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.

An old gypsy woman once cursed me as i was going to a job interview.
(I refused to buy 'lucky heather').
The interview was bad so i didn't get the job, the button fell off my suit jacket & i missed the bus home.
But..i got a much better job later, i didn't actually lose the button, & bus schedules can be bad anyway.
It was that woman's nasty attitude that made me feel rubbish & upset before i even got to the interview.
She picked on me because i looked vulnerable & nervous that day.

So i don't believe 'being cursed' is black magic - it's just that knowing someone is out to get you has a similar effect (psychologically & physically) to being bullied.

Whilst I am saying I do believe in black magic, I am certainly not saying I would take part in anything of the sort to cause pain to anyone else. That just sickens me.

bornsticky Those things you have described are atrocious crimes. How could anyone do that? It just makes you think about what kind of mindset these people have when they are fooled into thinking their own children are evil :(

TaraJaime Your story reminds me of that film Drag me to Hell, where an old woman curses a girl with a button.

I had a gypsy at the door once, trying to flog heather. I was pregnant. She said it was a girl. I said it's not. She said it is and I'd see that she was right when it was born.

It wasn't. (I already knew that, having had several scans!)

but she had a 50/50 shot at it, didn't she? I don't blame her for trying

When they threaten you with a curse, you say "Thanks, but I already have one"

They don't know what to say to that.

There will always be people who pray on the superstitious and the gullible. There will always be people who have a desperate need to believe in all sorts of things.

The Pope? Where does he come in to it?

And who has nice shoes?

You get the same kind of anti-curse thing from women selling those paper flowers near the London Eye. They start praying for you and wishing you good health if you give them a quid for the paper flower.

I don't believe people can just threaten you with a curse. I think it's much more complex than saying a few words at the heat of the moment.

I totally believe in black magic, in fact my ex cursed me quite bad leaving me ill for a few days until he had the curse 'undone' straight away I was better. He only told me after about what he had done which scared me into staying with him for a while. I sought help from a witchdoctor who sent me a black tourmaline pendant which is meant to protect you from evil spirits and thoughts of others. I've carried the pendant with me ever since and I've been fine, also split with ex about 3years ago. His black magic involved burying my photo in graveyards and tying my clothes at the top of trees....

Siamo, the Pope believes that wishing can make things so.

I once did buy a lucky charm from a gypsy woman on my way to a job interview. However the interview was an embarrassing disaster and needless to say I didn't get the job. If I hadn't bought it, and she'd 'cursed' me or something, I can see how it would have been tempting to blame that!

Absolutely not.

Here's another article about how belief in sorcery hurts people.

How much did the witchdoctor charge you for the pendant, foreveryours?

I am surprised the Pope believes that. Considering how many little boys and girls have wished very hard over the years for things to not be done to them...

I wasn't charged for the pendant just advised to give to charity which I did and still do. I know you can buy black tourmalines from websites etc, they don't cost much

That's a brilliant article, BigJessie, thank you for posting the link.

It seems to bear out what I have long suspected: the belief in black magic or sorcery and accusations about its use actually operate in very predictable ways. They oppress and divide the weak and give excuses for oppressive conduuct against them. How many men accuse one another of black magic? Not many, I'll bet.

It is a very easy way to get rid of the vulnerable, escape sanction for wrongdoing against disadvantaged individuals and cause problems for rivals. I wonder if in many cases little actual belief in the power of magic is even present: it is such a convenient fig-leaf behind which people can hide their own very ugly motives.

No,tis a load of bollocks.

really, the Pope does? Are you mixing prayers up with wishes?

No. But some prayers are wishes.

I can prove this. But I won't. You just have to believe me. If you don't, you'll exprience excruciating pain and torment ad infinitum. If you do believe me, a big kind man in the sky will blow smoke up your arse for all eternity.

@ MrsBethel

I believe in wishing and in karma. If you hurt someone expect to be hurt back in some way.

To break a hex tie some of your hair to a apply tree and repeat this three time "Thee who hex me, hex thy self time 3". Leave the hair tied to the tree and if anyone trys to hex you it will not work. I read this in a teen witch book but you never know it might work - if you believe it.

My family think they are witches and i grow up with all sorts of this stuff. I have lived away from them for 10 years and i'm still detoxing from the affect this has had on me.

I still believe that some people are just good at pointing karma in the right direction and that some poeple can do things that may seem beyond normal. I think its half mind fuck and half conforming.

I don't believe in 'magic' but I do believe there are elements of the world we don't understand, including some human psychology, and that as a species we're very easily manipulated-enough so for fears etc to affect how we behave/our health/mental health etc, which can make it look (to us) like something magical is happening.

That said, my grandfather was a Bishop (C of E) and was very dismissive of anything remotely 'hippy' in his words-I.e. The Bible says astrology and tarot are bad but he just thought they were bollocks. (Am aware a lot of people would think this is hypocritical given his own faith!) BUT I remember when I was at school I told him that some girls in my year had been trying to make/use a ouija (sp?) board and he went absolutely mental, made me promise not to go near it etc. As a man who was very sensible and rational (whatever you think of his Christianity!) he was totally terrified of them. I don't know why and I wish I'd asked him. He would never admit to believing in 'magic' but something had freaked him out enough to convince him they were dangerous in some way.

TheBigJessie That article is very good and spot on. I know I have said that I believe I have been cursed, but I have found a way of protecting myself, although some people may not agree with it, praying has helped me.

One thing that struck me about the article was the comment about the "Jinns". The "Spirits" that I mentioned above, were infact Jinns, that this man claimed he could send anywhere in the world to listen in to conversations.
Now this man ofcourse, could have been a conman, as mentioned in the article, but what if he wasn't?

cheaptrick That's interesting that even when being a bishop, your GF was scared of a ouija board.

personally I don't believe in prayers or wishes, and I think those that do are bonkers, but I doubt the pope sees it that way.

But yes, I do think that those who think they can control elements of the universe with their minds are essentially children.

My delightful ex and his wife had a 'voodoo doll' of me in their flat with lots of pins stuck in it. I found out from a mutual friend - he was terrified of it. I found it amusing in a pitying way and would never attribute anything 'bad' that happened to me at that time to it, there were plenty good things happening too. But then again, I am a committed atheist too....

WonderingHead, I don?t want to explain the back story of how I came to unwittingly unpack a proper, in use, witch doctors headdress from it?s sack, but there was horror when it was discovered I had, especially as a woman.

It had a name, personality and rules, of its own, and all but me knew only the witch doctor could touch it without being cursed, especially a woman or child, as it was used to find and exorcise evil in women, children or animals, by the Very Powerful Doctor.

Many times he?d found the source of evil in a community and the person/creature had subsequently died, after he in the headdress, performed ritual exorcisms on them.
Many had seen it first hand, some had lost relatives to it.

The Dr was in transit, and the people around me waited for me to die.
The headdress had to live by my bed waiting for it?s owner, as everyone was too frightened for it to go anywhere else. I was given a wide berth as cursed and dangerous.

When I failed to even become ill, I was declared frighteningly powerful and an honorary man. (I could not apparently be a surviving woman) The witch doctor returned, and declared I was indeed very powerful and was now no longer required to do my job to continue being paid for it, I?d have an assistant to treat as I chose and do my work for me for nothing!

The truth was horribly simple once I'd had a good look at the headress.

At no time had I cut my fingers on it's razor sharp horn tips, or consequently had any of the remnants of poison lying in the specially cut grooves, enter my blood stream. It wasn?t magic, it was pre meditated poisoning and often murder, in order to maintain power, fear, and wealth.

Where I am now in London, horrific things are done to children and the vulnerable in the name of black magic exorcisms, all trading on this sort of ?magic? and fear, and I know a nurse who handed her landlord £2000 as her only other ?cure? apparently, was to sleep with him to remove the curse his wife had ?put? on her.

"The truth was horribly simple once I'd had a good look at the headress.
At no time had I cut my fingers on it's razor sharp horn tips, or consequently had any of the remnants of poison lying in the specially cut grooves, enter my blood stream. It wasn?t magic, it was pre meditated poisoning and often murder, in order to maintain power, fear, and wealth."

:( Niiice..

"I don't believe people can just threaten you with a curse. I think it's much more complex than saying a few words at the heat of the moment."

So what makes it "work" then?

The use of black candles, the right incense? Do you not see how little sense it makes? Words, and symbolism are only powerful if you give them power.

There seem to be two things here.

a) Someone being told they are cursed/etc then looking for things to go wrong, unsurprisingly they'll find they notice some things. Unless you honestly believe that in someone's life good and bad stuff cannot happen concurrently thne this is obvious.

b) Something going wrong (eg. illness - something which can happen randomly and seemingly without meaning) and people look for a scapegoat. Whether it's that some other idiot genuinely believes they've cursed them, someone taking the piss pretends to have cursed them, or someone even complimenting them has been taken as a curse in this thread!! Evil eye being a great scapegoat, as no one can say for definite that anyone did or didn't give "the evil eye".

Oh forgot. There is the third option.

C) Malicious fuckwits like JGOWI had to deal with, causing pain and suffering under the guise of "magic".