Talking about magic is still a bit of a tricky subject in our world that is so driven by technology. It has, however, become perfectly acceptable to say (virtually, via technology) to a friend in stress, or ill health, “I’m sending positive energy your way!” There does seem to be a belief that this imagined energy can somehow help the friend despite no actual evidence. I’d argue that there is evidence, because most times, the friend appreciates these imaginary positive waves and they really do feel magically better. If only because they know that they are in people’s thoughts. Negative energy or
curses though…that can be a downright taboo subject, even for people who believe in magic, cast magic spells under the full moon, and call themselves witches.
An It Harm None vs. “Don’t Be A Jerk”
I think part of the taboo comes from the pervasive Wiccan Rede: An It Harm None. This touches a cord in even the Non-Wiccan, magical practitioner. Talking about negative energy is frowned upon.
I get that avoiding harming people is a good general guideline to go by. I’m not Wiccan, however my son and I have our own version of the Rede. We say, “Don’t be a jerk.” To elaborate, this means, don’t be jerk because you’re afraid of getting in trouble or because you are expecting something in return; but be helpful, be kind, because it is the
right thing to do. That is how I try to live my life.
But sometimes no matter how helpful and kind I am, I find that some people are still jerks to me. Repeated interactions from the same jerks can be so demoralizing that I’ve lost myself in depression over it. I’ve known too many people who have committed suicide because of the jerks in their lives. I can appreciate their pain, because it feels hopeless. A jerk isn’t necessarily a criminal. You can’t take someone to court for emotional abuse. So, you just have to endure it - over and over again. Because the reality is, sometimes you can’t escape your jerk.
Let’s say you’re married to a jerk. He doesn’t hit you. He does, however, criticize your cooking. You could be a size 2 in clothing, and he will tell you that you are fat. He tells you that you’re lousy in bed. He compares you to every other woman he knows. Nothing you ever do is ever good enough, ever.
What are your options here? You could take a cooking class. You could hit the gym hard. You could read every single sexual help book you can find and watch a lot of porn. You could listen to the comparisons to other women, treat it like feedback – start dressing like his young coworker, dye your hair the same color as his boss, take up tennis like his sister…or you could get divorced.
In my case, I was served the divorce papers.
You would think that my suffering would have diminished, because my former husband made it expressly clear that he was leaving me; but it was only the beginning. The parenting agreement was refused because it didn’t have a motorcycle clause (for the record, I have never, nor will I ever, own a motorcycle. I don’t have any intention of ever riding on one, so why on earth would I place my toddler on one?). I asked for absolutely nothing, but the divorce dragged on in ugly battles for over a year.
He called me for every single little thing. It was driving me so crazy, I went to see a therapist. She suggested that I not answer, then listen to the voice mail, decide on a course of action, and then calmly respond – preferably by text. Except there were no voice mails. He would call me on my cellphone and if I didn’t answer, he immediately called the hardline phone. If I didn’t answer that he then would call my babysitter, demanding to know where I was, where our son was, and why I was such an irresponsible and stupid mother.
Any engagement with him would end with him screaming at me two inches from my face.
But he never once hit me. And he never threatened to hit me. There was absolutely
nothing to take to the courts. And he was, legally, a decent father. He was gainfully employed, he provided for his son, had a better family support system than I did, and he was under no circumstances a physical abuser. But more importantly, my son loved his father. He loved him, period. And I was hell bound and determined to make sure my son had a relationship with his father if that’s what my son wanted. Hell bound would be a pretty precise word for what I was going through to accomplish that though. It got so bad, I almost gave up on joint custody, and handed over my son. But my former husband didn’t want to be a full-time parent. And more importantly, my son loved me too, and he needed me just as much as his father…maybe more…
So, what could I do? I could not escape this jerk. There was no justice available to me. Well, for nearly nine years I did nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I pleaded. I attempted to explain. I repeatedly promised to do better. I did a lot of crying. And I believed that I was a worthless person. I believed that I was such a terrible wife that I had been discarded and replaced. I believed that I was a terrible mother and my son may in fact be better off without me. And I lost a great deal of myself for nine years.
One day after a co-worker witnessed me take a phone call that he couldn’t help over hearing for all the shouting on the other end; he asked me, “Why do you let him do that to you?”
And I said, “I’ve endured it for nine years, I can take it for another nine.”
My co-worker did not respond, but the horror on his face truly shocked me. My world was not normal, and something needed to change. This was not living, it was dying, every day, for the rest of my life.
But there was no court of law that could help me. What could I do? I did the only thing I could, I wrote a curse. Instead of positive energy, I used all nine years of negative energy and I mixed in all of the trauma from the eight years of marriage, and I sent the whole bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, dark and foul brew to my former husband via virtual express. For the record, no newts lost any eyes in the making of this curse. I did, however, know exactly what I was doing. There was nothing kind or helpful about that energy. Imaginary or not, it was absolutely harmful. I had very personal experience with precisely how harmful that energy was.
Garbage In, Garbage Out
I think another part to the taboo concerning curses is that in magic, it is believed that what comes around goes around. Or in technology terminology: garbage in, garbage out. People often don’t need to be cursed with magic by someone else, because they generally do such a fine job of cursing themselves. If you’re a jerk, the people around you will eventually figure that out, and they will handle you accordingly. Or, much more dastardly still, if you are a jerk, there will always be a part of you that assumes everyone is a jerk – someone who wants to harm others, and only doesn’t because they might get in trouble. What a truly terrible life to live. It is terrible yes, but a jerk, in my experience, is not very likely to suddenly see the light and stop being a jerk.
“Don’t be a jerk,” for me just sums up things so much more succinctly than “An it harm none.” Because the reality is, we can cause a lot of harm with our most helpful and kind intentions. “An it harm none,” does not leave much room for self-defense either. “Don’t be a jerk,” implies that if someone hits you, you don't sit there and patiently let them hit you again, you hit them back and harder.
When I read Charles Godfrey Leland’s
Aradia or The Gospel of Witches, I got the impression that Mr. Leland believed that witches were people without legal status or real power and that their witchcraft was a way for them to believe they had some control (without affecting any real change in the balance of power). I would agree that magic, and especially curses, can come from the person who is suffering an egregious imbalance of control and power. Magic may be imaginary, but I would argue that one can experience very tangible results.
The Role of “The Victim”
When I finally launched my curse, one of the results I experienced was that I stopped being “the victim.” That is a very real change in the position of power. A victim is trapped in a state of helplessness, always waiting for someone to save her. There is no hope for the victim, because a victim’s only option is nothing. Do nothing. My curse was
something. I was giving myself another option over helplessness. Imaginary or not, that new found status and balance correction did wonders for my mental health.
However, there are a few things, even my very adept therapist found a bit hard to explain.
After I held my ritual to unleash my curse, the phone calls from my son’s father stopped. They just stopped out of the blue. Now, if he has a question, he sends me a short text. He calls occasionally but his tone is calm and respectful. My son’s step-mother invited me to share their Christmas Eve dinner with them last year. I accepted and it was actually quite pleasant. My son continues to enjoy his relationship with his father and he is happy, thriving and well-adjusted.
Something else quite miraculous happened too. I started thriving as well. I started singing, and writing, and laughing…I hadn’t done any of that in nine years.
Part of my curse was that my former husband would not get what he wanted most; but he has a lovely condo, a charming wife, a very cute new baby, and he’s still gainfully employed and doing well. And I'm glad about that, because my son is happy and I really kind of like my son's step-mom. It dawned on me though, that maybe what my ex-husband wanted most, was to be a jerk to me and for me to suffer for it. That, I think is, much scarier than me using a curse.
Beyond short briefings before parent-teacher conferences, I don’t think about my former husband much anymore. Truth be told, I wish I had cursed him sooner, we all would have been better for it.
If you enjoyed this post you may also like
