Magic practice

In a long tradition of magic practice in Bosnia & Herzegovina, particularly the practice of love magic, we encounter various aspects of beliefs in the power of spirits, planets, herbs, as well as blood, human secretion, and so on. Alongside it all, an influence of Slavic and oriental beliefs based on animalism is evident, what tells us about the ancient connection between human beings, nature and its forces.

Only some persons used to practice magic throughout the centuries; those who were able of establishing contacts with the invisible entities. Sometimes, such communication was initiated by spiritual forces themselves and more often by human beings performing magic rituals. In Bosnia & Herzegovina, the most known ritual of establishing contact and alliance with the invisible forces is “sacrilege with the Koran”, in which man or woman denies their faith in God and accept devil as their master or partner.

Such power was often desired by women aiming to be successful in love magic practice. In order to acquire magical power and make an alliance with the world of demons (jinni), a girl involved in a dark ritual of initiation must get completely undressed/nude and step with both feet on Koran and say: “Iblis, I surrender to you my soul and I ask the following…” By such an act of sacrilege she gets in union with demons.

The benefits of such a pact for a woman are numerous; a girl (witch) has the power of invisibility, or power to revenge whoever she wants to, or to cast love spells. Various magic rituals aiming to get jinni (spirits/demons) across prove that. One of them is performed by a girl during the night; right before she gets in bed, she knocks the walls saying: “I knocked the wall and 3 jinn’s popped out…”




Traditionally, every witch performs her magic right at the sunset time, although the whole night is adequate for all magic practices, particularly a night before some important holiday when various fortune telling practices are performed too. In that way, a night before Bayram, girls get outside, take a look to the brightest star at the sky and, being very focused, repeat for nine times: “Tell me star, who loves me, tell me is it the one I love too?” Immediately after this they go directly to bed and if they happen to dream about men they love that night; it is a proof that their love is mutual.

The special attention in love magic Bosnian witches pay to a herb called milogled (asarum europaeum) for which they believe it possesses a power to stimulate erotic desires in a monotonic marriage and to fire up love in the heart of the wanted person. Milogled is picked up in the forest in ritual way at the sunset time, in a way that an herb is first encircled by a golden necklace and then pulled up from the soil, along with the root. Since this herb mainly has only two leaves, one is coated by honey and second with butter with magic words being chanted. After that one leaf is placed at one side of the entrance door of the house and second on the other side, in order to get loved person passing between them. The moment beloved person passes through the door; the leaves are to be immediately glued to each other and carried along for some period of time. If this magic is performed for the husband then the mentioned leaves are to be put in his pillow.

A great power to seduce the desired person, according to believes in Bosnia, are with the amulets made by a mullah (Islamic priest). Amulets made for this purpose are normally kept as talismans or burned in fire, beloved person is looked at through them or they are to be buried underneath the beloved person’s threshold. Sometimes, amulet is burned down and ash is to be poured in a drink or meal of a desired person. It is believed that this is very powerful magic. However, its effects often last for 40 days only after what the magic is to be repeated.

In love magic, human secretions (sperm, vaginal secretion) are often used. After sexual intercourse woman picks the sperm of her lower by a kerchief after what she wipes her vagina with it. Then she washes a kerchief in a glass of water and she puts that water in her lover’s coffee or soup with magical words being chanted.