Curses, Part 2: Detecting Curses

Guest post by Kyros

The trickiest part of dealing with curses isn’t breaking the curse (that part is usually straightforward) but rather detecting if or how we’ve been cursed.  There are a few signs we want to look for to see if we’ve been cursed: the effects of a curse, a person who wants to and is able to curse, and the artifacts of a curse.  It is easy at times to blame unfortunate events on curses, but in assessing if we’re cursed it is important to remain as objective as possible.

The first key to detecting a curse, which is usually the reason people start looking for a curse, are the effects.  As previously mentioned in Part One, there are two key categories for curses: Entropy Curses and Targeted Curses.  Targeted Curses are generally easier to detect, because they tend to be a retributive style of curse: if the target is a cheater and they find themselves being cheated on, well, that hints at a curse.  Again, it definitely doesn’t mean for sure that it’s a curse, but it hints at it.

Entropy Curses tend to be harder to detect.  Bad luck can be just bad luck.  When trying to track down an Entropy Curse, you’re looking for a really unlikely continuous bad run of luck.  Also understand, that’s not definitive, just a likelihood.

The second key to discovering and determining a curse is to consider if we’re likely to be the target of a curse.  Everyone has enemies, but we want to analyze if we have any enemies who are able, or friends who are able.  People have to be able to cast magick in order to cast curses with significant power, or they at least need to have some power in their veins.  As practitioners, we have the ability to detect that (or, we should), and we need to consider who is near us and who has that ability and power.  It’s important to consider motive as well, but we also need to consider that motives are complex and we may not be able to ascertain motive easily.

The final key to discovering and detecting a curse is the presence of artifacts, both physical and magickal.  Casting a curse often involves either taking a personal possession of someone, or placing something near where they are.  When taking something, the more personal it is and the more charged it is with their energy, the more powerfully the curse will cling to them.  If you feel you may have been targeted, look for something important that’s missing. It may be a favorite piece of jewelry, a watch, a cellphone, something that has a lot of emotional ties like a picture, or most importantly, a magickal tool or stone (or a charm).

Alternatively, the caster may have placed something near you.  Ideally (for them) it’s near where you spend most of your time, like your bed, or in your room, but more often this is in your yard.  Look for something out of place; often times this is something iron, like nails, or something disgusting.  A common curse involves a jar filled with bugs, bones, excrement, and nails.  You’re looking for something nasty.

Magickally, curses leave artifacts, usually in the form of negative energy.  To those who are sufficiently sensitive, you may be able to feel this outright.  Others will feel this in the sense of being watched, or something nasty hanging around.  Others may need the usual divinatory methods such as tarot, scrying, or whatever else.

If you have at least two of these key elements, then you are probably cursed, especially if you have the third proposed element.  If you have all three, then you are definitely cursed.  If you have only one element, then you probably want to keep looking, or consider other explanations for what’s been occurring.

Part 1: What is a Curse?

Part 3: Breaking Curses

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

Weekly Deity: Eurus

Eurus was one of the Anemoi, the four Greek gods of wind. He was the east wind and, unlike his brothers, was not associated with a particular season.

Attributes

Like his brothers, Eurus was sometimes shown as a winged man. At other times the winds were shown as winds and not as men. His attribute was that of a vase he held, which spilled water.

Mythology

The east wind was thought to be unlucky, so Eurus was considered an unlucky god because his winds tended to bring blustery wind and storms.  However, he was also thought to be the bringer of warmth and rain.  Because of the sun’s rising in the east, Eurus was also associated in a small way with Helios and the sun.

Not much else is known about this deity.  He appears in a number of ancient texts, but does not appear to have any myths of his own.

Light and Dark Sides

Because very little is known about Eurus, I can’t pin down a Light or Dark side for him.  Without some indicator of his personality, I can’t say whether his unluckiness is due only to the weather patterns or due to his actions in myths.  Since he brings rain, which tends to be a good thing, I tentatively put Eurus just inside the Light side of the spectrum.

Weekly Deity: Tyche

In ancient Greece, Tyche (also spelled Tykhe) was the goddess of luck, chance, providence, and fate.  Her name is the Greek word for luck.  In Rome, her equivalent would have been the goddess Fortuna.

Attributes

Each city after a while developed their own iconic version of Tyche.  Many considered her to be blind, so she appeared blind in statues or drawings.  Others gave her a mural crown (a crown like the walls of a city).  Most of the time she appeared as a younger middle-aged woman in typical Grecian fashion for women, sometimes seated, sometimes standing, etc.  Tyche was also seen to hold a rudder, indicative of her ability to guide the affairs of the world.  She was also shown holding a ball, representing the unsteadiness of fortune.  Often she was shown with Nemesis, who was cautiously considered to be Tyche’s negative side.

Mythology

Tyche was more than a simple goddess of luck.  She was more than the goddess a person could appeal to for good luck–she was also the goddess that governed the fortunes and prosperity of a city.  This elevates her to the status of Important Goddess, though strangely there are few myths about her.  When she was in her aspect of guiding the affairs of the world, she was included among the Moirai, or Fates.  The people of the city could appeal to her not only for their personal fortunes but also for the protection and prosperity of the city, which was important as not all cities had a patron god or goddess to appeal to in the manner that Athens had Athena.

Her genealogy varies; some authors say she is a daughter of Zeus, or Oceanus and Tethys, or Hermes and Aphrodite, etc.  A major temple of hers was in Hellenistic Egypt, in the city of Alexandria, and was called the Tychaeon.  It was purported to be one of the most magnificent temples in the Hellenistic world (probably because of her status as a goddess of luck–the better her temple, the more good luck she might give out).

Tyche was considered to be a fickle and capricious deity.  She could give her good fortunes for a while, but just as easily withdraw them on a whim.  This means that while she may have been a cherished deity at some times, during others she was reviled.

Light and Dark Sides

On the positive side, Tyche could help people.  However, her help was fickle, and this is part of her Dark side.  She was considered a whimsical goddess, which considering her duties with luck and fate, this makes sense.  There likely was no maliciousness when she withdrew her favor–if there were, it probably would have shown up in a myth somewhere, as things of that nature tend to be popular in myths.  Tyche is a middling goddess in a gray area–she helps people by granting her favor, but she also withdraws her favor on a whim and can cause the downfall of an individual’s fortunes or the downfall of an entire city or empire.

Weekly Deity: Sors

Sors (on right)

Sors was a minor Roman god of luck.  Considering what he governs, it’s surprising that Sors isn’t mentioned more often.  Luck tends to be a favorite deity for many cultures, yet Sors seems to take a huge backseat to other luck gods.

Attributes

In the only picture I could find of Sors (above), he is shown as a middle-aged man without a beard, and looks to possibly be well-to-do judging from his clothing.

Mythology

I could find no information on any myths at all for Sors.  Strangely, he doesn’t appear in any myths.  If he had stories of his own or in which he appeared, they haven’t survived or were so minor that they were eaten by a more common myth with more important gods.

Light and Dark Sides

Unfortunately, as there are no myths about Sors to judge him by, his personality it something of an enigma.  However, based on what we know of other luck gods, we can probably assume that Sors is somewhat fickle, bestowing luck on people willy-nilly as the whim strikes him.  I doubt he would be considered a dangerous god, but perhaps he could be considered perilous to trust for too long a period of time–Sors could change his mind at any time and your luck will run out.