Field Report: Attack Magic

Much of my background has been in combat magic – both as a protector and cursebreaker – and, though I see the value of your gun metaphor, I would suggest a more useful simile would be that learning attack magics is more akin to studying explosive ordinance demolition.

Short form: learning how to take apart curses makes one rather more capable when it comes to making curses. And vice versa.

(As for the morality… there, the gun metaphor becomes more useful. Always abided to a no-first-strike-unless-clear-and-present-danger modality personally – and, from the sound of your student. this was a ‘righteous shoot’.)

Respects,
Cat

I’m a firm believer in restorative justice. But this can be slippery. When there is no way to make the harm right again, especially emotionally, a ritualistic release of anger and pain toward the offending party might be appropriate. That said, there are very few circumstances in which there is no other way. And I think if you asked most people (including me), “Would you rather make this right or make so-and-so suffer?” most would choose the former instead of the latter. But I do agree with the gun metaphor. Negative workings can be no less hurtful than pulling a trigger on someone and if you don’t think it’s right to do one, you shouldn’t do the other.

I am very happy for the student and her husband. I would not wish that kind of fear and terror on anyone. When it comes to protecting myself and family, I believe “Going Gerard Butler on their A$$” is justifiable. Karma be damned, Family first.

I think the main problem is that when you talk about magic used for aggression or self-defense it hits a particular bone in the more paranoid. The number of people who have insisted that they have been cursed is really depressing, particularly when you get to the roots of so called psychic attack and it was probably something they ate. There are two things that most people don’t get… firstly a person has to have a reason to want to attack them. Most of the time they just sad losers who no one could be bothered spending the energy doing a ritual. Secondly the attacker has to have the means to do it. Conducting a real attack takes a lot more than looking at someone in a funny way. I think in 99.99 percent of cases an attack has not taken place. Having said that, it does not mean that they do not happen. Tragically there are those who HAVE been attacked who go through life unaware that it could happen to them and suffered. The hard thing is to teach people what to do, how to recognise an attack, while at the same time not encouraging paranoia.

I am a firm believer that attack magic and curses absolutely have a place in the Witch or magical practitioner’s repertoire. There are times when bindings and protections just won’t cut it and more drastic measures are needed, and I am puzzled as to why so many Pagans seem to feel that using magic to defend yourself is evil and will lead to bad “karma” (a vastly misunderstood concept that has essentially been turned into a Christian-style substitute for Hell in many circles.) I’ve used curses, my Witch friends have used curses, and they have been entirely justified. You’re not going to get bad “karma” or be punished by some invented “rule of three” for protecting yourself, your home, or your family.

As they say, sometimes attack is the best defence.

Not going on the offensive in this situation would have allowed an evil person to harm one or more innocent people. This should never be allowed to happen. I hope this criminal will never be able to harm another. Ever.

I would like to challenge to all sorcerers and magicians to demonstrate their “attack magic” skills publicly, like this Indian black tantric guy attempted to do: http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/2008/20080310/en_1.html

The tantrika humiliated himself on Indian national television, but I give him credit for being willing to try in front of millions of people. Are any of you willing to put your claims to such an empirical test?

Magic is tech. I can’t imagine why using this particular tech would cause 3 times the karma or rebound, or whatever. It causes what it causes. Who made up these ratios, that if you do something ‘bad’ you get it back threefold, and if you do something selfless, the benefit it returned to you threefold, tenfold, or pick your number. It sounds totally superstitious.

If I smack someone in the face, if I drive drunk, if I steal something from my neighbor’s yard, there may be consequences. These are all mundane actions, and we accept that we are responsible for what we do. I cannot fathom why using magic would be any different.

I appreciate your position, Jason. But I don’t think you are giving dangerous ideas to people. I think there are dangerous or unscrupulous people, or sociopaths, who will turn anything into a tool to harm or manipulate. They can find offensive magic many places online, in books and from people teaching it. Or they can just use a gun, a book of matches, or whatever comes to hand. Those who have a will to harm or manipulate, do.

I’ve had to use offensive magic to protect myself from a seriously deranged person who was obsessed with harming me (using mundane methods, nevertheless, quite destructive). He was mentally ill and there was no way to come to terms with him. I even moved house! Nothing else was going to work. Like your student in your blog post, I was faced with a simple equation: it’s either you or me. And as much as I didn’t want to be in the situation at all, there I was. I’m really glad I had solid knowledge of offensive magic. It saved my life.

And if you think about it, the person who was persecuting me was stopped from actually taking that final action, one that he would have to bear in terms of karma. There is a corrective force in Nature, and sometimes You’re It.

The bottom line: if you need to use it, you’ll be very glad you have it. If you’re a whack job who enjoys cursing people and using baleful magic, you’d probably be doing all kinds of hideous mundane things anyway, just as terrible, if you did not know offensive magic. Magic is not the problem. I’m glad you are teaching it.

A martial arts parallel is pretty apt, as adequate training allows for competency at various levels of confrontation. People need a good slap or a kick in the nuts more often than they do a bullet.

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