A couple of weeks ago, I visited a local bank on business. While I was waiting, I wandered around the seating area, admiring the holiday decorations. I live in a deeply Christian section of the country, so, even though the bank was a secular institution, the decorations were all religiously Christian.

Well, almost. Or at least, they were intended to be religiously Christian.

When I took a good look at the Christmas tree, I saw something else entirely.

The (fake) tree had been sponsored by a local agricultural organization. A star topped the tree, but the rest of the decorations referenced agriculture: plastic blocks of cheese and miniature milk cartons, tiny wooly sheep and fluffy cows, wooden apples and peaches, and baskets of plastic bread. There were also prayer cards hanging from the branches, some quoting Biblical passages.

I had no doubt that the tree and its decorations were meant to be a form of thanks to the Christian God, and a prayer for plentiful harvests in the future.

Looking at the tree, however, I saw something different. I saw a rite of sympathetic magic. Like influences like. All those symbols, all those stand-ins for real cheese, milk, sheep, cows, and more were magical correspondences. To a Christian, that tree was an offering of thanks. To a witch or a devotee of nature, it was a magical rite.

Now I’m curious: how many other magical rites are hiding in plain sight? Does it matter if that rite is hiding inside the iconography of another spiritual tradition? If will and intention are central to magical practices, can the same object be used for different purposes, in different practices, even in praise of different Deities?

For me, the answer is yes. I know witches and Goddess devotees who use statues of the Virgin Mary as a divine icon. I know polytheists who decorate their homes with paintings by Renaissance artists who were at least nominally Christian. And there are pop culture magicians who use figures from comic books, television series, and movies in their occult rites.

Is this ethical? Would this be considered appropriation? I’m not sure. It’s something to consider in the future. All I do know for certain: when I looked at that tree, I saw magic, and it made me smile.