Ethics, Wyrd, and Magick, Part One: On Cursing

On many discussions regarding the magickal side of Witchcraft, there is a lot of emphasis on ethics as a consideration in magickal practice.  The two major discussions on magickal ethics always seem to either be about whether or not cursing is ever acceptable, and whether it is OK to work magick on behalf of others at all.

The first part of my exploration of magickal ethics as pertains to a practice of Vanic Witchcraft will focus on the issue of cursing.  Most magick users believe that it is always wrong to curse someone no matter what the circumstances, because you are "stooping to their level" or "interfering with their free will" or "not being compassionate" and it will come back threefold, so the best thing to do is let Karma straighten them out.  The other side of the coin are people who have a misanthropic/nihilist view of humanity and feel that not only is cursing not wrong, but should be done as often as possible.  I know that there are other Pagans and Witches who share my view of "the middle way", but we are probably in the minority.

In my own practice of living magick -- not just doing magick occasionally -- it is important to find balance.  The first step to finding balance in the issue of "good magick" versus "evil magick" is to examine the nature of humanity itself.

People are not inherently evil, as the Bible would suggest.  However, people are not inherently good as some New Agers would suggest.  If you accept that human nature is not so easily split into good and evil and there is a lot of overlap, especially in terms of acting appropriately to the situation, you can start working on a more balanced approach to being magickal and ethical.

I find the first extreme of all white light and goodness to be wrong.  Anyone who follows the American news media knows we live in very dangerous, crazy times, when you do not know what skeletons a person is hiding in their closet, or who is going to finally break and take others down with them.  One of the problems I see with modern Pagans, including some Heathens, is a tendency to put the Divine up on a pedestal of "all good" or "above wrongdoing".  This is even extended to Deities such as Odin and Kali-Ma who are definitely dark in nature.  No matter how much Odin inspires you to write beautiful poetry, that does not change His fundamental tendency towards strife and violence.  No matter how many flowers you put on Kali, She is still a killer.  I believe the attitude that "our Gods are better than that" is an extreme reaction to Christian upbringing where YHWH was seen as angry and without mercy, or perhaps where Jesus was seen as being as above "sin" and reproach.  No matter how much you want to live in Happy Land, by virtue of living on planet Earth, shit happens.  Sometimes bad and even tragic things happen to good people, and many who do bad deeds seem to be living a perfectly trouble-free life.  And while you can't blame everything on the Gods, They are neither all-evil nor all-benevolent.

On the other hand, magick is not an RPG game.  A good number of people claiming to be Pagans and Witches come from the gamer subculture (also see my article on Otherkin) and while this is not a bad thing in and of itself, there is a difference between a sorceror/mage class character throwing a fireball at a foe in a fantasy world, and magick that translates into real time, with real lives being affected.  Magick is very complicated to say the least, and being inexperienced and using magick casually can cause a great deal of problems both for yourself and others.

By now it should be clear that I try to follow the Old Beliefs of the Northlands while still making them relevant to the 21st century.  Not all Northerners practiced magick in the old days, but a fair number did, and the very worst curse that we have recorded in the written Lore is called a "nidstang", or "scorn-pole".  "Nid" literally means "worthless", and here is what the Germanic people saw as being deeds under the label of "nid", that would make someone worthless to the security of the community.

Severe misdeeds were perjury deeds, especially if they had been committed insidiously and in secret. Such perpetrators were nithings, despicable beings. Their perjury deeds included: Murder, theft, nightly arson, as well as any deeds that harmed the kinship's legally protected rights (treason, deserting to the enemy, deserting from the army, resisting to fight in a war, and perversion).[16] [Furthermore these deeds included] any crimes offending the deities, such as breaking a special peace treaty (for example thing peace, armistice, security of the ceremony places and buildings, or a special festivity peace), trespass, defilement of graves, sorcery, finally all perjury deeds indicating moral degeneration, such as oathbreaking, perversion, acts of nasty cowardness[17] [i. e. any acts] of moral degeneration.
Claudius von Schwerin. (1950). Grundzüge der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (in German), 29.

(Please note I do not see being on the spectrum of queer as "moral degeneration" or "perversion", much as some Fundietru would like to claim it is.)

The nidstang was only ever employed in extreme cases, because to construct one is an extreme thing.  If you want to be historically accurate and make a "real" nidstang (as opposed to a virtual one on the Internet), this is the way to go about it: 

And when all was ready for sailing, Egil went up into the island. He took in his hand a hazel-pole, and went to a rocky eminence that looked inward to the mainland. Then he took a horse's head and fixed it on the pole. After that, in solemn form of curse, he thus spake: 'Here set I up a curse-pole, and this curse I turn on king Eric and queen Gunnhilda. (Here he turned the horse's head landwards.) This curse I turn also on the guardian-spirits who dwell in this land, that they may all wander astray, nor reach or find their home till they have driven out of the land king Eric and Gunnhilda.' This spoken, he planted the pole down in a rift of the rock, and let it stand there. The horse's head he turned inwards to the mainland; but on the pole he cut runes, expressing the whole form of curse.
Egils Saga, Chapter LXXV

It may sound arcane, but my theory on why it works: in those times, horses were a valuable commodity and to cut off a horse's head, to sacrifice something valuable, meant serious business, and to have such a clear representation of death and gore on the land and pointed in the direction of the enemy with runes to "project" the curse was disturbing to the wights, who would be willing to "bargain" by messing with the person whom the horse-head pole is pointed at.  In most cases the person would be driven off the land, but I imagine severe physical and psychiatric illness would be another way the wights would do it.

In the worldview of the Northern Religionist, evil should not go unpunished, and if one has done grievous evil to another, they are potentially a danger to the entire community.  But that's it: it's for "evil".  It is not for "you dissed my mom" or "you laughed at me when I got drunk and puked".  It's also not for "your beliefs are contrary to mine and I think you are 'doing it wrong'."

My general rule of thumb with cursing then is:

1. Is this a definite individual or group of specific individuals involved?  Can I prove there is wrong being done?

This is to avoid the mistake of "I think Such-and-Such is cursing me because she's a Witch and has beef with me."  This happens once in awhile but far less often than we think in times of stress where paranoia comes easy.  Also, avoid cursing "the Republican party" as opposed to "Stupid-Ass Annoying Neighbor X Who Happens to be a Neo-Con".  (No offense or support implied of conservative Republicans, I'm using this as an example.)


2. Is this something I won't care about three months or a year from now?

In other words, is this a minor slight?  Did somebody really piss you off, doing something extremely offensive or obnoxious, but they are irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, whether they are just so many pixels on an Internet forum, or some random stranger you'll never see again?  Is expending energy to "teach them a lesson" taking energy away from making your life happier and healthier?


3. If this is something "major", done to me or one of my blood/adopted kin, is it
A. causing major personal risk or damage
B. persistent, that is, either permanent or the person will not stop bad behavior
C. worthy of bringing to a lawyer's notice and/or a court of law?

In other words, if a person is consistently slandering you (and I don't just mean "talking shit", I mean, trying to ruin your relationship/career/living situation with consistent lies or other inappropriate behavior), or if they have stolen your property, or beat you up or one of your closest loved ones, etc, then you have cause for some kind of wergild.  Read on.


4. Am I able to address this with the proper authorities, or would this cause me more damage to call it out, e.g. reliving a traumatic experience, or the authorities perhaps not caring and not doing their duty?

This happens a lot, especially in areas where police are apathetic.  The police can't go breaking down someone's door even if you have proof that property was stolen from you and is currently in the hands of Such-and-Such.  Most courts refuse to give restraining orders unless there's actual violence involved. 

That being said, there are also some things that are unethical but not illegal, such as the aforementioned people deciding to stir up shit in someone's relationship, job, or living situation, being a continuous thorn in the side.  I see this as deliberately fucking with a person's survival and cause for action.  Ergo, 4 may not necessarily apply.

A caveat: it should go without saying that people younger than "the age of reason" should not be targeted for destructive magick under any circumstances.  However, what you feel to be "the age of reason" may be different than where I feel this age begins.  My general opinion is that if a kid is old enough to feel guilty about doing something wrong, as opposed to feeling bad because they got caught, they are old enough to know better.  In the 21st century when we have children raping and murdering other children, my cut-off age for the "age of reason" is approximately 9 years old.  But then if a minor child has done grievous harm, it would make more sense, besides being more ethical, to hold the parents responsible, because something would have had to go terribly wrong with the parenting.  I also feel that past the age of 15, we are now dealing with an adult and not a child, as just a few generations ago a 15 year-old was able to work full-time and was expected to take responsibility for their actions, and certainly most American 15 year-olds feel they can engage in adult behaviors without assuming adult responsibility. 

I also feel that developmentally disabled adults (e.g. with mental retardation) fall into a different category according to what they can understand about right and wrong: they are not exempt from being held accountable in any and all cases (being developmentally disabled does not excuse deliberate threatening and harassment, rape, or murder, among other things), but not all are able to understand why a specific action is considered inappropriate or wrong.  It will be highly dependent on the individual and what they are able to understand: if they understand "stop" for one action, they should be able to understand "stop" for another.  Lacking social skills or other life skills does not mean one does not have a conscience, especially if they are aware enough to know how to do things out of deliberate spite.


For any kind of strong evidence that cursing is a good course of action, a divination should always be done before proceeding.  Why?   

No matter what belief system you subscribe to, most spiritual people can agree to something like fate or karma.  In Northern belief this is called Wyrd, and there seems to be two models: the Anglo-Saxon see Wyrd as threads, the Norse see Wyrd as layers in the well of the Norns.  I personally think these two views complement rather than contradict each other, especially having worked with Njord.  It is because of Wyrd, karma, however you see it, that you need to do any kind of magick with the utmost caution.  In this article we will specifically address Wyrd as it pertains to "negative" magick.

According to my personal gnosis, all Deities see the patterns of Wyrd, but see them differently according to Their domain.  Njord sees "the waters of the Worlds", the ebb and flow of tides, the currents that flow from sea to sea, the cycle of hydration and evaporation and re-hydration.  Without water we would not exist.  Njord has been the most helpful with teaching me about the patterns of Wyrd, and my conclusion is that people are interconnected with other people who are interconnected with other people and so on and so forth, these people's connections run through places and through situations, some of which are pre-destined, some of which are changeable.  If you believe in Wyrd, and more importantly if you have seen Wyrd, you understand that magick works by the "as above, so below" principle -- using sympathetic tools such as personal affects, candles, stones, and various other objects to manipulate the Wyrd of yourself and/or another person, and deliberately manipulating someone's Wyrd for good or for ill can have far-reaching consequences, setting off a "chain reaction" that impacts "innocent bystanders".  You are not just affecting the person's Wyrd, but the Wyrd of all the people in that immediate link, and potentially the Wyrd of others who come into contact with those people.

Generally cursing falls into one of four "degrees":

1. binding/banishing the person, that is a Divine "cease and desist" order that makes the person either stop what wrong deed they're doing, or removes them from your world space.

2. minor retribution: This is the "classical" form of cursing, where you see people's hair falling out, or boils growing on weird areas of their bodies, etc.

3. direct return of Wyrd: The Gods will determine how the person should best "learn", whether the same thing happens to them or the accumulated wrong actions done to others besides yourself speeds up in their threads and finally bitch-slaps them into a very low place in life.

4. Death.  Because this is a public website, I am going to tell you here, publicly, that death magick is not recommended.


I have admittedly done 1 and 3 (no, I won't say for what and on whom), I don't really feel 2 is worth my time/effort.  3 is about as extreme as I feel comfortable doing for really bad cases.  For those who would say, "Well let the Gods deal with Wyrd," the fact of the matter is They don't do *everything* for us and sometimes They want us to stand up for ourselves so we can learn something.  We are Their representatives on Earth, also, just as They are our representatives in the greater scheme of things.  (The word "fulltrui" means representative in a legal sense, and I believe that relationship is reciprocal.)  If you have the skill to effectively speed up someone's Wyrd so they get what's coming to them, when they have done grievous wrong and should get it sooner rather than later -- there is no evil in doing so.  In fact, it is sometimes the most loving thing to do, because when a person is smacked by Wyrd accumulated from harm done to others, it usually stops them from harming others, and may even make them re-think their lot in life.  People can change, and have changed.  We cannot undo what has been done in the past -- cursing someone will not take away the event that harmed you or your kin.  But it may come back to a person so strongly that they change, and try to make shild by being more honorable in the future.

However, you better damn well make sure that you are in the right before cursing anyone, that you are not doing the same sorts of vile and curse-worthy deeds yourself.  You also need to be very careful that you are only targeting that person and that action, and leaving their significant other, children, etc, out of it except as significant other and children deserve it (which is sometimes the case) or that innocent bystanders would be helped and unharmed (such as getting out of an abusive situation).

A nidstang is only one course of action and should only be reserved for the most severe offenses.  I also believe it is illegal in most places to kill a horse in such a manner, and I personally have qualms about beheading a horse (although I am OK with the idea of attending a livestock Blot).  There are other methods of cursing, most based in folk magick, usually involving getting a personal affect of the person and doing sympathetic nasty to it.  (There's also the historical anecdotes of European witches cursing the fields of people who pissed them off, which could translate into the 21st century as cursing someone's home or employment.)  I generally prefer the latter.

All that being said, cursing a person may stop them from harming others, and may bring some sense of release, especially for those who are professional "Good Samaritans" and real people-pleasers to the detriment of their self-care and well-being, and may need to be shaken out of that mentality for their own good.  Cursing does not just return Wyrd to the offender, but also the person doing the curse is able to find some kind of closure by saying "enough is enough" about the situation.  It can be very empowering and dare I say healing to take fate back into your own hands, especially if the legal situation has decided they don't care and can't help you.

Even so, I've seen in my own personal experience and that of others, that if you take on a vendetta, it is easy to be consumed by the need for vengeance, and this is not necessarily healthy for life in the 21st century, even if a situation merits cosmic justice.  You have to be the final judge of whether or not you want to invest more time in bringing that sort of closure to a situation, or finding closure a different way, as it's been said "the best revenge is living well".  It's also been said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" and there are some times when learning how to do effective warding on people, places, and things can stave off a lot of problems.  Any occult shop that has been in business longer than 5 years (which is a rarity, trust me) has owners who know how to both bring in positive people, and ward against negative people and their bullshit.  Once you become effective at warding, you will find that intent really does radiate out into your actions and life seems to go better, lessening the need to curse others for harm done.

(C) 2008 Sigrun Freyskona.