Halloween Love Spells

Most people know that Halloween was originally a pagan holiday. On the ancient Celtic calendar, the year ended on the last day of October. (This was also the end of the harvest period.) They believed that on this night, the veil between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest and the dead and living could thus communicate most easily then.

In the Middle Ages, people believed that departed souls would be abroad on this night. They might try to enter your house to steal your body. Originally, people would leave food for these spirits to placate them, but others would try to scare them off with jack o’lanterns. These practices may be the origin of our trick or treat custom. (If you didn’t leave a treat for the spirit, he might play a nasty trick.)

Christians cleverly appropriated many pagan holidays by overriding the pagan date and celebrations with Christian holidays and rituals. In the ninth century, the Pope moved All Saints Day from May to Nov. 1, thereby co-opting Halloween (All Hallows Eve – Hallow meaning Holy Man).

The Irish brought many Halloween customs to America when they fled the famine in the mid-nineteenth century, but many cultures around the world have also had annual holidays at the end of October. Today, most people practice a version of Halloween based on the American customs, which are mainly child centered, though based on the pagan notion of trick or treat.

It turns out, though, that Halloween is a great time to cast spells, due to the fact that the living and dead can interact best with each other on that night.

So if you are looking to find true love, or cement the true love you already have, consider these spells.

Light a candle at midnight, and look into a mirror. If you have a dressing table, it’s handy to use that. It adds a personal/intimate touch to your spell. Then you eat an apple with your left hand while combing your hair with your right hand. If you work the spell properly, you will see your future husband in the mirror. Why the apple and the hair combing? I don’t know. But I think proving your multitasking ability is not a bad thing if some man is peering out of the mirror in search of a wife. Right?

This next spell I call ‘Halloween lite’. Very simple. Peel an apple in one long peel. Throw the skin over your shoulder. (Watch out for the dog or small children.) The shape it forms will be the initial of your own true love. Handy, because I bet you could imagine that peel to be most any letter.

The final spell is more complicated, but perhaps the greater amount of work required will result in greater success.
Find a white candle big enough to inscribe, but small enough that it can burn down (in the amount of time you want to spend staring at it). Decorate an altar with things precious to you and the one you want to enchant.

Use a thorn from a white rose bush (if you say you can’t find one, you’re not dedicated enough) to inscribe the words, “All my love come to me”. Write this 3 times on the candle. Place the candle on the altar and light it. While the candle burns, gaze at it and visualize your love coming to you “in nakedness and beauty”. (Why not?)

When the candle burns down, collect the wax puddle, wrap it, and save it with your altar mementos. You will then receive all the love that person has for you. (Wait, there’s the escape clause. What if he doesn’t have much love for you? Well, it won’t be the spell’s fault, will it?)

Final note: If you don’t want that person’s love any more, you must dispose of the wax in a ceremonial way. You know, bury it at a crossroads, burn it on a fire, or my favorite, grind it into shavings and bake in a cake. (Huh? Tasty, much?)

So, who’s going to try one of these spells?