Free A Witch's World of Magick by Melanie Marquis

action in the puncturing spell is strong, well-chosen nails add a helpful, but not strictly necessary, extra punch. A witch might just as well choose a tin nail because that’s what happens to be available in the toolbox at the moment. Since the spell is operating primarily through sympathetic magick, a sympathetic action will suffice just fine when ideally sympathetic materials are not available. When puncturing and insertion techniques are used instead to cause a transference or combining of energies, the choice of materials is more important. Such spells operate by introducing or inserting a specific energy into the image or other token meant to represent the specific target of the spell.
    While the sympathetic action of inserting and/or puncturing still has a prominent place in the magick, ill-chosen materials can indeed wreck the spell through the pitfalls of mismatched mediums. For instance, if you wanted a warring country to become more peaceful, you might make a clay model of the nation and then insert into the image a piece of rose quartz, a stone with a very loving, contented energy. The symbolism and inherent energies of the stone are harmonious with the goal of the spell; the medium matches the intent. On the other hand, if a person were to cast such a spell using instead of rose quartz a nail from a shipwreck, the resulting magick would likely cause more chaos. Even if the energies of the shipwreck nail had been tempered and empowered to a new purpose beforehand, chaotic and baneful energies tend to linger and return.
    By inserting an object with inherent attributes already in line with the spell, or an object that’s void of any particular signature, a blank slate to empower as you wish, you’re giving your magick a greater chance for success. Most definitely, objects with energies incongruous to the spell at hand can be transformed and adapted, but why take the chance and go through the trouble when efficacy matters? Save those tricks for your magickal training sessions, but leave them out of your puncturing and insertion magick if the spell is relying on energy combination or transference. The magick here is in the materials used and in the intent conveyed through the manipulation of those materials, and as puncturing and insertion at their most basic imitate stabbing, piercing, and other painful sensations, the sympathetic attributes of your spell components will need to be strong enough to outweigh this symbolism. Actions speak louder than words, so when you’re using puncturing and insertion magick to combine, transfer, or transform, it’s wise to supplement your well-chosen words with equally well-chosen spell materials. Keep these ideas in mind when considering the methods outlined below, and you’ll gain a stronger sense of how these techniques might be useful in your own magickal practice:

Infiltration through Insertion Spell
    Infiltration through insertion is a magickal technique you can use for getting you where you want to be. Want acceptance into an inner circle, or secret society? Craft an emblem out of clay to represent the group you’d like to be a part of, then write your name on a toothpick or flower stem and stick this into the clay. Alternatively, you might make a mini mock you out of clay and use that for the spell in place of the toothpick or flower stem. Want to break into show business? Draw your likeness on a pushpin and poke it into a map of Hollywood. Wish you could be at the beach? Create a twig man representative of yourself and insert it into a pot of sand enchanted to symbolize the beach of choice. Simply craft a representation of the entity or place you’d like to infiltrate, then custom-craft a toothpick, twig, or similar skewer to represent yourself. Use this barb to pierce through the image of where you want to be. You might even use the infiltration through insertion principle to help baby sea turtles reach the sea, placing a tiny model of a baby turtle within the