Over at Magic in These Hills, they’re ruminating about the difference between prayer and spells.
This is a topic I treat in my book The Way of Four Spellbook. Before launching into a section that teaches how to do spells, I first explore the various sources of magical power. In other words, spells use power, but how do you get it?
One way of acquiring power is from the Gods. If you acquire power only from the Gods, you are praying. If you acquire power from your body or mind, or from nature, or from supernatural beings other than deities, or from tools in which power has been previously stored, or any combination of these things, in addition to or instead of acquiring power from the Gods, then you are doing spells.
If you look to religions that forbid spellcraft, such as Christianity, you will see this is spelled out (no pun intended) pretty clearly. You may pray to achieve goals. You may not recite charms to achieve the same goals. It is not the goal that is regulated, but the means to achieve that goal.
It’s a short step from saying the only permitted source of power is prayer, to saying that the only real source of power is prayer. A lot of religions go that route, dismissing magic as superstition while praying their knees off. A lot of witches have swallowed that to such an extent that they define magic as a form of prayer. But magic is only a form of prayer if the Gods are included. They don’t have to be.
So:
- Ask the Goddess for a lover: Prayer
- Ask the Goddess for a lover while gazing into the flame of a pink candle and annointing yourself with rose oil: Prayer and magic
- Gaze into the flame of a pink candle and annointing yourself with rose oil while reciting “Lover come to me, So Mote It Be! Lover come to me, So Mote It Be!”: Magic
