eclecticwitcheryafoot:

Music is the strongest form magic.
– Marilyn Manson

Love him or hate him, the Antichrist Superstar is actually on to something with this well-known quote. What other artistic medium do you know of brings thousands of people together for one cause and a massive exchange of energy? Concerts are sometimes exhausting to go to because of that energy exchange. It doesn’t just happen between the audience and the artist, but amongst audience members as well.

Everyone has their favorite song or artist for when they’re feeling a certain way. Did you know that emotion you invoke while listening to music can be used in witchcraft and magick work? Of course it can! The purpose of this post is to give ideas as to how go about doing this rather beautiful practice.

Let’s begin, shall we? 🎵

There have been some posts floating around listing music genres and their correspondences for witchcraft and magick work. That’s all well and good, but these posts are essentially pigeonholing the many subgenres and songs one can use for any given intention in magick work and witchcraft. Why is it pigeonholing? Music, as an art form, is up to the listener to interpret. What one person feels while listening to a song may be completely different from what their neighbors or friends feel. No one genre or song is definitively assigned a correspondence. To pretend they are is rather misleading. Even love songs are not always exclusively about romantic love. They could be about friendship, protection, and self- love. Bottom line: The message of a song or piece is up for interpretation by the listener. No one has a right or wrong way of comprehending or corresponding the message of a song or piece.

What you’re about to read is my own technique I’ve developed through both personal and professional practice.

How do I even begin figuring out my emotional connection to a song?

It would seem as though this is a simplistic thing to do. Not necessarily. Think of every song you listen to as being personal and emotional journey.

The way I recommend approaching this, even to work Clients, is to begin by listening to a classical instrumental piece. I usually have Clients start with Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Obviously, there are thousands of well-known classical instrumental pieces available. No matter which one you choose, the goal of the exercise is the same: Truly listening to the piece and connecting to it on some emotional level.

As with much of magick work, there is a great deal of visualization, meditation, and self-awareness that can go into listening to a piece of music.

*Begin by finding a quiet and calming place to listen to the piece.
*Get comfortable and relax your body.

*Start playing the piece.
*As you listen, let your mind wander and become lost in the piece. Let images form and memories be recalled.
*Try to notice where you feel the music within and throughout your body.
*If you don’t like the piece, do your best to identify why.

It’s usually best to document your experiences and the piece you listen to as you may listen to the same piece several months later and feel something completely different, which is perfectly fine!

REMINDER: Should anything traumatic or unpleasant come up while listening to a piece, make note of it and stop listening to the piece. Walk away, take deep breaths, get a drink of water and do what you feel is comfortable to ground yourself again. There is no competition or timer keeping track of how quickly you are able to connect with a piece. Move at your own pace and always stop what you’re doing if things suddenly feel uncomfortable or overwhelming.

Ok, I got that down…So how can I incorporate the actual pieces into my practice?

Once you get the hang of truly connecting with a piece, you can try connecting with songs that have vocals. Try the exercise discussed above with your favorite song. Do your best to identify why you enjoy the song. What emotions do you feel? Where do you feel the energy? During what part(s) of the song do you feel the most emotion and energy? What memories (if any) do you recall? No matter the artist, genre, era, and/or title, there is always a correspondence one can use for magick work. For example, I love using the song The Nameless by metal band Slipknot for curses. The raw anger and hatred this song invokes is perfect for giving me that extra dose of FUCK YOU to my target.

When wanting to conduct magick, playing the song/piece in the background is helpful. As you begin playing the piece, ground yourself and let the emotion(s) you feel grow. You can also use the lyrics from the chosen song as your incantation (they can be tweaked for any reason such as changing the tense or pronouns).

Creating a playlist (whether it’s on iTunes or YouTube) of songs that you know are effective in channeling energy for magick and spellwork is also a wonderful idea. Here is my sample playlist of songs I use all the time. I break it down according to correspondence. You can break your playlist down however you want. You can even have multiple playlists dedicated to each correspondence. Do whatever feels right for you.

Something else you can do to Incorporate music into your practice is to use song lyrics to create sigils. Try to find one sentence or phrase that captures the intention of the sigils and use your favorite sigils craft method. Here is an example of how I use lyrics to create a sigil. I also know @violetwitchcraft has this post explaining how to use lyrics to create sigils.

I truly hope this post has been helpful in learning how to incorporate music into your practice. If anyone has any additional suggestions, feel free to reblog and add them!

– Marisol