I’m going to start this article with the same phrase Bill Cosby whispers into his cellmate’s ear every night: “If magic was real, you’d use it to force others to have sex with you, right?” It’s also the phrase publishers in the year 2001 might recognize as the entire pitch for Gilly Sergiev’s 60 Sexy spells of seduction.
60 Sexy spells of seduction is a book for lonely witches to get laid by any means necessary, but also dumber and sadder than that sounds. It’s about stalking the non-magical and tricking them into loving you with the powers of mischievous, untrustworthy gods. At the same time it’s a lazy self-help book for people who, by self-selection, will fucking believe anything. And finally, it’s a bubbly, sassy artifact from an awkward moment in modern feminism where sex positivity meant coyly hinting at 9th date intercourse under the words “You Go!”
The book is lovingly dedicated to “Everyone who wants to know a secret,” but it’s a secret that has since aged into what you or I might call “how to sexually assault.” Gilly also dedicated it to Emil, a person or being who cast a spell over her. I’m already a bit of a skeptic when it comes to sex sorcery since it would only take one of these spells to work before it destroyed all Earth economies and communities. But it sort of gives away the game when a person who claims to use actual spells still uses the casual turn of phrase “cast a spell over me” to refer to non-spells. A real wizard would never talk like this. It’d be like an umpire saying, “Great job! That base hit was a real home run!”
Another hint this could all be bullshit is how Gilly lets us know witches don’t ever fully explain their spells. So when none of them work, that’s by design. Could you imagine the danger of a book that let you magically seduce anyone? It would be absurd. Something only an idiot would believe. Something a prosecutor would show to a jury as Exhibit A.
Before the spells, Gilly spends 46 pages gossiping about the different kinds of Wiccans and how some of them are fake bitches and others are total fucking Mirandas. There’s some other witchcraft basics like pentagrams and numerology, but mainly it’s fashion and beauty tips. Witchcraft has, okay, an identity? But like, it’s not a uniform. It’s, um, I guess more of an attitude? You wouldn’t get it, granddaughter.
There are four main kinds of witches described in the section called “The Look!” They are Niche Witch, Ritch Witch, Kitsch Witch, and Ditch Bitch. And if you think this sounds lame as shit, explain how Gilly would know something as cool as this: Ditch Bitches wear Eternity by Calvin Klein to enhance their magickal powers.
A lot of Gilly’s writing has the desperate energy of a high school essay and in this section on “Hair” you can almost see where she backspaced “Webster’s Dictionary defines hair as threadlike strands growing from mammals and it’s so true.” She’s also very inclusive, which is nice, but it often comes at the cost of her entire premise. For instance, when you explain how hair is the source of a witch’s powers and yet there’s no disadvantage to being bald, hair wasn’t the source of a witch’s powers. And Gilly says it’s okay to swap out ingredients in her magic recipes if you’re, say, allergic to tree nut oil. Do love potions work like that? If any of this is real, making random substitutions in a love potion recipe seems like a good way to get fucked by every nearby horse.
Girl, I can’t stress enough how cute the tone is in this book about defying the laws of God and Man to fuck the unwilling. Giggle! These are all psychological placebos, girl! For people driven stupid by horniness, ladies!
The first spell is innocent enough– “To make someone notice you.” You perform a ritual to attach a magick seal to a piece of quartz, but remember– something important has been removed from this ritual because, as stated, a big part of witchcraft is not telling others how to do witchcraft. Then you take the quartz, which remember, will not have a magick seal on it, and touch your victim with it. If you do this right, they’ll “notice.” This isn’t a terrible tip since your derangement will be interesting to them, or your lack of shame should give you away as sexually desperate, a trait some men find adequate. You go!
It’s not a great sign when it’s only the fourth sexy spell and you’re already contacting your ex to see if they want to hook up. Don’t text them, though. Write their name inside a fruit and hurl it into the night. The Earth will know what to do when the ants in your lawn bring a piece of paper that says “BUFFALO WILD WINGS JEFF” back to their queen. Obviously, the colony will form a human shape, hammer its hands against your door and shriek, “jjeeEEEEEEEEFFFFFFF!” Long before its writhing form makes love to you you’ll realize you were never meant to wield these awesome fruit powers.
The book includes several variations on the love potion, and bless Gilly’s heart, she wants to make sure you’re old enough to drink before you attempt this forbidden sangria recipe. She’ll happily violate the laws of our universe and smear her fruit juices all over your free will, but all magick recognizes the sanctity of state liquor laws.
Let the record show Gilly Sergiev’s tenth seduction spell is just a recipe for shampoo. And I know I brought this up already, but please remember she left something out. So this sorceress is saying you can use a can of lentil soup for conditioner if you want, but if you really want your hair to shine, try boiling some apple vinegar with flowers along with a mystery ingredient you must discover for yourself. The only time anyone should have ever said anything this pointless would be after the words, “You can’t die from having a dumb idea. Watch.” Gilly’s brain is done– just a dusty wad of meat between her earrings coughing out half-remembered home remedies. And she still has 83% of a book left to write.
If your looks, along with the potions, fruit, and quartz aren’t working, you can attract a lover with candles. I’m starting to think this book might be a good thing. It’s childish make-believe for moist boomers, sure, but it’s basically telling stalkers their best move is to go home and do 4,000 weird things by themselves. It’s a short term strategy that only works on the extremely gullible, but maybe now they’ll blame The Earth Goddess for their loneliness rather tha– oh no. Once I start putting a positive spin on the insanity a book has officially made me sad.
Yeah. This is officially sad. Gilly has forgotten what she was supposed to be doing and started gluing together a “Money magnet.”
Oh, Jesus. Now she’s casting a spell to make herself less jealous. You might think I’m jokingly changing her intent, but I promise this is not a spell to make her friends happy for all her beautiful hair, romance, and money. This is a ritual to make you less envious, you sad fuck. You’ve called on Satan’s dark power 21 times and have nothing to show for it, and now you’re asking for his help in dealing with it. It’s getting too silly. What’s next, beginner broomstick riding?
Until I read Gilly’s section on beginner broomstick riding, it had honestly never occurred to me that “witches flying on broomsticks” is how history chose to adapt “unappealing women jerking off with broomsticks.” Gilly has to know, though; right? I mean, these are clear instructions on how to fuck yourself with a broom.
The book eventually gets back on track. For example, spell #33 is a classic recipe for orgy potpourri.
As you can tell, most of these spells are either adapted from random folklore or completely made up for an audience who wouldn’t know or care. But the 35th spell, “Seduction menu,” is just instructions for a dinner date. This woman came up with the idea of putting on your nice underwear and cooking dinner and thought, “Dare I share these secret magicks? Can I trust a random book store customer with the hot tip of filling your lover with garlic and dairy and then fucking them!? Like, give me a sign to Go or Not Go, Girl!”
I can’t think of any spell sexier than “For attraction and success in legal matters.” To be clear, this is not for getting your lawyer to penetrate you. It’s just to win a court case– something you might need after Congress makes it illegal to ensorcell a groin without consent.
Along with all the love potion variations, there are a few spells to do the opposite of attracting others. Boning people with magic is a series of levers you have to constantly pull, but there’s no conversion chart for how many night fruits equal a sprinkle of footstep coconut. So you’ll have to stay near a good supply of witch food and throw different ones until nearby penises are the desired distance from your cervix.
If you accidentally put too many names in your night fruit, you might find yourself with too many lovers. Luckily, Gilly has a solution. Spell #54, “A spell to choose between two (or more!) lovers,” explains how you put their names on beans and then draw them out of a hat. I don’t have a mean comment. I genuinely feel sorry for this woman deciding on her sex partners by drawing beans out of a hat who also thinks it makes her a wizard. And I suddenly realized why my mother’s chili had the names of all my middle school teachers.
This seems like it should work.
Now that you have an arsenal of spells to attract and unattract lovers, get infinite money, and win every court case, you should be ready to party. Luckily, Chapter Five is literally called How to Party. And it fucking rules. Gilly might not know how to do sorcery or write a book, but she is pretty sure she knows how to party.
Yeah! Wrap up those hogs and let’s party, boys! It’s the perfect ending to a book about a horny Ditch Witch on an imaginary dick rampage. Anything super fucking weird left to add, Gilly?
H-holy shit, Gilly. I was kidding.
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This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Jeremy Neill, who will not be seduced by thrown fruits or the tide, but is a total sucker for rolled meats and the moon.