Introduction
On a visit to England, the home of my ancestors, I fell in love with a country gentleman. I wasn’t sure just how much he cared for me, even though we spent long hours and even days together, driving through the English countryside, having tea at romantic rustic inns, and staying up late to watch the stars. One afternoon while I was alone, doubts began to cross my mind. Does he really love me the way I love him? I would find out.
I hiked out into the hills beyond Stratford-upon-Avon dragging my Witch’s sword behind me. With it, I carved a circle into the earth near the ancient standing stones called “The Roll Rite” and lifted my voice to invoke the powers of that magical land. “If he loves me as I love him, bring the mist of the dragon and lead him to me now!” As I walked back a mist began to form, and when I arrived at the manor house where I was staying, my English lover was just driving in the gate. He rolled down the window of his antique car and said, “All of a sudden I had this burning desire to see you!”
Love Magic is a book of Witches’ spells and rituals to attract love and enhance relationships. You do not need to be a Witch or even be in love with a Witch to use this book. In fact, Love Magic is written both as a sensible guide for readers who already practice magic and as an introduction for people who know nothing about it. I hope that adepts of the magical arts as well as novices will find the book useful, entertaining, and enlightening.
From our own separate backgrounds Tom and I weave together several rich traditions and many years of experience.
I am an ordained High Priestess of Witchcraft, descended from Celtic ancestry with Faerie blood coursing through my veins. Love magic has always been a vital ingredient in my life as it is in any Witch’s daily practices because there is little that is more important than warmth, caring, affection, and pleasure. I first began my study and practice of Witchcraft forty-two years ago, when practitioners were virtually nonexistent. Knowledge of the Craft was closely guarded and, because of the fear of persecution, confined to family traditions. The lack of information about real magic created within me a passionate determination to uncover the reality of Witchcraft and master the Art.
Since that time, I have founded the Cabot Tradition of the Science of Witchcraft, which blends scientific and natural law with psychic abilities and Witchcraft practices. I have shared my knowledge of ancient and modern Celtic Witchcraft, the Egyptian Mysteries, Hermetics, Spellcraft, Herbcraft, psychic healing, ritual magic, and mental alchemy with thousands of people who have attended my classes and seminars over the past thirty-three years. I have also organized and led public rituals as well officiated at sacred functions in Salem. It has been a joy and confirmation of my efforts to see the explosive growth of the modern Craft. Indeed, Witches are now once again members of an international and ageless community that preserves ancient wisdom and worships the Great Mother, She who was old when the world was young.
Tom has been a student and teacher of shamanic practices and other visionary work for twenty years. His work has roots in “core shamanism” as well as in specific strains of Native American spirituality and the Celtic origins of modern Witchcraft. As a North American and the son of families going back to Celtic and Germanic ancestors, he unites the Old Ways of both places in his personal spiritual life. Tom has helped organize public rituals in New York City to celebrate pagan earth holidays. He is active in the grass-roots dreamwork movement and the neo-pagan revival to reintroduce the ancient folk customs to modern Americans. He lectures extensively on dreams, shamanism, and mysticism.
Our understanding of magic webs backward into the very distant past and forward into what we hope to create for the twenty-first century, while our understanding of love and human relationships derives from the people we have loved in our own lives and from the joys, hopes, and sorrows brought to us by the people we advise as spiritual counselors.
No one has all the answers or insights, or even knows all the questions, about a subject as profound and mysterious as the human heart. It is therefore with utmost respect for my readers, who may see more keenly into the mysteries of love than I do, that I offer whatever knowledge and experience the Goddess and God have given to me.
I encourage those of you already experienced with magic to use the spells and rituals as springboards for creating your own work. The most powerful spells always come from the heart and mind of the magic-worker, not from the pages of a book. For readers new to magic, I suggest you peruse the entire book before attempting any spells and rituals, then begin with the ones that seem most appropriate for your own needs and your own level of spiritual practice.
The book is divided into three parts. The first (Chapters 1 to 3) presents an overview of magic and love. The second part (Chapters 4 to 6) contains rituals and meditations for self-discovery and self-esteem, both necessary for magic and love. The last section contains three chapters of specific spells and rituals for attracting a lover, for enhancing a relationship, and for ending a relationship. The final chapter shows how to find the ingredients for love magic in the natural environment.
To use this book, you don’t have to change your religious or metaphysical beliefs to work spells and rituals. In some cases, you may have to “suspend disbelief” about magic, much like you suspend your knowledge at the theater that the action of the play is only “acting.” In most cases, you don’t have to believe anything specific. But, as in all areas of life, it is necessary to have a strong and abiding belief in yourself and the greater Power that creates and fills the cosmos.
Magic is a craft, a set of practices, a way of focusing your will and intention. It is something you do, not something you believe and it works remarkably well for people of widely varying belief systems.
Some readers may ask: What is a Witch? How does a person become one? I refer you to our first book Power of the Witch, where I deal with these questions more thoroughly. But to satisfy your curiosity, I can say briefly: Witchcraft is rooted in the pre-Christian spiritual and healing practices of the early European cultures. Like ancient people everywhere, the first Witches were earth-oriented people, in love with the changing Wheel of Life manifested in the seasons of the year, the animal and plant life with which they shared the planet, and the powers of the mind and heart. They found the earth to be wondrously alive with spirits and deities, with elemental powers charged with divine energy, and with marvelous opportunities to dream and wonder about human life: its origins, its purpose, its destiny. They found answers and intimations of answers to their dreams and questions in the natural world around them and in their relationships with each other. Witches are people who strive to keep alive these ancient visions of the natural harmony and balance of nature and to participate in the Wheel of Life.
And how does a person become a Witch? How do you know you are not a Witch already?
Copyright © 2014 by Laurie Cabot with Tom Cowan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
