General Rules of Poppet Magick

• You should have a taglock (something belonging to the individual for whom you are working the magick). If you can’t get your hands on something, use a photograph. Last ditch: use their name, and be sure it’s correctly spelled and you have spent time holding the paper and visualizing the face of your friend or family member in an effort to make a good connection.
• Choose herbs, oils, and incenses that match the intent of the working (love, money, health, protection, and so on).
• Always work in a magick circle, especially if you are performing healing magicks. The cleaner the area, the purer the magick.
• If you are working on a chronic condition or long-term medical care, remember that the person did not get sick in a day, therefore they will most likely not get well in a day. Continue to work with the same poppet, renewing the spellwork on critical days as well as every thirty days thereafter.
• Once the link has been forged between the person and the poppet, keep the poppet in a safe place. Finding it in your pet rat’s nest would not be a good thing.
• When your magick has reached the desired end, de-magick the poppet by cutting the tie between the person and the poppet and sprinkling the doll with holy water. Dismantle the doll and burn everything, asking that harmony and healing continue for that person.
• Well Dollies — poppets empowered only for healing without attachment to a person or animal — can be given as get-well gifts to friends and family members. Use Well Dollies in place of taglocked poppets if there is any possibility that the doll might be torn, lost, or given to the family pet as a play-toy.
• Birthing Dollies contain a taglock from both prospective parents, and are empowered with seven gifts to the prospective newborn (love, intelligence, compassion, discernment, health, wealth, and protection). Many women take these fertility dollies into the delivery room with them, and then hand the doll over of the bed of the newborn child for added protection.
• Money Dollies are stuffed with at least three pieces of paper money and one each of the coinage used in your country, as well as your name, herbs associated with money and success, and a lodestone or magnet. Each week (or month), the doll should be reactivated with incense and prayer, and a fresh piece of paper money should be safety-pinned to the body of the doll. This doll should also be hidden for two basic reasons: to protect the integrity of your work, and to keep people from tearing off the bills when they desperately need money. If someone does take the money off the doll, you will have to dispose of that doll and make a new one.
• Animal toys (such as catnip mice and dog chews) can be empowered for the health and safety of your favorite pet. As they will be destroyed, don’t link the animal’s energy to the toy; rather, empower it to release healing energy as it naturally disintegrates.