I’ve heard that statement and others like it a number of times. The source wasn’t always the Internet. Sometimes it was a book. Or a print copy of a teen magazine. Or some other source. Anyway, whenever I hear a statement like that, I feel like reaching for a good alcoholic beverage. Because nine times out of ten, the person is going to either continue by saying that they tried it and it didn’t work or that they’re going to try it. If the latter, I can almost bet that they will come back later and report that it didn’t work. In my experience, the type of people who can actually make a spell they find from some source like that work don’t need to find such spells in the first place.

The problem with spells on the Internet is that they are usually written up as if they’re recipes, like a recipe for baking a cake or making old fashioned goulash. The problem is, it encourages people to think about magic and spell-work like it’s formulaic, which it really isn’t. Lighting the right candles in the right sequence and saying just the right words just isn’t enough. In truth, by the time a witch lights her candles and utters her incantation (assuming she even does either of those things), her magic has been building up for some time.

Magic begins the moment a witch decides to set her will and her efforts toward accomplishing some goal. She invests focus and energy as she refines just what it is that she wants to accomplish and considers the ramifications if she succeeds. She invests more focus and energy as she considers what tools, components, and symbolism to use in her working. If she decides to light a red candle, she has considered why a red candle is her best choice rather than, say, a green one.(1) Again, this clarifies and focuses that build-up of magic and boosts it.

All of that focus and energy builds up and is released in the act of the rite or spell, but it’s been building before then, possibly for weeks if the witch in question decides that the work needs that level of attention and consideration. Grabbing a spell off the Internet or from any other source tends to short-cut that process, and therefore often results in a magical working that lacks any real focus, forethought, or build-up of energy.

This does not mean that spells off the Internet (or from other sources) are completely useless, mind you. If they’re well crafted, they are a great way for witches, especially those relatively new, to gain inspiration and understanding. One can take such a ready-made spell, break it down, analyze it, and try to understand why its creator wrote it the way they did. Why did they choose those ingredients? Why did they choose those exact words? What layer of meaning or understanding do they attempt to get across? Are the words rhythmic and repeatable, suggesting a way to really deepen one’s focus as one repeats them (definitely a handy technique in magic, though not required)? If a person puts that kind of effort to understand a spell they found, then they might be able to use it effectively — though I’m willing to bet that anyone who does this regularly will often find themselves “tweaking” such spells before they actually put them to use, and that’s a good thing.

But just following the instructions as written without doing the up-front work rarely pays off, in my experience.

Notes:

(1) I know someone who actually prefers to use green candles when working with love magic, and can make a perfectly compelling and consistent reason for choosing one over a red or pink candle.