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To: alt.magick,alt.lucky.w,alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick
From: catherine yronwode 
Subject: Re: Lifting Curses (was: other)
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 20:16:35 GMT

nagasiva wrote:
> 
> can belief be used to *break* a curse? I mean, if someone
> gets convinced that the curse is illusion or a delusion, could that
> generate enough negative vibes or something to break the curse?

I have seen belief used to break a curse happen, but only (in my
experience) when accompanied by a full-blown religious conversion
experience to a religion in which it is explicitely stated that curses
have no power against the mightier power of the deity. Remember last
year, that material i had you archive from the fundamentalist Christian
church in which specific prayers were said to break the power of hoodoo
curses placed by root workers? That's the kind of thing i am talking
about. 

The full text is archived at 

http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/occultism/magic/folk/hoodoo/ih200104prayersagainsthoodoo.txt

But what follows is a sample from
"DELIVERANCE FROM VOODOO [sic] AND AFRICAN CURSES"
by Ivory Hopkins, Deliverance Minister and Pastor 

-----

PRAYER: Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I take my stand
against all conjure balls used against me and my family line. The angels
of the Lord encamps about me to deliver me and I send them to destroy
the power of these conjurations. I return these curses back from where
they came and cast down and cast out any demons that have been sent
against me and my family. I loose myself and my family from good tricks
of witchcraft, and bad tricks of witchcraft and trick by using body
parts, whether mine or someone else's. I command, in the Name of the
Lord Jesus Christ any commands of witchcraft against me or my family 
to be broken and its power to be destroyed in the Name of the Lord 
Jesus Christ.

PRAYER: Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I break any roots
worked against the judicial system and anyone involved with the Godly
judgment of the judicial system. I command these spirits to leave now. I
cast out and cast down their power of control on me or anyone involved.
Father, I loose the protection of the Lord over all who are involved
with the case or praying for it, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

PRAYER: Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I bind the power of
any toby in this place that would try to control me or anyone in this
room. I take authority over the demons that work through it and command
them to come out in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

----

In the above case, belief in the power of Jesus Christ is used to break
curses associated with hoodoo rootwork. 

 But from where i am standing, it looks an awful lot like substituting
one powerful belief system for another -- trumping the curse rather than
denying that curses exist. 

> > Nothing has shown me otherwise. But I can see how telling someone
> > that will not help when they're in a bad situation.
> 
> when the man raved at me and told me he was the King of the Devils,
> that I should be worshipping him, and that he was going crazy trying
> to figure out how not to be tortured because *he could never REALLY
> be alone*, having achieved the Sumum Bonum, the Knowledge and
> Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, and reached the pinnacle
> of spiritual experience, trying to convince him of more than that
> the available assistance of all manner of psychiatric or spiritual
> help he might feel predisposed to seek out was available to him at
> his activation. 
>
> and though he claimed he felt cursed by this state
> he was in, one moment weeping and another expounding in arrogance,
> I don't think it was quite the same kind of thing as a possession,
> which Christians and others say that they can drive out, or a curse,
> such as was the subject of your discussion.

That doesn't sound like a curse to me (who would have cast it?) or like
possession. Did you consider that the phenomenon might be the result of
recreational drug (ab)use or mental illness? 

> but I found that telling this man that the delusions weren't real
> was being faithful to my care for him, and to an attendance of
> ritual and ceremony which perhaps only those of the same brotherhood
> would seek to endure. 

And then what happened? I mean, after you said that to him?

> Asiya's advice might not apply to a client,
> agreed, presuming that individual is coming to be spoken to in a
> certain respectful manner within certain axioms of belief, but it
> might apply in other situations.

You say that the individual is "coming to be spoken to in a certain
respectful manner" -- but then, aren't most people expecting to be
spoken to in a respectful manner? 

And i do not think avoiding mention of mental illness is a sign of
respect. You have overheard me on the phone when i give free
consultations, telling people that i think they have a thought disorder
or brain chemical imbalance, or directly asking if they are under
psychiatric care -- so you know that. Remember the woman to whom i
broached the subject of mental illness and then when i got off the phone
i told you that the conversation had suddenly changed from her
presentation of a curse symptomology-set to her asking me if i thought
she needed to get back on her meds, and thanking me for asking her to
call her psychiatrist and get her prescription of anti-psychotics
renewed? I mean, if she did make that call and got back on her
medications, i accomplished a curse removal for her just as truly as if
i had driven out the demons of hell, because she was having delusions of
being cursed. Lucky for her, she was experienced enough with her own
mental illness to know that intrusive thoughts about curses being cast
upon her might not based in fact and might be addressed with
medications. 

> plain speaking is sometimes exceedingly important and effective in
> getting the results that one desires, however, and placing faith in
> the nonexistence of the curse in order to combat it doesn't seem
> completely unreasonable to me on the whole.

Right. But what about Mary H., whom you know?  The jealous co-worker who
threw powders on Mary's car was real (and got reprimanded for it). She
was apparently not deluded in her belief that she was being cursed.
Based on her years of experience within her cultural framework, she knew
full well that she was being throwed for. She also knew what steps to
take -- and had already taken several by the time she called me
(including traditional spiritual baths as taught to her by her mother).
The successful resolution of her situation did not depend on her
renouncing a belief in jinxes or tricks -- rather it required that she
deploy the right protections and reversing spells to send the mess back
to the man who pout it on her. This she did, and he got in trouble,
while she had the victory. 

When a client presents as "I am cursed," talking together at length is
the best way i know to figure out the true nature of the problem and
help them work to change their situation. 

cat yronwode 

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