One of the central elements to a successful magical operation is the presence of a magical link between the magician and the target. This link, usually an object, is that which connects us to our ritual goal. This object acts as a metaphor for either the target, or the objective of the ritual, or both. In most cases its presence makes the difference between a successful ritual and an unsuccessful one. The magical link can be just about anything as the target or objective of a ritual can be just about anything.
For the sake of simplicity magical links can be broken down into four categories based on the objective or target of the ritual. These four categories are people, places, things and situations. Which pretty much covers all the types of outcomes a magician might be seeking. Your magical link must be something which represents one of these four things metaphorically in your ritual.
What type of magical link you wind up using depends greatly on the objective of the ritual. Take cursing and healing for example. It would seem that the best thing to have, in both cases, is a link to the target. But what's the target? In the case of cursing we are hoping to cause an adverse situational change to an individual we dislike - the person is the target. In the case of healing we could say that we are trying to create a positive situational change to an individual we like (in which case the person is yet again the target) or we could say that we are creating an adverse situational change for the disease that the person has (in which case the disease is the target).
So in the case of cursing, the magical link must be a direct metaphor for the person who is the target - i.e. people and in healing it can be either in the people category or in the things category depending on how you approach the construction of your ritual.
If your objective is for example the obtaining of a new job you could use a link to the company at which you want to work and thus use something in the things category or you could use the location of the business which would put the link into the places category. Which you choose really boils down to the availability of the material which constitutes the physical magical link itself. Which category it falls into is unimportant, what is important is that it has a direct physical connection to the target.
The magical link is a piece of the objective we can manipulate without having to manipulate the whole objective or be in the direct presence of the target. This is incredibly handy for a number of reasons. The first is that many magical operations are impossible to perform in the presence of the target or in proximity to the objective. This is true regardless of whether the operation has a beneficial or a detrimental outcome in mind. The second is simply one of size and convenience, the magical link may be as tiny and portable as possible regardless of the size and scope of the objective.
Another reason to use a magical link is that the human mind works really well with symbols and maps, things which represent something else. We often function, many times, as if the symbol were the thing it represents. Money is the best example of this - it represents value but it also stands for the goods and services you have the power to acquire. If you take away someone's money you will cause them to become stressed out - their stress is the same kind experienced by many people when you take away their food! Money clearly isnt food or shelter but to our minds it is the same as the things it can acquire for us.
The final reason is to have a physical connection to the objective. A conduit along which the power of the ritual can flow. While, in theory, everything is ultimately connected I find it much handier to use something like a bit of clothing from a person or a fragment of carpeting from a place instead of a branch from the tree in my backyard or leftovers from dinner the night before. I believe that the item which has had contact with my target is a much more reliable way to have a connection to that target than say something that they have had no contact with.
So, then, where did the use of a magical link in ritual come from? What types of magical links exist? And finally: How do I use the magical link in a ritual?
The Magical Link in History (junk you can skip):
Since the basis for a magical link is primarily physical this element of ritual magick is perhaps one of the oldest that we have evidence for. It has, for example, been speculated that the purpose of Neolithic cave paintings was to act as a magical link between hunters and prey. The shaman would use the paintings to help him perform a ritual for a successful hunt. Since the drawing often appear to move when viewed by firelight it's also possible that these drawings were put up as an instructional tool to teach new hunters or as part of a religious experience or even as an early form of late night television (or perhaps all of the above).
Additionally the primitive Venus statuary found throughout the ancient world was probably tied to some sort of fertility charm. However, like the cave paintings, it's also possible that these statuary also served more than one purpose - perhaps as a fetish for a primordial goddess or the first recorded instance of pornography. Regardless of the potential uses it's clearly a symbolic connection to an objective (in this case fertility) and as such represents a magical link.
Jumping forward in time we can find many instances, specifically in a religious context, of items functioning in a symbolic fashion within a ritual. From bread and wine in Christian rituals acting as a substitute for theophagism1, to the Chinese practice of burning fake money and items for the deceased to use in the afterlife. It's quite possible that these substitutions might represent an effort to avoid ritual cannibalism and the destruction of valuable property, respectively. However it should be noted that primitive cultures usually as a rule did not shy aware from such actions (vis the Aztec consumption of parts of sacrificial victims and the Norse habit of burning ships loaded with stuff for dead warriors. In fact, looting graves would not have been such a lucrative career path in the ancient world had people like the Egyptians not loaded their burial sites with gold and jewels)2.
In a strictly magical context the use of charms, talismans, amulets, fetishes and dolls is well documented and need not be gone into in depth here. For the closet historian I recommend the bibliography at the end of this article. The principle on which all these magical links is based is the simple notion that 'like attracts like' and 'as above, so below' - this specifically refers to the idea that magicians can manipulate a microcosm (a small artificial universe) i.e. the ritual, that will then subsequently change the macrocosm - consensus reality. This process is aided by possessing at least some small part or fragment of the target that one is attempting to change. Without a magical link the ritual is nothing more than a bizarre form of theatre3.
An ironic twist on this notion has recently come from the world of science in the form of Bell's Theorem, part of which states that ...two particles once in contact will become entangled and continue to influence each other. So, at least hypothetically, if you possess something that was in contact with a target you will be able to influence the target. Your action on the small part will change the whole thing. The particles will all start spinning the same way or something.
Types of magical links:
For our considerations the four categories of magical links come in three varieties; strong, fair and weak. These classifications are arbitrary and based upon personal experience and meant to act as a set of guidelines regarding the magical link. The below is not a rigid and absolutist classification system, if you want one of those - study Kaballah4. The magician should use his or her best judgment in terms of what makes the best magical link in any given case.
A strong magical link is something which is either a part of or came from the target. If the target is a person then this list includes: hair, blood, saliva, skin, sperm, urine, feces or nail clippings. If the target is a place (or has something to do with a location) then the optimal items are such things as: carpet fibers, paint chips, wood chips, glass or any other material part of the structure. If the location is outdoors then obviously whatever is there will do: dirt, grass, rocks, plants, etc.
A fair magical link is something which is associated with, was in close proximity to, was sent by or consistently reminds one of the target. If the target is a person examples include (but are not limited to): Items of clothing or fibers from clothing worn next to the skin, gifts sent by the target, items owned by the target, or items disposed of by the target: basically anything that has come into a lot of contact with the target. In the case of a location this list contains anything which is not a material part of the structure but which can be obtained from it, such as items that are sold or even ones that are thrown out5.
Weak magical links come in two categories, the first consists of items which have only a marginal connection to the target and as such are not very effective. The second are items which bring the target fully into consciousness; this is detrimental to the working because it gives rise both to a conscious awareness of the objective and may cause the magician to give in to a lust of result. In the first category fall such things as emails from the target; which only has a temporary and fleeting contact with their thoughts. In the second category are such things as pictures of the target or company logos or signs6.
How do I get a Magical link?
It's really a lot easier to obtain a link to a target than one might suppose. People are always leaving little bits of themselves around for you to pick up. Or, in the case of places, there is always a steady stream of stuff going in and out of them. Things usually have smaller parts of themselves that can broken off and situations usually consist of a combination of things/people/places and as such have multiple components that can be picked up. The universe is a messy place and it's not all that hard to find a bit of it that you can carry off and use in your ritual. Just don't get caught removing the object in question. This can lead to all sorts of awkward situations and odd explanations that are best avoided.
Another thing to consider about obtaining a magical link is that most magicians who are interested in results tend to practice magick close to home. We do magick that impacts our environment and as we are in our environment we always have easy access to obtaining the magical links that we need. While it is not impossible to do magick on or for things that are at a relative distance to oneself it is harder to get good results. It is best to stick to things which are near to hand.
Now that I have got the link, what part does it play in my ritual?
I have found that magical links tend to have four distinct fates during a magical ritual: They are either destroyed (or damaged in some way), bound in some fashion, just left to lie there while action is directed towards them or they are symbolically moved/transformed7. For while the range of possible objectives for a magical ritual are, for all intensive purposes, infinite there are only a limited number of practical things that can be done with a link.
Magical links get destroyed in rituals for two reasons: Either the magician is trying to destroy the target/objective of the ritual or break his connection to the target. If the target is, for example, a business that has fired you the magician might take a small item from that place...burn it to ashes, place those ashes into a bag, whip himself up into an incoherent frenzy and then violently beat the bag with fist, hammer or whatever is handy all the while throwing a curse at it. Obviously these curses would be encoded in the forms of various mantra/ mudras8.
To damage a magical link is usually part of a ritual designed to inflict harm on some attribute of the target. This usually relates to some cognitive or physical acumen possessed by the object of the ritual. In these cases the magical link is poked or impaled or sliced or cut or slammed around, etc. All with the intent of transferring this kind of harm to the target.
Binding a magical link (wrapping it up with twine or rope or encasing it in wax, etc) is usually the stratagem for inhibiting some undesirable action on the part of the target. Usually the magical link is bound a specific number of times, the number being based on either mystical significance (like 3 or 9) or represents the duration (time frame) of the binding. Magicians tend to have rather fertile imaginations so there are, subsequently, lots of ways to bind targets.
Links that are left to lie in one location usually represent targets that the magician wants to change (but the change doesn't involve a binding or movement). The magician may invoke/evoke various egregores or servitors and direct their attention to the target. The link is subsequently left on the alter until the desired change takes place.
The temple room can be, if desired, set up to represent space/time with various parts of it representing points in the macrocosm. Once this is established in the magician's mind he or she can relocate the magical link within this arena with the result that it will move in the macrocosm to match one's intent. One clear application being to bring someone back to you or back to their home.
Conclusion:
The magical link not only connects the magician to the objective of the rite, it also represents the objective symbolically within the liminal space of the ritual. While some authors have provided examples of what constitutes a magical link this article has, hopefully, broken new ground in discussing the magical link in detail. Of all the things that go into a magical ritual the link is this one that is most often either overlooked, mishandled. The magical link is a key part of any magicians ritual and using it correctly greatly improves the probability of success.
1 The eating of Jesus as a snack.
2 Nor is this limited to so-called 'primitive' people, as a mortician's apprentice I saw more than one instance of mouth breathing plebeians placing items that the deceased liked while living in the casket with them, as if they would get some use out of these objects in the afterlife.
3 And not very good theatre when you stop and think about it. Either it's one extremely puffed up individual nagging this or that god to hop to it and look busy or it's a small collection of people doing the same thing, with one person doing the nagging and the rest acting as a badly tuned and highly repetitive chorus.
4 Yes, yes I know, some Cabalists are very flexible and others are not.
5 As tempting as it sounds this will not produce a follow-up article entitled, "The discarded office lamp and its use in magical ritual."
6 Note: In some cases these things can be a very good link if they are handled properly. For example, a picture is a great link if it is kept face down and one's intention is put on the back of it. The same goes for things like business cards and company logos, etc.
7 Some might add ingested to this list but really, eating a magical link is a bad idea if your purpose is destructive - you've just tied yourself to the fate of the target (you are what you eat) and if your purpose is anything other than destructive you've just turned your magical link into poo...and possible given yourself severely bad indigestion in the process.
8 Mudra, for the purpose of chaos magick, is a hand gesture which represents an intent.
Bibliography (books for people with way too much free time):
Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, by George Luck
The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, by Hans Dieter Benz
Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, by Samuel Noah and Diane Wolkstein