The laws of magic are principles that scholars and occultists have proposed to explain how magical practices are thought to work. The best known are the law of similarity and the law of contagion, described by James George Frazer in The Golden Bough as the basis of sympathetic magic. Modern occult writers have added their own sets of magical laws.
Laws of Magic at a glance
| Key theorist | James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890) |
|---|---|
| Core principles | Law of similarity; law of contact or contagion |
| Umbrella term | Sympathetic magic |
| Earlier use | Richard Andree discussed sympathy magic in 1878 |
| Later critics | Marcel Mauss, Bronislaw Malinowski, E. E. Evans-Pritchard |
| Modern research | Psychologist Paul Rozin on similarity and contagion thinking |
Frazer's two laws
In The Golden Bough, the anthropologist James George Frazer argued that magic rests on two mistaken applications of the association of ideas. He called the overall system sympathetic magic, because it assumes that things act on each other at a distance through a secret sympathy.
- The law of similarity holds that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause. Frazer called magic based on it homeopathic or imitative magic. Examples include pouring water to bring rain, or harming an image of a person in the hope of harming the person.
- The law of contact or contagion holds that things once in contact continue to act on each other after they are separated. Magic based on it works through hair, nail clippings, clothing, footprints or other objects once connected to the target.
Frazer noted that the two principles often appear together, as when a figure is made to resemble someone and also contains their hair.
Examples from history and folklore
Sympathetic principles appear in many cultures and periods. Ancient Greek and Roman defixiones, or curse tablets, sometimes used pierced figurines alongside written spells (see curses). European folk medicine included the "doctrine of signatures," the belief that plants resembling a body part could treat it, such as walnuts for the brain. Many cultures took care to dispose of hair and nail clippings so that no one could misuse them. In African diaspora traditions, charm bags such as gris-gris gather materials whose symbolic connections are believed to carry power, although scholars caution against reducing such living traditions to Frazer's categories.
Frazer's own starting point, the ritual of the priest at Lake Nemi, led him to interpret sacred kingship itself through the logic of sympathy between the ruler's body and the fertility of the land.
Anthropological debate
Frazer placed magic at the bottom of an evolutionary ladder, followed by religion and finally science. He treated magic as a kind of false science: logical in form but based on wrong premises. Later anthropologists rejected this scheme. Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert, in their General Theory of Magic (1902-1903), stressed that magic is a social phenomenon, defined by its practitioners, rites and collective beliefs, rather than by individual errors of reasoning.
Bronislaw Malinowski, working in the Trobriand Islands, observed that people used magic alongside practical skill, especially where outcomes were uncertain or dangerous, such as open-sea fishing, rather than as a substitute for technical knowledge. E. E. Evans-Pritchard's study of the Azande (1937) showed how beliefs about witchcraft and oracles form a coherent system for explaining misfortune. Today most anthropologists avoid a sharp division between magic, religion and science, and study each practice within its own culture (see magic).
Psychology of magical thinking
Frazer believed sympathetic thinking belonged to "primitive" peoples, but psychological research suggests otherwise. In studies from the 1980s onward, the psychologist Paul Rozin and colleagues found that many educated adults in the United States were reluctant to drink juice that had briefly touched a sterilized cockroach, or to throw darts at a photograph of someone they loved. These reactions follow the laws of contagion and similarity even when people know they make no physical sense. Researchers now see such intuitions as common features of human cognition rather than signs of a particular stage of culture. There is no scientific evidence that sympathetic magic produces physical effects beyond those explained by psychology, such as expectation and placebo responses.
Laws of magic in modern occultism
Modern practitioners have written their own lists of magical laws. Aleister Crowley defined magick in Magick in Theory and Practice (1929) as the science and art of causing change in conformity with will. The American occultist and Neopagan writer Isaac Bonewits, in Real Magic (1971), presented a detailed set of "laws of magic," including laws of knowledge, names, similarity and contagion, drawing on Frazer as well as on occult tradition.
Other ideas often described as laws include the Wiccan belief in a threefold return of whatever energy a person sends out, the New Thought "law of attraction," which holds that thoughts attract matching experiences, and the Hermetic principle of correspondence summed up in "as above, so below." Group rituals such as raising a cone of power are explained by practitioners in similar terms. These are statements of belief within particular traditions rather than laws in the scientific sense, and practitioners themselves often describe them as working hypotheses or symbolic frameworks.
Many modern magicians also use symbolic tools such as sigils, which combine the logic of similarity with focused intention (see the sigil generator).
Related entries
On The Mystica today: Sigil generator
Frequently asked questions
What are the two laws of sympathetic magic?
James George Frazer identified the law of similarity, which holds that like produces like, and the law of contact or contagion, which holds that things once connected continue to influence each other. Magic based on the first uses images and imitation, while magic based on the second uses hair, clothing or other objects linked to a person.
Is a voodoo doll an example of sympathetic magic?
In Frazer's terms, a figure used to affect a person combines the law of similarity and, if it contains hair or cloth, the law of contagion. However, the popular image of the pin-stuck voodoo doll owes more to European folk magic and Hollywood than to Haitian Vodou, where such dolls play little traditional role.
Does science support the laws of magic?
No evidence shows that similarity or contagion can cause physical effects at a distance. Psychologists have found, though, that people everywhere tend to think in these patterns, feeling uneasy about objects linked to disliked people or harming pictures of loved ones. The laws describe how humans think, not how the physical world works.
Sources and further reading
This entry replaces an article from the original Mystica encyclopedia (online since 2001). It was rewritten from the sources above by The Mystica Editorial Team under our editorial standards. Last reviewed: September 30, 2026.