Magickal Defense Without Permission

One of the most debated issues in magickal defense is whether or not you should do magickal defense for someone else without their permission.  In this post I'll take a look at a few of the situations where you might be tempted to do defensive work for another without their permission and the various issues they entail.

A general protection sigil.

A little disclaimer: I'm coming at this from a mainstream Pagan perspective in which one always wants to get consent before doing magick of any kind on another person.  I know there are other traditions out there that don't really take issue with doing defensive work without permission and I respect that.  This post is my personal perspective based on my own ethics – take it as you will.

Due to my education (code for "law school warped my brain"), I tend to see any issue of consent and defense in a legal light.  This means that, for me, there are two circumstances in which I can pretty much always do defensive magick without getting express permission from the person I'm defending: 1) there is an imminent threat of non-trivial harm to the target, and 2) the target of the magick lacks the capacity to give consent.

The first situation in which I’m comfortable doing defensive work without permission when there’s a non-trivial imminent threat to the target.  An imminent threat is something immediate, something that will happen in a matter of moments if it isn’t stopped – think of an out of control car careening towards someone.  It’s the kind of situation where there really isn’t time to ask permission, so I really don’t feel bad acting on instinct.  In terms of defensive magick I always have to add a “non-trivial” qualification to the situation before I act.  Most situations that necessitate the use of defensive magick are actually fairly mild in the short term – sure an attachment will do a lot of harm over time, but it’s not going to be any more dangerous or difficult to remove if I wait the few minutes to get permission to act.  For me a situation needs to be a serious threat to life, limb, or sanity before I act without permission.  While I have no problem warding someone when an infernal comes into the room whether they ask me to or not, I wouldn’t do that for a pixie’s arrival.  If something is actually dangerous and needs to be acted upon quickly, then do what you’ve got to do and ask for forgiveness later.

The second situation is where the person needing the defensive work lacks the capacity to give me permission.  When I say "the target lacks capacity" I mean that the person you want to defend is unable to give consent either because they're too young to understand the situation, they're drunk, extremely ill, unconscious, mentally unsound, etc.  Under those circumstances I try to get a hold of someone with the authority to give consent for the target (e.g. a parent, spouse, sibling, etc.).  If I can't, then I'll use my own knowledge of the person I want to defend to decide what I think they'd want.  For example, if you have a relative that is in a coma and you want to ward that person you can feel good about doing so, as long as that person wouldn't have religious objections (I'll talk more about that in a minute).  However, as soon as that person came out of the coma you should take down the wards and ask permission before putting them up again.

Deciding to do magick without permission when you can’t really ask them is fairly easy.  But what about when you ask and you get turned down?  That’s a different and much trickier situation.  If you think someone is in danger there is often an intrinsic need to help that person – whether they want your help or not – particularly if it’s someone you care about.  Here are a few situations to think about that you might find yourself in.

What do you do when you feel that someone needs a defensive working but that person does not believe in magick or any type of metaphysical threat?  If you’re anything like me, you probably have friends and relatives that do not believe in what you do.  If you’re lucky these folks will give you permission to do magick on them just to make you feel better.  If you’re not so lucky then you’ve got a difficult choice to make.  For me the deciding factor would be just how bad things could get without a working.  If we’re talking about a violent poltergeist in someone’s attic do you wait until someone gets hurt and your friend comes crawling back for help, or do you so some subtle preemptive work?  What if the target itself needs a serious cleansing due to possession or oppression?  I’m more likely to do magick surrounding a person (e.g. warding their attic) than anything directly to a person (e.g. a cleansing or banishing) who doesn’t want it.  Further, there would have to be some pretty dire consequences to staying my hand before I’d do magick on someone when they’ve told me not to, just as a matter of personal respect.  In fact, this is the kind of situation where I would call in a second or third opinion before moving forward with any magickal working.  When in doubt, don’t act alone.

An even trickier, if sadly common, situation is when the target has a religious opposition to magick of any kind.  I have some friends whose religion is strictly opposed to magick (to the point where I occasionally marvel at them for being friends with me in the first place) and I would never perform magick on them without their express permission unless I thought it was a life or death situation – and that’s seriously unlikely to occur.  I know I wouldn’t want them trying to “pray” evil away from me so I will respect them by not doing the same magickally.  The strictly religious almost always have “proper” channels they can go through for paranormal issues.  If you sense something happening, encourage these folks to seek the help of their priest/pastor/exorcist/etc.  Give their religious beliefs the same respect you want them to give yours – even if you secretly think they’re nuts, I’m sure they feel the same way about you.

The issue of permission becomes that much more difficult when the person in question is a roommate/housemate.  Someone who shares your personal space has a significantly greater effect on your safety and wellbeing than anyone else.  If you share a dorm room with someone who is being haunted or oppressed by a spirit it is going to have a huge negative impact on your life.  If you’re in a situation where you share living space with someone (and moving out isn’t feasible) then doing some pretty heavy workings, even if you’re denied permission to do so, might be warranted.  At that point you’re really working in self-defense due to the target’s proximity to what should be your safe space.  If you don’t feel energetically safe in your own bed because of your roommate’s paranormal problems, then you’re probably justified in doing something about it.  The closer the proximity of the target to your personal space the easier it is to justify doing defensive work.  If it’s someone you share a bed or a room with you can pretty much do what you need to in order to be safe.  (Note – if you’re sharing a bed with someone who’s being haunted or oppressed and they refuse to allow you to help them you might want to rethink your relationship.  I’m just saying.)  If it’s a housemate that you don’t share a room with, then it should depend on the impact the other person’s problem has on you and the amount of harm being done to the person.  If it’s someone who’s just down the hall or in the building, then you should probably stay out of things.  Basically, use proximity and the likelihood of serious harm to make your choice.

Now, there is a bit of a loophole with this whole permission thing.  It’s not exactly the most upright thing to do, but just because someone doesn’t want you to do magick on them doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t do magick to address the source of the problem.  If someone is being haunted you can, more or less, do whatever magick you want on the entity doing the haunting.  You can theoretically dissolve the magick of a curse without magickally touching the target of that curse.  You can make healing energy available to someone without forcing them to take it.  You can ward the exterior boundaries of a property without doing anything to someone’s home.  These little loopholes can allow you to address the source of many metaphysical issues without technically doing magick on someone who doesn’t want it.  Does this sort of thing go against the spirit of honoring someone’s refusal? Yes, absolutely.  Exploiting loopholes may be a bit underhanded, but if it’s a matter of being trixy or watching a friend suffer unnecessarily I will chose trixy every time.

Ultimately, only you can decide whether or not a situation warrants doing defensive magick on someone without their permission.  I look at the immediacy and severity of the situation along with how personal the magick involved needs to be and then weight those factors with the strength of the target’s opposition to the work in order to decide what to do.  If I feel strongly that magick is necessary in the situation I’ll use my loopholes before I go disregarding someone else’s will.  Respecting the autonomy of others is very important to me, so things need to be pretty bad before I’ll go disregarding it.  In the end your ethics are up to you.

Pop Culture Magick: Con Edition - Part I

The weekend before last I attended the ever glorious Emerald City Comicon (ECCC).  There is no better place for a pop culture magick (PCM) practitioner can go to fuel their practice than a convention.  In this post I'll talk a bit about how you can work a comic/pop-culture convention to better your PCM practices.  In my next post I'll talk a bit about what you can do magickally to improve your convention experience. 

So...many...toys!

One of the best things about doing PCM is the availability of magickal tools.  You can take toys, t-shirts, art, and swag of all kinds from your favorite fandom and turn them into magickal tools (see an earlier post for more info).

There is no greater concentration of potential magickal items than on a convention show floor.  There were hundreds of amazing vendors of every possible description at ECCC.  You could get everything from custom artwork, plushies, action figures, swords, clothing, armor, jewelry, and more.  I saw things that I didn't even know existed being sold on that show floor. Come prepared with a solid budget or you can get yourself into a lot of trouble.

I made two fun purchases this year.  I found the booth for one of my favorite comics, Kill Shakespeare, quite by accident while trying to escape the crush of the Friday afternoon crowd.  They had some incredibly fun t-shirts available, including one of Shakespearean villains.  If you're a fan of this blog you know that I love both Shakespeare and working with villains in my magick.  Next time I need to do a spell that requires the potency and scale of a Shakespearean villain I know what my ritual garb will be ;)

My most exciting (and priciest) find was a licensed replica of Harry Dresden's original shield bracelet.  If you haven't read any of the Dresden Files (oh for shame!), they are an urban fantasy series about a wizard-for-hire living in Chicago who battles baddies of all shapes and sizes.  One of his most important tools is a charm bracelet where each charm is fully imbued with a potent protection spell.  I plan to charge each of the charms on my bracelet to do exactly that.  Not only will it have the power of the intent that I put into it, but also the power of the belief of all the readers of this 15 year (and counting) series - talk about taking advantage of power that's already sitting there ripe for use.

Another incredibly useful PCM tool that you can often only get at conventions is custom artwork.  Many artists will take commissions for custom work at or before conventions.  If one of your favorite artists is available take advantage of that and have them make a piece whose components you can use in your magickal works.  Imagine the prosperity spell you could craft using a piece of custom art as a focus.  As a bonus, art purchased directly from the artist almost always has stronger energy than art that's gone through an intermediary - less energy dilution good!

The options are just about endless in for this sort of thing and it's a great way to both improve the potency of your magick and support your favorite artists.

Energy, energy everywhere! As far as the mind's eye can see!

The energy at a convention is utterly unlike anything else.  The closest thing to it would be a major concert or sporting event, but sustained over several days rather than just a few hours.  There are so many overwhelming emotions pouring everywhere: excitement for all that can be done, joy at seeing your favorite writers/artists/actors, frustration from waiting in lines, etc.  That nearly unlimited energy can be harnessed if you take care.

In most ritual magick you set up sacred space, call on helpful energies and entities, raise energy, and then direct that energy towards your goal.  At a convention you can kind of skip all that and just scoop up the copious energy around you and send it off to wherever it needs to go.

Of course, just because energy is strong and available doesn't necessarily mean it's in tune with your goals.  The energy of a bunch of squeevy dudes drooling over pinups probably won't help you ace your feminist theory class and the energy of a vendor arguing with convention staff won't help your prosperity spell.  Take your time to walk the floor to feel out the energies.  Find the energy that feels most sympathetic to your goals and take a bit from that area.  If you're doing a spell on the fly just be sure to walk through that area when you need to gather energy.  If you're setting up for a larger rite you can always charge a stone, sigil, or talisman while walking through that area.

You can also utilize the energy in panels in pretty much the same way.  Most actors and audiences put off a tremendous amount of energy during convention panels - the more exciting and dynamic the panel, the more energy gets thrown about the room.  You can either come in with a plan to use the type of energy you expect to be generated in the panel, or you can do something on the fly if particularly juicy energy starts flowing.  

I had the pleasure of seeing many panels featuring truly kick-ass women at ECCC.  If I had wanted to so a spell to enhance my self-confidence or assertiveness I would have been absolutely spoiled for choices with so much empowering energy around.  Of course I didn't think about it at the time because I was too busy fangirling.  I'm ok with that.

Sweet Tesla is that...?

Conventions are also filled to the brim with major and minor celebrities.  They're one of the few places where you actually have the chance to interact with your idols - be they artists, writers, actors, etc.  Getting to meet a beloved celebrity (however briefly) is thrilling and at a con you almost always have either an autograph or a photo to take away from that meeting.  That little token can be used (mindfully) as a focus for sympathetic magick. I had the great please of having photo's taken with John Barrowman and Clark Gregg this year.  If I ever need to do a spell for confidence or accepting who I am I've got the perfect focus.

There is on SUPER-HUGE caveat to any magick involving living human beings as symbols - don't mess with the people themselves!  Similes are your friends in this type of magick.  By all means do a spell to "have strength and poise like Haley Atwell when she played Agent Carter."  Do not do a spell to "have Haley Atwell's strength and poise."  Do not suck energy out of your idols; they have enough demands on them already and do not need you making things worse.  Also be careful not to project your expectations onto a celebrity.  Just because they created your favorite character does not mean they act like or have the values of that character.  Celebrities are just people, often charismatic and brilliant people, but still just people.

Part II - Con Survival

For similar info check out:
Pop Culture Magick Index
Magick at Concerts

Practice for Practice's Sake

I've been very fortunate during my time as a witch.  I have a deep connection with my deity and have traditionally always felt a pull to do the things that my deity wants me to do.  I've come to depend on that tug at the back of my brain, the feeling at the base of my spine, to let me know when I need to do something and what.  It could be to go to a particular place and meditate, to do a particular ritual, to learn a particular skill, etc.  When I was a beginner that type of direction was imperative; I just didn't know what I needed to do on my own.

These days it's a little different.  Things are a little less urgent than they once were.  I used to need to do certain rituals on a regular basis because I'd come under attack if I didn't.  That's no longer the case; your everyday boggles just don't come anywhere near me.  I used to need to do formal devotions to retain my connection to deity, that's not really an issue any more.  These day I kinda of live and breathe my practice.  On the one hand it's great - I don't lose anything if I skip certain practices and make substitutions for others.  On the other hand, because nothing is as urgent as it once was it just doesn't feel the same. 

I find myself in that odd place where any formal practice I do is solely for my own benefit.  My rituals are formal reminders and elaborate focusing exercises.  Sure, they give me an opportunity to feel my connection to deity without distraction, but that connection is always there.  All I had to do is close my eyes for a few moments on the bus to sense its presence - if that.  Spells and rituals are less about creating power and connections at this point than they are big pointers at what's already there.  Most of my spells these days are accomplished with a thought and a flick of power as I go about my life.

I really don't have to do any kind of formal practice, but sometimes I do it for its own sake.  Sometimes it's good to go back through the practices that gave me the foundation for what I do now.  Sometimes doing a formal ritual, even when I really don't have to, is a wonderful reminder of just how solid magickal practice can be.  When everything I do is almost instinctual it's easier to write it off, forget just how much impact it can have.  It's a lot harder to doubt what I do when I watch flames dance when there's no wind and feel the temperature drop when the circle is opened.  It's good to be reminded of the wonder I felt when I first started practicing.  So these days go out of my way a bit to bring some of the formal practices that I've dropped over the years back into my routine.  We can all use a little more wonder these days.

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.