Definition:

In many traditions of magic, both older and modern, the concept of sympathetic magic plays a crucial role. The idea behind sympathetic magic is, at its core, that a person can be effected magically by actions performed towards something that represents them.

A perfect example of this is the use of the poppet or doll in magical workings. The poppet has been around for a long time - there is documentation that the ancient Greeks and Egyptians used them - long before pop culture discovered “Voodoo dolls.” A doll is used to represent a person, and the magical acts performed on the doll are then reflected on the person himself.

Sir George James Frazer, who wrote The Golden Bough, summarized the concept of sympathetic magic as “like produces like.”

Frazer broke down the idea further into two distinct parts - the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contact/Contagion. He said, “From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not.”

To carry the idea of sympathetic magic a step further, in many modern magical traditions we use correspondences, or connections between non-magical items and magical concepts. It’s why sage is associated with wisdom, or rose quartz with love, or the color red with passion.

There are some theories that prehistoric cave art may represent the earliest documented examples of sympathetic magic. If, for instance, a tribe’s shaman wanted to ensure a successful hunt, he might paint images of the hunting group killing an animal that could later be consumed by the whole tribe.