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Thoughts FromThe Four Gates

  • Writer's pictureKai

Delivering the spell - Taglocks and personal concerns


One of the things that was hardest for me when I was first learning my way around magical practice was learning how to get the spell to where it needed to go. It's on one hand very simple, but there are several tweaks and tips that can vastly improve your magical practice. This is one of the things that is often obscured by specialist language, phrases like "taglock" or "personal concern" are often used for at least a subset of the part of the physical bits of a spell that tell it where to go. Really, you can break these down into a few categories, which have a general level of uh.... power I guess, or suitability. Pieces of something/someone. Things like blood, hair, nails, and the like go here for people, but also paint chips, dirt, chips of stone and the like can tie you into objects or places. Next, we have representations, photos, drawings, paintings, sculptures, and the like. There's some debate over which of the next 2 are "strongest" but things that were in direct contact with someone, like clothing and the like work well, and things like names, or signatures. It's also important here to mention that if you can deliver physical components of a spell directly TO a target, often you don't require a taglock, although it certainly helps. Now, the other thing to note is that different types of taglocks carry a bit of energy that's in alignment with the taglock type itself, rather than the target, and will be better for some kinds of spells than others. Let's look at a few types of taglocks here in a little bit more detail.

Pieces of someone or something

The most common for this is body fluids, or castoffs like hair and fingernails for people. This is a huge example of how different taglocks are better at different things. Sexual fluids are better than others for love or sex spells, fingernails can be used to prompt action, toenails to control movement, and hair to affect thoughts. This isn't to say that all of these things can't be used to do all of these different things, only that each of these taglocks also acts as a way of programming the intents.

Now, this is also where I would group chips of stone, paint or a pinch or 2 of dirt from an area or object for those areas. It's harder to customize these to intent, but certainly, glass from a window from things reveal stuff, bolts from tires are great for messing with the movement of cars, and paint from the same car can get it noticed. These serve the same function as the body fluids ect, being effectively a part of an object. Pro tip! Don't forget car fluids, like washer fluid, coolant, or even oil, depending on what you can get ahold of.

Representations and images


There's some debate here over if a picture is better because it's a more accurate representation, or if a drawing is better because you put your energy into it. Honestly, I have no real artistic skill, so I don't really have a thought here, as I don't have enough skill to generate a drawing. Sculpture and the like are often really common here, and often are made a little more generic, and have more specific taglocks added to it. Things like poppets, hot wheel/matchbox cars of the model of your target and the like are actually great ways to work, but not really taglocks on their own. When another taglock is added, these forge a stronger connection on their own, but it can be a bit of a pain to get them to work on their own.


For businesses and entities like that, logos are effectively modern day sigils, with a particularly strong effect in invoking or manipulating the egrigore or spirit of the business.


Names and signatures


So if nothing else, you can always use a signature by someone, or even just their name, to send a spell on its way. It's kind of the "when you don't have anything else" option, but it does work. Signatures in their own hand are better, and the more name you have the better. Screen names and the like are weaker, having best effect in things related to the platform they're on.


Special note here is on nicknames and chosen names. It's a complicated issue really. I think nicknames are worse, but chosen names are better. Comes down to an issue of identity. If the new name is part of a change to an identity, it in many ways BECOMES the new name. If it's not core to identity, it's not as good. That said, new names that are part of identity don't get rid of the old identity really. Really they layer over the old identity. The old name.... works sometimes, but it's a touchy subject. The old name is certainly an identity, but often it's an identity that someone doesn't want. Sometimes, the old name fails to work at all, and sometimes, the old name triggers some form of pushback from the target. I generally consider using the old name as an aggressive/ confrontational piece of a spell, and I'm loathe to use it in most cases.





Of course, these are just a few examples of taglocks in action, although they're probably 90 percent of the ones I use. Play around with it, and remember, just like with intents, the point of taglocks is to form a placeholder for your mind.

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