by 'Thenie

In January 2007, a newcomer to alt.religion.wicca.moderated asked a practical question: he believed his car had been hexed by a witch, and he wanted a protection spell. The question might have been dismissed. Instead, 'Thenie — a long-standing voice in the community known for her plainspoken theological clarity — turned it into an occasion for a complete teaching. What she wrote is not a refutation of magic but a precise anatomy of it: five conditions without which no spell can function, and two practices by which any working can be dissolved. The reply became something larger than itself.

'Thenie's framework is empirical rather than dogmatic. She draws on her decades of practice in the Craft to describe magic not as supernatural force but as a psychic ecology — requiring sustained attention, emotional investment, ongoing contact, and above all, a receptive target. Her central insight, that the target must in some sense "welcome" the spell through guilt or fear, shifts the locus of magical power from the caster to the person cursed. To know this, she argues, is already to be free of it.

This essay was posted to alt.religion.wicca.moderated on 18 January 2007, in response to a post titled "are all magic orders friendly with each other, or is it like christianity." It circulated widely among the regulars and stands as one of the most complete practical treatments of spellwork from the moderated group's middle years.

Spells, curses, magick — they don't function the way it's portrayed in movies and fictional writings. In order to work they need several things happening at once, things that take effort to be effective.

First: A Spellworker

It takes a magickworker, whether a witch or a magician or someone with innate abilities. The magickworker may have more force to channel than knowledge as to how, but the force, the "power," is foremost. This is acquired through the application of knowledge and development of will, or it comes through an intense emotional spike, like really pissing someone off.

Second: The Ability to Sustain Power

It takes the ability to sustain that power. To sustain that power, the magickworker must either be very disciplined and attendant to the goal of being effective in that particular spell — or, in the case of it being purely driven by an intense emotional spike, it requires obsession.

Basically, spells are like bread or other perishable goods: they have an expiration. Just as the life force dies out in a cut flower or a fresh loaf of bread, the power dies out or goes stale if not refreshed and kept living.

A spell applied through skill and diligence, by someone practiced in spellcraft, requires an ongoing dedication to keeping the spell alive. It takes the spellcaster's attention and lifeforce and effort. Rarely is a spellcaster motivated to keep this sort of thing up (and interrupt his/her life, while denying doing spells to enhance the spellcaster's life) for an extended period, certainly exceedingly rare to do so for a period beyond a year. Who wants to babysit a punishment for so long a period? It kind of jails the jailer.

A spellcaster driven by obsession and intense emotion is unbalanced mentally or emotionally; rarely is such a person in a position to dedicate his/her life to "punishing" someone, and even if somehow moved to do so, the power required would be sporadic, sputtering and wavering. Usually such a person will be distracted by new "offences," new "targets" for his/her anger and ill will.

Third: Ongoing Contact with the Target

The spellcaster must be able to maintain an emotional contact with the "target," through imagining the person or recalling the target's personality or keeping a physical reminder of them (a glove, hair, whatever). This is necessary to focus the renewed energy the spellcaster would have to send to keep the spell effective.

Fourth: Replaying the Motive

The spellcaster has to maintain internally a replaying of whatever sparked this action, whatever motivated the spellcaster to cast the spell in the first place. Over time, the person changes, and how they interpret the precipitating incident is also going to change; they "get over it." Even those who latch on for insane reasons and insanely pursue this over an extended period for some bizarre slight, they will caricaturize the precipitating incident and caricaturize the target individual, reducing the effectiveness of the spell through corruption of the spellcaster's motive and perception of the target.

Fifth: A Receptive Target

The "target" individual has to "welcome" the spell. I know this sounds like blaming the victim, but it is how this functions. The victim has to be receptive, whether due to guilt over his/her part in the precipitating incident, whether guilt over the general nature or ending of the relationship with the spellcaster, or merely due to a general sense of feeling guilty and deserving of being punished. There are even those who get some sense of "specialness" and entitlement through maintaining a role of being a victim (though spells don't usually stick to these people; they are safely sealed in their own little mindsets).

A person who is receptive to being "punished" has no defence against a pertinent spell. The guilt provides a funnel for ill will, mitigated by what seems appropriate to the receptive person. And the receptiveness isn't necessarily conscious receptivity; even a subconscious guilt or fear can keep that gateway open. Even as little as suspicion or superstition will allow entry.

The Spellcaster's Motivation

The spellcaster is more likely to continue efforts to sustain a spell on two counts: vengeance and evidence of effectiveness. By "vengeance" I mean how devoted to exacting an effect, defined as proper payback; some people will hold a grudge a long time. But by "evidence of effectiveness" I mean that the spellcaster can see the spell is still having an effect.

Part of sustaining a spell is having the spellcaster believe in the spell's effectiveness and believe in the spellcaster's power. Every spellcaster, every magickworker, every witch and magician, harbors doubts, even the most arrogant of them. Those doubts can, when given a good enough reason, even a suspicion, dry up one's "power-wielding capacity." There really is something to the old adage that "living well is the best revenge."

Breaking the Spell

Having diagrammed the anatomy of spellcasting, two things are evident: spells can be resisted, and masking evidence will dry up spells in short order.

Basically, you must decide that you are not deserving of a spell, and as such no spell can harm you. The best killer of magick is disbelief, whether in the whole of magick or just in a particular individual's ability to affect you. Even the recognition that time wears down effectiveness should weaken its hold on you. You could also decide that you won't give the person the satisfaction anymore. Lose the fear and replace it with anger and/or pride.

Then you must slow down. Not in terms of driving speed, but in terms of how you are going through your existence. By slowing down, you can begin to develop awareness of your life and how it feels, what the texture and flavor of it is. When you know that, you can tell when something "other" is present, and then you can choose to accept it, ignore it, or resist it (laughing at it helps; seriously). By not giving evidence of effectiveness, you sow the seeds of doubt and the whole spell falls apart. Slowing down lets you seize ownership of the elements in it; magick will, in the process, be converted to yours.

Apply these two things and you will only be susceptible to your own natural karma, not someone else's imposition of what they think your karma should be.

And one last thing: not all witches are Wiccan. Different traditions make for different spells and different remedies, but the best overall remedy is the one outlined above.

Keep in mind the bottom line that very, very few of us are important enough to cause another human being to devote his/her life to causing us misery. The best way to get past this is to simply get over it.

Colophon

Written by "'Thenie" (online handle), a regular and respected voice on alt.religion.wicca.moderated across the group's active years. Posted 18 January 2007 in response to a seeker's question about magical protection. Original Message-ID: <A4Lrh.7036$q32.6448@trndny01>.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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