(PBP) The Letter C: Curse

**This post is part of the Pagan Blog Project. Weeks 5 and 6 are the letter C. For more about PBP, check out their website here.**

I want to state from the very beginning that this post is not intended to be informational. It is about my opinion and my personal journey regarding curses.  This post is about what has worked for me and my personal experiences regarding this subject.  In no way am I advocating for or against curses, nor am I attempting to tell anyone who reads this post whether they should or should not curse.

I say this because the subject of curses can be a very touchy subject, and from what I’ve seen online and in person, many people have a strong reaction on both sides of the issue and knee-jerk reactions are common as well.  Debates can turn into arguments can devolve into name-calling and worse.

When I first started learning, I used to believe that cursing was wrong.  I thought it was wrong and bad and a horrible thing to do.  To me, cursing was just as bad as physically assaulting someone, and in my young world, physical assault was never an option.  Therefore, curses were never an option.

Cursing was also heavily linked to the idea of karma.  If I cursed someone, I would incur bad karma.  If I just started cursing willy-nilly and for no reason or little reason, then I would incur really bad karma.

Since then, I’ve altered my opinion.  I’ve grown both in my understanding of metaphysical concepts and in my understanding of the world.  For someone who used to be so heavily against any kind of attack, for any reason, the alteration to a different stance is somewhat jarring.  I can compare myself of Then and myself of Now and see the change in my beliefs.  Now I believe it’s OK to attack in defense of self or others.  Now I believe it’s OK to retaliate when it’s warranted.  I still don’t believe it’s OK to curse or attack anyone without proper cause, however.  That just feels wrong to me.  I refuse to start a fight or attack, but when attacked, by the gods, I will finish it in one way or another (and not always by cursing).

I’ve also had my understanding of karma altered.  I used to see it as a giant scale that weighed and measured a person’s good and bad, and doled out the universal response accordingly.  In all honesty, I used to see it a kind of rule book.  I can now see, after more study of the concept of karma, how that was incorrect.  Karma is not a rulebook.  It’s more like the classical Justice figure on a cosmic scale.  Karma is the blind enforcer of energetic exchanges, but there is no judgment of good or bad.  “Good” and “bad” are human judgments.  Granted, there may be near-universal “bad” actions, such as murder, or near-universal “good” actions, such as charity, but what is good and what is bad is defined by humans.  Karma does not say that we should not commit murder because murder is bad; rather, karma is more a return of your own actions.  But karma won’t step in and stop you.  Karma won’t judge.  Karma will be a blind reflection, a blind enforcer.

So when people say that cursing gives you bad karma, that’s not exactly true– the action is neither good nor bad.  In my understanding, karma is like a giant mirror.  It is true that cursing will cause a reflection of the energy you’ve sent out, but that is true for any action.  What we send out, we receive.  Cursing someone with a bad case of acne or something will cause an equal reflection of that same energy back to you.  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  So if you’re willing to accept the consequences of casting a curse on someone, then by all means, do so.  But I think most people are not aware (or don’t care) about the consequences of cursing, and so curse others blindly whenever they like.  That’s their choice, and I’m hardly one to tell them yea or nay.

I’ve never actually cursed someone.  I have done an action to speed up a person’s karma, but that’s not a curse–I simply asked they receive what they deserved.  There was one time when I had every right to curse someone because they stole a great deal of money from me, but I decided in the end that it wasn’t worth my time or energy (or the consequences) to curse them, I simply moved on from the incident and learned from it for the future.  I didn’t allow them to hold me back or pull me down, and I consider that a much more valuable use of my time and energy.

Now, in opposition to my earlier, younger position about cursing, I would put a curse on someone if they had threatened me or someone I care about, or if they threatened in some way my home or place of business.  At the moment, those are the only circumstances under which I would curse someone.  Those are the incidences I would consider worth the time, energy, and consequences of cursing.  As I grow older, that view may change.  And that’s OK.  Our views are meant to change and adapt as we grow and learn.

Do Pagans/Wiccans Have a Concept of Evil?

I found myself the other week trying to explain a Pagan view of good and bad and evil to a group of non-Pagans. It was a question I hadn’t really even thought of very much myself.  Do Pagans, and more specifically, Wiccans, believe in evil?

I said no.  I don’t think we do.  I’m speaking more in the terms of a Wiccan point of view and manner of belief, but parts of this may apply to the broader Pagan community–forgive me if I happen to generalize at times.  Also, this concept isn’t even fully formed in my own mind, so pardon if I backtrack or even contradict myself in my musings–I’ll try not to, but no guarantees.

I don’t think we believe in evil.  That doesn’t mean we don’t understand the concept, or that we don’t have a concept of evil, but I don’t think we believe in it as a part of our spirituality.  “Evil” here has the meaning of an act that is so far beyond reprehensible that it can barely be conceived.  Evil is an act or a person that causes unimaginable levels of pain or harm to a person, a group, or another living being.  Hitler, for example, is considered evil by a great many people.

The problem (as I see it) with relation to the concept of evil is that many Pagans believe in a natural order.  Death is not evil, but natural.  Harm is not evil, but merely something to be avoided because it’s bad, and it happens.  It’s an accepted fact that we will all be hurt at some point in our lives–the only unknown is how badly we’ll be hurt.  But that doesn’t necessarily equate to evil.  This part seems to be a matter of degree.  A little pain, a little hurt, all falls within the natural order, but great pain and great harm that goes beyond what one person should in theory be able to accomplish falls under “evil.”

As a moral person, I can see that.  But it’s not a part of my spirituality, it’s outside of it.  The concept of evil, to me, doesn’t enter into or come from my beliefs.  The greatest concept of evil that most people either believe in or can understand is the concept of Satan and the Devil.  Many people say that evil comes from Satan.  This understanding of evil comes from the religious beliefs of that person and tends to mean that what is evil is unnatural, created by the Devil, sinful, and/or morally reprehensible.  This idea is directly related to the spirituality in the fact that believers have a model held in front of them saying that if X, Y, or Z is done, then you can’t get into Heaven or be a good person or be a moral person, etc.

Pagans don’t have that.  We believe that everything has its natural place, and you can do pretty much whatever you want to if you’re willing to accept the legal, moral, and/or karmic consequences of the action.  Doesn’t mean the community will like you, or condone what you do if it’s found you are actually causing harm, or tell you you’re wrong.  It just means that spiritually, from a faith standpoint, there is nothing in the belief system that says what action is wrong or evil and what action is not.  From a moral standpoint, I think most of us would agree that murder is wrong.  But from a spiritual standpoint and a Pagan worldview, murder is acceptable if you, the perpetrator, are willing to accept the consequences of your actions knowing that this carries heavy karmic implications (if you believe in karma) and heavy legal and moral implications.  Mind, I’m not saying we advocate murder or anything like that, because we don’t–what I am saying is that the emphasis is placed on making the choice.  If I were in a situation where I had to murder someone because it was the only way I could protect myself or my family, I’d probably do it, and accept the consequences.  Would I go and commit outright murder?  No, because I know that’s wrong.  But nothing in my spiritual beliefs says that it’s wrong or evil to do so–that is coming from a moral standpoint, not a religious one.

What do other Pagans and Wiccans think?  Do you think we have a religious or spiritual basis for the concept of evil, or do we not?  I’m interested in what others think on this subject, so please, weigh in!

Curses, Part 1: What is a Curse?

Guest post by Kyros

Curses can be an unfortunate reality in life.  Sometimes they’re cast on purpose, other times they are purely misapplied intention.  First though, let’s define what a curse is:

A curse is a magickal force working to do harm.

That’s a pretty simple, basic, and open definition.  A curse can be an elaborate spell designed to trap and torture someone in a specific way, or it could just be someone with power who’s angry and directing that anger at you.  A curse can even result from a spell gone badly.  Curses range in power and in effect, from incidental curses that fade in a day to curses that follow a bloodline for generations.

Before we can analyze if we’re being cursed, we need to look at the effects of a curse. To do this, we can divide curses into two distinct categories:

1. Entropy Curses, or the “stuff just goes wrong” kind of curses
2. Targeted Curses

Let’s look at the first type, which is the more common.  Entropy Curses don’t require elaborate rituals or much power to cast, and can be easily cast by accident, or by simply directing bad intentions.  They’re the sort of thing you may suspect if you have a long run of very bad luck, or if a lot of unlikely unfortunate events occur.  Of course, sometimes unfortunate events do occur just in life, and sometimes even in strings, so you’re looking for a very extreme case before you want to consider that it may be a curse.  If your house gets robbed one day, and then two days later all your pet fish die, and the next day your favorite sneakers go missing, only to have your grandmother pass the next week, well, then that’s possibly a curse.  (But do keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be a curse– it could just be plain unmagickal bad luck.)

The second type of curse manifests itself in more interesting ways, and usually requires some pretty specific intentions and some power behind it to work.  Targeted Curses tend to occur in a specific way, and do a specific sort of harm.  Say you’re dating someone magickally talented and you slip up and cheat on them, only to have your next three lovers be unfaithful to you: that would likely be a targeted curse.  Or, say you break up with someone magickally talented in a bad or harsh way, and then start experiencing heart problems: that’s also potentially a targeted curse.  Targeted curses involve ritual, power, and usually are related to the original problem: you broke a lover’s heart so they’re breaking yours, in a physical sense; or you cheated on a lover, so now all your lovers cheat on you.  It’s important to note that they aren’t always related to the original problem–your injured lover could curse knee pain on you, but that’s not the usual case.

It’s important to understand the nature of a curse.  Curses can happen easily, as easily as being cutoff in traffic by a rude driver and directing bad intentions under your breathe, “I hope you get in an accident.”  That’s definitely a form of cursing, and like all cursing, it’s dangerous. Cursing is at heart a tool of hate, and like all tools of hate, magickal or not, they ultimately damage the user more so than the target.  Curses create bad karma for the caster, regardless if the caster feels the curse is “justified”.  More so than just bad karma, curses make you weaker, they wear down your power, and they make you a target for darker things.  When faced with a curse, the worse response is to counter-curse, as that only leads down a road of attrition.

Curses are dangerous, both for the caster and the target.  Curses can be cast easily, and still result in harsh consequences.  There is no “right time” or justified time to cast a curse.  It’s always wrong, plain and simple.  Curses are also complex, and can take many different forms. There isn’t always a rhyme or reason with curses.

Part 2: Detecting Curses
Part 3: Breaking Curses