Blood has always had a great power over man.  To see it meant that something was wrong, you were hurt or someone was hurt.  It’s been the sign of war, of pain, of death.  It’s also a sign of birth and the successful hunt.  Blood is the symbol for life.  There really is very little in the world that can hold as much sway over a person as the sight of blood.  The symbols are everywhere and there have been blood rituals since (wo)man walked the earth. 

The strange thing is that it is taboo in most Magickal circles to deal with blood because it is so powerful.  It is also almost always seen as dark and terrible.  Maybe it’s that people are scared of power and scared of bindings that are extremely difficult to break.  The problem with this is that power is something to be cautious about, but I truly think that if one does not embraces power, then they are simply saying that they are okay with their Magickal efforts never being effective.  This seems counter-intuitive because they are practicing Magick in order to get results, but they are afraid that the results will be too good and that they won’t know how to change them if they decide later that they were mistakes.

I am going to go into a digression about what exactly I’m talking about when I talk about Blood Magick so that there isn’t any confusion as to what I’m really talking about.  In my Magickal practices, there are occasionally results that I feel the need to bind myself to extremely strongly or to put my full energy into and in order to do this, I use a bit of my own blood as the final step normally.  For example, say I needed to make an extremely effective protection charm for a child that has been having horrible night terrors, I would create the talisman/charm and at the peak of Magickal power, I would prick my finger and dot the charm with a drop or two of my blood.  This allows my energy to easily flow into the item and energize it with my pure energy.  After this, I’d use the item as was normally planned.  I never do any ritual killing or cutting of another person or creature (though this is another topic which I’ll talk about at a different time).

Now, in my past I have most definitely made some mistakes about the proper times to use Blood Magick and have had to deal with the repercussions.  I once made a necklace into a protection charm for a serious girlfriend and I basically bound myself to her in order to protect her.  This became a very unhealthy relationship and I simply couldn’t let myself leave her and she couldn’t leave me either, and one night she finally broke the necklace and the spell was shattered and we broke up for several days.  After we got back together we fought and tried to work things out, sadly without avail, but there was never that fear of leaving though.  We are still friends and have talked about it at great length and can see no other reason as to why we couldn’t break up before.  This is definitely a time when I made a mistake with a powerful Magick and had to learn from it as well as find a way to break the spell.  I would not recommend using Blood Magick when binding yourself to anyone (even those getting married because people change and you do not want to be bound completely to another person if they change and you don’t), and I would definitely use an item rather than a completely charmless spell because it is much easier to break an item than it is to break a Magickal bond.

In truth, Blood Magick is a Magick that I’m always hesitant to use, but the power of it must be accepted and there are times when it is the right course of action.  Much like a tattoo is not something everyone should jump into on a whim because it’s permanent, Blood Magick has its place in Magickal circles and should be thought of as a very useful tool in somewhat rare occasions.