How to Hex

Lately I’ve had several people come to me expressing a desire to curse...particular people.  Traditionally, curses come into favor when people feel that more direct/public/legal means of seeking justice fail them and they feel disempowered.  It is no surprise that they are coming back into fashion in times like these.  I’ll teach you a few methods for slinging a hex, but what you do with them is up to you.

What

Hexing/cursing is the final recourse for the marginalized, disenfranchised, and dispossessed.  It is what you do when the last straw has finally broken the camel’s back, or at least it should be.  Before casting a curse you should, if you are safe to do so, follow every legitimate path for finding a solution to your problem.  Attempting to curse someone/something before trying more traditional problem solving methods, when they’re available to you, rarely ends well for anyone.  Cursing is not what most people would call a “good” thing to do.  Cursing/hexing causes harm and there are consequences for sending harm out into the world.  You need to be prepared to deal with those consequences when they come - and they will come.  As Dorothy Morrison says, you need to be “wicked pissed” before casting a curse.  You have to mean it with every fiber of your being, consequences be damned.

Why

Once you’ve determined that you are “wicked pissed” and willing to accept the consequences, you need to determine just what you want to accomplish.  There are generally two reasons to cast a curse: 1) to stop bad things from happening/continuing, and 2) to punish someone for causing harm. 

I generally discourage people from cursing for the second reason because it rarely helps.  Most people do bad things when they’re in pain.  Hurting someone who is in pain does not tend to encourage them to behave better; it mostly makes things worse.  Further, miserable people rarely need help from me to destroy their lives; they do a fine job of it on their own.  Someone needs to have done something really bad (e.g. hurt a child, incited terrorism, massively subverted justice, etc.) for me to encourage hexing them for punitive reasons.  There are, of course, many ethical/moral reasons not to do this.  I leave you to make your own decisions there.

Cursing in order to stop “bad things” from happening is a much less morally ambiguous thing to do.  When things get bad enough and you really care about the situation then you need to get proactive.  In its best incarnation, a curse should be the magickal equivalent of punching a nazi in the face.  Of course, you must keep in mind what I said earlier - making miserable people more miserable rarely stops them from behaving badly.  Be very mindful of the potential consequences of your magick and only do things that will actually help the overall situation - not just feel cathartic.  For example, you might want to stop a serial rapist by making him impotent.  This might just make him angry and more prone to violence, thus making the situation worse rather than better.  A more effective curse might be one aiming to get the perpetrator caught and convicted.  If your goal is to stop a bad situation then you MUST calm your anger and really think things through in order to get the best results.  Take the long view of things.  Take the time to do some divination to determine the best course of action; consult your elders and ancestors; get advice from people you trust.  Make sure you feel that you truly need to do what you plan. 

How

There are nearly infinite ways to cast a curse.  Here are just a few ranging from “morally dubious” to “you’re going to do what?!”  You can google any of these types of spells and find dozens of examples of various execution methods, so I won’t belabor the details here.  Further, you can add extra power to these spells by calling on various deities, ancestors, allies, etc. according to your own personal practice. 

Passive-Aggressive Hex
Rather than doing something directly to the target or your ire, you bless their opposition.  For example, instead of cursing the person who robbed you, you bless the police and prosecutors to get the person caught and convicted.  This is positive magick to send blessings to the people doing good work rather than sending negative energy to the people causing harm.  This type of working is great when you have one specific bad situation you want to remedy, though it won’t stop the perpetrators from doing something different later.

Binding
The classic way to stop someone from doing bad things is to bind them.  (See my previous post on binding)  You make a representation of the person or organization/corporation causing the problem, then you literally bind it with cord to energetically immobilize it.  I like to make a poppet representing the person/thing to be bound and then bind it with marine cord (it has no stretch/give whatsoever).  You can also use toys, action figures, etc., to represent your target.  Once you’ve tied your representation I recommend wrapping the whole thing in aluminum foil (shiny side in) and then putting it in the back of the freezer until the situation is resolved.

Mirror Spell
Your traditional mirror spell is one in which you use a mirror to literally reflect someone’s negative actions back on themselves.  This is a straightforward retribution spell - your target gets harmed precisely as much as they harm others, no more no less.  This spell tends to escalate the situation.  Remember, when people who tend to take out their anger on others are harmed they will probably take it out on others.  If the house is already on fire then throwing gas on it won’t really make much of a difference, but if it’s not on fire yet it certainly will be afterwards.  Choose your actions accordingly. 

Destruction Spell
This is the “as seen on tv” curse.  This is where you do you damndest to rain hellfire down on your enemies.  There is no moral ambiguity here.  If you’re going to do it, own it.  Your intent is everything in this spell and you’d better be freaking livid.  If you are even the tiniest bit unsure of what you want to happen then this is not the spell for you.  Make a poppet/doll out of black fabric (the little craft squares of felt you get at the craft store for a dollar are great for this).   Fill the poppet with straw/grass/something itchy put a picture of the target inside the doll and sew it up.  Write on the doll with a sharpie all the terrible things the person has done (the silver ones are great for writing on black).  Alternatively, you can write everything out on paper and sew it inside the doll or even embroider it on the fabric.  Then destroy the doll as violently as possible, allowing all your rage and pain to flow into it and then burn the pieces.  Yes, there is often energetic backlash for doing this sort of thing depending on the exact nature of your intent and what energies you normally work with.  The further this type of energy is from your normal practice the more difficult it will likely be for you.  Moreover, this type of working can create an energetic link between you and your target - be sure you really, really want to do this.

These are just a few examples of common curses.  If you’re really, really angry and committed to doing this type of work I encourage you to get creative and execute them in a way that feels right to you.  Magick is an art, so do something beautiful - even when it’s hideous. 

If you have any questions about specific things you want to do feel free to email me emily @ e-carlin.com or send me a message via Tumblr (where you can be anonymous).  Keep in mind that I will not advise people to do things that are illegal and all discussions are purely theoretical.


Here are a few resources:
Poppet resource
How to tie a monkey’s fist/rope ball
Cursebook

Bindings

Sometimes life is a grand panoply of joy and all the world is your friend.  Sometimes life kicks you in the face.  Ah well.  Into every life a little rain must fall and into the lives of witches so must the need to bind. 

Binding, of course, is the magickal act of restraining someone or something against a particular kind of behavior.  It can be used to good effect to bind oneself against bad habits.  However, most of the time binding is used to restrain someone (an enemy) or something (usually a harmful spirit) from messing with you or your loved ones. 

Binding is one of those ethical grey areas that people often fight about.  Some say it's unethical to bind anything against exercising its own free will in any way.  Others blithely cast bindings any time someone annoys them.  I take the middle course.  My guideline is to never bind someone or something in a way in which I would not be willing to be bound.  For example, I have no problem binding someone against maliciously telling lies because I wouldn't mind having that ability taken from me.  Once I've cast a binding I always try to act as if I am also bound, because it gives me a good idea what I've done to the other person.  If it's awful I can remove the binding and my own pain/discomfort would be the price I paid for my error in judgment.  It's not a perfect system, but it's worked for me so far.

When I do a binding I like to physically bind a poppet that represents whatever I'm binding.  If it's a person I like to put a picture of that person in the poppet if I have one, or just load it with representations of that person if I don't have a picture.  Then I'll put in herbs appropriate to the sentiment of the spell.  I typically make the poppet out of felt squares (they're easy to come by in any craft store and are inexpensive). 

I'll usually bind the poppet with yarn, but recently I've discovered marine rope.  Yarn is relatively weak and has a fair amount of give in it, making for a rather flexible binding.  It's great for restraining yourself from bad habits or for when you want the binding to sit lightly.  However, sometimes the situation you're dealing with is particularly heinous and you need a stronger, less flexible binding.  Enter marine rope.  Marine rope (available in any boating/fishing supply store) is incredibly strong and has varying amounts of stretch to it.  I recently found Dyneema STS 12 Single Braid Line. 
This is now my super-binding cord of choice.  It's stronger than steel, thin as para-cord, and has absolutely no give whatsoever.  When you need to binding something and give it no chance of wriggling out of that binding, this is the way to go.  Overkill? For most things yes, but sometimes you just need to go whole hog. 

Book Review: The Little Book of Curses and Maledictions

I was browsing through amazon.com a few days ago and came across   The Little Book of Curses and Maledictions for Everyday Use by Dawn Rae Downton.  The kindle version was only a dollar so I figured I'd check it out. 

Although I rarely work curses, I do find them fascinating.  It's always interesting to see what actions other people think are curse worthy and how they try to go about laying them.  The tricky thing with curses, particularly those you haven't written yourself, is that they have a tendency to rebound back on the caster.  They usually end up just creating a really strong link between the caster and the target, often making both parties truly miserable.

I would never cast a curse because someone was gossiping about me, cut in line for the bus, or generally annoyed me.  I just don't think that sort of behavior rises to the level of curse-worthy.  If I'm going to forge a semi-permanent link between me and someone I detest they would need to have done something really, really bad.  I'm talking physically harming someone I care about, emotionally eviscerating a friend, that sort of thing.  But that's just me.  There are lots of practitioners out there that have no problem hexing someone for whatever reason.  It's up to you to determine your own curse ethics.

In this book there are three kinds of curses: the revenge curse, the warning curse, and the binding curse.

The revenge curses are probably what we all think of when we think of hexes, and curses.  This is the "make my ex miserable," "get my boss fired," "punish that thief," kind of curses that get popular media all hot and bothered.  Most of these are variations on traditional hexes and curses with a few twists to make them appropriate for contemporary casters.  They're all pretty easy to cast and if you know how to focus your energy and put it into a spell they they should work.  Of course, if you don't actually know what you're doing these spells probably won't do more than give you a small sense of satisfaction.

The warning curses are spells designed to prevent or end bad situations.  I wouldn't actually call these curses, since they don't actually visit harm on another.  I think these spells are only called curses in this book because they use the same types of techniques and ingredients as the more traditional revenge curses.  However, this section does have my favorite spell from the book, "The Eastwood."  It's basically a ward against douchbaggery.  You create a special pouch that you can wear when you want to prevent rudeness.  I would think that this sort of spell would loose it's potency rather quickly, so it would have to be done repeatedly.

The binding curses, unsurprisingly, bind the target to do, or refrain from doing, a particular thing.  Honestly, these are the kinds of curses I am least comfortable with.  The idea of infringing on someone else's free will does not sit well with me, but desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.

Overall, this book is decent for what it is.  It gives the curious an interesting overview of what kinds of things curses and maledictions can do and gives inspiration to those actually wanting to cast a curse.  Would I do any of the spells in here as written? No, because a spell is always best when personalized and for something that requires as much commitment as a true curse you should be willing to make it your own.  That being said, if you did the spells as written in the proper frame of mind they'd probably work.  I just wouldn't recommend anyone trying it if they're not already accustomed to magick.

Overall I'd give this a 3 1/2 out of five for content, but for $1 that's just fine.