Thoughts on Love Spells in the Jewish Tradition

Recently on Discord someone begged me for a love spell, which is one of those things that Just Happens on a semi-regular basis whenever you're in occult spaces. Like anyone remotely ethical, I always turn the person away when this happens. But I don't judge. In fact, I get it.

Love spells—really, sigils created with intent to make a specific person fall for me—were some of the first magic I casted. At the time, I was in that gray area when you start out where some of your magical attempts very obviously work out while other ones don't and you haven't yet figured out if that means magic is real or not. So while casting, I rationalized that as far as I knew I was drawing symbols and jerking off to them for fun rather than profit. But even in those beginning phases I knew better because I later cried about my guilt to my confused psychiatrist, too embarrassed to articulate what I had done.

Fortunately, none of those sigils worked and I could make the jest that given that the target was and to my knowledge remains an atheist, I wouldn't know what to do with them now. However, there were massive psychic and spiritual expansions associated with my falling in love with them that paved the way to my becoming a full-on occultist, which gave me yet another layer I had to detangle along with the mundane parts of the situation. I have come to believe since that when you fall in love (or at least definitely when I do), it is a Divine event. As incarnated beings, we are often bad at distinguishing what that divinity actually promises.

My heartbreaks tend to last over a year, which is always much longer than the connections that lead to them. Part of this we can blame on the 3rd decan of Scorpio, but as anything astrological that correlates to my personal history, which is full of Jewish family trauma. This recent run-in with a love spell request made me reflect on my own past errors and wonder about the history of Jewish love magic, ultimately finding that "love" is 1 of 4 of the largest categories of historical Jewish magic (the others being harming, healing, and knowledge, according to Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah by Yuval Harari).

I come from two ancestral lines that as recently as 3 generations ago had members who married for convenience and economic stability. Based off this, I was expecting to find a lot of spell examples addressing a default cismale spellcaster needing a wife for status-gaining reasons. I was surprised to find that that was not always the case!

A love amulet that was written on soft clay and thrown into the fire attests to the ritual burning of amulets to achieve a sympathetic effect: kindling the beloved's heart with the fire of love.

Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah, pg 186, by Yuval Harari

Leave a little of the bread which you eat; break it up and form it into 7 bite-sized pieces. And go to where heroes and gladiators and those who have died a violent death were slain. Say the spell to the pieces of bread and throw them. And pick up some polluted dirt from the place where you perform the ritual and throw it inside the house of the woman whom you desire, go on home and go to sleep.

The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Edited by Hans Dieter Betz

To arouse passion, one must purchase a small handmirror at the first price demanded, scrape some of the pitch from the back of the glass, and write the name of his beloved in this space 3 times. He should then hold his glass in front of two dogs that are copulating, so that their image is reflective in it, and should also induce the girl to glance into it; then he must hide it for 9 days in a spot which she passes frequently, and when that period has expired he must always carry it on his person.

Jewish Magic and Superstition, pg 128, by Joshua Trachtenberg

Even when I did find much more brutal love spells, they seemed to have other underlying motivations. This one from the Sepher Ha-Razim could also be used to gain esteem from kings and other important people so it was much more about overall influence to increase one's profile rather than simply attracting a pretty wife:

(if you wish to change) the heart of a great or wealthy woman, or the heart of a beautiful woman, (do this). Take a lion club and slaughter it with a bronze knife and catch its blood and tear out its heart and put its blood in the midst (of the heart) and write the names of these (above mentioned) angels in blood upon the skin between its eyes; then wash it out with wine three years old and mix (the wine) with the blood.

Sepher Ha-Razim, translated by Michael A. Morgan

These last two seem less about obtaining or continuing love and more about inflicting as cruel of pain as possible upon the female targets. Mickaharic notes for his addition that it does not matter if the man and woman in his spell had ever been lovers.

A fifteenth-century work in mixed Hebrew and Yiddish [contains] a recipe worthy of full quotation because it illustrates the "business" that often accompanied the charm. "Take virgin wax and make a female figure, with the sex organs clearly delineated, and with the features of the person you have in mind. Write on the breast ----, daughter of [father's name] and ----, daughter of [mother's name], and on the back between the shoulders write the same and say over it 'May it be Thy will, O Lord, that N daughter of N burn with a might passion for me.' Then bury the figure... and when you wish to arouse passion in her, pierce the heart of the image with a new needle in that spot where it will cause the most pain.' Apparently the poor girl is to suffer doubly, from the pain of her love and her wound.

Jewish Magic and Superstition, pg 125-126 by Joshua Trachtenberg

Place the paper with the name of the man in the water. Wait, watching the paper, until you see the paper is thoroughly wet. Pray the verse [Hosea 2:7] over the water three times. Float the paper with the woman's name on the surface of the water. Again, pray the verse three times. Let the water in the bowl evaporate. When the water has evaporated, the woman will be obsessed with thoughts of the man, often to the point where she will have problems functioning in her daily life.

Magical Spells of the Minor Prophets, pg 4, by Draja Mickaharic

This blog post is, of course, incomplete as during the course of my research I discovered that there are many academic texts dedicated purely to the exploration of Jewish love magic throughout history. Realizing the depth and diversity of this type of magic in my tradition has helped me feel slightly less ridiculous about the height of my feelings and the desperation they led to during limerent experiences.

As for the others who seek love spells from me, I can now chalk them up to following a timeless tradition of heartbreak and pursuit.