  We have used a model of magnetic accretion to investigate the rotational
equilibria of magnetic cataclysmic variables (mCVs). This has enabled us to
derive a set of equilibrium spin periods as a function of orbital period and
magnetic moment which we use to estimate the magnetic moments of all known
intermediate polars. We further show how these equilibrium spin periods relate
to the polar synchronisation condition and use these results to calculate the
theoretical histogram describing the distribution of magnetic CVs as a function
of P_spin / P_orb. We demonstrate that this is in remarkable agreement with the
observed distribution assuming that the number of systems as a function of
white dwarf magnetic moment is distributed according to N(mu_1) d mu_1 ~
mu_1^{-2} d mu_1.
