The Knight Life by Keith Knight for July 29, 2024

My doctor recommended acupuncture. I promise that done correctly, it doesn’t hurt. It can help.

Now we know why voodoo dolls don’t often work. ;-)

A much more scientific theory:

“Sympathetic magic is where something resembling or symbolically associated with an event or a person over which influence is sought is used, the classic example being the voodoo doll. You make it, perhaps adding something, hair or toenail clippings or in extreme cases snot from your victim. You stab it with a pin and your victim goes “Ouch!” or in extreme cases sneezes.It is worth considering that, just like the Roman God Janus, that d*mn woman in the corner house or even a coin, magic has two faces and unsympathetic magic is the other one. The evil twin.

In unsympathetic magic you do something to encourage an event and it of course prevents it. Or you do something to prevent an event and you can guess what happens.

Consider, for example, the aforementioned voodoo doll: you stock it up with discarded portions of your victim’s anatomy and, laughing “Bwahahah”, you stab it vigorously with a pin which goes right through the bloody doll and sticks into your hand and you go “Ouch!”. Yup that’s magic about as unsympathetic as it can get."—HowlandBolton.com/essays/read_more.php?sid=490

Guess he’s on his way….