Category Archives: Magic

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

Evil Eye

Text: The informant started wearing evil eye jewelry, accessories, etc. during middle school. All the evil eye items they possess were gifted to them by family and, later, friends. They like to gift people evil eye items now. The informant always wears the evil eye because they see it as a barrier between them and any bad energy or intentions that could come their way.

Context: The informant grew up with both their parents always having an evil eye charm on them. Before they were gifted their first evil eye, their dad told them a story about his jealous brother, and how every time he would tell the brother about his accomplishments the evil eye’s blue color would fade, which he took as a sign that the evil eye was protecting him from the jealousy of his brother.

Analysis: Evil eye is widely used as a form of spiritual protection from negative energies. This folkloric belief is an example of contagious magic, since possessing an evil eye charm or having it on your person is what is believed to protect you from the negative spirits. Belief in the evil eye could be a reflection of values like spirituality and protection.

Altar

Name: Georgia

Text

I created an altar and painted all of the matriarchs in my family line. In the middle I painted myself wearing a Bulgarian head covering. The women are painted as the different waxing and waning moons. I added some nature ~ leaves, sticks, whatever wonders I find on the ground. There are some other objects that hold an ancestral significance to me. I pray at this altar. By praying at this altar, I commune with my ancestors. I sometimes leave food offerings, I create paintings of them and I talk to them when I pray. Sometimes I cry a lot at the altar and I feel comforted, it’s like crying in your grandmother’s lap. It’s always warm. This is a space where my ancestors can land & where I can share things with them. My brother is awaiting his first child & so I blessed the baby’s gift by leaving it a few weeks on the altar. 

Context

Altars have been used in all sorts of cultures. Praying or praying at an altar wasn’t practiced much in my family and it’s something I’ve rekindled on my own. 

Analysis

This friend is a very spiritual person. I believe she is taking on a traditional practice of altars and re-contextualizing it into her own ritual. They both have a different perspective, or rather have started a new trend in their life because of their spirituality. The idea of altars could reach her through diffusion since it wasn’t taught from her family. This knowledge could be from online, books, or others as I know she is active in spiritual communities online. I believe this is a form of the law of similarity. She altered the tangible world to connect to a bigger thing in the intangible world by depicting something of similarity to that bigger thing. In this case, she has painted her matriarchs in each cycle of the moon to facilitate this. In addition, Georgia is using fetish objects (spiritually loaded or magically significant) to place on her altar to increase the connection to the divine/her ancestors. This is an example of a mashup resulting from the exposure of new cultures from around the world and taking what resonates to create one’s own charged ritual.

Wishing on eyelashes

Text:

HT reports that he uses eyelashes to make wishes.

“When I find an eyelash on my cheek, I swipe it up with my finger, make a wish, and blow on it.”

When asked what the rules are for this ritual, HT responded with the following:

“You have to keep the wish to yourself. You have to blow it off your finger, it won’t work if it’s still stuck to you. My dad told me that there’s a game you have to play as well, if you notice someone else has lost an eyelash, you hold it between your pointer and your thumb and ask them to guess which finger it’s stuck to. If they get it right, then they get to make a wish. If they get it wrong, then you get to make a wish. But, you have to make a wish for that person, not for yourself. I don’t really do it that way, I just make a wish with the eyelash.”

When asked where he picked up the ritual, HT responded:

“From my parents. When there was an eyelash on my cheek, my mom would say that I get to make a wish, so I just kinda made the connection from there. Other than my dad explaining the game you can play with it, no one really explained it beyond that. I used to kind of pick my eyes for eyelashes, but my mom made me stop that by telling me I wouldn’t get to make a wish if I forced it that way.”

When asked what he likes to wish for and if there are any limits to the kinds of wishes you can make, HT responded:

“I can’t tell you what I wished for cause then it won’t come true. But no, I don’t think there’s any limit to what you can wish for. I guess it is just an eyelash, so you probably can’t ask for anything big, like winning the lottery or something. I don’t know, I just wish for little things here and there.”

Context:

HT is a twenty-four year old man, a recent college graduate, who is currently living at home with his parents. This the response that he gave when he asked to tell me about any good luck charms that he has.

Analysis:

By making a wish and blowing an eyelash away, HT engages in a form of sympathetic magic, where the act of performing a ritualistic action is believed to influence real-world outcomes. In one sense, the practice is a form of homeopathic magic, where the act of blowing the eyelash, which has been imbued with the wish, can be put out into the universe, a magic act that takes the wish from the mind of an individual and into the physical world. The size of the eyelash also seems to have some correlation with the size of the wish that one can make. In another sense, this is a form of contagious magic, wherein a smaller part of his body, his eyelash, will be able to affect the world and he affected in return. Since the eyelash was once physically connected to him, the magic that happens with it/to it will impact him as well. HT’s father’s explanation of the game that involves the eyelashes adds another layer to the ritual’s complexity. The game involves a form of reciprocity, where the eyelash has the opportunity to grant a wish to another person. However, this wish has limits, as it still must pertain to the person that the eyelash came from. It’s possible that the invention of this rule could be a modern adaptation, a way of taking the sting out of someone losing their wish by losing the game. The game elevates the ritual of making wishes with eyelashes by infusing it with interactive elements (albeit voluntry ones, by HT’s admission) and reinforcing its communal significance within the group.

Bench press PR rituals

Text:

CM reports that when he and his friends work out, the way to “PR,” or to get a personal record, while using the bench press machine, is to go through a mental checklist of things to do, typically in a particular order. For example, one might check the position on their feet on the ground, then their back and shoulders, and then how they are holding the bar, in that order. When asked what happens when one does this out of order, he says that it makes it more likely that one won’t get the PR. He didn’t describe this as a strict superstitition, but that it would really affect him if he didn’t go through this checklist in order.

When asked if he has any special rituals or food that he does before attempting a PR, CM reported that he eats sour patch kids. While he doesn’t strictly adhere to the idea that he needs to eat sour patch kids in order to get a PR, he says that he kicks himself if he fails at a PR and he didn’t have any sour patch kids beforehand.

Context:

CM is a male college student at USC. For this interview, he was asked to describe good luck charms for sports and exercises he does.

Analysis:

CM’s PR ritual illustrates the impact of superstition within secular settings. Despite lacking religious or spiritual connotations, CM’s adherence to pre-performance rituals reflects a human tendency to seek psychological comfort and a sense of control in uncertain situations. Since there is still much unknown about bodybuilding as a discipline, despite bold assurances by many trainers and influencers to have scientifically proven methods on the best ways to work out, it makes sense that many people trying to bodybuild will rely on superstitious rituals to some degree. These rituals are reinforced in failure, confirming CM’s bias, as well as his peers’ bias, that these practices will lend themselves to a PR. The magic is performed through the body, whether through the positioning of body parts or the consumption of sour patch kids, but the effect is on the mind, which is considered the ultimate obstacle when working out.

Cross country good luck charm

Text:

CM reports that when he ran cross country in high school, he and his fellow runners would keep the bibs from previously won races as good luck charms. He explains that this practice was celebratory, to keep a trophy of achievement to look back on and remember fondly. However, beyond being a trophy, CM says that saving these bibs, which have a chip inside that records the time of the run, serves as a good luck charm for future races.

Context:

CM is a male college student at USC. For this interview, he was asked to describe good luck charms for sports and exercises he does.

Analysis:

CM’s practice of keeping race bibs as good luck charms serves as a good example of homeopathic magic, a form a sympathetic magic based on the principle that “like produces like.” In this context, the race bibs, imbued both with the mental memory (the runner’s recollection) and physical memory (the chip inside) of past victories, possess an inherent quality that can influence the outcome of future races. As technology advances, the way we practice and observe sympathetic magic evolves as well. The chip is a sort of digitial sympathetic magic, one that forever preserves one’s victory, which serves as the facet for influencing future races; success is reified by the chip and can be physically possessed by the runners. This practice makes sense in a field such as cross country, where much can be outside of one’s control, and where it is imperative to have continued, repeated wins in order to have success in the sport.