Guest Blog: Rayne Hall--Writing About Sex Magic
Hooray! The day has finally arrived for Rayne Hall's guest blog! I hope y'all enjoy reading it as much as I did. And remember, Rayne will be around all week long to answer any comments or questions y'all might have. So without further psychobabble-E-goodness from me, I give you...
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Rayne Hall on Writing About Sex Magic...
Any magician - female or male, good or evil, witch or shaman, theurgist or Enochian, may use sex magic. Although I'm using the male pronoun, everything applies equally to females.
Before casting a spell, a magician needs to create an intense flow of energy to fuel the magic. Most do this with chanting, drumming or dancing. The magician in your story may do it with sex.
The power raised through sexual arousal can be phenomenal and serve to super-charges a spell. If your protagonist is a magician, you can use this for a plot-relevant erotic scene.
Here's how it works.
1. The magician decides the desired outcome. Examples: make the crops grow, stop the flood, protect the traveller on a dangerous journey.
2. He plans and prepares the ritual. Examples: composing the words for the spell, assembling the ingredients, casting a circle around the area where the ritual will take place.
3. He gets into a state of sexual arousal - in any way which suits your story's plot.
4. Since the power is strongest immediately before orgasm, the magician tries to stretch out that phase for as long as possible.
5. In this state of intense arousal, he casts the spell. Example: he chants the words of the spell repeatedly. He concludes the spell with an assertion that this is his will. Example: a Wiccan witch may say 'So mote it be.'
6. Once the spell is cast, the ritual is over. To ground himself in reality again, he climaxes. For further grounding, he may eat or drink something.
7. He sleeps, exhausted by the combination of mental and physical exertion.
Sex magic has drawbacks, complications and conflicts, which can make the story even more exciting.
- Magic works through the mind and requires enormous concentration, which is difficult to achieve in a state of high arousal.
- When two magicians join for sex magic, they can raise an enormous amount of power, but this requires them to synchronise their levels of arousal as well as their thoughts. This is unlikely to work for a couple who are not already established lovers.
However, you can use this near-impossibility to create tension: Perhaps the only way to save the world is through the kind of magic which requires intense power, and the only way to achieve so much power is for two magicians to work sex magic together. Will the heroine set aside her dislike of the hero and join him in the act? Unfamiliar with each other's bodies, can they coordinate their levels arousal? The fictional possibilities are delicious.
If you're writing erotic fiction, you could also use this for a BDSM scenario: a submissive person serves the dominant magician by arousing him to the desired level without causing distraction.
In a ménage scene, perhaps two magicians are an established team who have worked sex magic together on many occasions. A desperate situation requires additional energy, so they include a third person in their ritual. Will the new partner be able to synchronise his level of arousal with theirs? Excited by the presence of the new person, will the team be able to concentrate on the task?
Of course, solo sex magic with masturbation would be more practical, but it has less plot potential.
- In a state of arousal, judgement is impaired. A responsible magician never works magic on the spur of the moment while aroused, because he might be tempted to do something which is morally reprehensible or against his ethics.
For example, a male magician may fancy a woman like crazy, and the sight of her arouses him. In this state, he wants the woman - and he uses his arousal to cast a spell which will make her desire him with equal passion. By the time the comes to his senses, it's too late, and he may not be able to undo the spell. Maybe the woman divorces her loyal husband because she can no longer love him, or maybe the obsessed woman stalks the magician for the rest of his life.
Of course, in fiction it is interesting if a character makes a bad choice and has to deal with the consequences.
- Sex magic leaves the magician tired, drained, and helpless. An enemy may use this vulnerable phase to attack the magician.
If you have questions about magic (with our without sex), or want feedback for an idea, or if you need help with a sex magic scene in your WiP, please ask. I'll be around for a week and will answer questions.
About Rayne...
Rayne Hall teaches an online workshop 'Writing about Magic and Magicians'. Create believable magicians (good and evil), fictional spells which work, and plot complications when the magic goes wrong. Learn about high and low magic, witches and wizards, circle-casting and power-raising, initiation and training, tools and costumes, science and religion, conflicts and secrecy, love spells and sex magic, and apply them to your novel. This is a 4-week class with 12 lessons and practical assignments. If you wish, you may submit a scene for critique at the end of the workshop.
The next dates for this workshop are:
October 2011: Celtic Hearts RWA www.celtichearts.org/workshops.html
March 2012: Lowcountry RWA www.lowcountryrwa.com/online-workshops/
April 2013: Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal: http://www.romance-ffp.com/workshops.cfm
March 2012: Lowcountry RWA www.lowcountryrwa.com/online-workshops/
April 2013: Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal: http://www.romance-ffp.com/workshops.cfm
Rayne's other workshops include 'Writing Fight Scenes', 'Writing Scary Scenes' and 'The Low Word Diet'. For an updated listed of her upcoming workshops, go to http://sites.google.com/site/writingworkshopswithraynehall/
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A huge THANKS to Rayne for stopping by to share this article with us! I don't know about you, but after reading it I've got all sorts of ideas that I'm itchin' to apply to some of my characters. ;o)
Okay, now don't forget, Rayne's available for comments and questions all week long--so if you've got 'em, don't hold back. She'd love to hear from you!
Until next time, my dear readers, take care and happy reading, writing, and musing!
~Elijana
Comments
I'm glad you're going to be around for questions, I have several that I'd like to ask.
Rayne
Any thoughts?
~EK
On the other hand, if you want it to be a problem in your story, you could tweak the context to make it plausible. If the magicians belong to a fertility cult, maybe the mother goddess won't bless the ritual if they use contraceptives... :-)
Rayne
Actually this whole post gave me a LOT to think about for one of my paranormal books. Great thing is that incorporating this into the plot is actually going to flesh it out more rather than have me pulling out my hair to work the mechanics of it into it. ;o) I can't thank you enough for putting it together for us!
~EK
It's true sex magic is usually worked between working partners (a couple like minded, religion and relationship wise); yet if it's worked with one of the partners unaware they are participating in a sex magic ritual, it becomes the same as Black Magic. Could add a decidedly wicked twist to a story!
It's perfectly possible that one of the partners is a magician who uses the other as an object, and the other is unaware.
Maybe the woman is in love with the man, and thinks he finally returns her affections - and after they've had sex, she finds out that he merely used her to feed his magic. (Or with genders reversed, she's the magician, he's the besotted victim).
I agree that involving someone in magic against their knowledge or will is abuse - and could indeed be called a form of Black Magic - but it depends on the individual magician's ethics. He may say that she consented to sex, and she didn't come to harm, so what's the problem?
(If so, I hope she grabs his wand and performs some castration magic, lol).
Here's another wicked plot twist:
The magician seduces a woman, by telling her that he needs her cooperation for a spell to save the orphans. She complies willingly for the good cause. Afterwards, she learns that the spell he worked wasn't to save orphans, but to kill her father...
This could have plot potential. What do you think?
(Any of these would also work with the gender roles reversed, with an abusive female magician and a besotted male partner)
Rayne
Thanks again!
You may like to look at 'Modern Sex Magick - Secrets of Erotic Spirituality' by Donald Michael Kraig.
Rayne
What would you consider to be stronger?
Sex Magic or Supernatural powers?
If sex magic is used to "cast" a spell how would it be reversed?
Does your workshop cover how to reverse spells and what herbs/candles/etc. can be used?
Thanks for your questions.
Either sex magic or supernatural powers can be strong or weak, depending on who is doing it and how.
Reversing a spell is tricky and often impossible. Magic doesn't have an 'undo' key. There's no guarantee that it can be undone; indeed, attempts to reverse spells often mess matters up even worse. I would urge anyone to consider carefully what they want to achieve, and how and why, and if they really want it, before they cast a spell. (Of course, fictional characters often do stupid things, lol. If so, I suggest you make them live with the consequences of their actions).
Reversing a spell can be attempted either in the form of magic that was used for the original spell (in this case, sex magic) or in a different way. It usually involves a a symbolic unbinding (breaking a chain, cutting a ribbon, undoing a knot), and a gift/offering/sacrifice to the person who was harmed.
In my workshop, I don't teach how to work magic - it's about how to write about magic. Of course, the two topics often overlap.
With ingredients such as herbs and candles, these differ from tradition to tradition, from period to period, from individual to individual. There are no definite rules that this kind of candle or that kind of herb must be used in such-and-such spell. For example, if a Wiccan and an Enochian both cast spells with the same purpose, they'll go about it in very different ways.
There are some general traditions. For example, a wealth spell often (but not always) involves green candles, mint, a silver coin, and/or a citrine crystal. Love spells often involve red candles, roses, a fruit, and a rosequartz crystal.
However, each individual magician can choose what ingredients strike her as meaningful and appropriate for the purpose, and use those.
I hope this helps.
Rayne
What's the difference between a spell and a curse in this type of situation? Can a curse be constructed in the same way as sex magic?
What if my heroine has a curse placed on her by a bad chick with a grudge who does the sex magic and visualizes the curse to my heroine? Hmmm - is that confusing? Is there a way to trace the curse?
Wow - sorry to inundate you with questions. I've signed up for your workshop at Celtic Hearts and I can write the scene there if I'm overstepping your kindness. ;)
Thanks again!!
Diane
It's delightful to be inundated with questions, so keep them coming.
A curse is a spell intended to cause harm. It can be created in the same way as any other spell.
Yes, sex magic works for harmful spells. It works especially well if the magician is the kind of person who gets off on fantasies of harming others. If the grudging chick has an intense negative emotion (anger, jealousy), this will magnify the spell's power.
Most modern magicians refrain from cursing someone, because it's considered unethical to cause harm. Also many magicians believe that any harm they cause will return to them, and they will suffer the fate they wished on the other person. Some believe it will return in the same strength, some say it's threefold or ninefold or hundredfold (or some other -fold).
A person may feel cursed, and may be convinced that they know who did it. Sometimes they're right; often they're wrong and it's just a stroke of bad luck, the consequence of their own mistakes, or their karma catching up with them.
Other people have been cursed, but aren't aware of it because they don't believe in magic.
If your heroine suspects that she has been cursed, she may seek out a psychic. Many, though not all, psychics are able to see curses, and often they can identify the source, or at lest give a clue about the kind of person who did it. Perhaps your heroine visits a psychic, or perhaps a psychically gifted friend alerts her.
With this knowledge, your heroine may seek a magician's help. Although the magician probably can't undo the spell, s/he can protect the heroine against its effects. The magician will ask the heroine to search her own conscience for how she has harmed the spell caster, because the the harmful curse can only stick so much if the heroine carries some guilt. The magician then may ask the heroine to do an act of kindness to the spellcaster. This may be difficult for the heroine, but it's important, because it weakens the curse. Next the magician will do a ritual to shield, the heroine from some or all of the curse's harmful effects, and maybe give her an amulet or talisman to wear.
I hope these ideas help.
Rayne
http://romancemagicians.blogspot.com/
An article on 'Writing about Love Spells' is also coming up soon.
This helps a lot and I thank you for answering me. I look forward to your workshop and your blog posts!
Diane