You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Spell Is About You
Ever since my first book I have argued that curses and other types of malific magic happen. People that deny they happen are not paying attention or are simply insulated from people that use magic to get things done. I know it happens because people try to hire me to do it on a weekly basis. I refuse almost all requests for it, but I have had serious requests from clients willing to pay into five figures for it, so you can bet that someone out there would take them up on it. I have done some work like that on personal matters myself, so I can tell you that curses happen. Ask anyone that sells supplies and they will tell you that curse materials are a hot seller.
Apart from people casting deliberate curses, there are spirits can take actions against humans in retribution for acts that defile their space. This can be something as simple as building or pollution or as esoteric as a ritual in a park that infringes upon spirit habitat. This is an old level of practice and the work of early shaman was primarily about managing the relations between worlds on behalf of his people.
So Curses happen, but they don’t happen as much as some people think.
Yes, there are crazies out there who imagine that they are under attack by everyone that they have ever met, but I am not talking about them. I’m talking about us.
By us, I mean practicing Sorcerers, Witches, and Magicians. We all like to think that we are the center of everything, and magicians perhaps fall to this more than most. This is why I like to have students balance out exercises like seeing themselves in the central pillar of the universe, or doing evocations to speak with angels do meditations that give rise to emptiness and awareness of how small they really are. This is why I insist that for me the goal of magic is to become more fully human, and not a Living God. Even the word Ipsissimus simply means one who is their very own self.
Anyway, I have noted a rash of people thinking that they are cursed or experiencing crossed conditions when really they just had a completely normal but unpleasant thing happen.
- Car broke down? Look at the odometer. They don’t last forever, especially when you have done magic to keep together longer than it should have. Its run its 250K, let it go.
- Laid Off? So were the other 20 people you were in the meeting. To quote Bill Clinton: “It’s the economy stupid”
- Can’t find a job after 6 months? That is well within the normal. See Bill’s Quote above. Same applies to having to take a pay cut or change careers. No magic is going to get you rich as a Travel Agent these days…
- Feeling tired and run down? Are you 45 and eat like shit? Probably not a curse. Maybe think about chewing some spinach and getting up from the desk every now and then.*
In my first book I taught people signs and symptoms of possible magical attack, but I also taught to look for constellations of these signs in your life, not single examples. Also look for reasonable sources. Over the last few years three people have thought or been told that I cursed them – I did not curse any of them. I don’t curse over you not liking my book, or us getting into a row on facebook. Neither do most people.
To most people, none of this stuff is important, but it does make people feel important to think that they are cursed. Don’t be that Sorcerer. Evaluate the signs, get someone else to do a few divination’s. Think about what is really happening and if it is more of less the norm for people. It may feel terrible, but everyone gets punched in the face by life occasionally, even Sorcerers. What makes a successful Sorcerer is not the absence of trouble, it’s your response to it.
*This one is squarely aimed at myself BTW. I am often in need of my own advice.
