Romani’s And The Effective Curse
Dr Raven Dolick M.s.D.
May 28, 2015
Ok, ok, ok, I get it Dark Magick isn't evil. Magick has no color but I want to go beyond that with Effective Curse.
Now just because your panties are all wet cause lil' miss tootoo pissed you off doesn't mean you can have the ability to effectively curse. To bend the will of the universe it takes days of application and complex ritual. But depending on INvolvement tonight we may go there.
To start here is a 61 item lists that every Romani engaging in familia' curse must master.
Attitudes of the Curse
Black magic is the belief of practices of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers. This type of magic is invoked when wishing to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its uses, commonly in a ritualistic setting; the argument of "magic having no color, and it is merely the application and use by its user," backs the claim that not everything termed as "black magic" has malevolent intentions behind it, and some would consider it to have beneficial and benevolent uses. These uses could include killing diseases or pests.
Practitioners who use magic in this way argue that the effect itself is malevolent by causing death to insects (as in the above example), but as an indirect consequence of black magic, good can be a result, such as in the form of fewer pests around. In this school of thought, there is no separation between benevolent and malevolent magic as there is no universal morality against which magic can be measured. A rather different view on Black Magic is used in the system of Chaos Magic. In this branch of occult practice, spells sometimes correspond to colors, depending on the supposed effect (i.e., red-magic, which is magic concerned with combat, such as low-level curses). Black Magic, according to Chaos Magic, corresponds to magic that is performed around the themes of death, separation, severance and entropy. This can refer to powerful curses meant to bring the strongest effect, spells to sever emotional ties to objects or people, and so on.
In fiction, black magic will quite frequently be synonymous with evil, such is the case in Rosemary's Baby, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (referred to as the dark arts in the novels), and Shakespeare's Macbeth, with many other examples existing. In many popular video games, such as Final Fantasy, white and black magic is simply used to distinguish between healing/defensive spells (such as a "cure") and offensive/elemental spells (such as "fire") respectively and does not carry an inherent good or evil connotation.
Black and white magic differences
The differences between what is considered black magic and white magic are debatable, though generally can fall within the following broad categories:
•The All as One theory states that all forms of magic are evil, irrespective of color (white or black). This view is generally associated with Satanism. People that maintain this opinion include those belonging to most branches of Christianity
•The Dark Doctrine theory states that black magic is the power of darkness, usually seen from a Left-Hand Path point of view. This may or may not contrast with white magic, depending on the user's acceptance of dualism.
•The Formal Differences theory states that the forms and components of black magic are not the same due to the different aims or interests of those casting harmful spells than those of white. Harmful spell-casting tends to include symbolism that seems hazardous or harmful to human beings, such as sharp, pointed, prickly, caustic, and hot element(s) combined with very personal objects from the spell's target (their hair, blood, mementos, etc.). This distinction can primarily be observed in folk magic but pertains to other types of magic also.
•The No Connection theory states that both black and white magic is completely different from the base up and are accomplished uniquely, even if they achieve similar effects. This stance is often presented in fiction, and as a result, the two classes of magic-users are portrayed as being both ideologically and diametrically opposed. In The Lord of the Rings, the Elves find it strange that Humans and Hobbits can even use a single word, "magic", which refers to both forms, as Elves's tongues regard them also linguistically as completely separate and unrelated.
•The Separate but Equal theory states that black and white magic are exactly the same things, differentiated only by their end goals and intent. According to this theory, the same spell could be either white or black (see gray magic); its nature is determined by the end result of the spell. The majority of religions follow this belief, as does the remainder of fiction that does not follow the No Connection theory. By this interpretation, even such spells commonly seen as good can be misused, so healing could be used to regenerate the body to the point of cancer, for instance.
Black magic practices
Within common mainstream religion, such as Christianity and The Old Religion of Paganism to an extent, there are certain taboos surrounding forms of magic. Although culture may place certain forms of magic in one side or another of this spectrum, there are in fact some cultural universals about free will,
• True name spells - the theory that knowing a person's true name allows control over that person, making this wrong for the same reason. This can also be used as a connection to the other person, or to free them from another's a compulsion, so it is in the grey area,
• Immortality - from a Taoist perspective, life is finite, and wishing to live beyond one's natural span is not with the flow of nature. Beyond this, there is a major issue with immortality. Because of the need to test the results, the subjects must be killed. Even a spell to extend life may not be entirely good, especially if it draws life energy from another to sustain the spell,
• Necromancy - for purposes of usage, this is defined not as general black magic, but as any magic having to do with death itself, either through divination of entrails, or the act of raising the dead body, as opposed to resurrection or CPR,
• Curses/Hexes - a curse can be as simple as wishing something bad would happen to another, to a complex ritual.
Black magic as part of religion
Many rituals performed by black magic practitioners mentioned on television are mentioned as having aspects similar to Christianity though in a perverted form, and it appears to be universally based upon a religion, but using perverted rituals to suit the needs of the user. For example, black magic users might invert a pentacle. Likewise, corrupted rites or sacrifices may substitute blood or feces for the water or wine. Seen from this perspective, the distinction between black and white magic would be simple,
•White magic would be the original rituals, which embody the tenets of the religion in question. For Buddhism or Hinduism, this might be long and complex prayer sutras. Taoist and Shinto magic would largely be based upon fertility and nature rituals.
•Black magic would be corruption or misuse of such above rituals, using them to self-serving or destructive ends without regard for the cultural morals of the religion. This could be something such as making poppets to cause harm.
Part 2
62 Doorways of the Curse
However, you choose to use them, be wise, and be warned. "If you wish evil to someone, the evil will come to you." That being said, here they are:
1. If you tie knots in the willow, you can slay a distant enemy.
2. If you would bring your enemy to death, pour poison in his footprints.
3. If you feel fear when you know you are safe, it will prove that when you are in danger you won't think of fear.
4. An image made of wax, named after an enemy or a person whom you wish ill, stuck full of pins and set before the fire, will cause the person named to pine away as the wax melts.
5. Indians charm a piece of worsted and tie it across the path of an enemy or across the door so that when he passes it, it will surely bring death upon himself.
6. The Devonshire peasant hangs in his chimney-corner a pig's head stuck with thorns, believing that so doing his enemy will be pierced in like manner.
7. A charm to be addressed to the spirit of the three winds: "Spirit of the three winds, hear me when I call. Go and make So-and-So go crazy!"
8. Old Highlanders will still make the "deosil" around those whom they wish well. To go around a person in an opposite direction to the sun, is an evil incantation and brings ill-fortune.
9. Old women frequently cut a turf a foot long which their enemy has recently trodden upon, and hang it up in the chimney, to cause their enemy to wither away.
10. The Tamils (a race of Southern India and Ceylon) believe that they can kill an enemy at a distance by a ceremony with the skull of a child.
11. If you make a cut on the wall of the house of an enemy, the members of his household will quarrel. (India.)
12. Take six new pins and seven needles, stick point to point in a piece of new cloth and place it under the doorstep of your enemy; when he or she walks over it, they will lose the use of their legs.
13. The following is a Finnish superstition: The image of an absent person is placed in a vessel of water and a shot aimed at it, thereby wounding or slaying a hated person at many miles' distance.
14. If you can get a few strands of your enemy's hair, bore a hole in a tree, put them in, and plug up the hole; you can thus give him a headache that cannot be relieved until his hair is taken out of the tree.
15. To make trouble for an enemy, take some hair from the back of a snarling, yelping cur, some from a black cat, put them into a bottle with a tablespoonful of gunpowder, fill the bottle with water from a running brook, and sprinkle it in the form of three crosses on his doorstep, one at each end, and one in the middle.
16. The Negroes think that in order to make an evil charm effectual, they must sacrifice something. In accordance with this idea, cake, candy, or small coins are scattered by those who place the charm. The articles thrown away must be placed where wanted, and they must be abandoned without a backward glance.
17. It is a true charm from the old country, that if you are tired of anyone, you can get rid of that person by taking a bushel of dry peas saying a wish for everyone you take out, as from day to day you take out some, and as they go, he will waste and go to his grave.
18. To cause the death of an enemy, mold a heart of wax and stick pins in it till it breaks. Another charm is to hold the waxen heart before a slow fire. As it melts, the life of the enemy will depart.
19. To harm an enemy, take salt and pepper and put them into his clothing or his house, and say: "I put this pepper on you, And this salt thereto. That peace and happiness you may never know." He will soon be miserable.
20. A sheaf of corn is sometimes buried with a certain dedication to Satan, in the belief that as the corn rots in the ground, so will the person wither away who is under your curse when you bury the corn.
21. Another form of malediction is to bury a lighted candle by night in a churchyard, with certain weird ceremonies.
22. The following recipe for avenging oneself on one's enemies is given by Kunn, in Westphalia: "When the new moon falls on a Tuesday, go out before daybreak to a stake selected beforehand, turn to the east and say: 'Stick, I grasp thee in the name of the Trinity!' Take thy knife and say: 'Stick, I cut thee in the name of the Trinity, that thou mayest obey me and chastise anyone whose name I mention.' Then peel the stick in two places to enable thee to carve these words: 'Abia, obia, sabis,' lay a smock-frock on thy threshold and strike it hard with the stick, at the same time naming the person who is to be beaten. Though he is many miles away, he will suffer as much as if he were on the spot." All this distinctly depends upon the moon is new on a Tuesday.
23. To make one die for sleep, dissolve lard, and put it in their drink.
24. You can cast a malefic spell on your enemy by repeating the Lord's Prayer backward, all the time wishing some evil upon him.
25. In Southern Italy, the hearts of onions are scorched over a fire in the name of the victim, to burn up their hearts.
26. There is a superstition among the natives of Natal that if the plant called Isanywane is placed on a man's heart; it will cause him to become generally disliked.
27. Pythagoras says: "That if a flame is put into the skull of a murderer, and the name of your enemy written therein, it will strike the person whose name is so written with fear and trembling, and he will speedily seek your forgiveness and become a steadfast friend."
28."If you wish to harm anybody, read the 107th, 108th and 109th Psalm at 8, 11 and 3 o'clock, and you will then have much power over them." (Elworthy, "The Evil Eye.")
29. The Greeks believed that to measure exactly the height and circumference of the body of an enemy, would cause him to languish and fall away, or die very soon.
30. If a man hates another and will repeat the 109th Psalm every morning and evening for a year, his enemy will be dead; but if he misses a single time, he will die himself.
31. In Bombay, if one man puts salt into another man's hand, it makes them sworn enemies for life.
32. Bury a dead man's hair under the threshold of an enemy, and he will soon be troubled with ague.
33. To repeat certain formulas among the Hindus, is supposed to bring injury upon an enemy.
34. In West Cork, people spit on the ground in front of anyone whom they wish to have bad luck.
35. Never let your enemy get hold of your picture. If he should keep it turned upside down or should throw it in the water, you would sicken and die or meet with an accident.
36. If you shoot the picture of an enemy with a silver bullet, you will cause the death of your enemy.
37. In Germany, old women cut out a turf a foot long on which an enemy had trod, and hung it up in the chimney, in the belief that the enemy would shrivel up just as the turf did, and in the end, die a lingering death.
38. When a man of one of the Indian tribes cannot get what he wants, or if he thinks he has been unjustly treated, he will cut or wound himself, or perhaps take the life of some member of his family, in order that the blood of the victim may rest upon the head of the oppressor.
39. If you wish to bring ill luck to a neighbor, take nine pins, nine nails, and nine needles, boil them in a quart of water, put it in a bottle, and hide it under or in their fireplace, and the family will always have a sickness. (Negro superstition.)
40. The Negroes "conjure" by obtaining an article belonging to another, boiling it, no matter what it may be, in lye with a rabbit's foot, and a bunch of hair cut from the left ear of a female opossum. They say terrible headaches and the like can be inflicted in this way.
41. The American Indians believe that anyone who possesses a lock of their hair or other thing related to their person will have power over them for evil.
42. When the bread is taken from the oven, a few red hot coals or cinders are thrown into the oven by the Magyars, in the belief that it is as good as throwing them down one's enemy's throat. Thus, if one's enemy would partake of that bread, he would come to grief.
43. Throw a pebble upon which your enemy's name is inscribed, together with a pin, into the well of St. Elian, in Wales, as an offering to the well, and a curse will come upon the one who bears the name, and in all probability, he will pine away and die.
44.To cause an enemy ill-luck, make a heap of stones, cursing him as many times as there are stones, and as every Christian must add at least a pebble as he passes by, his woes and his misfortunes will constantly increase. (Greece.)
45. Not many years ago, there was a system of cursing in common vogue in Fermanagh with tenants who had been given the notice to quit. This was: they collected, from all over their farms, stones. These they brought home, and having put lighted coal in the fireplace, they heaped the stones on it as if they had been sods of turf. They then knelt down on the hearthstone and prayed that as long as the stones remained unburnt every conceivable curse might light on their landlord, his children, and their children to all generations. To prevent the stones by any possibility of being burnt, as soon as they had finished cursing, they took the stones and scattered them far and wide over the whole country. Many of the former families of the county are said now to have disappeared on account of being thus cursed.
46. The great antiquity of sympathetic magic, by which a person is destroyed if an image of him is made and then ruined again, is shown by the discovery at Thebes of a small clay figure of a man tied to a papyrus scroll, evidently to compass the death of the person described therein. This figure and papyrus are now in the Ashmolean Museum.
47. A South Sea Islander persisted in saying he was very ill because his enemies, the Happahs, had stolen a lock of his hair and buried it in a leaf of plantain to kill him. He had offered the Happahs the greater part of his property if they would bring back his hair and the leaf, for otherwise, he was sure to die.
48. It is a widespread belief that one can injure another person by stepping upon his or her shadow. Any injury done to the shadow would have the same effect upon its owner. To cause an enemy's death, it is merely necessary to take his shadow away from him entirely.
49. Anciently, a small bunch of feathers placed in a person's path was -thought, in Jamaica, to give them a curse. Any piece of coffin furniture hung over the door was also capable of cursing the inmates of the house.
50. Put ashes from yellow stamped paper, together with ashes from the temple, on your enemy, and he will be sure to be very sick soon. (China.)
51. The head of a dog and the head of a buffalo, stamped on paper, the paper burned and the ashes collected and mixed with sacred ashes, is also used to make an enemy die if it can be got into the tea he drinks.
52. Lisiansky, in his "Voyage Round the World," gives us an account of a religious sect in the Sandwich Islands who arrogate to themselves the power to pray for people to death. Whoever incurs their displeasure receives notice that the "homicide litany" is about to begin. Such are the effects of superstition and imagination that the notice alone is frequently sufficient with these weak people to make them waste away with fear, or else go mad and commit suicide.
53. The Finnish superstition of producing an absent person in the form of an image in a vessel of water and then shooting it, and thereby wounding or slaying the absent enemy, is believed to be efficacious at a hundred miles distance.
54. It was at the instigation of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester (for which she was imprisoned), that a figure made of wax was used to represent King Henry VI., the intention being for his person to be destroyed as the figure was consumed.
55. In British Guiana, it is to this day firmly believed by the negroes and others that injuries inflicted even upon the ordure of persons will be felt by the individual by whom they were left. In Somerset, England, it is also believed that it is very injurious to an infant to burn its excrement. It is thought to produce constipation and colic.
56. In Australia, the sorcerer has different means of attacking an enemy. He can creep near him when he is asleep and bewitch him to death by merely pointing a leg bone of a kangaroo at him; or he can steal away his kidney-fat, where, as the natives believe, a man's power dwells; or he can call in the aid of a malignant demon to strike the poor wretch with his club behind the neck, or he can get a lock of hair and roast it with fat over the fire until its former owner pines away and dies.
57. In Calcutta, a servant having quarreled with his master hung himself in the night in front of the street door, that he might become a devil and haunt the premises. The house was immediately forsaken by its occupants, and, although a large and beautiful edifice, was suffered to go to ruins.
58. The western tribes of Victoria, Australia, believe that if an enemy can get hold of so much as a bone from the meat one has eaten, that he can bring illness upon you. Should anything belonging to an unfriendly tribe be found, it is given to the chief, who preserves it as a means of injuring the enemy. It is loaned to any one of the tribe who wishes to vent his spite against any of the unfriendly tribes. When used as a charm, it is rubbed over with emu-fat mixed with clay, and tied to the point of a spear. This is stuck upright in the ground before the campfire. The company sits watching it, but at such a distance that their shadows cannot fall on it. They keep chanting imprecations on the enemy till the spear-thrower turns around and falls in his direction. Any of these people believe that by getting a bone or other refuse of an enemy, he has the power of life and death over him, be it man, woman, or child. He can kill his enemy by sticking the bone firmly by the fire. No matter how distant, the person will waste away. This same belief is found among the American Indians.
59. It is a common belief among the American Indians that certain medicine men possess the power of taking life by shooting needles, straws, spiders' webs, bullets, and other objects, however distant the person may be at whom they are directed. Thus, in "Cloud Shield's Winter Count for 1824-1825," Cat Owner was killed with a spider-web thrown at him by a Dakota. It reached the heart of the victim from the hand of the man who threw it and caused him to bleed to death from the nose. (Mallory, "Picture Writing of the American Indians.")
60. In the North of Scotland, a peculiar piece of witchcraft is still practiced, where a cowardly, yet deadly, hatred is cherished against a person. A "body of clay," called in GaeKc "Carp Creaah," is made as nearly as possible to resemble the one sought to be injured. This is placed, in great secrecy, in the stream of some shadowy burn. The belief is that as the body of clay wastes away from the action of the water, the victim sought to be cursed will as surely waste away to death.
61. One of the charms formerly most dreaded by the natives of Madagascar was called berika. It is said to be most deadly in its effects, bringing about the death of the victim by bursting his heart, and causing him to vomit immense quantities of blood. Even the possessor of this charm stood in terror of it, and none but the most reckless of charm-dealers and sorcerers would have anything to do with it. It was popularly supposed to have an inherent liking for blood, and that it would at times demand from its owner to be allowed to go forth to destroy some living tiling; at one time it would demand a bullock, at another a sheep or pig, at another a fowl, and occasionally its ferocity would only be satisfied with a human victim. The owner was obliged to comply with its demands and perform the appropriate incantations so as to set it at liberty to proceed on its fatal errand, lest it should turn on him and strike him dead. In fact, the charm was of so uncertain a temper, so to speak, that its owner was never sure of his own life, as it might at any moment turn upon him and destroys him, out of sheer ferocity.
62. Another powerful charm is called manara-mody. It is supposed to follow the person to be injured, and on his arrival home, to bring upon him a serious illness or cause his immediate death. For instance, a person goes down from the interior to the coast for the purpose of trade. In some business transaction, he, unfortunately, excites the anger of a man with whom he is dealing, and who determines to seek revenge. For this purpose, he buys from a charm-dealer the charm called manara-mody. The trader, having finished his business on the coast, starts homeward, all unconscious that his enemy has sent the fatal charm after him to dog his steps through forest and swamp, over hill and valley. At length, he reaches his home, thankful to be once more with his family. But alas! The rejoicing is soon turned to mourning, for the remorseless charm does its work, and smites the victim with a sore disease, or slays him outright at once.
Are you ready to leave the porch?
Dr Raven Dolick M.s.D.
May 28, 2015
Ok, ok, ok, I get it Dark Magick isn't evil. Magick has no color but I want to go beyond that with Effective Curse.
Now just because your panties are all wet cause lil' miss tootoo pissed you off doesn't mean you can have the ability to effectively curse. To bend the will of the universe it takes days of application and complex ritual. But depending on INvolvement tonight we may go there.
To start here is a 61 item lists that every Romani engaging in familia' curse must master.
Attitudes of the Curse
Black magic is the belief of practices of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers. This type of magic is invoked when wishing to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its uses, commonly in a ritualistic setting; the argument of "magic having no color, and it is merely the application and use by its user," backs the claim that not everything termed as "black magic" has malevolent intentions behind it, and some would consider it to have beneficial and benevolent uses. These uses could include killing diseases or pests.
Practitioners who use magic in this way argue that the effect itself is malevolent by causing death to insects (as in the above example), but as an indirect consequence of black magic, good can be a result, such as in the form of fewer pests around. In this school of thought, there is no separation between benevolent and malevolent magic as there is no universal morality against which magic can be measured. A rather different view on Black Magic is used in the system of Chaos Magic. In this branch of occult practice, spells sometimes correspond to colors, depending on the supposed effect (i.e., red-magic, which is magic concerned with combat, such as low-level curses). Black Magic, according to Chaos Magic, corresponds to magic that is performed around the themes of death, separation, severance and entropy. This can refer to powerful curses meant to bring the strongest effect, spells to sever emotional ties to objects or people, and so on.
In fiction, black magic will quite frequently be synonymous with evil, such is the case in Rosemary's Baby, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (referred to as the dark arts in the novels), and Shakespeare's Macbeth, with many other examples existing. In many popular video games, such as Final Fantasy, white and black magic is simply used to distinguish between healing/defensive spells (such as a "cure") and offensive/elemental spells (such as "fire") respectively and does not carry an inherent good or evil connotation.
Black and white magic differences
The differences between what is considered black magic and white magic are debatable, though generally can fall within the following broad categories:
•The All as One theory states that all forms of magic are evil, irrespective of color (white or black). This view is generally associated with Satanism. People that maintain this opinion include those belonging to most branches of Christianity
•The Dark Doctrine theory states that black magic is the power of darkness, usually seen from a Left-Hand Path point of view. This may or may not contrast with white magic, depending on the user's acceptance of dualism.
•The Formal Differences theory states that the forms and components of black magic are not the same due to the different aims or interests of those casting harmful spells than those of white. Harmful spell-casting tends to include symbolism that seems hazardous or harmful to human beings, such as sharp, pointed, prickly, caustic, and hot element(s) combined with very personal objects from the spell's target (their hair, blood, mementos, etc.). This distinction can primarily be observed in folk magic but pertains to other types of magic also.
•The No Connection theory states that both black and white magic is completely different from the base up and are accomplished uniquely, even if they achieve similar effects. This stance is often presented in fiction, and as a result, the two classes of magic-users are portrayed as being both ideologically and diametrically opposed. In The Lord of the Rings, the Elves find it strange that Humans and Hobbits can even use a single word, "magic", which refers to both forms, as Elves's tongues regard them also linguistically as completely separate and unrelated.
•The Separate but Equal theory states that black and white magic are exactly the same things, differentiated only by their end goals and intent. According to this theory, the same spell could be either white or black (see gray magic); its nature is determined by the end result of the spell. The majority of religions follow this belief, as does the remainder of fiction that does not follow the No Connection theory. By this interpretation, even such spells commonly seen as good can be misused, so healing could be used to regenerate the body to the point of cancer, for instance.
Black magic practices
Within common mainstream religion, such as Christianity and The Old Religion of Paganism to an extent, there are certain taboos surrounding forms of magic. Although culture may place certain forms of magic in one side or another of this spectrum, there are in fact some cultural universals about free will,
• True name spells - the theory that knowing a person's true name allows control over that person, making this wrong for the same reason. This can also be used as a connection to the other person, or to free them from another's a compulsion, so it is in the grey area,
• Immortality - from a Taoist perspective, life is finite, and wishing to live beyond one's natural span is not with the flow of nature. Beyond this, there is a major issue with immortality. Because of the need to test the results, the subjects must be killed. Even a spell to extend life may not be entirely good, especially if it draws life energy from another to sustain the spell,
• Necromancy - for purposes of usage, this is defined not as general black magic, but as any magic having to do with death itself, either through divination of entrails, or the act of raising the dead body, as opposed to resurrection or CPR,
• Curses/Hexes - a curse can be as simple as wishing something bad would happen to another, to a complex ritual.
Black magic as part of religion
Many rituals performed by black magic practitioners mentioned on television are mentioned as having aspects similar to Christianity though in a perverted form, and it appears to be universally based upon a religion, but using perverted rituals to suit the needs of the user. For example, black magic users might invert a pentacle. Likewise, corrupted rites or sacrifices may substitute blood or feces for the water or wine. Seen from this perspective, the distinction between black and white magic would be simple,
•White magic would be the original rituals, which embody the tenets of the religion in question. For Buddhism or Hinduism, this might be long and complex prayer sutras. Taoist and Shinto magic would largely be based upon fertility and nature rituals.
•Black magic would be corruption or misuse of such above rituals, using them to self-serving or destructive ends without regard for the cultural morals of the religion. This could be something such as making poppets to cause harm.
Part 2
62 Doorways of the Curse
However, you choose to use them, be wise, and be warned. "If you wish evil to someone, the evil will come to you." That being said, here they are:
1. If you tie knots in the willow, you can slay a distant enemy.
2. If you would bring your enemy to death, pour poison in his footprints.
3. If you feel fear when you know you are safe, it will prove that when you are in danger you won't think of fear.
4. An image made of wax, named after an enemy or a person whom you wish ill, stuck full of pins and set before the fire, will cause the person named to pine away as the wax melts.
5. Indians charm a piece of worsted and tie it across the path of an enemy or across the door so that when he passes it, it will surely bring death upon himself.
6. The Devonshire peasant hangs in his chimney-corner a pig's head stuck with thorns, believing that so doing his enemy will be pierced in like manner.
7. A charm to be addressed to the spirit of the three winds: "Spirit of the three winds, hear me when I call. Go and make So-and-So go crazy!"
8. Old Highlanders will still make the "deosil" around those whom they wish well. To go around a person in an opposite direction to the sun, is an evil incantation and brings ill-fortune.
9. Old women frequently cut a turf a foot long which their enemy has recently trodden upon, and hang it up in the chimney, to cause their enemy to wither away.
10. The Tamils (a race of Southern India and Ceylon) believe that they can kill an enemy at a distance by a ceremony with the skull of a child.
11. If you make a cut on the wall of the house of an enemy, the members of his household will quarrel. (India.)
12. Take six new pins and seven needles, stick point to point in a piece of new cloth and place it under the doorstep of your enemy; when he or she walks over it, they will lose the use of their legs.
13. The following is a Finnish superstition: The image of an absent person is placed in a vessel of water and a shot aimed at it, thereby wounding or slaying a hated person at many miles' distance.
14. If you can get a few strands of your enemy's hair, bore a hole in a tree, put them in, and plug up the hole; you can thus give him a headache that cannot be relieved until his hair is taken out of the tree.
15. To make trouble for an enemy, take some hair from the back of a snarling, yelping cur, some from a black cat, put them into a bottle with a tablespoonful of gunpowder, fill the bottle with water from a running brook, and sprinkle it in the form of three crosses on his doorstep, one at each end, and one in the middle.
16. The Negroes think that in order to make an evil charm effectual, they must sacrifice something. In accordance with this idea, cake, candy, or small coins are scattered by those who place the charm. The articles thrown away must be placed where wanted, and they must be abandoned without a backward glance.
17. It is a true charm from the old country, that if you are tired of anyone, you can get rid of that person by taking a bushel of dry peas saying a wish for everyone you take out, as from day to day you take out some, and as they go, he will waste and go to his grave.
18. To cause the death of an enemy, mold a heart of wax and stick pins in it till it breaks. Another charm is to hold the waxen heart before a slow fire. As it melts, the life of the enemy will depart.
19. To harm an enemy, take salt and pepper and put them into his clothing or his house, and say: "I put this pepper on you, And this salt thereto. That peace and happiness you may never know." He will soon be miserable.
20. A sheaf of corn is sometimes buried with a certain dedication to Satan, in the belief that as the corn rots in the ground, so will the person wither away who is under your curse when you bury the corn.
21. Another form of malediction is to bury a lighted candle by night in a churchyard, with certain weird ceremonies.
22. The following recipe for avenging oneself on one's enemies is given by Kunn, in Westphalia: "When the new moon falls on a Tuesday, go out before daybreak to a stake selected beforehand, turn to the east and say: 'Stick, I grasp thee in the name of the Trinity!' Take thy knife and say: 'Stick, I cut thee in the name of the Trinity, that thou mayest obey me and chastise anyone whose name I mention.' Then peel the stick in two places to enable thee to carve these words: 'Abia, obia, sabis,' lay a smock-frock on thy threshold and strike it hard with the stick, at the same time naming the person who is to be beaten. Though he is many miles away, he will suffer as much as if he were on the spot." All this distinctly depends upon the moon is new on a Tuesday.
23. To make one die for sleep, dissolve lard, and put it in their drink.
24. You can cast a malefic spell on your enemy by repeating the Lord's Prayer backward, all the time wishing some evil upon him.
25. In Southern Italy, the hearts of onions are scorched over a fire in the name of the victim, to burn up their hearts.
26. There is a superstition among the natives of Natal that if the plant called Isanywane is placed on a man's heart; it will cause him to become generally disliked.
27. Pythagoras says: "That if a flame is put into the skull of a murderer, and the name of your enemy written therein, it will strike the person whose name is so written with fear and trembling, and he will speedily seek your forgiveness and become a steadfast friend."
28."If you wish to harm anybody, read the 107th, 108th and 109th Psalm at 8, 11 and 3 o'clock, and you will then have much power over them." (Elworthy, "The Evil Eye.")
29. The Greeks believed that to measure exactly the height and circumference of the body of an enemy, would cause him to languish and fall away, or die very soon.
30. If a man hates another and will repeat the 109th Psalm every morning and evening for a year, his enemy will be dead; but if he misses a single time, he will die himself.
31. In Bombay, if one man puts salt into another man's hand, it makes them sworn enemies for life.
32. Bury a dead man's hair under the threshold of an enemy, and he will soon be troubled with ague.
33. To repeat certain formulas among the Hindus, is supposed to bring injury upon an enemy.
34. In West Cork, people spit on the ground in front of anyone whom they wish to have bad luck.
35. Never let your enemy get hold of your picture. If he should keep it turned upside down or should throw it in the water, you would sicken and die or meet with an accident.
36. If you shoot the picture of an enemy with a silver bullet, you will cause the death of your enemy.
37. In Germany, old women cut out a turf a foot long on which an enemy had trod, and hung it up in the chimney, in the belief that the enemy would shrivel up just as the turf did, and in the end, die a lingering death.
38. When a man of one of the Indian tribes cannot get what he wants, or if he thinks he has been unjustly treated, he will cut or wound himself, or perhaps take the life of some member of his family, in order that the blood of the victim may rest upon the head of the oppressor.
39. If you wish to bring ill luck to a neighbor, take nine pins, nine nails, and nine needles, boil them in a quart of water, put it in a bottle, and hide it under or in their fireplace, and the family will always have a sickness. (Negro superstition.)
40. The Negroes "conjure" by obtaining an article belonging to another, boiling it, no matter what it may be, in lye with a rabbit's foot, and a bunch of hair cut from the left ear of a female opossum. They say terrible headaches and the like can be inflicted in this way.
41. The American Indians believe that anyone who possesses a lock of their hair or other thing related to their person will have power over them for evil.
42. When the bread is taken from the oven, a few red hot coals or cinders are thrown into the oven by the Magyars, in the belief that it is as good as throwing them down one's enemy's throat. Thus, if one's enemy would partake of that bread, he would come to grief.
43. Throw a pebble upon which your enemy's name is inscribed, together with a pin, into the well of St. Elian, in Wales, as an offering to the well, and a curse will come upon the one who bears the name, and in all probability, he will pine away and die.
44.To cause an enemy ill-luck, make a heap of stones, cursing him as many times as there are stones, and as every Christian must add at least a pebble as he passes by, his woes and his misfortunes will constantly increase. (Greece.)
45. Not many years ago, there was a system of cursing in common vogue in Fermanagh with tenants who had been given the notice to quit. This was: they collected, from all over their farms, stones. These they brought home, and having put lighted coal in the fireplace, they heaped the stones on it as if they had been sods of turf. They then knelt down on the hearthstone and prayed that as long as the stones remained unburnt every conceivable curse might light on their landlord, his children, and their children to all generations. To prevent the stones by any possibility of being burnt, as soon as they had finished cursing, they took the stones and scattered them far and wide over the whole country. Many of the former families of the county are said now to have disappeared on account of being thus cursed.
46. The great antiquity of sympathetic magic, by which a person is destroyed if an image of him is made and then ruined again, is shown by the discovery at Thebes of a small clay figure of a man tied to a papyrus scroll, evidently to compass the death of the person described therein. This figure and papyrus are now in the Ashmolean Museum.
47. A South Sea Islander persisted in saying he was very ill because his enemies, the Happahs, had stolen a lock of his hair and buried it in a leaf of plantain to kill him. He had offered the Happahs the greater part of his property if they would bring back his hair and the leaf, for otherwise, he was sure to die.
48. It is a widespread belief that one can injure another person by stepping upon his or her shadow. Any injury done to the shadow would have the same effect upon its owner. To cause an enemy's death, it is merely necessary to take his shadow away from him entirely.
49. Anciently, a small bunch of feathers placed in a person's path was -thought, in Jamaica, to give them a curse. Any piece of coffin furniture hung over the door was also capable of cursing the inmates of the house.
50. Put ashes from yellow stamped paper, together with ashes from the temple, on your enemy, and he will be sure to be very sick soon. (China.)
51. The head of a dog and the head of a buffalo, stamped on paper, the paper burned and the ashes collected and mixed with sacred ashes, is also used to make an enemy die if it can be got into the tea he drinks.
52. Lisiansky, in his "Voyage Round the World," gives us an account of a religious sect in the Sandwich Islands who arrogate to themselves the power to pray for people to death. Whoever incurs their displeasure receives notice that the "homicide litany" is about to begin. Such are the effects of superstition and imagination that the notice alone is frequently sufficient with these weak people to make them waste away with fear, or else go mad and commit suicide.
53. The Finnish superstition of producing an absent person in the form of an image in a vessel of water and then shooting it, and thereby wounding or slaying the absent enemy, is believed to be efficacious at a hundred miles distance.
54. It was at the instigation of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester (for which she was imprisoned), that a figure made of wax was used to represent King Henry VI., the intention being for his person to be destroyed as the figure was consumed.
55. In British Guiana, it is to this day firmly believed by the negroes and others that injuries inflicted even upon the ordure of persons will be felt by the individual by whom they were left. In Somerset, England, it is also believed that it is very injurious to an infant to burn its excrement. It is thought to produce constipation and colic.
56. In Australia, the sorcerer has different means of attacking an enemy. He can creep near him when he is asleep and bewitch him to death by merely pointing a leg bone of a kangaroo at him; or he can steal away his kidney-fat, where, as the natives believe, a man's power dwells; or he can call in the aid of a malignant demon to strike the poor wretch with his club behind the neck, or he can get a lock of hair and roast it with fat over the fire until its former owner pines away and dies.
57. In Calcutta, a servant having quarreled with his master hung himself in the night in front of the street door, that he might become a devil and haunt the premises. The house was immediately forsaken by its occupants, and, although a large and beautiful edifice, was suffered to go to ruins.
58. The western tribes of Victoria, Australia, believe that if an enemy can get hold of so much as a bone from the meat one has eaten, that he can bring illness upon you. Should anything belonging to an unfriendly tribe be found, it is given to the chief, who preserves it as a means of injuring the enemy. It is loaned to any one of the tribe who wishes to vent his spite against any of the unfriendly tribes. When used as a charm, it is rubbed over with emu-fat mixed with clay, and tied to the point of a spear. This is stuck upright in the ground before the campfire. The company sits watching it, but at such a distance that their shadows cannot fall on it. They keep chanting imprecations on the enemy till the spear-thrower turns around and falls in his direction. Any of these people believe that by getting a bone or other refuse of an enemy, he has the power of life and death over him, be it man, woman, or child. He can kill his enemy by sticking the bone firmly by the fire. No matter how distant, the person will waste away. This same belief is found among the American Indians.
59. It is a common belief among the American Indians that certain medicine men possess the power of taking life by shooting needles, straws, spiders' webs, bullets, and other objects, however distant the person may be at whom they are directed. Thus, in "Cloud Shield's Winter Count for 1824-1825," Cat Owner was killed with a spider-web thrown at him by a Dakota. It reached the heart of the victim from the hand of the man who threw it and caused him to bleed to death from the nose. (Mallory, "Picture Writing of the American Indians.")
60. In the North of Scotland, a peculiar piece of witchcraft is still practiced, where a cowardly, yet deadly, hatred is cherished against a person. A "body of clay," called in GaeKc "Carp Creaah," is made as nearly as possible to resemble the one sought to be injured. This is placed, in great secrecy, in the stream of some shadowy burn. The belief is that as the body of clay wastes away from the action of the water, the victim sought to be cursed will as surely waste away to death.
61. One of the charms formerly most dreaded by the natives of Madagascar was called berika. It is said to be most deadly in its effects, bringing about the death of the victim by bursting his heart, and causing him to vomit immense quantities of blood. Even the possessor of this charm stood in terror of it, and none but the most reckless of charm-dealers and sorcerers would have anything to do with it. It was popularly supposed to have an inherent liking for blood, and that it would at times demand from its owner to be allowed to go forth to destroy some living tiling; at one time it would demand a bullock, at another a sheep or pig, at another a fowl, and occasionally its ferocity would only be satisfied with a human victim. The owner was obliged to comply with its demands and perform the appropriate incantations so as to set it at liberty to proceed on its fatal errand, lest it should turn on him and strike him dead. In fact, the charm was of so uncertain a temper, so to speak, that its owner was never sure of his own life, as it might at any moment turn upon him and destroys him, out of sheer ferocity.
62. Another powerful charm is called manara-mody. It is supposed to follow the person to be injured, and on his arrival home, to bring upon him a serious illness or cause his immediate death. For instance, a person goes down from the interior to the coast for the purpose of trade. In some business transaction, he, unfortunately, excites the anger of a man with whom he is dealing, and who determines to seek revenge. For this purpose, he buys from a charm-dealer the charm called manara-mody. The trader, having finished his business on the coast, starts homeward, all unconscious that his enemy has sent the fatal charm after him to dog his steps through forest and swamp, over hill and valley. At length, he reaches his home, thankful to be once more with his family. But alas! The rejoicing is soon turned to mourning, for the remorseless charm does its work, and smites the victim with a sore disease, or slays him outright at once.
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