Sympathetic Magic: A Note For Fantasy Writers and Gamers

Sympathetic magic was the first tumble I took down the rabbit hole that has consumed my life. Introduced to it by a friend while on a car ride, my first response: this sounds stupid.

This book. Read it.

But what is it?

For the most complete look that you can get at sympathetic magic, you should check out James George Frazer's Golden Bough. While this may not have been the origin of the idea, it is certainly the book that popularized the concept, and is relevant all these years later.

It's an analysis of magic throughout different world religions and mythologies, and tries to create a set of rules to govern how they work within those stories cohesively. The concept is simple, that there are two types of magic; imitation and contagion.

• Imitation magic says that things that look like or somehow resemble each other, are fundamentally connected. Power over one is power over the other. You know, make a doll that looks like someone and stab it, they feel pain, we all know the gig.
• Contagious magic says that once things become connected they will always be connected. A common example of this is hair, teeth and bones. These things were all once part of you, then feel off/out. According to this, it's still a part of you in a non-physical sense.

Through these two concepts, you can control just about anything. If a witch has your hair or a tooth, you're screwed. Wizard finds out your name (that's part of you too, somehow), then you're screwed. Witch doctor makes a doll that looks like you, yeah... you're screwed. Moral of the story, you never know who might be magical, so watch make sure you hide your toe nail trimmings kids!

This gal? Def totes witch.
I know, hard to believe, but it's true.

Simple, right? So you may be like me and think, why does that need a whole book to be explained?

Because that's only like the first page of the book. The rest are endless (fascinating, yes, but endless none the less) examples.

"Alchemy isn't magic, it's science!"
Proceeds to solve all problems by clapping
hands together and drawing circles.

Why does this matter? Well, not only does this raise some interesting ideas of how the human mind works on a universal level, since these are things that each culture invented independently, but it's an important lesson to fantasy writing: if you're going to have magic in your story, it needs to be consistent. Few things will make your story as silly as directly contradicting yourself. Don't have your wizard say something, like, oh... "I can't create water out of thin air, I need base materials to work with" to make dying of thirst a serious threat only to turn into a magical fire hose to extinguish the fire engulfing the palace. I'm looking at you, Genie.

You're the reason I can't watch Disney Channel anymore, you blue bastard!

When I first heard about this concept, I thought it just sounded like a tired trope. I mean, who hasn't heard of a voodoo doll or a witch that needs a lock of hair or a personal possession before they can curse their victim? Well, sometimes an idea is cliche for a reason. It makes sense to people and a lot of these ideas resonate with a primal part of us that we don't really understand. If you make your magic system too technical, then it's just an alternate science, but if it doesn't make sense, it'll seem like you don't know what you're doing and like you're just making it up as you go along; you either ruin that sense of magic or they won't stick around to see what happens next. But sympathetic magic walks that fine line, a sort of dream logic, where you know that wouldn't work in the normal world, but when reading you can just sort of tilt your head to one side and say "yeah, that could work."

Besides, what's your other option? A generically magical energy that fuels spells the way electricity powers a computer? Not only is that a cheap plot device but it's also boringly drab! Your audience would never accept that!

Oh... oh yeah.