Young Writers Society

Hi all!

So I'm looking for any information on blood magic. All searches so far have come to nothing, which isn't surprising. It's usually black magic and white magic that people research.

I was wondering if anyone could give me info on blood magic, and perhaps magic in general. Rituals people use, what is used, for what purposes etc.

It varies depending on what exactly you want to happen. A few that come to mind:

Canon/Fanon Harry Potter - Blood Magic can protect families or be used to target specific relatives through the link of blood. Blood can be used for powerful acts of magic, such as resurrection. Willing blood can be more powerful than unwilling, depending on the spell or ritual.

A lot of voodoo-like magic can utilise blood to bind the consequence to the specific person (you always pay a price).

A vial of blood can be exchanged as currency or a guarantee - as blood can be used against a person who doesn't pay up or complete the tasks assigned to them.

Exchanging of blood occurs when blood-masters/blood-brothers/blood-etcs are forged (like cutting the palm of your hand and the other cutting their hand and clasping hands). The two participants can then swear a binding oath.

Some werewolf/vampire lore claims that blood transfusions or blood transferals/sharing can convert humans.

Zombie blood often carries the virus that can infect the non-infected. Something as simple as a drop of blood falling into an open mouth or wound can infect a human.

Hope this helps!

Another place to look is at the Dragon Age series. They have a specific type of mage called a blood mage. They're usually seen as evil, though I believe there is are exceptions.

Are you looking for historical uses of blood magic, or are you looking for fictional examples?

@Rosendorn
I was looking for historical, but anything helps ^^

I feel like I need an official disclaimer I am mostly just really good at googling and know where to start, and not somebody actually terribly familiar with this topic.

The place I started was Blood Libel, which is a very incorrect belief that Jews used Christian blood in their religious rituals and is a massive part of antisemitism; while it's a lie, it shows how blood magic was historically perceived. This leads to human sacrifice and in turn sacrifice. There's also certain magical beliefs around cannibalism and blood rituals.

As for some more narrow magical beliefs, a good place to start is Elizabeth Báthory, one of the more famous magical blood users.

It's kind of interesting to note that "sacrifice" tends to lead you towards Abrahamic religions, and "rituals" leads you to more folk religions. Anyway.

The general gist is: blood magic was the most powerful you could get, often only pulled out when things were dire or if you were really twisted. Some of it was routine, but for the most part, blood magic was the top tier of power.

It tends to represent: family (either biological or found— recall how "blood is thicker than water" is actually "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb"), life, and vitality. Its absence is usually death and the mark of predators (See: vampires).

Blood magic is feared by most Christians (hence blood libel), but depending on the religion you're pulling from it could've been positive or negative. Most of your sources are going to be incorrect and while normally I'd be harping about factual accuracy and double checking your sources, since you're just trying to get an idea of the general perceptions of blood magic I'm not too worried.

Just. Please don't have a Jewish coded group use blood magic, because that is, as outlined by wikipedia, majorly antisemetic and contributes to persecution.

Hope this link dump is somewhat useful. If you want some help finding specific sources for certain cultures, hit me up.

Ah, thank you so much @Rosendorn! I've heard of that in my RE lessons, especially when we were focusing on the Holocaust. Thanks for all the info, it's helping me a hell of a lot.