The talisman is an object made and consecrated to attract a particular result, to draw money, favour, health or love, and it is defined by that active, positive direction.
Made for a purpose
A talisman is fashioned deliberately, often at an elected time and inscribed with figures, names or signs held to correspond to the power invoked, and it is consecrated so as to draw the desired good to its bearer. This is the feature that distinguishes it from the amulet: where the amulet wards off harm, the talisman attracts benefit, so the two are the negative and positive poles of the same art, defence and attraction. The talisman may be a metal disc, a written paper, a ring or a stone, and its making is a whole branch of the Western magical tradition, tied to astrology and to the correspondences of planets and hours.
Across traditions
The making of objects to attract fortune is not confined to Western magic: Islamic and Jewish folk practice produce written talismans drawing on divine names and scriptural verses, and comparable objects appear across many cultures, so the talisman is a widely shared category. The line between talisman and amulet is not always sharp in ordinary use, and a single object may be credited with both attracting good and warding off ill. What is constant in the strict sense of the word is the direction of the working: the talisman reaches out to bring something to its owner rather than standing guard against what might come.