A Witch's World of Magick (20 page)

While it’s not wise to hold back when it comes to countermagick, sometimes a curse can be dispersed by merely disturbing or relocating the object that houses the charm. Although it’s certainly preferable in most situations to destroy any such token outright to prevent any further damage to others, simply moving a cursed object to a new location will certainly move the magick and alter the action of the spell, sometimes transforming, diverting, or reversing the originally cast curse. One example of breaking a curse through curse object removal comes to us from the wide world of sports. In 2008, Gino Castignoli, a diehard Red Sox fan who was hired to do construction work on the new Yankee stadium, decided to try his hand at casting a curse against the Yankees. The Yankees and the Red Sox have had a long-standing rivalry ever since the so-called “Curse of the Bambino” struck the Sox back in 1918 (more on this one later!), and Castignoli wanted to help even the score. He attempted to levy ill wishes against the Yankees by burying a Red Sox jersey beneath the new Yankee locker room. The Yankees owners were tipped off to the curse by other construction workers, and a plan was devised to foil Castignoli’s magickal attempt. The Yankees organization hired workers to jackhammer and drill through two feet of solid concrete in order to locate and retrieve the cursed jersey, which was then donated to a charity auction.
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The curse removal took five hours and carried a price tag of $50,000, a pretty hefty investment coming from people who most likely consider magick to be a bunch of superstitious nonsense!
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The jersey had only been buried for a week, but what happened after it was removed highlights the reality of the curse. The tattered and torn garment bore the name and number of David Ortiz, one of the star players for the Red Sox. The day of the jersey’s removal from beneath the concrete was one of the worst in Ortiz’s career. He just couldn’t seem to get his game together and that night was pulled from the starting line-up to take a “mental break.” There are two lessons here—one, that a curse once cast will strike
somewhere
, and two, that people should be careful when messing around with magick. Castignoli wanted only the Yankees to lose, but with a poorly thought-out spell design, he ended up cursing one of his favorite team’s players, instead. Of course, the Yankees owners weren’t too expert in their cursebreaking procedures, either, and by merely removing the jersey rather than destroying it outright, they may have allowed some of the curse’s originally intended effects to linger. The Yankees failed to make the playoffs in 2008, for the first time in fifteen years.

Overpowering: Breaking a Curse
through Direct Magickal Warfare

Another way to divert a curse or other unwanted energy is to fight back. By directing toward the source of the negative intentions an adequately powerful attack, the would-be curse or other misfortune can be overpowered and stopped before it has a chance to do its worst. Overpowering as a cursebreaking technique was used widely by the Maori of New Zealand. Edward Shortland’s
Maori Religion
and Mythology
offers us a prime example of such direct magickal warfare, explaining how the Maori magickal masters used
Whakahokitu
, a special form of
makutu
—or sorcery—designed to overcome and overpower curses cast by rival experts of the art:

WHAKAHOKITU is the name given to forms of makutu employed to counteract the curse of some other tohunga, or wise-man; for whoever practises makutu, even though he be skilled in the art, may have to yield to the mana of some other wise-man who can command the assistance of a more powerful Atua. The following
is a specimen of this kind of makutu—
Great curse, long curse,
Great curse, binding curse,
Binding your sacredness
To the tide of destruction.
Come hither, sacred spell,
To be looked on by me.
Cause the curser to lie low
In gloomy Night, in dark Night,
In the Night of ill-omen.
Great wind, lasting wind,
Changing wind of Rangi above.
He falls. He perishes.
Cause to waste away the curser tohunga.
Let him bite the oven-stones.
Be food for me,
The tapu and the mana,
Of your Atua,
Of your karakia,
Of your tohunga.
^107
,
108

We see here that the curse is first called forth, to be “looked on” by the defending magician. He then relies on the power of his words and intentions to cast a countercurse against his enemy—whether or not this action will neutralize his rival’s magick depends solely on whether or not the defending magician is more powerful than his foe. If he is the stronger, then he can use his own sorcery to overpower and counteract any magickal attacks from the weaker
tohunga
.

The energy used to overpower a curse need not be negative or malicious; evil can be fought with good just as well as it can be fought with further menace. Among Hungarians living in Transylvania, a historical region in central Romania, the task of cursebreaking is often given to the
călugăr
, a priest or monk in the Romanian Orthodox tradition of Catholicism. One cursebreaking procedure still actively used today requires the
călugăr
to recite blessings upon a photo or the clothes of the victim, while in another formula, sugar or oil is blessed and then mixed with the victim’s food.
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Both methods rely on the greater strength of the good to overpower and overcome the strength of the bad. The recited blessings, the food-turned—sacrament, the garments rendered purified—all are deemed powerful enough to override a curse and provide a cure. Here, the introduction of positive intentions transforms the magickal landscape, rendering the originally cast curse diluted and thus ineffectual.

Making Amends

As we see in the example of the
călugăr
cursebreaking rites, fire doesn’t always have to be fought with fire. In fact, sometimes it’s best to not fight at all, but rather make amends and make it right. Making up with the people or powers responsible for placing a curse in the first place is indeed an often reliable and safe way to break a spell. Many of our cursebreaking methods lead only to more trouble; as the first curse is broken and a countercurse hurled, a new curse is cast to counteract the countercurse … and thus does the wizard’s dual commence. By focusing instead on trying to make it right, the witch is minimizing the likelihood of courting further ire. Sure, there are principles of dignity involved, and a person might not want to simply roll over and apologize to the big bad wolf. Yet, a small sacrifice of pride is sometimes a worthy price to pay to avoid further large-scale punishment! Such tactics have certainly worked in the city of Philadelphia, where several years ago a decades-long curse was broken through the simple expedient of making amends. According to urban legend, the curse in question, nicknamed the William Penn curse, was activated way back in 1987. Before then, the city had honored Philadelphia’s founding father William Penn by ensuring that the town hall, which features a William Penn statue on its roof, would remain the tallest building in the growing metropolis. Tradition was broken and the curse was set in motion with the 1987 construction of the Liberty Place building. The city’s first skyscraper, the building rose far above the William Penn statue atop the town hall. Before this, the city’s sports teams were among the best in the nation, with the Eagles even enjoying a trip to the 1980 Superbowl. Once William Penn was no longer the highest point in the city, however, the sports rankings started to plummet in earnest. Philadelphia teams went without a major title year after year after year—from 1987 all the way to 2008.

What eventually broke the curse was the power of a thoughtful gesture, an action taken in an attempt to make amends and make things right with the city’s founding father. When the Comcast Center was erected in 2007, it became the city’s new tallest building, and in an effort to cure the drought of sports wins, a 25-inch statue of William Penn was placed at the very top, high on the roof where it would once again be literally above all else in Philadelphia. Jeanne Leonard, a spokesperson for the construction company involved with the cursebreaking, explains the inclusion of the miniature William Penn:

“To reinforce that the building would lift whatever curse there is, we decided that he would take his rightful place at the top of the city again.”
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It seems that the magick of making amends worked for Philly. In 2008, the curse of William Penn was broken when the Phillies finally won the World Series again for the first time in a long time.

In Germany relief from curses has also been obtained by making amends. An anthropological study of the folk magick practices in Franconia, an isolated province in central Germany, was conducted by Hans Sebald in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One woman provided testament of an incident of malicious witchcraft and the simple means of making it right that was used to break it. Sebald writes:

One of my case studies deals with a woman who stole from a witch-reputed neighbor. Soon thereafter she perceived a vengeance spell causing her cows to milk traces of blood. Knowing the traditional solution of Abbitte (asking to be forgiven), she visited the witch, offered restitution, and begged that the curse be lifted from her stable. The witch complied; the cows returned to normal.
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In this example, we find that often a curse is merely an act of karma, delivered by the witch who acts as an administrator of divine justice. Since the curse was indeed somewhat justified (the woman did steal from the witch, after all), by owning up to her mistake and offering some form of restitution, the curse victim is able to make things right and prompt the witch to call back the malicious magick. It takes great bravery to stand face to face with the ones we’ve wronged and apologize, but doing so is often the best way to restore balance and harmony when a curse is wreaking havoc in our lives.

Reflection as a Means of Cursebreaking

Another effective way to break a curse is through the reflection principle. By creating a reflective energy surrounding the intended curse target, the curse is bounced back on its caster.

We’ll explore some examples of exactly how magicians around the world have done this, but first off, let’s consider the theory behind the method. A reflection reverses an image. When a person gazes into mirrored glass, their image doesn’t penetrate the glass’s surface. Instead, it’s reflected back, and we see this mock, reversed image as our “self”—we accept it as such and we generally don’t think of this image as a reversal of our true appearance. We accept the mirror’s reflection as our own image. Similarly, a curse, when it finds its intentions mirrored back, will accept those effects as its own doing. The reflection principle of magick is the idea that by creating a negative, or reversed, otherwise-replica of the essential idea the original curse or spell represents, the magick can be stopped in its tracks, tricked into thinking it has already done its worst by meeting with its apparent effects manifested. The spell then returns to its place of origin, bringing the full brunt of its magickal force home to the one who cast it, just as the karmic consequences of any spells we utter flutter back to us inevitably.

The reflection principle has been applied in varied ways around the world. In Egypt, the reflective power of words was used to break curses and hurl ill intentions back to the one who sent them. An example found on the wall of an ancient pyramid does well to illustrate:

To say: “Spitting of the wall”; “Vomiting of the brick,” that which comes out of thy mouth is thrown back against thyself
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Carved into the west wall of the sarcophagus chamber of the Pyramid of Unas,
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this utterance was intended to protect the tomb and its dead from malicious magick or other misfortune that could otherwise hinder the soul’s journey into the afterlife.
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We see here the directive for “that which comes out of thy mouth” to be “thrown back,” and we find the very substance of the pyramid itself “spitting” and “vomiting” out any curses sent its way. By naming the energies to be diverted and then using one’s words and intent to mirror and reverse those energies, the enemy’s spells are counteracted, reflected back to their origin.

Reflection as a means of cursebreaking can also be found in traditional Hindu practice. In the
Atharvaveda
, many charms used to repel malicious magick make ample use of the reflection principle. Take a look at this excerpt from Hymn V, 14: