contagious magic

noun

1. magic that attempts to affect a person through something once connected with them, such as a shirt once worn by the person or a footprint left in the sand; a branch of sympathetic magic based on the belief that things once in contact are in some way permanently so, however separated physically they may subsequently become. Compare imitative magic.

Example Sentences

The movies have a communal magic – an almost contagious magic – that isn’t really something you can define.

From Forbes

This belief in contagious magic may sound illogical, but it makes a certain evolutionary sense, Dr. Lastovicka said.

From New York Times

Imitative magic follows the law of association by similarity, while contagious magic is based on the law of contiguity.

From Project Gutenberg

While imitative magic works through fancied resemblance, contagious magic is based on the principle that what has once been together must remain forever after in a sympathetic relation, so that what is done to one affects the other.

From Project Gutenberg

The lore of such persons when examined by folk-lore students is found generally to come under one or other of the two classes known as sympathetic and mimetic magic, or homœopathic and contagious magic.

From Project Gutenberg