I’ve had a witch problem for over a year. And I’m no slouch in the magical throwdown
category. Of course, every magical
person says that—you better watch out or I’ll put the Infernal Dark Djinn
Whammy on Yo Ass or whatever sounds sufficiently intimidating or evil. But there are three reasons the IDDW
doesn’t often go to the ass of the target as intended: (1) you are governed by
the magic you do; (2) it’s human nature not to want to hurt people; and (3)
lethal workings have to be in line with the target’s personal Wyrd or they “ricochet.” Let’s break this down and then I’ll tell you
about my own, sad, perverse, longstanding witch-itis. This is very much from my "unverified personal gnosis," by the way.
The fear of magical “blowback” is stupid and emanates from the slave mentality of most Right Hand Path religions. You are not a pathetic cretin answering to some divine levelling principle. The magic you do won’t seek a cruel “balance” by blowing back in your face if you do something selfish or aggressive. Gerald Gardner’s “Law of Threefold Return” is a similar mental prison for insecure practitioners and becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy. But it’s just a Judeo-Christian-esque myth.
These magical payback myths would be more realistic if there were some insanely tedious divine judge (Yahweh, perhaps? Take note of the Christian guilt-morality embedded in this way of thinking), noting down every little transgression perpetrated with magical energy. If that were true, divine payback would be a bit more believable. But if you look around, you’ll see this certainly isn’t the case. There is no justice in this world, magical or otherwise, but what we forge with human will and a human sense of fairness. Humans make justice the same way they make laws—because they feel it’s right. Nature simply provides a mechanistic forum where such things are possible, no petty divine judge necessary.
Still, there is something a bit more fundamental, a bit more rooted, a bit less Christian, that we have to consider when we do any kind of magical work. In order to perform a working, we have to be completely engaged with the intent and filled up with the energy. We have to create a magical change in ourselves, in our minds and emotions, before we expect that change to resonate somewhere outside of us in the physical world. Every magical working starts with names, images, and often physical symbols. All of those things first create a shift in the consciousness of the magician. Then, sympathetically, there is a corresponding shift in what those names, images, and physical symbols reference out in the world.
If I make a doll baby (a “poppet”) of Jim and one of Janelle and tie them together, face to face, then put them in a box with rose petals and sprinkle champagne over them and call down the blessings of Aphrodite, what have I done? I’ve used symbols to create a kind of representational love moment in my own perceptual field focused on these two targets. That resonance begins in me and then goes beyond me, hopefully encompassing Jim and Janelle, bringing them together in a “love vibration,” for lack of a better way to say it.
Now let’s apply this model to curses. If Bob did me wrong and I want to curse him, maybe I create symbolism, use invocations, and employ magical materia in line with that intent, creating a symbolic death moment in my perceptual field focused on Bob getting what he deserves. It still begins in me. And that’s where I have to be very careful and remember Anton LaVey’s warning in the Satanic Bible: “Be certain you do not care if the intended victim lives or dies, before you throw your curse, and having caused their destruction, revel, rather than feel remorse.” Think about it: I’ve raised a lot of energy suffused with destructive intent. I want to release it completely at my target. If I feel guilt or remorse, I’m holding onto it. I’m keeping some of it inside me. That’s when and how it seems to “blow back.” The truth is it never left in the first place because I didn’t know how to let it go.
So we’re governed by the magic we do. We have to obey its laws if we want it to obey us. Magic is not arbitrary. Believe it or not, its dynamics do operate according to a few general and consistent principles, the most foundational of which is: do not raise something you cannot put down. Understand how to raise energy, contain it, send it forth, and let it work or don’t even start. Respect magic and learn its ins and outs. Otherwise, as Uncle Anton puts it, “You will see a reversal of your desires which will harm rather than help you.”
It’s Human Nature Not to Want to Hurt People
Criminology texts tell us that even hardened criminals will hesitate before murdering someone. It’s commonly known that highly trained Marines in Viet Nam would subconsciously fire above the heads of the enemy, not wanting to kill them, even when the enemy soldiers were attacking. Something in the human spirit deeply dislikes causing harm. This is not to say that people are fundamentally “good,” whatever that means. The power of instinctual self-preservation cannot be denied. Nevertheless, if we could resolve our differences and remain safe, without having to hurt the other person, most of us would take that option. It’s no different with magic. We might be angry, but part of us still doesn’t want to cause harm.
Back to Uncle Anton: “Be certain you do not care if the intended victim lives or dies.” That is a difficult rule to follow if you have deep, lingering reservations. Of course, you must care—enough to perform a conjuration of destruction in the first place! But the key is to put all that emotion, all that concern, into the magic itself until you’re empty. Only then will it safely work. And so a large part of this “psychodrama” is getting beyond both guilt and “lust of result,” arriving at a place of complete equanimity.
That is not easy. I suspect it’s also the reason why magic (at least this common style of it) doesn’t work for some people. They can’t get to that place of inner poise and indifference. They’re not willing (or they don’t know how) to pour everything into the magical working and completely fill that symbolic container. They can’t empty themselves and then walk away.
Lethal Workings Have to be in Line with the Target’s Personal Wyrd or They “Ricochet”
“Ricochet” doesn’t mean “Threefold Return” or “blowback.” It means the magic can have an untended or unpredictable result. Everyone has a “Wyrd” or a template given to them. We can strongly affirm free will and still say “character is destiny” or “as you think, so shall it be.” Wyrd is like that. It’s a pattern, a map of your life that comes from deep inside, maybe from your DNA or bloodlines. You can chose to follow it or not, depending on the choices you make. Mystics and magi will spend a long time trying to determine their personal Wyrd. But that’s mostly a subject for a different discussion. What’s important here is that magic can’t change the Wyrd of someone else. It can only cause change where the target’s Wyrd allows for it. This is especially true with curses.
Death magic is powerful. But if it’s not in someone’s Wyrd to die by your curse, your magic won’t cause the target's death. Of course, the energy will still have to go somewhere. So it might hit someone close to your target (who’s Wyrd does admit a death curse) or someone / something else. One of the great ironies in destruction magic is that those who we often feel deserve to suffer are people being shielded by their particular Wyrds. If you want an example of this, try to curse a world leader whose Wyrd is bound up with that of his country. It’s like throwing a rock at a castle wall.
Professionals will always do a divination before any magic aimed at an individual to determine whether it’s “justified” (whether it accords with the target’s personal Wyrd or not). This is generally a very good idea.
My Witch-itis
I won’t get into too many details because I don’t want this blog to be caught up in the energy going back and forth. In truth, I never wanted to be part of a long magical fight. But some witches (and I use the term generally and loosely), especially emotionally immature ones, think they’re a lot more powerful than they actually are. Add to that my own dislike for causing harm. And we have a situation where they throw magical rocks at me because they mistakenly blame me for things I never did; I get annoyed and bind them; they’re silent for the duration of the binding; and then the rock throwing starts up once more—because they weren’t sensitive enough to realize they’d been bound (i.e. that I was aware of what they were doing).
When it comes to the secret world of magical people, one magician can be very wrong about another. You can incorrectly assume someone’s harming you or working against you—because you're picking up a negative psychic charge from them or you intensly dislike them and it's making you paranoid. This is why reliable divination is so necessary. You can't always trust your psychism and empathy when you feel attacked.
Unfortunately, if all you’ve ever cared about is making people dance with your mediocre sorcery and hexing them when you feel insecure, you probably haven’t spent the time to learn an oracular method. The witch giving me witch-itis is just like that. And now she has me doing divinations about countermeasures stronger than merely binding her, maybe even the Infernal Dark Djinn Whammy. I wish we could all just get along. But if I’ve learned anything about people, all people, not just magicians and witches, it’s that we all can’t.