomes stuck with the contageous misfortune until a conversion ritual is performed, such as with the mason jar and moonlight. As a fantasy roleplay game, the medium itself lends itself towards players who are inclined and willing to partake in magical and superstitious practices, if not for genuinely belief, at least for fun and roleplay.

Cutting Hair with the Moon

Nationality: British
Age: 26
Occupation: Pharmacist
Residence: Liverpool
Language: English

Text: “My nan has always told me you should cut your hair during the waxing moon, when it’s growing bigger, so your hair would grow thicker and faster. But never cut it during a waning moon, or it’d grow back slow and thin. Same thing with nails. My nan wouldn’t get her nails done or anything; she would just wait to trim them herself and always looked up at the moon first.”

Context: My informant is from England and told me that her grandmother grew up in a farming village that often relied on the moon to guide the planting and personal care. Her nan treated it like common sense, and a hairdresser in the town also told her this once. 

Interpretation: This is an example of sympathetic magic. Cutting hair during a waxing moon (that looks like it’s growing) symbolically encourages growth; meanwhile, cutting during a waning moon (that looks like it’s shrinking) is seen as limiting or weakening. It reflects an ancient human instinct to see natural cycles like the moon as connected to our bodies and health. This also reflected a transmission of knowledge, passed from grandmother to granddaughter, rooted in domestic spaces and body care. 

Empacho

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 38
Occupation: Mechanic
Residence: Los Angeles
Language: Spanish and English

Text: “When I was little, if I had a stomachache or was constipated, my grandma would say I had empacho. She would rub my stomach with oil while massaging my stomach and back. Then she would give me a té de manzanilla boiled with the pit of an avocado. I wasn’t allowed to eat cold food after that, only warm soups. No doctors were involved, just her hands and prayers.”

Context: The informant explained that he and his cousins were often diagnosed with empacho by their grandmother when they had constipation, bloating, or stomach cramps. He explained that empacho is believed to be caused by eating too much, eating improperly, or food “sticking” in the stomach. His grandmother learned the treatment from a neighborhood curandera (a folk healer) in Michoacán. He doesn’t fully believe in the diagnosis now, but he did say the treatment did make him feel better. It was comforting. 

Interpretation: Empacho is considered to be a folk illness in Mexican medicine. The idea that food can cause an internal imbalance that requires hands-on shows how healing illustrates how illness is perceived not just as biological but also energetic. The act of rubbing or even pulling the stomach is a way of drawing out the illness. Using warmth (like tea or massage) is a way to counteract the “coldness” in the body. This ritual becomes not only a form of medical intervention but a cultural one, preserving heritage and asserting identity. 

Sage Burning

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, AZ
Language: English

“I believe in like burning sage to purify your home. I use sage and herbs. When I’m feeling like negative energy or negative stuff starts happening. I believe that it’s something someone else is doing to me or spiritually happening to me, so I burn sage and bless my house.”

Where did you learn about this?

“I learned about this kind of stuff until I lived on the Hoopa reservation. I never learned about this stuff before moving. I started opening up spiritually when living up there. I was aware of this stuff because my mom was clairvoyant.”

Can you please tell me about how you burn the sage? 

“Protection of house. You burn sage and pray and intent. Clearing things. Things happening in your home, you burn sage. Thanking your home when you live in your house because your house is a living energy. It protects your family. It is a safe haven. I also use it for my crystals. I ground myself and I saw a prayer. I usually say Our Father. I mix my Christianity beliefs within my medicine because that’s the one true god i believe in. I walk through the house and open doors and windows and say the Our Father on each part of the house. And I blow it on myself and the house before I blow it out. I also do crosses on door entrances.”

Context: The informant identifies herself both as a Spiritualist and a Christion. She spent a portion of her 20s in Hoopa, California where she learned a lot of spiritualism from the people she met and connected with on the reservation. She has a mixed background of European and Native American ancestry.

Analysis: Burning sage to purify your home is a commonly recognized Native American ritual that has been adopted by many Spiritualists in the US. Through this practice, the informant is connecting to her roots, which have been lost within her own family. Often, Native American ancestry can be eradicated in European family lines, so many people try to reestablish those connections with that part of their identity. Through this reconnection, the informant also blends her Christian beliefs that have been dominant throughout her entire life. Her approach to sage burning shows the complex ways we blend folk beliefs with religion and spiritualism.

Looking specifically at the act of burning sage, the informant identifies the symbolism in the home, how the home is meant to protect us. Sometimes homes can be believed to be haunted or negative energies might enter the home. Sage acts as a way to contract these spooky unknowns in our homes. As ghost stories tend to be centered around property, sage smudging also focuses on property, cleansing the home to be a safe and welcoming space rather than an ominous one.