The Six Pillars

There are six pillars that combine to form the system known as Blood Magick. The first four are the primary pillars of Blood, Will, Knowledge, and Unity. These represent the most fundamental elements of all blood magick, and can be found in every aspect of the system.
Blood: The sorcerer seeks to draw upon the inherent potency of blood, more specifically, the magickal essence of blood. Blood in an of itself hold no power, it is merely a nutrient rich fluid that permeates creatures complex enough to have circulatory systems. In its true form, blood magick is drawing upon the magical energy so readily abundant in blood. As the substance that carries the power of life itself; blood is simply the medium. Mere spilt blood has no power, until the sorcerer comes along to unlock the energies within.
It is this potency of blood that forms the entire basis for the tradition. Not only does it both carry and represent power in a physically tangible way, blood is dangerous.  Using blood, one’s own or that of others, either as a physical magical component or as a basis of visualization and association, tests a sorcerer’s limits.
To spill blood as a spell component is violent by necessity, how else but through physical damage can blood be extracted from the body? To use blood as the key symbol or associative focus of a spell, even if none is shed, is considered aberrant thought and behavior by most societies, magical or otherwise. Blood magick, by its very nature, tests social boundaries, breaks taboos, and forces both the sorcerer and those around him or her to come to grips with the potent and immediate reality of magick.
Will: The use of magic is an act of will.  Without willpower the magic user cannot use the magic they so fervently believe in.  A magic user must be humble enough to understand their place in Reality, and yet be arrogant enough to use their will to shape the fabric of reality as they choose.  Willpower is the raw strength of a magic user, the measure of the amount of raw power that the sorcerer is able to bring to bear.  The skill of a magic user is defined as the effective use of the will to manipulate reality.  This pillar ties all of the four together.  The magic user must first believe in magic, then be able to understand the source of magic, then be able to harness that source, and finally be able to willfully shape that force with enough finesse to make it productive.
Knowledge: Here's how I made it through high school and college: I had a realization in 11th grade that the BS I was learning, math especially, was only the basic building blocks for higher learning. I know that sounds like a line, but its cliché' because its true. Fast forward to college physics 1 freshman year, I learned more about magic in that single class than I had in years of study. Not because I was learning magical rotes and rituals and such, but because I was learning how to see the world through the objective eyes of science. The more I knew about physical reality the more I was able to discover about magic theory and its application. Fast Forward to senior Biology, I realized then that all I needed to do to really learn potent life magic was to pay attention in class. How can a Life Mage cast any spells of any real importance without knowing about the life systems he or she is dealing with?  Bad metaphor I know, but the Harry Potter Hogwarts school, that is easily any school in which we magic folk take classes. The more you learn period, the more you learn about magic. IN GENERAL, the more powerful and knowledgeable mages are also skilled in mathematics, art, language, science, politics, etc.
You can't be a Renaissance Man without education. Magic is Science is Art is Language. And the masters of such disciplines are the most potent people the world over. Having power and the will to use it means absolutely nothing if the sorcerer does not possess the knowledge of it. Knowledge in this case can be defined as a conglomerate product of experience and education.
Unity: In its most basic form, Unity explains that everything has an essence and that this essence is both individual and shared. The second is that all energy is potential magical energy.  This principle is taken from the scientific investigations of physicists.  Einstein and others have come to the conclusion that all things are energy in some form or another, but that all things are fundamentally energy nonetheless.  If everything is made up a singular existent we call energy, then all things are this singular energy in one form or another.  What follows is the notion that magical energy is this singular energy in a specific form, but since magical energy is this singular energy just the same, then all forms of energy are potentially magical energy.  With this principle in mind one can see the infinite power of such a truth.  If magic is fueled by magical energy and all energy is potential magical energy then any act of magic is potentially infinitely powerful.
The final pillars are Resonance and Sympathy. It is these two minor pillars that connect with the first, blood, to give this system of magick it’s unique potency and permeating flexibility.
Sympathy: “If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not. Charms based on the Law of Similarity may be called Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic. Charms based on the Law of Contact or Contagion may be called Contagious Magic. To denote the first of these branches of magic the term Homoeopathic is perhaps preferable, for the alternative term Imitative or Mimetic suggests, if it does not imply, a conscious agent who imitates, thereby limiting the scope of magic too narrowly. For the same principles which the magician applies in the practice of his art are implicitly believed by him to regulate the operations of inanimate nature; in other words, he tacitly assumes that the Laws of Similarity and Contact are of universal application and are not limited to human actions.
Resonance: Resonance and the Self-Propagation of Magical Energy When a sorcerer gathers energy to fuel a spell one must remember that the energy is not going to be “pure”.  It will by all means be pure magical energy, but the energy itself with have what is called a resonance.  It is this resonance, or flavor if you will, of the energy that will determine some of its unique qualities.
For example, if a wizard happens upon a burial ground and finds it necessary for whatever reason to cast a spell, the energy that he gathers will have the flavor of those burial grounds.  Perhaps this visualization, magical energy could easily be seen metaphorically as water.   Water is water, but water from any source will be different on some level than water from another source.  There is distilled water, pond water, river water, ocean water, sewage, run off, and precipitation.  Water tends to take on characteristics of its environment, so it is with magical energy.  It is for this reason that a witch from a rural area might find that her spell feels different when powered by magical energy from a city than from her home ground.               
Resonance tends to self-propagate.  For example, the energy of a city powers wizards in its area of influence, and those wizards continue to use its power.  Like the magical muscles of spell casting, so to it is with locations of power.  The more they are tapped for energy, as long as they are not burned out, they grow back stronger.  Now perhaps it is more clear just how powerful the spreading of cities really is, because as all magic users know, normal people can be affected by the energy of a location just as easily as mages or spirits.
Not only does the location of the magical energy effect the resonance of the energy, the resonance of the energy directly effects the spell caster himself.  Think of the old cliché “you are what you eat”.  This very much applies to magic users in two major ways.  The first is that magic users are more affected by the resonance of locations than normal people, and sustained exposure to such locations affect magic users just like it does the magical energy in its area of influence.  So the more attuned to a location, or certain type of energy (nature, urban, death, etc) a magic user is, the more it will “color” their spells.  More often than not magic users are easily identified by what sort of magic they seem to be doing, the resonance of their energy.
It is this coloring of the spells by the resonance of the magical energy that is the second way in which the resonance directly affects the magic user herself.  Think of the metaphor of the athlete.  If a person trains constantly for running, they will develop the long and lean body type of a runner.  If a person is a weight lifter or football player, they will develop the stocky body type that best fits their chosen sports.  All sports are like this to some degree, with a certain body type being superior to all others in that particular sport.  Now, what would happen to a runner who tried to enter a bodybuilding contest? Or a ballerina who suddenly had to play football? 
This is what happens to magic users who allow themselves, for better or worse, to take on the resonance of a specific type of magical energy.  The more healing spells a person casts, the more permeated with the healing resonance they become.  The result is that they become an immaculate healer, but their abilities in say death magic or astral projection might very well suffer.  While it tends to be natural for magic users to become permeated to at least a moderate degree with one sort of magical energy resonance, it can become detrimental to the flexibility of the seeker sort of magic user to become trapped in one of these aspects.  For example, a blood mage is incredibly powerful when he has access to the fluids he requires.  Deny him those components or energy patterns, and he will be in serious jeopardy, unless another solution presents itself. Though such a lack is highly unlikely given that the sorcerer almost always has access to his own body.
Energy resonance can be garnered just about anywhere and doing any sort of magic.  It is no different for a wandering wizard.  As a traveler the wandering wizard will have the ability to maintain a relatively clean slate when it comes to resonances from locations.  Also, with a clear mind and a taste for variety the wanderer will be able to avoid a spell type rut.  Yet one must accept the fact that the wandering wizard over time becomes permeated by the energy of motion.  So travelers should take care that they stop sometimes.  As said above, resonance permeation can make one incredibly powerful, but limits the magic user who is trapped in that aspect.  One must be aware that overmuch avoidance of at least a moderate amount of permeation will lead to resonance of “jack of all trades, master of none”, which can also limit one’s progress.  So in conclusion, be aware of your permeation levels.  They are both a strength and a weakness.