What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

[Azvanna]

After reading through posts, I can see some people believe in not infringing on the will/rights of others when spell casting. Others don't seem to mind doing so. Just wondering, for those that do hex others.. How do you justify a hex? What happens if you then later feel you made a wrong decision?

[MaskedOne]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I'm gonna go for the basic line I operate off of.

Is the target, by his or her freely made a choices a danger that which is under my protection?

If the answer is yes and if they fit the caveat of being a threat by choices they've freely made (being threat by virtue of random circumstance and having no idea that what you're doing is harmful is generally not enough) then congratulations the lucky target has politely checked the "I renounce the protections of MaskedOne's antiquated morality and he can do whatever he wants." box. Generally it doesn't come up though. You're more likely to crash into my wards and get stopped there then actually have me target you. I've gone directly offensive twice. Once is a banishing that's yet to finish resolving. The other was targeting a property more than a person and led to my renewed view that the Lord of Hosts is opportunistic as all hell. I set a cleansing against a shop whose owner was ringing all kinds of alarms and had done a few things to move himself up from my random scum list. The shop finishes out the season. A couple months later, it's replaced by a Christian bookstore. I was highly amused.

[AL!CE]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

Why do you think someone would hex/curse somebody? Pain, Anger, Hate.

If you believe that you can wield magics and someone really hurts you and you can't see an easier way to hurt them back, wouldn't you be tempted to "pick up the black candles"? Sometimes a Witch gives in to that temptation, we're only human.

I would like to add that in 13 years of being a Witch, I can count the number of curses I've done on one hand and still have a couple of fingers to spare.

If later you feel that you shouldn't have done it, then you probably shouldn't have done it and you're gonna feel guilty. There's not much else you can do really, the damage is done. You may be able to do another spell to make things a bit better for them or you may have cursed them in a way that can be "broken" but chances are once they're cursed they're going to receive at least some negative effects and I don't believe in Karma but I do believe that everyone has spirits on their side so chances are something will be pissed at you when you curse someone.

I would also point out that whilst bending people's will is often frowned upon it is not the same as cursing/hexing. The point of a curse or hex is to hurt someone. I can bend someone's will without really hurting them and probably do it by accident when doing spells to benefit myself (or even to benefit other people). Do a spell for a new job, someone gives you an interview. If they wouldn't have given you that interview otherwise then you are bending their will and if they were going to give you an interview anyway then what exactly did the spell do?

You're Christian right? Are you really telling me that some of the things you pray for don't require manipulating peoples' free will "O' God please feed the hungry." Suddenly some rich guy picks up the phone and donates a large sum to charirty.

[Djnn]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I try everything I can do with out magic first. I've only had the need to hex once. And it worked strong and fast. There was much bickering between the two targets and blood was spelt. Each day things became worse and worse for them. So when I saw the blood I smiled and knew enough was enogh and dismissed the spirits I invoked.
The two I had cursed I had tried everything. Talking to them. Ignoring and letting their actions go and even called the cops. Bit as it was all three of us were roommates and I had to do what I did. It's one of the magical acts I'm most proud of. It set into motion me finding my soul mate as well.
So in short I use magic offensively as a last resort. I almost always can get things worked through by using non magical means.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

There are many curses in the Bible. The Old Testament has cursing psalms (loosely based on Babylonian curses, mostly) and the New Testament has a few choice examples too.

I have - on very rare occasions - hexed. I admit that. And I have done it to punish someone who would otherwise escape justice. For me, it is not a question of bending the will, but of dishing out punishment. And I would not undertake it lightly, believe me.

[Ophidia]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

Back when I actually did spellcraft, I wasn't picky and didn't have to be pushed very far. I've hexed/cursed people who I do not like but who will not leave me the Hell alone. Bullies, one of my father's girlfriends, various other people who were too forceful in trying to get to know me, really obnoxious and disrupting coworkers, people who have been threats or threatening but couldn't be dealt with publicly or through mundane legal means.

I generally have the knack for being able to get rid of people without harming them, and it usually happens before I even start considering stronger medicine. If I want a particular job, the person doing it seems to get promoted or finds better work. If I don't like a person who is trying to get me to be their friend/girlfriend/friend with benefits, they find their soulmate or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I got my dad's girlfriend to move back to Iowa by just threatening to curse her (and possibly by the magic of being, at the time, an obnoxious 15-year old).

As far as guilt, shame, or regret go - as a teenager those were fairly foreign emotions. Twenty years later, I tend to work out all the details & possible endings for my actions in my head. If it's something I'm going to regret, or feel that I'm the problem, I do my best to work around it with the other person. But I can only tell someone to 'please knock it off' so many times, and in some circumstances, magical means are preferable to smacking someone in the head with a stapler.

[AL!CE]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I've done a few banishings too. Sometimes it is better to remove someone from your life, than to curse them.

[Clive]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I've performed a few banishings and bindings when someone became more than I could bear. The only time I've truly attempted to hex someone was this awful woman who caused me to be unjustly fired from my job. That seems like a petty reason, but on top of this economy WV is far from the land of opportunity. You can't exactly hash things out in a situation like that and it was plain as day that this woman was the sort of person who caused trouble wherever she went.

I don't know whether the full effect hit her, but I'm at least confident that she got a taste of the anger she caused.

[AL!CE]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I've only done one binding and that was on request from a very close friend of mine who wanted his evil twin bound. I can break that bind at any time I or my friend sees fit.

I'm generally against binding spells. I just imagine some fluffy Wiccans casting them on every Witch who admits to hexing or even on every B!tch who says something mean to them. As both a B!tch and a Hexy Witch that would piss me off a lot more than being cursed by someone I had really truly hurt in real life.

[Azvanna]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I'm interested to know of the New Testament curses Tylluanl! Never noticed them And may I call you Tyl? I'm glad you responded actually because it was you I was thinking of when I wrote the post. In other posts, you talked about cleaning up your own magical mess. Seems if a mess was made, maybe the lack in expertise might cause a bigger mess and so on... How would you overcome that? A mentor?
MaskedOne I love your story! Pretty funny.
So far, sounds like a hex is a way to reinforce your personal boundaries, and for some a way to protect things/people under their charge. Maybe a little revenge.
I really love reading responses that are insightful and well thought through ^.^
Thanks!

[Ophidia]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I've actually been making a concerted effort to not 'encourage' a particular coworker to leave her job, which seems to consist primarily of doing things wrong and annoying me. It's a tough financial time for everyone, so whenever I find myself having to go back and fix something she's done wrong, I've started focusing on my own job security. It's become my mantra. "People like her are why hotels need night auditors. As long as hotels need night auditors, I will have a job. I need people like her to keep screwing everything up."

Once the economy shapes up, though, I'm going to start 'affirming' her into a different line of work.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I'm interested to know of the New Testament curses Tylluanl! Never noticed them And may I call you Tyl? I'm glad you responded actually because it was you I was thinking of when I wrote the post. In other posts, you talked about cleaning up your own magical mess. Seems if a mess was made, maybe the lack in expertise might cause a bigger mess and so on... How would you overcome that? A mentor?
MaskedOne I love your story! Pretty funny.
So far, sounds like a hex is a way to reinforce your personal boundaries, and for some a way to protect things/people under their charge. Maybe a little revenge.
I really love reading responses that are insightful and well thought through ^.^
Thanks!

I wrote about cursing psalms in my book The Essential Guide to Psychic Self Defence, published by Capall Bann. So I'll quote from it here to explain what I mean (this comes from chapter 4)
A good example is Psalm 143. It is one of the Seven Penitential Psalms and at first sight it seems to be a statement of confidence in God despite all the trials and tribulations of life. The early verses (5 – 6) include the harmless, ‘I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land.’
But read on and in the final verse the Psalm takes a sudden turn:
‘And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my soul: for I am thy servant.’
No wonder that many clergy try and avoid reciting that particular Psalm nowadays!

One of the most famous cursing psalms is Psalm 109. Again, the first few verses are fairly unremarkable, such as verse 3: ‘In return for my love they set themselves against me, even though I had prayed for them…’ Within a few short verses, however, you find:

• ‘Let his days be few; and let another take his office; (verse 8)
• ‘May his sons be orphans, and his wife a widow; (verse 9)
• ‘Let his sons always beg and wander, and seek food out of their ruins’; (verse 10)
• ‘Let the moneylender lay a snare for all that is his; and let strangers plunder his labor; (verse 11)
• ‘Let there be none giving mercy to him; nor any to have pity on his orphans; (verse 12)
• ‘Let his posterity be cut off; let their name be blotted out in the following generation; (verse 13)

Any one of these imprecations would be quite at home in the magical papyri of Graeco-Roman Egypt! Psalm 69 was a particular favourite when I was young; people would mutter, ‘Lord (or God), thou knowest,’ [Footnote 5] rather self-righteously, while mentally adding the rest of the Psalm which included: ‘Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents’. Perhaps most sinister of all, they would have been muttering verse 28 which reads: ‘Let them be blotted out of the book of the living.’

Since the Cursing Psalms belong to the Old Testament, many may have originated with ancient pagan tribes such as the Hittites. For example, Esarhaddon, king of Assyria included a list of curses as a precaution in his treaty with his vassal king Ramataia of Urakazabann: 'As rain does not fall from a heaven of brass, so may dew and rain not come upon your fields and lowlands; in place of dew may it rain coals upon your land.' [Footnote #6] This is repeated almost word for word in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy (Ch, 28 v. 23): 'And the heavens over your head will be brass, and the earth under you shall be iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.'

Of course, the Old Testament with its ‘eye for an eye’ mentality, might be considered a more suitable vehicle for curses and revenge than the New Testament with its ‘turn the other cheek’ approach. However, in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter’s rebuke kills both Ananias and his wife Sapphira, while the apostle Paul, never one to mince his words, declared ‘But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed’. (Galatians, Ch.1 v.8) During the last two thousand years, whenever the Catholic Church has excommunicated people it has declared them to be anathema, an ancient Greek word meaning a curse.


***
I come from a family of witches that did virtually nothing but hex - I am pleased to say that this is something I got out of in my teens. Howwever, one of my aunts had a line from a cursing psalm inscribed on her gravestone...

[MaskedOne]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

I'm interested to know of the New Testament curses Tylluanl! Never noticed them And may I call you Tyl? I'm glad you responded actually because it was you I was thinking of when I wrote the post. In other posts, you talked about cleaning up your own magical mess. Seems if a mess was made, maybe the lack in expertise might cause a bigger mess and so on... How would you overcome that? A mentor?
MaskedOne I love your story! Pretty funny.
So far, sounds like a hex is a way to reinforce your personal boundaries, and for some a way to protect things/people under their charge. Maybe a little revenge.
I really love reading responses that are insightful and well thought through ^.^
Thanks!

My dealings with the Lord of Hosts have a tendency to be funny. He's still an opportunist of the first order.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

To bring the opposite side to the coin, I don't believe in hexing. Not in the actual doing of it, which, tbh, you can do to your heart's content, but...I just don't believe it works. I cannot fathom, under any circumstance, where lighting a black candle and swearing a bunch and jumping in a circle (or whatever you people do when you hex) would cause someone to fall of a roof, or suddenly have their business crash, or something.

But I'm not very malicious, either. My line of defense simply involves ignoring the fuck out of people.

(sidenote: I loosely believe spells work, but only through the power of affirmation, and I don't really believe they work on anyone but yourself. I think magic is outside the realm of spellwork. Thought I'd throw that in, cuz I know SOMEONE would bring up that I was working on a job spell last week.)

[Gardenia]

Re: What brings you to the decision to hex someone?

So far, sounds like a hex is a way to reinforce your personal boundaries, and for some a way to protect things/people under their charge. Maybe a little revenge.

That about sums it up for me. In such situations, a hex might not always be what I go to first, but if I feel the situation calls for it... well, then I do what needs to be done. Like some of the others, it isn't exactly something that I've done frequently - often the need just isn't there, thankfully.