Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Cursing

Blessings, Darlings!

I'm going to discuss using magic/witchcraft to curse folks.  So let me say right up front that I'm currently in a trad that does not allow that (nor can I order around Goetic Demons while in this trad, dunno about making servitors and such) so I'm not currently doing curses nor have I been doing any since I started Wicca 101 with them.

That said...

Back in the day....

Heck, yeah, I did curses.  And I'd do them again.

Remember, I'm up front that part of my motivation for becoming a witch had to do with power, knowledge, all that good stuff.  With those things comes responsibility.  One of those responsibilities, in my mind, is to use curses when appropriate.

When is Cursing Appropriate?

So far, I've done curses twice that I remember.  I doubt there are any times I don't recall, because it takes a big deal for me to do one.  Obviously, I wasn't cursing the morons who clearly got their drivers licenses out of a gum ball machine.  I wasn't cursing folks who insulted me in AOL chat rooms.  

Most folks who do stupid or irritating things curse themselves just fine.  They don't need my help in that!  I might include in a prayer that it happen sooner rather than later, but that's about it.  

Harm to the Tribe

But when someone does harm to the Tribe, it's time for intervention.  The police have their role in 'harm to tribe' interventions, and I have mine.

So the first curse I threw was targeting rapists.  Not that they die, not that they suffer.  But that they get caught.  That they get STOPPED.  Yes, dying would have done a fine job of stopping them, but that wasn't necessary for my goal.  They didn't ask me to help them heal from whatever reason they chose to rape, and magically forcing them to change is forbidden in most Pagan Witch traditions, and healing without permission is equally forbidden.  But the Tribe would benefit from rape stopping.  So I did it.

I did not follow up local law enforcement arrest stats, let alone district attorney conviction stats, to see what, if any, measurable effects the spell had.  This was WAY early in my Witchy life.

The second curse I did was in fall of 2002, at the Beltway Sniper (BS for short) here in DC. It was the day he shot the kid at the school my son had been attending the year before.  Again, it was all about stopping him (or, as it turned out, them, but I didn't know that at the time and it didn't matter for the working).  Me, the Sacred Weber Grill, articles on the Beltway Sniper, and well-directed fury.  It's a pretty direct attack on my tribe when a kid who my son went to school with as recently as 5 months before get shot! 

Result? This was the first of the attacks where the BS left a clue. The Death Card from the Waite-Rider Tarot deck, deliberately written upon and left for the police, a fact not released to the public for a few days.  The BS was now contributing to being discovered. 

[Yes, I also did healing spells for the wounded, and all families involved, and protection spells for the area, thanks for wondering.]

A Curse Not Done

OTOH, I did NOT do any cursing after the 9/11 attacks on the US.  Why? Several reasons.  At first I didn't have a good enough concept what group did the attack, later because I wasn't sure what outcome would be best to deal with the type of radicals who were behind it and what bred them.  I'm still not sure if the US killing them might just make martyrs for future generations to emulate and thus increase the problem if underlying social and political factors remain the same around the world.  And for CURSES, rather than general magic, prayers, etc, I think that you need an especially tight focus. Therefore, I did different magicks for that rather than going to a curse.

Where do you stand on the subject of cursing?

Frondly, Fern

5 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for this post. In my beliefs, retribution and the like are not forbidden, but I'd never considered curses. It sounds like you've really got a good angle on them and this provides a lot of food for thought!

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  2. I have not done curses myself, mostly just protection spells by those that were "threatening" enough. However, in your cases the use of curse is perfectly acceptable because in a lot of ways it was simply to protect from any additional harm. Too many people hear the term "curse" and assume it's witches doing really harmful work against someone's will that has a detrimental outcome. Like say making your jilted lovers' nether regions turning green. Again this is a result of not studying the right materials!

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  3. One of my favorite Pagan sayings is "If a witch can't hex, s/he can't heal." Whether or not it's actually true (and I don't think adages need to be strictly true to make a point), it does a good job of reminding that there's always a cloud in the silver lining.

    However, I think it's still staying true to the spirit of the saying to know how to hex in theory without ever needing to actually do it. Although I'm not opposed to hexing if a dire situation such as you described arises, the closest I've come to hexing is spells that encourage one's karma to come back to them swiftly & firmly.

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  4. I stand firmly on the side of cursing/hexing. It's not something I undertake lightly though. Karma is a funny thing, and really we are all agents of karma(cue mission impossible theme. Karma doesn't get carried out by metaphysical enforcers.It gets enforced through other folks much of the time. The question is Mr. Phelps 'if you choose to accept it'.lol

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  5. by the way Fern, there are no rules against creating servitors, working with Goetia, or protecting yourself in the Assembly Trad.

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