" Magic works through the practitioner, not around him. This means that anything I call forth tends to pass through me on its way out into the world. Sending a curse, in my experience, is a little like spitting poison from your own mouth. It can be rinsed out... but it changes your spirit ever so slightly."
- Roger J. Horne's Folk Witchcraft: A Guide to Lore, Land, & the Familiar Spirit for the Solitary Practitioner.
Not a judgement just a thought I had quickly reading this very short quote from a book I’ve never read so I am very aware of how out of context this could be.
But whenever I see a sentiment like this, my brain immediately thinks - the person who wrote this is probably white and probably someone of privilege.
I was raised very Christian and knew after i finally escaped that I had so much work to undo all that I learned if I ever wanted to be completely free from ii. It was from there that started peeling the layers of Christianity but also of patriarchy, sexism, and capitalism. How Christianity paved the way for colonialism and white supremacy.
I’ve always been attracted to witchcraft, the occult and other religions so that’s where my spirituality has grown. I am grateful to have such a rich spiritual life again after escaping Christianity. (My craft is tied deeply to nature and daoism)
But whenever I see this idea that curses are like poison to the practitioner just makes me roll my eyes. Good magic versus bad magic. Magic is nature and nature is neutral. Witchcraft is the practice of those who are marginalized, especially in the West.
When those in power, those in privilege continue to exploit and manipulate the world to their favor at the expense of nature and people, should we not act? Use whatever tools we have available to us? Have you not cursed under your breath at those who continue to allow women to die because they could not get access to medical care they needed? To the trans kids who are denied healthcare and basic human rights? To the black kids who keep dying and being sent to prison? To any kid and teacher in any school? To every poor person, no matter how hard they try to get out of poverty?
So to all my dear witches, curses are not things to be feared. This idea to me feels strongly of a holdover of christian morality and a splash of racism. Curses are to be respected and understood and to be used wisely, like fire or a sharp knife.
Whenever someone makes a statement inferring something is an absolute evil sounds like someone who’s never had their existence challenged or their needs denied, have never felt the need to protect themselves. A life that is accepted in the status quo.
Someone who’s never felt the need to curse, to restore balance, to use all the tools given to them.
I 100% agree with you. Horne does appear to come from a place of privilege, but his book is personal gnosis mixed with insight from folkloric traditions.
After the first quote, he follows it by saying: "This can mean an amplification of the dark or sinister parts of your personality or the attraction of dark entities, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's good practice to be sure the curse is worth it, though, and personally, I don't make a habit of using them."
I can see his standpoint and agree that if you focus on vengeance and getting people back all the time, it can harm your psyche/mental health/spirit. So it's more about judging the appropriate time and place for it; sometimes, cursing is an appropriate response and is the only form of justice you are likely to get in an unjust system that favours the rich and privileged.
Does that make sense?
@warm-like-fire you can't just leave golden commentary like this in the tags!
I think we view the concept as consequences differently.
Many people see morality in a vacuum and without realizing it, from a judeo-Christian-western perspective because that is what our culture is dominated by in the West. So for example, we view the concept of the consequence as isolated to the person casting a ‘curse’ and because it is a curse it is intrinsically bad (morally negative) both to the caster and the recipient -even going as so far to imply that there is both good magic and bad magic. And typically who and what decides is good and bad magic? To quote a powerful mage, magic has no morality.
Curses or jinxes or hexes don’t have a unique way of hurting the person casting them because they are inherently a negative thing compared to any magic you practice also blowing up in your face. When you cast something beyond your means or understanding or rooted in fear, a spell no matter what kind of category it belongs to will hurt the caster. This is why context really fucking matters.
Some people (in power) need to get cursed and feel the consequences of their unjust actions. Maybe the universe gave us the ability to even the playing field so we can be cocreators in reckoning.
What privilege people perceive as ‘patterns of negativity’ may very well be the cycles of systemic oppression and the manifestations of that trauma that their privilege blinds them from.
