Sending

In magic and sorcery, sending is the act of dispatching a bewitched person, animal, bird, insect, object, spirit, demon, familiar, thoughtform, or even an animated corpse to carry out a magical task. When used as a noun, a “sending” refers to the entity or force that has been sent.

Sending is most often associated with curses, especially destructive or death-dealing magic, but it may also be used for magical errands, spirit work, protection, or battle between shamans and sorcerers. The practice appears in many cultures and magical systems, especially among tribal societies of the Pacific Islands, Africa, Siberia, and North America, as well as in the folk magic of Scandinavia, Iceland, the Baltic countries, and medieval Europe.

In European and English witch lore, witches were believed to send their familiars to harm neighbours or carry out spells. These familiars were often cats, dogs, toads, hares, or owls. In Maori lore, sorcerers were said to send lizards as familiars on killing errands. If a person saw a lizard on the path before them, it could be interpreted as an aitua, or evil omen.

Different cultures associated different animals with sending. Navajo and Hindu sorcerers were said to send dogs, while crop-destroying curses might involve grasshoppers, locusts, caterpillars, and other insects. The Chippewa were believed to create a curse of starvation by filling an owl skin with magical substances and causing it to fly to the victim’s home. New Guinea sorcerers were said to favour snakes and crocodiles, while in Malay tradition the familiar might be an owl or badger passed down through generations.

Sending was not limited to living animals. New Guinea sorcerers were also said to send disease-causing objects, such as pieces of magical bone or coral, to lodge inside the body of a victim. In African witchcraft traditions, Kaguru witches were believed to send anteaters to burrow beneath the walls of victims’ huts, while the Gisu sent rats in pairs to collect hair and nail clippings for use in black magic spells.

Spirits sent on magical errands could be demons, summoned entities, artificial elementals, or thoughtforms created by magic. A sorcerer might also send out their own fetch or astral body, projecting part of themselves beyond the physical body to perform magical work. In shamanism, familiars are often sent into spiritual battle, but the bond between shaman and familiar may be dangerous: if the familiar dies, the shaman may die as well.

Some of the darkest sending traditions involve corpses. Zulu familiars were said to be corpses dug up and reanimated through magic, then sent out at night to frighten travellers with shrieking and pranks. In Vodou and related folk traditions, corpses and graveyard forces may also be connected with sending, especially through the dead and the powers of the cemetery.

One recorded invocation to St. Expedit, used in this context, reads:

Almighty God, my Father, come and find (name) that he may be disappeared before me like the thunder and lightning. Saint Expedit . . . I call on you and take you as my patron from today, I am sending you to find (name); rid me of . . . his head, rid me of his memory . . . of all my enemies, visible and invisible, bring down on them thunder and lightning. In thine honour Saint Expedit, three Paters.

In Haitian folk magic, the “sending of the dead” may involve Baron Samedi, the powerful spirit of the graveyard. In one version, a bokor or sorcerer goes to a cemetery at midnight with offerings for the Baron. Graveyard dirt may be gathered for each intended victim and later scattered on their path. In another version, a stone taken from the cemetery is believed to transform into an evil entity, like a familiar, ready to obey the sorcerer’s command.

Sending reveals a central idea in magical thought: that power can be transferred, projected, embodied, and directed. Whether through animal familiars, spirits, objects, thoughtforms, or the dead, the sending acts as an extension of the magician’s will. It is one of the most feared and fascinating concepts in witchcraft, sorcery, shamanism, and black magic.

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