“In pity come, and ease my grief, Bring my distempered soul relief, Favour thy suppliant’s hidden fires, And give me all my heart desires” – Sappho’s Hymn to Venus.

An undeniable fascination with romantic love pervades our society. Love is regarded with a kind of universality that serves to “unite us all”, despite cultural differences, as an antithesis of war, destruction and hopelessness. Sociologist Eva Illouz writes that love provides “a kind of secular salvation… that could redeem our entire existence, even though we might die of it”. As bell hooks notes in All About Love: “The search for love continues even in the face of great odds”. It is something that sustains us, even in the most arduous of times.

Seeking romance through love spells can be traced back centuries and around the world. Early examples of love magic derive from the Ancient Near East dating back to 2200 BCE, where Cuneiform tablets preserving rituals of erotic magic were unearthed. Ritual love magic was an occult and clandestine undertaking, confided in diaries or grimoires, jealously guarded as jewels of the magical tradition.

The Greek Magical Papyri, a manuscript from the 100s BCE to the 400s CE, contains spells of erotic attraction from the syncretic magical traditions of Hellenistic Greece, ancient Rome and Egypt. Spells instruct carving a lover’s name with the blood of a black donkey, or with a copper nail from a wrecked ship onto a shell before throwing it to sea with a lock of hair. Another instructs invoking Selene, the Moon goddess, by anointing a figurine of the goddess in clay, olive oil and the blood of a dappled goat.  

Traditional herb love spells revolve mainly around fruit, akin to the orange peel and pomegranate TikTok test of love. In the renowned Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, occultist and herbalist, Scott Cunningham, lists several love spells which include cutting an apple or an orange in half and sharing it with a loved one. If the fruit is accepted, there is true love, though if it’s refused the love is doomed. Another says to cut an apple in half and if the seeds on either side are even, there will be marriage, though if a seed gets cut a break-up is imminent.

There are also several herbal love spells for fidelity, long-lasting love and even to fix a broken heart. To reveal a promiscuous lover, one must lay a sprig of fresh basil on their hand, if it withers they are ‘light of love’. To ensure love will stay, a couple should break a twig off a tree in two pieces, each keeping one half. For fidelity, cut a nutmeg into exactly four pieces. Bury one of the pieces, burn one, throw the third off a cliff and boil the last. Chewing on caraway seeds brings new love, whilst sleeping with daisies under your pillow brings an old lover back. If you wish to break a love spell, carry lily of the valley. To keep an old love exciting, carry fresh myrtle, and if you wish to mend a broken heart, carry the buds of the balm of Gilead.

Many traditional love spells often omit the mention of consent ethics in magick, which is important to consider. Most pagans assert the danger of infringing, or manipulating, others’ free will in a love bid. And as Hooks notes: “domination cannot exist where a love ethic prevails”. When love is present, the desire to exercise power cannot rule. It is best, in love spells, to focus the attention on what you want from love, rather than channelling your energy non-consensually toward a specific person.

(ETHICAL) LOVE SPELLS

Below are four love spells that do not infringe on others’ free will, inspired by traditional spells and my own experience of casting love spells for others. A note to the spell-caster: love spells are not to be performed under a waning moon, but on a full moon, or a Friday, Venus’s day. Before a love spell, write down what you want. In spells, specificity is important. What kind of love do you want? What kind of lover do you wish to be? After which you can commence:

1. Anoint a red candle with geranium oil. Douse the candle with intent, transmitting your wishes for love, with your touch. Chant: “I burn this candle as a token above, may it be received, by the Gods from above”. Once the candle has been charmed, burn it all the way through. On the first day of the new moon, douse what remains of the wax in oil and honey, and bury it under an apple tree, a rose bush, or another flourishing shrub.

2. Flowers are often used in love spells, the most famous of all being the, “She loves me, she loves me not”, French love spell (Effeuiller la Marguerite). Another, used to decipher true love instructs writing the names of lovers on the leaves of roses. The leaf that remains the greenest, is the truest love. Another traditional rose love spell instructs the spell-caster to pick a red rose on Midsummer’s Eve. The rose must be wrapped in white satin and kept in the dark until the new moon: where it must be worn with a pin. The first person who admires it will be your next lover, a lover chosen for you by the flower spirits.

3. Another traditional love spell instructs the spell-caster to bend a mullein in the direction of their lover’s house. If the love is reciprocated, the mullein will grow upright again. If it remains bent, the love is doomed. You can do this with any shrub of choice, though flowers are preferable. Ask permission of the plant you work with, and then chant three times: “I work with thee, so that my true love, I might see”.

4. Another way to connect to love magick is by invoking a love Goddess and creating a shrine in their name. My shrine to Aphrodite is covered in hand-painted shells and red wax candles of naked women. I leave her offerings of honey, rose petals and mead. Once you establish a relationship with a love deity, you can ask them to bring you love or help you with any love troubles, by leaving them notes on their altar.

Sappho, also a worshipper of Aphrodite, wrote many hymns to the Goddess in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE, which maintain an ageless sapphic yearning: “Immortal Iridescent-throned Aphrodite, deathless Child of Zeus, wile-weaver, I beg you, […] release me from this agony”. Sappho pleads with the goddess: “All my heart yearns”, she says, and yearn we will, if the Gods of love we call to do not have mercy on hearts that long for love.