To ask you if you believe in black magic or getting jynxed by someone with an evil eye?

[WonderingHead]

This is a serious question, but I know I will get a few joke type answers, so I am asking in advance if we can have a serious discussion about this.

I know to some people it may seem like something out of Harry Potter, but I do believe in black magic. Without going into too much detail, I have met many people who have had bad luck in their life, where people in their family have suddenly died, or died after a bad illness (which seems normal), but then they have had other strange things happen to them, like blood splatters on their clothes out of the blue, or finding strange charms with pins in them under their bed or chairs in their house or finding balls of hair in their rooms or where they work. I have also had a few problems in my life, that I believe were the work of someone in my family cursing me out of jealousy. This is not in England.

I know a family member, who fell ill on his wedding day. He'd get pains all over his body and high fever and the doctors couldn't understand what was wrong. After a few weeks, his wife found a round ball made out of fabric with pins in it under his office chair in their house. It was found that it was a bad luck charm and the day it was thrown away, the man became better again.

I am just wondering if any of you believe that you could be harmed by someone through black magic or even get jynxed by someone who is jealous of your good fortune. I know it sounds unreal, but in some countries, such as Nigeria, black magic is a normal occurrence.

What do you all think?

Ready to be ridiculed.

it may be a cultural thing as I have never come across, say, a European who believes in black magic
Plenty do, but as they tend to be mocked it is not something they would necessarily talk about openly.

As for your question about some people being associated with bad luck, I think in some times and societies this has been quite common. It is never the powerful who are stigmatised in this way. It tends to be the unfortunate or unwanted, or rivals, specifically women and children. Sometimes jealousy is the motivation.

There is a fascinating discussion of this phenomenon in a wonderful book called 'Religion and the Decline of Magic' by Keith Thomas, about the decline of magical belief in England and the rise of rationalism. He discusses the theory that behind the accusations in witchcraft trials in 17th century England often lay guilt and resentment of unwanted children or abandoned women who would traditionally have had a claim on their communities and families for charitable assistance. Reluctance to have these people around created a situation in which they became scapegoats for the ills of a whole community, which in turn created a powerful rationale for punishing them adn getting rid of them.

I see parallels in the way difficult or unwanted children, or infertile, old or single women are called witches in some West African countries today. It places them beyond the pale. Anything can be done to them, with impunity.

I know it sounds unreal, but in some countries, such as Nigeria, black magic is a normal occurrence.

In Nigeria there was a film made called "End of the Wicked" by a hate-filled woman called Helen Ukpabio.

It depicts children as witches and wizards evoking curses on adults and causing extreme harm.

Ukpabio's "church", its ministers and believers have caused directly and indirectly the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of childen in the Niger Delta, where superstitious people ostracise, maim and murder their children in the name of witchcraft.

Most of the "curses" imagined to have been caused by witchcraft are in actuality linked to the poisoning of the earth and water ways by large oil companies who have decimated the region.

A combination of poverty, ill health and superstition have been played on by Ukpabio and her followers and as a result children are dying every single day.

SO, you ask if I believe in curses and witchcraft? The answer is no.

All supposed "curses" have their roots in other tangible causes and nothing to do with imagined witches or wizards.

If you want to find out more, see: www.steppingstonesnigeria.org/

This is a charity who run orphanages for abandoned children and try to reunite them with their families.

Yes, I believe it can and does happen.

I have strong Christian faith and believe this is the only way to protect oneself.

I do hope so. These last two years I have seen evil that I never imagine existed and have put my own curses on those who are responsible.

I'm not so much hoping that anything horrible happens to them, but more that they perceive it to be horrible and drown in a puddle of despair!

No, I don't believe it at all.

I do believe in the power of suggestion though.

DH is a North-African Muslim and believes in the evil eye, so much so that I myself try to be careful of the evil eye too, although perhaps for less superstitious reasons as it is true that if someone is jealous of you they will not only wish badness on you, but they will also act negatively towards you which in turn may very well cause you actual harm.

Yes - magic is the rational explanation for things people don't understand. Magic was blamed for things that were caused by bacteria, by magnetism and by air currents before those things were physically understood. It's still used, as BornSicky says, to explain harms that are caused by commercial & political powers. If they could get away with it, our Govt would be telling us this economic disaster was caused by a curse!

On a non-cursing note, I attended a fantastic ceremony for the sea spirit. I was told the sea would become full of silt and dirt, due to this spirit needing her flurry of gifts and worship. That night we all sang in the waves; threw gifts into the already filthy sea: early the next morning, a strong tide brought utter clarity to the water. I'd never seen it so calm and crystalline.

Along the beach, the ceremony continued. Its highlight was the arrival of a 'priest', who glided to shore - at incredible speed - from way out to sea. He was, apparently, flying over the water. It was breathtaking.

So this is what happens. At the Spring equinox, there's a huge movement of ocean waters; this leads to Spring tides. In the tropical area where I was, this turbulence causes the spirit's anger (the dirty sea.) Following an equally powerful outflow, the water dumps its crap back on the ocean floor and there is an unusually smooth inflow of surface water - clear. All this activity causes a temporary riptide around the rocky promontory at one end of the beach.

Now, surfing an undercurrent for more than a mile is very skilful indeed. But it's not magic.

sssshh Yes, this is another thing. Alot of these so called "witches" take alot of money from women claiming to help them attain good fortune and cast bad fortune on people they target.
Another woman I know, owes thousands of pounds to a man who claimed to help her get rich. In some of these countries, women can be blackmailed by the "witches" for sex in place of money.

bornsticky I think I have heard of this film. Thanks for the link. I also remember a documentary a few years ago about "zombies" in African countries, where people are given a poison to lower their heart rate, and then their "masters" take them out of their tombs and use these people as slaves.

beemybaby I guess that is the whole point of an evil eye. If someone is jealous of your good fortune, their negativity must have some affect on you. Like alot of people have said here, the negativity must be chanelled somewhere.

No - it's bollocks

eldritch I am going to see if I can find that book on Amazon. It does seem that there was a shift in thinking in England after the witch hunts. These things really interest me.

"If someone is jealous of your good fortune, their negativity must have some affect on you. Like alot of people have said here, the negativity must be chanelled somewhere."

No, that makes no sense.

You cannot channel energy.

My MIL has been actively sticking pins in a voodoo doll of me for years.

I am in fantastic health, happy in life and all is well.

MIL, however, is dying slowly of kidney failure and high blood pressure and a more miserable, wretch of a woman you have never met.

Go figure.

Someone else's feelings can't affect you at all. This idea that somehow, negative 'energy' has some power over you is just superstition. The mind is a powerful thing, yes - in terms of how we are in ourselves, but it has no power to reach out and affect the lives of others.

It all comes down to a need to find a reason - outside yourself and absolving yourself of any blame or responsibility - for things that happen.

Sometimes things happen for NO reason
Sometimes things happen because you made a poor decision and it came and bit you on the arse
Sometimes you get caught in the fallout from a decision made by someone else

But someone thinking negative thoughts cannot affect you. Negative thoughts have no power to do anything.

Well, apart from drag down the person thinking them, of course.

ooh, shivering - I had a moment then! My sister is ShiverMeTimbers (not that she posts much!) and I thought you were her for a sec.

and just to underline it a little more, because it pisses me off when people think there's no harm in believing it...

a five year old had a nail hammered into her head to realease evil spirits

a boy's father bathed him in acid to cleanse him

children are locked in tomb-like cellars for weeks on end because it is believed they might hurt someone.

In Akwa-Ibom it is common to see dead children accused of witchcraft lying on the side of streets.

*release

Oh, BornSick :( :(

Making me think of Victoria Climbie, too.

BornSicky, sorry

OP why not get yourself a piece of jet on a chain it protects from negative energy and may make you feel a little better?

garlicbutter exactly my point.

grim, and dangerous

Black Magic?

Nah, give me a Dairy Box any day.

No

Yes of course it's grim and dangerous, doesn't mean you can say it doesn't exist.

children engage in magical thinking, its a stage which they go through on the way to real grown up thinking. Some people think like small children, and get caught in this child-like way of looking at the world. If you believe that wishing makes things so, you are about 5 years old on a mental level.

The Pope has a mental age of 5?

Nice shoes though.