While answering a few recent emails that I received from readers and Facebook fans I had a bit of a realization.  One of the most important lessons for new Witches seems to be missing from the introductory education that many receive.  Learning and understanding the Laws of the Universe is really vital, not only to working magick, but to living in the world as a Witch who is in harmony with the world.

It saddened me to have a conversation with one of these individuals only to find that, after practicing for 5 years, they’d never even heard of the Laws of Nature or Laws of the Universe.  Some of these are simple, some are ones that you’ll know but in a formal sense.  But many seem to be missing from the understanding of a lot of practitioners, especially newer one.  I understand why because I read many of the new books on Wicca, Witchcraft, and magick too and I know they just aren’t there or are glossed over.  I also know that for most new Witches this is all they have when they get started out and for many this is all they ever really have because they either make the decision to be solitary or are in circumstances that keep them from finding or having a teacher.

So with that I mind I’ve decided that I’m going to do some posts talking about these many different laws and how they apply to the Craft and how to work with them in our lives.  I’ll try and do one a week or so, though some may make more sense when talked about together.  We’ll see what happens.  I do hope to see this stir up some questions and discussion.

For the first one I thought I would go with something that is really key in a lot of magickal work and is the basis for why certain types of magick work.  The Law of Association.

This law is one that we work with just about any time we cast a spell in the physical sense with herbs, crystals, candles, poppets, etc.  The Law of Association, which is also connected to a few other laws and principles that we’ll talk about in the future, basically tells us that any two things that are similar and share common characteristics have the ability to influence one another.    This is based on the vibrations of two things and is one of the basic correspondences that we look at when we’re creating spells.

For example, you might decided to cut a heart out of a piece of red paper and place it in a red spell bag with rose petals to help draw love to you.  All these objects are associated with love, whether through the correspondence of color, shape, or cultural association.  By carrying them with you and putting your intention and energy for your desire into them, they attract similar energy.  You can think of it somewhat like a magnet where like is going to attract like.  The energy and the vibration of love carried in these objects helps to fuel this attraction to you as you carry and work with them.

When creating spells this is one of the first things worth considering.  What can act like a magnet for what you want.  When you cast a spell for money use money, whether it’s coins or paper money, and then use a color that corresponds to that money for the rest of your spell.  This is important; a lot of books and spell correspondences will tell you green represents money but if you live in a country where the money is orange, for example, then you would want to use orange in your money spells because that is what is going to have an association to money for you in your culture.

It’s also helpful to start to look for ways that the Law of Association works in your daily life.  Do you notice that when you start your day in a certain mood, projecting a certain vibration, that you draw more of the same?  Do you notice that if you wear a certain color that day that you draw to you things of a similar essence?

The Law of Association, as you’ll see later on, resonates and works in alongside other laws like the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence, which we’ll talk about soon.

Learning the Universal Laws and the Hermetic Principles is really a basic beginners step to make to helping you understand how magick works and how magick is structured.  When you learn and understand these laws it will make creating your own spells a lot easier, and once you can start to see how these principles play out both in magick and in daily live you’ll also gain the understanding and the confidence to use these as jumping blocks to writing your own magick.