A Witch's World of Magick (22 page)

Cursebreaking and Countercharms in Practice

We’ll take a look at some ideas for applying cursebreaking and other forms of countermagick in your own practice, but before we do, it’s important to emphasize how imperative it is to be objective in determining whether or not a curse is indeed in effect. Here are a few points to consider if you or a loved one suspects they’ve fallen victim to a curse.

Is It a Curse, or Just a Bad Day?

Let’s admit it outright: we’re all tempted to make excuses. We’d rather not take the blame for our own failures. We don’t want to face the fact that the world does not always work in our favor, bending to our every need and want. In result, when we hit a stretch of misfortune that could be termed “bad luck,” it’s all too easy to blame it on the ex, blame it on the “frenemy.” For us magickal types especially, the awareness of the fact that being cursed by a peer is an unlikely yet very real threat is bound to make us a wee bit paranoid at times. Of course, it’s not very nice to do counteractive magick on the innocent, so it’s imperative to do your best to make sure you are indeed cursed before taking such measures. Here’s a checklist to help you evaluate whether or not unsavory magickal actions have been performed against you. If few of these ring true, you’re most likely just having a hard time of it lately and your misfortune will soon pass as long as you’re not doing anything to self-sabotage your own success. If many of these descriptions sound like what you’re going through, it might be a good time to do some defensive, cursebreaking magick to break free from what ails you; just be absolutely certain before you act, as karmic consequences may result when performing defensive magick on the innocent.

Curse Victim Diagnostic Checklist

If you’re experiencing uncomfortable physical or emotional symptoms, the first thing to do is to see a qualified medical practitioner or counselor for a thorough physical checkup and/or mental evaluation. If you check out fine and yet something is still definitely amiss, get a second opinion. Remember that curses can cause real physical effects and real spiritual effects alike, so in addition to taking the most important step of seeking treatment at the mundane level, do what you can also in the cursebreaking arena to help promote your spiritual healing if you decide that you’re indeed a victim of bad magick. Pay attention to your intuition and don’t discount any of the following; these symptoms could be warning signs that you’re under the influence of a curse:

• Have you felt unreasonably tired or weak lately? At the end of a long day, it makes sense to feel tired, but if you find yourself feeling energetic one minute and thoroughly exhausted the next minute without due cause, your tiredness might very well be a symptom of being cursed. It could be a symptom of diabetes or a host of other complaints also, so again, please do seek out a qualified professional for a full physical evaluation if you’re experiencing exhaustion or any other unexplained symptoms. Make a chart to note periods in which you feel tired or weak so that you’ll know the extent of the problem and can share this with your doctor. Keeping track of when and how often symptoms occur will also give you a better idea of what you’re facing in terms of curse strength. Also, eat well and get plenty of rest; you’ll want to rule out any obvious causes before jumping to conclusions that your tiredness is the result of a curse.
  
• Do you have any strong enemies who practice magick? If you’re a really nice person who doesn’t make many enemies, chances are, you haven’t been cursed. If, on the other hand, you recently stole the High Priestess’s lover away from her, you might want to take a look over your shoulder! By and large, most modern magickal practitioners do not engage in cursing magick, but some do, and that “some” can do a whole lot of damage if crossed and provoked. If you’ve been involved in recent quarrels, long-standing feuds, or standoffish confrontations involving people who are well-versed in the magickal arts and you find yourself suspecting you’ve been cursed, it’s definitely worth taking a closer look at your symptoms.
  
• Are you having trouble making even the simplest decisions? If you’re usually decisive but have lately found it difficult to make your own choices, your indecisiveness might be a curse symptom. Are you making decisions you typically wouldn’t accept, choices that go against your central nature or choices that conflict with your immediate wants and needs? Sure, we sometimes have to make the tough decisions, but if you’re punishing yourself with bad choices for no good reason, it’s worth examining the potential causes, including the possibility of having fallen victim to a curse.
  
• Are you experiencing any strange or painful body sensations? Again, the first thing to do when you’re experiencing physical symptoms that concern you is to see a doctor for a full evaluation to see if part of what ails you might be fixed with good old-fashioned medicine. That said, there are certain categories of discomfort that, barring obvious causes and medical explanations, are not unlikely symptoms of curse affliction. These include feelings of compression or restriction around specific body parts or affecting the body as a whole, sharp pains or very localized aches that might be constant or occur at regular or irregular intervals, extreme but brief dizziness, feeling sensations of being poked or pinched, skin that feels like it’s crawling, uncomfortable prickly sensations, and shallow breathing. Any of these symptoms could be signs of a serious medical condition that may or may not have been caused by a curse; if you’re experiencing any of these feelings, check it out both physically and metaphysically!
  
• Have you had an unexplained, severe, and unpleasant shift in mood or personality lately? Are you most often happy, but lately find yourself sinking lower and lower into a pit of depression and despair? Do you feel calm one minute, and extremely anxious the next? Do you get the feeling you’re just not acting like yourself lately? Are your friends and family worried about you? If so, consult with a mental health provider or medical doctor right away for immediate help and guidance. These symptoms can be caused by a variety of conditions, and are also commonly experienced by curse victims. You might also consider doing some cursebreaking magick to help you regain your balance.
  
• Are you having very unusual and unlikely dreams, or do you feel exhausted when you wake up? Have you been dreaming about places and situations that have nothing at all to do with your real-life or typical dream-life experiences? Do you wake up feeling like you’ve run through the gauntlet, just as tired as if you hadn’t slept at all? It could be just a strange dream and a night of restless sleep, but if this is happening frequently and has an uncomfortable, confused, and violated feeling associated with it, there’s a possibility that you could be under the nocturnal influence of a curse that’s tapping into your energies while you sleep. Try to remember the images and faces you see in such dreams—you might get a clue about the curser or their intentions.
  

Is It All in Your Head?

Still not sure whether or not you’ve been cursed? Take an objective look at the following list; if any of these leading questions ring true, it’s possible that you’re not the victim of a curse, but rather the victim of your own self! Are your self-sabotaging behaviors making you your own worst enemy? Ask yourself honestly and candidly:

• Do I consistently make poor decisions that I know are not in my best interest?
  
• Do I have any addictions that interfere with my overall success or day-to-day functioning?
  
• Am I neglecting any major health issues (physical or mental) that could be causing problems?
  
• Do I make plans, but fail to take action?
  
• If my ambitions were fulfilled, would it lead to a situation I wouldn’t actually like?
  
• Do I tend to blame my own failures on outside forces and influences?
  
• Am I paranoid, likely to think people are against me even when there is no actual evidence to indicate it?
  
• Do I set only mediocre goals and fail to go after what I really want?
  

If you do find yourself the victim of your own curse, strive to stop sabotaging yourself! I like to call it “being your own mama”—taking care of yourself and loving yourself just as you would love your own child or cherished pet. You can also try applying some of the countermagick techniques discussed in this chapter to undo your own undoing—with the best intentions and the best techniques on your side, liberation from needless self-inflicted suffering is definitely possible!

Hopefully, you’ll never have to face a magickal attack from yourself
or
from an enemy, but if you do, at least you have a few tools in your arsenal now to help see you through. Let’s take a look at a couple of hypothetical modern-day examples to see how you might combine the techniques we’ve learned in this chapter into your own multi-layered magick strong enough to undo any spell, powerful enough to break any curse.

Cursebreaking Formula

If you’re aiming to break a curse, first ask yourself what may have occurred to set the curse in motion in the first place. Did you break an oath or a pact? Did you offend a sacred place, or disturb a sacred object or powerful spirit? Did you do an injury or injustice to someone? Was the curse prompted by jealousy, justice, or revenge? If you suspect you may be even a wee bit guilty in triggering or inviting the curse that ails you, start by doing whatever you can to make amends and make it right. Do you owe anyone a favor, explanation, or apology? Can you do something special to honor the offended person, place, or spirit and win back favor? Take care of apologies and restitution first; even if further cursebreaking procedures are called for, you at least won’t be hindered by lingering guilt that could otherwise hold you back and inhibit the efficacy of your magick.

If further action is indeed required, the next step is to discern as much as you can about the curse you are trying to break. Consider likely materials, methods, and deities that may have been employed in casting the original spell. Begin by taking an inventory of what you know or suspect about the curse and the curser. Consider what you know about the typical spell methods the curser employs, and the magickal and spiritual beliefs to which they adhere. You can use this information to piece together a clearer, more complete picture of the particular curse you’re attempting to break. For example, if you suspect you’ve been cursed by an ex-lover who is a dedicant to the path of Voudon, you know there’s a possibility that a powder, poppet, or gris-gris bag was employed. Likewise, if your suspected enemy frequently brags about their prowess in binding magick, you have a clear indication of the style of curse the person may have performed.

Next, evaluate the likelihood of potential cursing methods based on the proximity of the curser to the victim and on their level of trust and interaction. If the curser lives in Florida and the cursed in New York, for example, a cursing powder that administers its evils through direct contact is not likely to be the culprit. Similarly, if the suspected curser happens to be the victim’s own hairdresser, the possibility of the curse including a piece of the victim’s hair as a key ingredient might be worth considering.

Attempt to discern some of the more likely characteristics of the curse or other spell you’re hoping to break, then choose one or more cursebreaking techniques to incorporate into your countermagick. If you don’t have any information about the curse or its caster and you weren’t able to intuit any best guesses, that’s okay—just be sure to apply the principle of covering all the bases, and include a broad and inclusive range of possibilities whenever your countercharm design makes reference to the original spell. For example, if you can’t say for sure whether you are breaking a curse cast into a doll, or a curse cast into a conjure bag, or a curse cast into something else entirely, use sweeping descriptions such as “I break the curse that was put into any medium,” “I break the curse that was cast in the daytime,” or “I break the curse that was cast in the nighttime.” By using broad, generalized descriptions of the original spell or curse that are bound to cover all the bases in identifying whatever it is that ails you, you have a way to give your countermagick a boost. Just as identifying a curse victim by name adds power and direction to a malicious spell, so too can calling out a curse with apt description work to hinder and undo the magick.

Identifying the magick you wish to break is just one aspect of strategy. You’ll also need to apply reflection, overpowering, or other cursebreaking techniques in order to undo the original charm. Remember that it might be wise to try making amends as a first line of cursebreaking magick. If making amends fails to break the spell, or is not appropriate for the situation, choose the method or methods that most appeal to you.

Now, if you are able to intuit a bit about the curse or spell you’re breaking, you’ll have a point of guidance in selecting your best techniques of countermagick. For instance, if you have good reason to suspect that a curse or undesired spell is housed within an object, and you also have a good idea of where to find that object, then move along your countermagick efforts with a search-and-destroy mission to seek out and smash the haunted item. Likewise, if you feel you know who it was that cast a particular curse you’re hoping to thwart, and you have safe access to this person, you might consider incorporating body-derived ingredients in your cursebreaking formula—it’s fairly easy to find a loose hair or two on a person’s unattended jacket or coat, or even a bit of lipstick smeared on the rim of a cup. You might burn, heat, boil, or bury such artifacts in order to destroy the curse through sympathetic action. Remember too that ingredients derived from the body of the curse victim can also be used to affect a healing; you might cleanse the afflicted person in running water, or place their fingernail clippings in a dish of purifying salt and sage.