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Witchcraft, Un-sanitized: The C-word

No, not that c-word (though that c-word can be a C-word too—more on that later). This C-word is a discipline of Witchcraft that nearly every practitioner I've known has been warned away from. By hook or by crook, we are told, we must avoid it even in our thoughts, for the Coin to pay is too high, the Karma acquired too heavy, the three-fold return too three-foldy (more on that later, too).

Cursing.

I remember the first Curse I ever learned. It had been a rough day. I've always been a weird guy—still am, but especially as a child. My interests ran, at that pre-adolescent stage, to the macabre horror/slasher movies like Hellraiser and Nightmare on Elm Street, and to the science fiction/fantasy, Star Trek and Krull and Willow, for example. Interests that none of my peers shared nor, due to religious prohibition and indoctrination, were permitted. My family was weird, smoking Winstons, Camels and unfiltered Pall Malls; drinking Folgers all day and Budweisers at night; eating food seasoned with more than simple pepper and salt. We were a family apart and outside; the Other my peers were warned about. And being that I and my classmates were children, that children are little assholes, that I had never given Testimony nor knew what the Prophet ordained that Conference weekend, I was bullied.

That day, the bullying had sapped me.

Cursing, we are told, is wrong. Our magic is better spent on blessing those who anger us, harm us, cross us. We must always Work for the higher good of all, transcending pettiness and desire, to be passionless, saintly, purified; to be Witches sanitized of myth and madness and mystery so we don't scare the Christians. Should we fail in this pursuit, the consequences shall be dire.

We are advised to imagine a bubble of pure white light surrounding us; to imagine two way mirrors that allow in only good vibes while sending the bad ones—the dark and the negative—back to Source for transmutation; to return to sender. Failing the efficacy of that, we may bind up the problem and/or, but only in the interest of the higher good for all, we may banish. We are admonished to petition Justice when injustice is done to us, and to submissively accept as Karmic lessons from the Universe, or Gods, or Spirit Guides, when none of the options resolve the issue.

Light attracts mosquitos and guides danger to its source. Mirrors summon the vain, the selfish, and encourage closer observation. It is no wonder, then, that those who use these practices forever find themselves victims of the very things they are trying to defend themselves against.

A knight does not put on his armor lest he means to go to war, or attract the attention of others to his presence on the battle field, be it social or actual.

Fighting against inevitable sleep delivers you into Freddy's realm too week to out maneuver him and too tired to pull him into the waking world where he is vulnerable.

Put a venomous snake in a basket and you have an angrier snake to deal with later. Throw that basket away, there's equal chances the snake will come back as it will wander off.

The scales of Justice must find balance and Her sword cuts both ways until all the body parts are equal in mass from both parties.

There was one person especially who had been horrible to me that day; that whole year, in fact. A little girl with spun-gold hair, a baby-doll face, a tongue that could pierce chain-mail yet could entrance with fabrications. The daughter of a Bishop and Grand daughter of one of the General Authorities. She stank of privilege claimed by boots on backs, fear of religion, and that strange cabbage odor that lives in Mormon homes. To say she was my nemesis would be giving me too much credit; I was but one weird little boy to experience her abuse among many. I was just the one who, because I was more Other than most, had no chance of redemption in her world.

My skin was the wrong shade, my accent the wrong twang, my dog the wrong breed. My Mother did not join the PTA. My family lit candles and conversed with saints and the dead, and we ate party-potatoes instead of funeral potatoes, red jello instead of green. I thought H-E-double hokey sticks was a game and that Hell was a place, not profanity.

Relying on the equity of the Universe presumes an enthroned power capable of seeing the world as we do, with the same understand of morality as we have; that Order is the natural state of things. One hard truth of Witchcraft is knowing that all which lives must one day die, that entropy is inevitable, and that Order must be manufactured, not against Chaos, but in tandem with it.

To be safe from the snake, we must kill it; we must use the Chaos of its presence by ending its particular threat, consuming it for the sustenance it provides, and either use what attracted it in the first place to our advantage for future means, remove the source, or stop going where snakes life.

A knight who, by donning his armor, invites the foe he means to overcome increases his own risk of falling on the battlefield. But take that same knight and clothe him in the enemy's uniform, he may walk into the opponent's camp unseen. Guile may lead him to the enemy's tent, where he may learn their vulnerabilities so they may be exploited; chance may provide the opportunity to assassinate. The subversive knight, the Shapeshifter and the Invisible, may walk a more crooked path that one who charges head-on and who beats at his breast, but at the end of the day, one walks away with his Order, the other will eventually meet an opponent who imposes their order over him.

Cursing by its very nature is subversive, profaning society's strength—collective good—by forcing an order in accordance with an individual's will, utilizing and partnering with chaos. It blasphemes against Fate by kicking over the scales of Justice, snatching Her sword, and wielding it in our own Name, for our own good. It is heretical against the orthodoxy that a threat in the Great Loom can be woven only according to the pattern.

Grandma listened to my complaint with the lack of patience that comes from one fixing dinner on a Wednesday, but the love of one who sang a lullaby of moons and stars to a colicky babe.

"The next time it happens," she said, unfiltered Pall Mall smoke rising from the ashtray filled with Winstons and Camels on the counter as an incense plume from a brazier in the temple of the Nameless God, "look her in the eyes, point at her and say 'Remember your dreams'."

Belief of curses, that one may be cursed, is required for it to be effective. A trick of psychology that bleeds away confidence so the target behaves as though cursed, and so through subconscious direction, curses themselves. Shocking the system with the unexpected—blaspheming another's Truth, profaning their expectations, committing heresy against their inner moral compass—is in fact the easiest way to throw a Curse.

When one is Other, by nature of being Other rather than Same, power is automatically granted the Other. Fear of the unknown is trained into us all: don't talk to strangers; don't take candy from strangers; don't get into the car with strangers. The Other is the Stranger, and the Stranger's mythology—from Set and the Serpent in the garden; Vampires and Zombies and Werewolves; Romulans and Klingons; rival schools, states, and countries—is all over the world. In declaring me the Other, the Stranger, that annoying little girl's attempts to victimize me gave me the power, and the authority, to be the Stranger.

Yet, a curse is more than psychology, and the target need not know they are cursed to be cursed. The Other, however, must know they are the Stranger, and must be willing, though not necessarily comfortable, with being the Villain in another's narrative.

A curse is a reclamation of power: a reminder that we are sovereigns in our own creation rather than servants to another. Sometimes, we must be subversive and behave as others expect so that we may behave unexpectedly when needed.

A curse is what lies on the other side of "Leave me alone, or else," and what is found out when fucking around. An actual consequence. The dagger quenched in the target's heart and not the unsheathed sword at your hip.

We are told cussing, using impolite language, is wrong because it is unexpected; un-sanitized. Cunt triggers some. Fuck confuses others. Shit befouls and Dick belittles. Every curse-word holds power in the right situation to be effective. And sometimes Cursing is the wrong answer to the situation in question. Not because of its Cost, its Karma, or some three-fold law, all of which assume we always get what we deserve by matter of course rather than by circumstance. Were that fact and not the cozy fiction it is to keep the Stranger beyond the gates, our Mother's pain in birthing us would kill us after our first yowl. As sovereign beings, we create our own payback, whether by force or by shunning, with our society, or on our own.

There are no moral considerations with Cursing except those you put upon it, which caveats you write in and loopholes you create, because magic, Witchcraft, is amoral.

The little girl cried, and from that time until I moved away from that school, she had problems sleeping. I was no longer an interesting victim. I did not get in trouble for making her cry either because the teacher thought it was silly to cry over being told to remember your dreams.

Know when to use the c-word and the C-word.

This is Witchcraft, Un-sanitized.

#witchy things #traditional witchcraft #magick

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