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Love Magic: Part 1- What is love?

I wanted to thoroughly touch on a subject that many new witches and even seasoned witches always seem interested in. Love magic is often times a hot topic and there are thousands of books, blogs, movies, etc. on how to find love, win love, fix love, and enchant love. However, love is also a very complicated emotion and I wanted to touch on the concept of love a bit more thoroughly before getting into love potions, spells, and magic. To begin with, I think it is important to understand love as an emotion, verb, and state of being before deciding to try any kind of practical spellwork. I believe it is important to understand what love means to you so you are better able to be clear about what kind of love you are trying to attract. It is also important to understand the type of love the recipient of your spell feels. Understanding a person’s emotional depth can go a long way toward ensuring your spell will have an effect. Sometimes, a spell isn’t even needed and it was just an issue with clear communication and other times it could potentially be a mental disorder or obsession. I feel that delving into love magic with a clear mindset is very important so as to avoid future problems, magical fall out, or wasting time on something that could be fixed as easily as just complimenting the one you care about.

Love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Love lingers and leaves its own legacy. It is said love makes the world go ‘round but it can sometimes cause problems in our relationships as well. Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states. It is considered to be both positive and negative, with its virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection, as “the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another” and its vice representing human moral flaw, akin to vanity, selfishness, amour-propre, and egotism, as potentially leading people into a type of mania, obsessiveness or codependency. Abstractly discussed, love usually refers to an experience one person feels for another. Love often involves caring for, or identifying with, a person or thing, including oneself (narcissism).

People can be said to love an object, principle, or goal to which they are deeply committed and greatly value. For example, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers’ “love” of their cause may sometimes be born not of interpersonal love but impersonal love, altruism, and strong spiritual or political convictions. People can also “love” material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things. If sexual passion is also involved, then this feeling is called paraphilia. A common principle that people say they love is life itself.

Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a much more potent sentiment than a simple liking for a person. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with Interpersonal relationships. Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania. Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the 20th century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the concept of love.

There are so many questions when it comes to love. How do you know you’re in love? Why do you fall out of love? Is it possible to fall in love at first sight? We often think of love just in terms of romance, but love between friends and family members can be thought of as types of love in their own right, and they can be just as powerful.

Ancient Greek philosophers distinguished several different concepts in which the word “love” is used, each embodied by a different word and they are still relevant today. This can help us to understand what kind of love we are experiencing, especially when it comes to a love with a romantic partner. Ancient Greeks identified nine forms of love: sexual and/or romantic desire (eros), friendship and/or platonic desire (philia), playful love (ludus), self-emptying or divine love (agape), longstanding love (pragma), self-love (philautia), kinship or familial love (in Greek, storge), hospitality towards guests (xenia), and obsessive love (mania).

Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of love: unrequited love, empty love, companionate love, consummate love, infatuated love, eternal love, and courtly love. Numerous cultures have also distinguished Ren, Yuanfen, Mamihlapinatapai, Cafuné, Kama, Bhakti, Mettā, Ishq, Chesed, Amore, Charity, Saudade (and other variants or symbioses of these states), as culturally unique words, definitions, or expressions of love in regards to a specified “moment” currently lacking in the English language.

Think about these kinds of love. Which do you have and with whom? Are some of these more important to you than others? Why? What kind of love are you looking for? When doing love magic, which of these are you actually trying for? It is important that your spell work coincides with your goals.

Interested in a topic of your own? Just ask here and I will be glad to post it!

From our altar to yours, with love from the sea,

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