This brief non-fiction work by Mária Szepes’s was originally titled A szerelem mágiája, and is only available in Hungarian. It explores the Alchemical Wedding or Unio Mystica.
Availability
Lira.hu carries the e-book version for instant download internationally.
Excerpts:
There are no exact excerpts because an English translation doesn’t exist. However, here’s a taste of Szepes’s central thesis from her own epigraph:
Within you lives the aching negative of your partner. You wait for them to speak the magic words: “I am You” — which will heal your eternal wound.
Her 56-year harmonious marriage also inspired some practical tips for spouses. Here they are, divided into two lists.
What we must never do
- Do not think that the wedding or the start of love is the “happy end” — treat it as the starting line of a race requiring constant effort.
- Never forget the destructive-constructive power of words. Sharp, cruel words leave wounds worse than physical injuries; some can never be taken back. Never joke about divorce — the word carries a real negative charge.
- Never belittle a partner’s abilities, especially not in front of others.
- Never join in cynical mockery of your own relationship.
- Beware timid dependence on outside opinion — men often stray to look impressive to friends; women often gossip about bedroom matters. Both erode the union.
- Never abandon certain aesthetic and emotional illusions — do not appear before each other slovenly, rude, or coarse.
- If a partner stumbles, do not become a “blood-judge” dripping reproaches until every tenderness dies.
- Never end the day in silent anger; talk it through when the tension has cooled. A couple’s confidentiality is deeper than any other bond.
- Do not make togetherness a suffocating obligation — allow the other to leave and return by their own rhythm.
- Do not build separate social circles or private zones where the other feels excluded — that is the invisible beginning of divorce.
- Do not vent your worst moods only on your partner — men’s “domestic tyranny” and women’s chronic invalidism are both forms of emotional blackmail that hollow out a marriage. Discusses the mirror-danger: partners who dismiss real illness as mere theatrics.
- Jealousy — the most agonising of relational ailments — is analysed at length: its motives (vanity, loss of exclusivity, wounded power), and its treatments through gondolatmágia (“thought-magic”) and asztráltorna (“astral gymnastics”).
The chapter culminates in what she calls the greatest mantra of human belonging: “Whom you love, let go. Let them go their own way.”
What we must never fail to do
- Do not assume the partner reads your tender feelings — you must express them, or emotional cold sets in.
- If you want attention and love, give it first.
- Never coast on assumptions about your partner’s inner life — ask, observe, notice that they change from day to day.
- Cultivate the philosophical-aesthetic intensity of life; share every fine reflex with each other — this weaves the “magical alliance.”
- Never be stingy with kind or admiring words.
- Never accept small kindnesses in silence — acknowledge them.
- Keep shared little rituals and celebrations — no human goal is realised without cult; ceremony keeps the inner fire alive.
- Share not only worries but also the edenic, childlike, playful elements in yourselves.
- If your partner is caught in a hardened state you cannot reach with words, visit them with gentle healing thoughts while they sleep.
Closing warning: none of these techniques work if the underlying spiritual-emotional bond is missing.