The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Are most people who do loads of cursing and hexing doing it because they were bullied and broken by this at school; so unable to directly assert themselves and having strong inferiority feelings turn to 'black magic'?

Are such people also so inept at the 'dark arts' that they must build up for months or even years to achieve an effect?

What you say is: bullying causes bad washing, by weak broken victims of said bullying, right?

Not going to support this pov.

There are way too many people out there, with way too many motivations to use such a broad brush on them all. I neither know enough people who practice these kinds of magic on a regular base, nor do I know their reasons and backgrounds to make such a conclusion.

What I will say is: people have used magic in all times to get even. Why a person sees the need to get even with somebody is up to them.

Their magic might be working or not, there is no way to tell. If a month-long focus indicates weakness? Maybe, maybe not.

Sorry, if I am wrong, but I get the feeling what you really say here is:
I am strong, I don't need to use such methods and when I use them, they work immediately. Now tell me, they are weak and broken and I am right.

Therefore I take it, you've never been bullied in a severe manner in your life?
Looking into someone's eyes and facing them, is not always possible due to differences in the social (and physical) powerscales.

So, if you were able to do this all the time in your life: Kudos. Many people can't.

Concluding, what you imply above, makes no sense to me, except it came from a place of smugness. (Not saying it does, just saying, what I think.)

What you say is: bullying causes bad washing, by weak broken victims of said bullying, right?

Not going to support this pov.

There are way too many people out there, with way too many motivations to use such a broad brush on them all. I neither know enough people who practice these kinds of magic on a regular base, nor do I know their reasons and backgrounds to make such a conclusion.

What I will say is: people have used magic in all times to get even. Why a person sees the need to get even with somebody is up to them.

Their magic might be working or not, there is no way to tell. If a month-long focus indicates weakness? Maybe, maybe not.

Seconding this. I spent a few minutes thinking of a response and this one pretty much reflects everything that crossed my mind, but is written much better than I could write it.

What I mean is that if there is a problem with someone, I will look them in the eye and tell them about it.

 
Direct response to bullies lets them know that they scored a hit.

The only effect I ever got from direct response was the time I hit one hard enough he fell on his ass.  It didn't stop him being a bully, but it meant that he did it out of immediate striking range.

People who are interested in being cruel don't stop because someone says pretty please.

I...really don't like this reasoning.  Maybe some people do take up "black magic" or "the dark arts" or whatever you want to call it because they were bullied.  Of course, school is not the only place one encounters bullies, certainly not the only place one encounters abuse.  I get this feeling like you are implying people like that are somehow weak, because they turn to magic instead of facing a bully directly.  Which is really simplistic, and doesn't account for all the times directly confronting a bully or abuser will only result in more pain and suffering.

I think it is even more problematic to then assume these people must be inept.  The way this is worded, you imply that only the victims of bullies are the ones who must spend so long to achieve an effect, that somehow their being the victim of bullying and their ineptitude are directly correlated, again implying these people are weak because they have been victims.  There are certainly other reasons why people may take so long to inact a curse: maybe they do better casting spells that build up over time, or maybe they take so long because they want to be sure they get it right, and don't hit any innocent bystanders with their curse.

And like the others have said, you're painting alot of people with a very wide brush, and there have been curses and the like in times and places where there weren't schools, and even today, there are plenty of people who are going to try their hand at cursing for lots of reasons other than school bullies.

 
It would seem I am in a minority on this thread.  A number of interesting points have been made I will do my best to address them.
 
First of all the value judgements I have offered are derived from a relatively small group.  Those who choose to post about 'black magic' on forums, and about 10-15 people I have met over the years who are non-confrontational and instead deal with conflict via curses covertly performed and who I know were bullied a lot at school.  So I am not talking about why historically curses were used and obviously as was the situation myself there are sometimes circumstances were harmful magic can seem to be the only practical option.

Nor am I seeking to discriminate against the victims of bullying, in fact I have helped people deal with bullying more then once.  Most people of my age range here in the UK were bullied at school as was I.  I have seen what happens to people who psychologically give in to the bully rather then just having a period of physical abuse that is stopped one way or another thereafter.  What I am suggesting is that some people who are broken by this kind of abuse (bullying) can go through life lacking confidence.  Some of these who become involved in the occult may consider cursing a way to be and feel empowered such that a small perhaps accidental slight against them can produce a excessive response.

Looking at the graeco-roman stuff, curses that were purchased from professionals only needed to be done once to work, same with the counter actions.  So therefore any proficient practitioner does not need to spend months or years at this kind of thing and I have not made a boast.  In fact I admit that one of my workings failed.

It amazes me the length to which people claim they go on black magic related threads to achieve the harm they seek to do.  I suggest that most people would not bother to go to such lengths unless for example a close family member was killed and the murderer got away with it, or something extreme like that.  So in an attempt to explain why these people do this with such endurance and enthusiasm I look to the people locally that I know and have known and think about what formed these attitudes and behaviours in them.

In seems to me that the cruelty of the bully lives on in works of malice performed by the traumatized in later life.

This is why for me when divination shows some nasty work is being attempted I am rather sanguine about it.  Especially as it so rarely has any effect.  I feel that people overreact to this kind of thing.  Perhaps by at least attempting to understand what is motivating the perpetrator we can find it less annoying.

Even if you know the people you´ve grown up around locally, it doesn´t mean that you´ve seen everything that has happened to them over the years. A lot of things have a piggy-back effect and not everyone has the support structure to cope with things that you may find superficial.

Need to step back and acknowledge that as humans, we really can´t know everything unless the other person tells us everything about themselves in full (including things like their thinking patterns, their current understandings of the world around them, their opinions, perceptions, experiences, progressions, etc...).

 
I have been giving careful thought to the comments people have made on this thread and I think there is something more to add.

In the 90's The current Dalai Lhama spoke in Cardiff and I was lucky enough to get a ticket.  He made a powerful argument which did not require Buddhism of any other religious belief for it to be valid.  

The argument was that if you do good stuff and are able to forgive; science shows chemicals in body are better so you feel better and probably live longer.  However if you feel angry and vengeful a lot of the time, different chemicals in body feel bad and probably live shorter life.  So pragmatically the first option is best.  In my view such simple clarity from a wise man.

Looking at forums that discuss 'black magic' the issue of ethics is generally a barred topic which is why I discuss it here.

It seems to me that if we are to believe what people post on these 'black magic forums' they spend months or years having a curse object running and building up, or doing some kind of regular 'malificum' against a specific target again for months or years.  Often the technique employed is to emphasise feelings of anger, hate etc.. before projecting in some way perhaps through an object to effect target.  It would seem that this kind of thing regularly done is an unhealthy lifestyle if the Dalai Lhama's argument has any merit.

If I am generous and assume these people can actually achieve what they set out to do; what wonderful things they could bring about with positive or beneficial magic instead, both for themselves and others?

Historically vengeance magic has been done at times by the marginalised and impoverished.

The people I have met who do malice magic a lot are certainly at the lower end of the socio-economic hierarchy.  But on several occasions I know of they have passed up lucrative opportunities and instead try to do wealth magic (which fails) and also revenge magic (which fails).  This is just my opinion and I have limited information to be certain but I do feel the following.

Firstly,  the cruelty of the bully lives on in works of malice performed by the traumatized in later life. (ref: my previous posts in this thread)

Secondly, the victims stay in a safety and certainty feeling through assured failure paradigm.  They perhaps unconsciously chose failure over possible (but uncertain) success.  Because through ensuring failure they have certainty.  The reason I say this is because it takes so long for them to achieve any kind of vengeance magic result, assuming that they actually do finally get there.  Any genuine practitioners can achieve results much more quickly (good or Bad).

I am reminded of behavioural psychology studies that were conducted on animals and that are no longer ethical to conduct which were about: Learned Failure.

So can people who post that they spend months or years doing bad stuff be successful? Or are they merely traumatized maladaptive victims who deserve nothing but compassion?

So can people who post that they spend months or years doing bad stuff be successful?

 
In general, I've found that what a huge chunk of what drives commentary on the internet is unsuccess.  Forums for relationships have discussions that are 90% driven by people with relationship issues; forums for writers have discussions that are 90% driven by people with writing issues.  It's not a surprise that a forum for some form of magic would be 90% driven by people with magical issues (or issues that they're trying to solve with magic).

Think about who starts threads here.  It's not, for the most part, the people who are in secure and stable religio-magical positions who do it, though we do (as board policy) try to encourage staff to occasionally start threads that might get a conversation going.  (But, again, when I've managed to do this, it's because ... I have a problem I'm chewing on.)

If you see the same people posting the same problems for months at a time, they're not likely getting anywhere with them.  If the people responding are mostly the same sets of people who are starting the discussions, then there isn't a pool of experienced people without major problems who are volunteering their time and energy to help others become experienced people without major problems.  This holds regardless of the subject under discussion.

In general, I've found that what a huge chunk of what drives commentary on the internet is unsuccess.  Forums for relationships have discussions that are 90% driven by people with relationship issues; forums for writers have discussions that are 90% driven by people with writing issues.  It's not a surprise that a forum for some form of magic would be 90% driven by people with magical issues (or issues that they're trying to solve with magic).

Think about who starts threads here.  It's not, for the most part, the people who are in secure and stable religio-magical positions who do it, though we do (as board policy) try to encourage staff to occasionally start threads that might get a conversation going.  (But, again, when I've managed to do this, it's because ... I have a problem I'm chewing on.)

If you see the same people posting the same problems for months at a time, they're not likely getting anywhere with them.  If the people responding are mostly the same sets of people who are starting the discussions, then there isn't a pool of experienced people without major problems who are volunteering their time and energy to help others become experienced people without major problems.  This holds regardless of the subject under discussion.

 
So in this case the thread I started here is because I do not understand why these people go to such lengths for relatively little output and non-constructive purpose.  You seem to be suggesting that my attempts to understand this via a forum thread are doomed to failure because people who respond will in the majority lack insight into the issue.  Correct me if I got this wrong

ps: Have you heard the Covenant version of Funker Vogt's Tragic hero; an oldy but a goody!