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Pagan Portals - Poppets and Magical Dolls

A history of and a practical guide to the uses of poppets and magical dolls in sympathetic magic.

Pagan Portals - Poppets and Magical Dolls

A history of and a practical guide to the uses of poppets and magical dolls in sympathetic magic.

Aug 31, 2018
978-1-78535-721-3

Aug 31, 2018
978-1-78535-722-0

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Magick studies, Paganism & neo-paganism, Witchcraft

Poppets are dolls used for sympathetic magic, and are designed in the likeness of individuals in order to represent them in spells to help, heal or harm. The word poppet comes from the Middle Ages in England, originally meaning a small doll or child, and it is still in use today as a name of endearment. The term is older than the phrase ‘Voodoo doll’. Pagan Portals – Poppets and Magical Dolls explores the history of poppets and offers a practical guide to making and using them in modern witchcraft. It also covers seasonal dolls, from Brigid dolls, used in celebrations for the first stirrings of spring, to fairy dolls enjoyed in tree-dressing at Yuletide. Other topics covered include spirit dolls, ancestor dolls and dolls as representations of mythological beings and creatures from folklore.

The newest book from Lucya Starza, author of Every Day Magic: A Pagan Book of Days.

Reader Reviews

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Poppets are one of my favourite ways to work magic and in her Poppets and Magical Dolls book Lucya Starza has covered each and every aspect of them…and more. A fascinating read that not only covers history, types of poppets and uses for them, but everything else that you could possibly need to know to be able to work their magic. You won’t be able to resist getting crafty… ~ Rachel Patterson, author of several books on The Craft including Witchcraft into the Wilds, Pagan Portals Moon Magic and Grimoire of a Kitchen Witch

An excellent read, concise but comprehensive, and both practical and inspiring. It's definitely a valuable contribution to a subject that is too often over-simplified. ~ Joyce Froome, Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

In Pagan Portals - Poppets and Magical Dolls, Lucya Starza has done it again! In her own inimitable style, she’s taken a much needed subject and crammed so much information into 25,000 words that it sends the senses reeling. In pagan writings we find that ‘poppets’ are often talked about but not with any degree of positive information, and that when they are discussed it’s usually in connection with cursing and ill-wishing. Here we find poppets and magical dolls are much more sympathetically dealt with and with numerous different ways of utilising them, including the much-loved Teddy-bear you were given as a child. Lucya has certainly been busy with her research. a great book and an entertaining read. ~ Melusine Draco, author of Pagan Portals: By Spellbook & Candle

Wiccan dolls

Picture a human-shaped effigy molded in clay or wax, or perhaps sewn out of fabric, pierced by pins and nails as if by someone malevolent. What do you call that object? If you said, "voodoo doll," then we have a lot to talk about. And even if you didn't, I bet I can still surprise you with something you might not have known about figure magic! So let's get into it. As a content warning, this article will contain brief mentions of racism and intimate violence.

The idea of the voodoo doll became popularized as a 20th century Hollywood trope, due primarily to racist stereotyping and fearmongering about Haitian Vodou. Reacting to the US-led invasion of Haiti in the early part of the century, lurid images of white people being bewitched through the use of voodoo dolls, zombie powders, and the like appeared in popular culture, amplifying and sensationalizing white fears about Haitian culture and Vodou religion. In fact, magic using effigies is rare to nonexistent in actual Haitian Vodou. Figure magic itself wasn't invented as a Hollywood trope—it does have a place in other regional traditions such as Hoodoo and New Orleans Voodoo. 1 However, it found its way into these traditions not from Vodou but from European folk magic, which in turn inherited the practice from Greco-Roman and ancient Egyptian roots.

Figure magic, also sometimes called poppet, image, or effigy magic, is a form of sympathetic magic found in many folk cultures and with a well-documented history stretching to ancient times. In its essence, it is the creation of a figurine, usually in the form of a human body, which is ritually identified with a person. This relies on the very ancient principle of sympathetic magic: the figure is placed in "sympathy" with the target of the magical operation, so that whatever happens to the figure manifests upon the person themselves.

The earliest examples of figure magic come from ancient Egypt, where stone or clay figurines or inscribed figures representing enemies of the Egyptian state were subjected to rituals intended to protect the ruler by suppressing rebellion or attack. Images were decapitated, pierced, or drilled with holes, suspended or bound with ropes, placed under door hinge-posts so as to be ground down with each turning of the hinge, and inscribed in the shoe so as to be trodden upon with each step. 2 This pharaonic magic became translated over time into the more familiar interpersonal personal usage against individual enemies, and the practice also made its way into Egyptian magical texts that in turn influenced Greco-Roman magic. There are many fascinating examples of these effigies, and they can reveal a lot about the magical practices used with them, so let's look at a few.

In the Iron Age, a temple to Isis and Mater Magna was established at Mogontiacum, modern-day Mainz, Germany. The temple, built during Roman colonization of the area starting in the first century CE, served a highly international population composed of local Germanic, Celtic, and Roman peoples as well as travelers from all across the Roman world. Offerings, curse tablets, and other ritual items were found in abundance at the temple complex, having been deposited there over a long period of time. Among these finds was a clay figurine showing signs of cursing. Inscribed with a name, the clay figure had been pierced six times, through the neck, chest, stomach, hip, back, and rear; then it was twisted and broken and deposited with its head facing downward. With it were found an oil lamp, a clay pot, and the remains of burnt fruit. 3 This suggests some elements of a ritual: offerings to the gods and spirits petitioned for help in the ritual were made and burnt, perhaps by the light of an oil lamp, as the curse was spoken and the figurine was fiercely stabbed, broken, and twisted.

The remains of six poppets were found in an ancient cistern in Rome, from the period of late antiquity. Each had been carefully entombed inside a nested series of three sealed lead containers, as if to isolate and imprison each target. The figures had been sculpted from some kind of wax-like mixture including animal fats, and scans revealed that a sliver of bone inscribed with a name had been inserted inside each figure. Invocations had been inscribed onto the lead containers before being deposited into the cistern. 4 This evocative ritual illustrates the animistic nature of figure magic: the bone and animal fat used to sculpt the poppets seems to have invested them with life, with the name inscribed into the very bone to identify it with the target. We can also see how depositing them into a cistern, as a liminal gateway into a dark watery place below ground, was felt to hand them over to chthonic Otherworld powers.

A few centuries later, in Upper Egypt of the fifth century CE, a clay pot containing two intertwined wax figures was deposited in a cemetery. Accompanying the figurines was an extensive spell written on papyrus, which indicates that the invoker called upon the dead and the spirits present in the cemetery as well as a cross-cultural group of deities showing Greek, Egyptian, and Jewish influences. It inscribed a binding love spell to attract and bind a certain woman to fall in love with the man who commissioned the spell. The limbs of the wax figures had been wrapped around each other as if in a passionate embrace, creating a sympathetic enactment of the intended consequence of the spell. 5

Does a binding love spell using a wax figure strikes you as horrifying? It probably should; coercive love spells are a form of intimate violence. Reading about artifacts like this can remind us to think about the ethics of figure magic. That is to say, just because someone historically did a spell like this, doesn't make it right for us to do so. So then, when is it valid to pin someone with a poppet? For me, the ethical principles are the same as those that govern my actions in everyday life. I believe everything we do should be guided by principles of consent, power, and justice. When considering taking magical action that will impact an individual, I ask: Has this person consented? If they haven't, in what way have they forfeited the right to consent by harming someone else? Who holds power in this situation, and if I take action, am I punching upward to equalize a power imbalance, or downward to reinforce one? What does justice ask for at this moment? Historically, many of the effigy spells that have come down to us in the record are justice curses seeking redress for a wrong, and I believe that's the most appropriate use of this magical technique.

A written description of a justice-focused figure magic ritual comes to us from medieval Ireland. A ninth century law text gives the particulars of a ritual to curse an unjust king: a group of poets were to gather on a hilltop, each chanting a poem of satire against their target, while piercing an image of him sculpted in clay using thorns of the hawthorn tree. 6 Some descriptions of poetic satire also describe it being paired with the use of a ritual posture, where the invoker stands on one foot, closes one eye, and holds one hand behind the back. This ritual posture is called corrguinecht, meaning "sharp wounding" or "crane wounding," likening the posture to that of a hunting crane, with their long sharp beak poised to stab prey. In such a ritual, the invoker adopting this stance like a hunting crane would echo and reinforce the action of stabbing the effigy. It was also believed that seeing through one eye and standing on one foot would place the ritualist in a liminal state between this world and the Otherworld, a place of great power for magical work.

Wax and hawthorn make appearances again in early modern witchcraft trial records. In Windsor, England, in 1579 a group of witches are recorded using figures shaped of red wax that they pricked with the thorns of a hawthorn through the spot where the heart would be. 7 Scottish cunning woman Agnes Sampson, in 1591, described making an image of yellow wax and "conjuring it under the name" of her target, and then placing it beside a fire where it would melt away, so to consume and melt away his life. 8 Nineteenth century Gaelic folklore collections from Scotland still speak of the corp crèadha, or "clay corpse," which would be enchanted and stabbed with pins, pierced with flints or "elf-shot." 9 Wax was said to be more commonly used in lowland regions, and clay in the highlands where wax was harder to come by. In at least one instance, a wooden figure was used.

Contemporary witchcraft practices have built on the bones of these old customs. Gemma Gary's Traditional Witchcraft suggests the making of an effigy out of dough, which is stabbed, burned to ashes on a hazel fire, and the remains buried at a crossroads. 10 A visit to the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall will reveal an astonishing collection of figure magic artifacts from early modern to contemporary origins. The traditional clay and wax are on display, alongside inventive materials such as cloth, felt, and knitted dolls, someone's stuffed leather glove, figures shaped from builders' putty, animal hearts, and even bulbs of garlic with a bird's head attached. 11

You can see that similar elements of ritual persist across the centuries: a figurine is shaped, using whatever the maker had that could be shaped and associated with the target. A name is inscribed in its bones or carved into its surface, and, conjured by that name, the figure comes alive. Then, with chanted imprecations, it is manipulated to set in motion what will come to the target: dissolution and melting away of the body's vitality, tying with cords to bind, piercing with sharp weapons to wound, or imprisoning inside a restricting enclosure. Offerings are made to the gods, the dead, and other liminal spirits to see the work along. Notice that up to this point, all these examples of figure magic we've looked at are curses. But figure magic isn't only for cursing. For millennia, the practice of depositing votive objects and offerings at shrines, holy wells, and other sacred places has continued, and among those deposits are found many human figurines or sculpted representations of human body parts. The practice dates to the pagan Iron Age across Europe and the Roman world, but was absorbed into Christian custom and continues to the present day. 12 For example, at Source des Roches at Chamalières, modern-day France, as many as five thousand votive figurines were found deposited in its sacred waters, dating back into the Iron Age, and including images of divinities as well as of pilgrims and anatomical figurines of body parts. 13 Votive figures like this are not usually presented as part of the same continuum of magic as poppets stabbed with pins, but if we consider what they're intended to do, we can see that it's the same sympathetic magic. A figurine representing a person, or a part of their body, is deposited into a place steeped in holy or healing power, in the belief that the healing magic will transfer from the effigy to the body of the one who placed it.

Thinking about votive figurines can expand our concept of what is possible with figure magic, to include protection, healing, and blessing, among other operations. A poppet could have healing salves applied, or a wound shaped that is then smoothed away as part of the ritual. It could have amulets of protection, armor, or a protective enclosure made for it. It could be placed in the shrine of a divinity to gather their protective and blessing powers. Sympathetic magic is expansive and allows enormous room for creativity. What can you imagine accomplishing with this ancient and ever-green magical technique?

Using Magical Poppets and Dolls

Patti Wigington is a pagan author, educator, and licensed clergy. She is the author of Daily Spellbook for the Good Witch, Wicca Practical Magic and The Daily Spell Journal.

The magical poppet is one of the most commonly used implements in sympathetic magic, which follows along on the theory that “like creates like.” Although TV shows and movies typically show poppets as the stereotypical "voodoo doll," poppets have been around for a long time, and used in a number of different cultures and religious belief systems. There are many ways to create a poppet, and they can be used to harm or to heal; if you create a poppet of a person, anything done to the poppet will affect the person it represents. Bear in mind that some magical traditions discourage the use of poppets. If you're not sure whether or not it's okay for you to use poppet magic, you may want to check with someone in your tradition.

A poppet is usually made from cloth or fabric, but you can also make one from clay, wax, wood, or just about any other material. You can fill your poppet with herbs, stones, bits of wood, paper, or anything else that suits your needs. In addition to magical items, it's a good idea to include some cotton or polyfill as stuffing material.

Once the poppet is created, you'll need to connect it to the person it represents, which is typically done by using a magical link of some sort. Remember, the poppet is a useful magical tool, and can be used in a variety of workings. Use it for healing, to banish harmful people from your life, to bring abundance your way — the choices are practically limitless.

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Poppet History

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When most people think of a poppet, they automatically think of the Voodoo doll, thanks to this item's negative portrayal in movies and on television. However, the use of dolls in sympathetic magic goes back several millennia. Back in the days of ancient Egypt, the enemies of Ramses III (who were numerous, and included some of his harem women and at least one high-ranking official) used wax images of the Pharaoh, to bring about his death. Let's look at some of the historical uses of poppets in spellwork.

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