Hello Kitty Magick and Working With Toys as Magical Archetypes
We place so much benign, wholesome energy into our toys. Why not use that for magick? Here are some ways to work Hello Kitty magick into spells and rituals and explore toy archetypes for magical journeys.
Working with the magical energy of toys
Few things in the world are lucky and special enough to have had endless love poured into them since they came into being. Toys are among those sacred few. From the earliest of ages, we have revered toys. We have looked to them as protectors, and as avatars of who we want to be and how we want to express ourselves.
Toys may seem crassly commercialised in some ways. Yes, they are designed to make money. Physical toys are often mass-produced plastic, and we don’t tend to lean into associating plastic and bulk uniformity with magical energy. And yet… to people all around the world, both children and adults, toys are revered and cherished and filled with life. They are loved. They live!
And let us not hate on mass-production when it comes to working with magical tools, either. The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck is mass-produced, and look at what it can do! Every Barbie or Monster High doll may indeed be made in factories by the thousands, but that just means it’s filled with far more than the magical energy you’ve invested in it. That mass-produced doll is filled with the joy, imagination, drying tears and tenderness of every child who’s ever held a doll just like your own and loved it to hell and back.
When it comes to doing magical workings with avatars and archetypes, toys surely have their own cherished spot in our personal pantheons.
Toys are love; they are undying protective guardians who are given life whenever our imaginations take flight.
Let me say it louder for the people at the back…
Toys are wholesome and magical as f*ck.
Hello Kitty magick – let us play
Do you love Hello Kitty? She’s truly adorable! Just think how many other people around the world love her too.
Perhaps it’s her simple curves that make us feel better simply to see her – so easy to draw and to hold in the mind as part of, say, a sigil working.
And isn’t Hello Kitty’s face wonderful? It’s so deceptively simple. She appears to have no expression at all, yet somehow emotes a sense of warmth, of trust, of unconditional love. Her face may appear to be expressionless, yet that calming blank slate allows us to lose ourselves in Hello Kitty’s face and see what we want to see. She will never hurt us. She will never harm us. When we practice Hello Kitty magick, we are working with an archetype that always has our back.
Hello Kitty’s simple face leaves plenty of room to add a meaningful symbol in a magical drawing, perhaps on her forehead. Or you can write statements of intent around her silhouette. She gives you space to play – not only in your imagination, but in the very spaces of her body.
In fact, I call Hello Kitty a ‘she’, but – canon aside – is she really? I mean, look at her. When I look at Hello Kitty I see what I want to see. When you look at her, only you can decide what you see. Hello Kitty is free. She’s any gender, any orientation. She’s what you need her to be.
See also: Miffy, the rabbit-lover’s answer to Hello Kitty.
Hello Kitty magickal merch – keeping your archetypes hidden in plain sight
One beautiful thing about working with mass-produced toys as avatars and archetypes is that you have lots and lots of merch to explore, so you can carry your toy of choice around with you at all times.
You can wear Hello Kitty on your body any way you like – as a tee, as a headband, as a bag of plenty. You can imbue her with your energy, and she can imbue you with hers. As a symbiotic pair, you can share the power.
If you wish, your choice of toy merch garment can reflect your magical intention. A tee can be said to work with energies linked with the heart and solar plexus. A headband or earrings serves to protect and empower your mind. A necklace works directly with an area associated with change and transformation. A keyfob toy acts as a guardian of security, access and home.
Hello Kitty magick is wearable, kind, strong and gentle. She has lots of power to share with you. When you feel tired or lost or ready to celebrate, you can come to her. She will stand by you through it all.
Hello Kitty magick – and toy magick – is safe magick
Don’t @ me, dear hearts – there are always exceptions to every rule. But if you’re in the need for something really soft, toy magick might well be the answer. In order to effectively sell toys to millions of parents, manufacturers need those toys to be safe.
The toys need to be physically safe – no toxins, no choky bits – and ideally they’re meant to be ideologically safe, too. A toy should not harm a child. Obviously it doesn’t quite work that way, or we wouldn’t have such genderised and/or normative toys – but the toys you love are the toys you love.
The toys you love won’t hurt you. Your childhood toy isn’t a horror story. It’s a beautiful unconditional love story. That’s the kind of energy you can work with, when you bring Hello Kitty magick into your life.
If you want it strong, toy magick can be strong.
If you want it soft, toy magick can be fluffy, plushy and soft as a weighted blanket filled with down from the fabled Bird of Tranquility.
It’s up to you, lovely. There are no rules, but it’s fairly safe to say there are no thorns in this rose.
Meditations and pathworkings using childhood toys
I once had a giant soft toy leopard called Leppy. He went through a lot – including the bars of a hot radiator grill, which made him melt on one side – but he lasted for years and I will never, ever forget him. Yes, even though he played a direct and unwelcome role in my first (and thankfully only) experience of sleep paralysis. In fact, he lives on in me now. Without even closing my eyes I can immediately recall his weight, his endearing toy-smell, the rough fur on the melted side of his body..
In some cases, you might have a childhood toy that tangibly lives with you still. Maybe your cherished toy is right there by your side as you read this, not just in your memory.
Either way, your childhood toy will be with you forever more.
You can use your childhood toy in pathworkings or meditations. Here’s how.
- Simply get comfortable and hold your childhood toy, or imagine them.
- If you work on an aural level as well as a visual one, you can add music to your pathworking –an atmospheric nursery rhyme, perhaps. Whatever gets you in the mood.
- Lead yourself to a place where being with your toy feels right. It might be an enchanted garden, or an old blanket fort you used to make.
- Speak with your old childhood friend.
- Ask them questions. Perhaps they can even give a hint as to what questions you should be asking.
- Ask how they have been, and thank them for their help.
- Listen to what they say.
Your childhood toys will have a different perspective. It might be wise. It will certainly be kind.
Childhood toys can be wonderful for magic and ritual relating to letting go, to inner strength and protection, to finding balance, to shadow working and to re-igniting the imagination and creative energy.
Whatever they say, your childhood toys are there to help.
They are always, always there for you.
Blythe doll magic and customised toy workings
Ah, the Blythe doll! She is so different to Hello Kitty. (Again, I refer to the default Blythe doll as ‘her’. That is just me and my perspective. There is nothing to say that Blythe dolls must use the pronoun ‘she’).
Every Blythe doll is customisable, and that’s the point. You are the ultimate creator and shaper. You take the components of the Blythe Doll then decide on the hair, the facial features, the skin colouring, the clothes, the personality… everything. It is your imagination and artistry that fuels the Blythe doll and makes her come alive.
Working with a customisable doll means you can feed her with magical intention right from the start.
Alternatively, you can begin your magical workings with your Blythe doll once she is complete.
Previously on Mookychick, Lauren du Plessis described the art of customising Blythe dolls to represent Tarot cards in the Major Arcana.
Katrin created a Beltane Sabbat photoshoot using Blythe dolls in honour of Mookychick’s annual May Day Magic Ritual, held every May 1st.
Every Blythe doll around the world is loved by the one who customised them, and every doll is beautiful; a work of art.
To create is magical. And every Blythe doll is a magical creation.
Just look at the life in a Blythe doll’s eyes!
Magical altars and venerating toys
Once your toy is invested with magical energy, hide it in plain sight. No-one suspects a toy of having truck with the occult.
Of course, where you place your toy might perform a key part in actualising your magical intention.
Placing a toy on a bed – a cherished bear or wilted plushy rabbit – ensures protection in the spot where you are unconscious and at your most vulnerable. Toys can watch over your dreams, and you might unthinkingly find and snuggle them in the night if, down in the subconscious, it all gets too much.
Toys never look out of place on altars. They always seem to look right at home there. They’re like cats – they can be where they please and remain unharmed. They are somehow protected, because they are so universally loved and self-complete. No toy ever set off the magical alarms on a salt circle by being placed in it.
If your toy has moveable parts, consider their arrangement. Will they have a beatific pose? Will they have one hand raised Above and one pointing down Below, in fine magician style?
And what sort of offerings does a toy appreciate, when you begin to work with it as an avatar or archetype? Love and attention is surely the purest offering of all. A smile, a blown kiss, a cuddle. An acknowledgement of warmth and gratitude. Perhaps they would like some new clothes crocheted for them, if they’re the sort of toy who likes clothes. It’s something you can think about, and perhaps ask your beloved toy if you do a pathworking together one day.
If you’ve used toys in spells, rituals or magical workings of any kind, it would be wonderful to hear about it. You are most welcome to share your experience via Twitter – just holler @mookychick with your musings and memories.
As you can see, these are only a few ideas for working with Hello Kitty magick and the kindly powers of toy archetypes. The whole point of toy magic is that it is utterly personal to you.
Let us play.
