It’s Not All Love and Light
Here’s a blunt truth: we all have a dark side. It’s part of who we are. Even the most peaceful of light workers casts a shadow. We all possess the ability to hate, to be angry, to be bitter, and to want revenge. Every one of us can fall into despair and isolation as we experience times of depression. In a physical sense, every single one of us dies. The thing is, if we can learn to acknowledge our own darkness honestly, we can control it and channel it into something productive. In witchcraft, it’s important to confront and accept our shadows instead of pretending they don’t exist.
To be truly connected to nature, the seasons, and the cycles of life, we must be balanced: we must acknowledge, accept, and embrace the darkness of our spirits and experiences as fully as the light parts. This doesn’t mean that we should indulge in negativity and harmful behavior but rather accept these traits as guides and teachers in our personal growth. From there, we can transform our lives.
Facing your own shadow qualities is hard to do. When I first began writing this book, I very quickly realized that I was avoiding some difficult topics and, in doing so, was being inauthentic. I was editing things out, very carefully tiptoeing around some important aspects of shadow magick for fear of offending someone. I was trying to keep the subjects herein “safe” and socially acceptable by omitting the truth. The truth is that our shadows—our personal shadows and those of society—contain a lot of scary things that take more than a cleansing spell to vanquish. It was then that I realized I had to include everything in this book, even subjects I know some people will be horrified by.
It’s often encouraged in some modern witchy circles to avoid the darkness at all costs and to stick exclusively to love and light, staying hyper-focused on the positive to the point where darkness isn’t acknowledged at all. “Witches only heal and help; we harm none!” some argue. That makes witchcraft very palatable to outsiders, but is it really true? Is it even possible? Some people are more spiritually evolved and empathic than others, but no one is so enlightened as to be devoid of earthly, human feelings. Some of these feelings are negative. Humans have an amazing capacity for love, but we have the same capacity for its opposite.
On Controversy
If you’ve been hanging around the witchcraft world for any length of time, you’ll have noticed that there are a few topics that trigger large, loud opinions from all sides. Those subjects mostly revolve around ethics, as in what is “right” and what is “wrong.” For example, many people believe that manipulative or controlling magick such as curses is off-limits, based on the premise that using witchcraft to interfere with the free will of another person is as bad as drugging someone without their consent. Not everyone agrees with this theory, believing instead that in some cases the free will of a person is causing harm to others and should be intervened with. This is a decision that’s up to the witch.
In that vein, this book discusses other subjects that spark debate, such as blood, sacrifice, and animal remains in magick. These topics polarize the community but are undeniably linked to witchcraft in history and modern culture whether we like it or not. Things that are misunderstood and taboo are often subjects that need to be openly discussed in order to demystify them.
Because I have been working witchcraft for almost thirty years, my practice has cycled through many different phases of growth and change. Like many people interested in magick, I started off with the rule of three and harm none ever-present in my mind, believing that everything I sent out through magick would return threefold. However, over time, as I got older and more experienced with life in general as well as witchcraft, I started to see that things were not so simple, that it was not all fairy dust and white light in magick, life, or nature. Circumstances forced me to think about witchcraft from the shadow side of things. From there, I became drawn to these topics that are so inflammatory, only to discover it was difficult to find detailed and useful information beyond being told “don’t do it.”
On Ethics
Ethics in witchcraft are discussed endlessly. Some people have very powerful feelings when it comes to curses, manipulative love spells, and blood and animal products in magick, sometimes saying these things are unethical. This book isn’t meant to sway people in the direction of dark magick but simply to shed light on subjects that are often kept secret. What you do with the information is your choice.
Remember that the spells you cast have consequences. No matter what rituals and workings you do, it’s important to think things through thoroughly first. Whether you believe in the rule of three, karma, or simply that like attracts like, your intentions and actions shape your future even when you direct them outward at others. You’re responsible for the results of your magickal work.
Ethics and Cursing
Hindering someone else for your own advantage, however selfish it may seem, is actually natural whether you admit it or not. Everything in nature does it in order to survive, gain dominance, and protect itself. Animals often thwart or impede the things around them. They don’t feel guilty about lashing back at the very creature that has set out to kill or harm them, either. When a larger creature endangers them, they fight back and they fight hard. When a porcupine is threatened by a coyote, it doesn’t stop to think about the coyote’s feelings before letting loose its protective sharp quills. That coyote tried to harm it, so the porcupine defended itself. That’s the way it goes. But—and this is a big but—you must also understand that there are repercussions, and the interaction doesn’t end there. Maybe the quills won’t stop the coyote but only enrage it into attacking more violently, or it could become so distressed that it bites another nearby creature instead. What I’m saying is that there’s a ripple effect following everything you do, and your spells can have unintended consequences, some of which you might not like or which might even come back to bite you in some surprising way.
It’s natural to fight back against someone who wishes to harm or hinder you or those you care about. The emphasis on light and love has spawned the notion that when someone is intolerably cruel to us, we’re just supposed to send them healing energy. This idea makes it seem like we’re responsible for healing those who hurt us, which I strongly oppose. Not only that, there are leaders and rulers out there right now who are harmful to large groups of people. Why are we supposed to turn the other cheek and pretend we’re somehow spiritually obligated to allow it to continue? Bad people exist. They do bad things. Sometimes these people and circumstances can drive you down into a place where literally your only recourse is to curse for the sake of self-preservation.
Curses and Love Spells Have a Lot in Common
Another ethical quandary is that of manipulative or targeted love spells. When you get down to it, the desire to curse and the desire to cast a targeted love spell sometimes come from a similar place: a sense of powerlessness and feeling like you have no other options. When I first began to study modern witchcraft, I was extremely curious about love spells. I experimented and discovered that just as in cursing, the results of love spells were often unexpected. The spells never actually resulted in the kind of perfect, fulfilling, movie-worthy relationship I was after. Sure, it brought a person into my life, but it didn’t make them care for me. One time the person spent a couple of weeks with me, only to confess afterward that they were cheating on their girlfriend and regretted it. Another time, the energy in my love spell was so potent and desperate in nature that I’m pretty sure it made the person it was directed at feel suffocated and afraid of me, which was not my goal at all! Not everyone experiences love the same way as you, so you can’t predict how a love spell will affect them. Just like that coyote I mentioned earlier, you don’t get to choose how someone reacts to your spells, and this applies to both curses and love magick. You can’t foresee how anyone, especially someone you don’t know that well, will react to magick cast at them. You send them energy and that is all; the results of what they do with that feeling are out of your control.
Free will is a lot more powerful than it gets credit for. If the object of your love spell is fully devoted to someone else, chances are your magick will not overpower their will to do right by their partner, or at least not for long.
In all forms of controlling magick, be it for love or for cursing, looking inward at why you so strongly desire control over another person is one of the most important steps.
Why Focus on the Dark Side?
While I wish that the only witchcraft I’d ever had to perform was healing and blessing rituals, that simply has not been the case for me. We all have a dark side, and the more we ignore it, the worse things get. But why write a book about such negative things? Well, I think these so-called negative or undesirable aspects of our lives and our characters are important parts of personal development. Every hardship you endure, whether it’s the death of a loved one, a traumatic accident or relationship with a damaging person, teaches you a difficult lesson and makes you stronger—as long as you are able to make it out the other side. One of the most important things for surviving life’s hardships is facing problems head-on.
Witchcraft, for me, is interwoven into every aspect of my life, guiding me in the right direction so I can try to be my best self. In this way, dark witchcraft has become a part of my life when necessary because whether I like it or not, life has dark times in it.
Like everyone, I’ve had people in my life who wished me harm. I’ve had to face very difficult periods of darkness within myself and deal with my own worst qualities. I’ve coped with some toxic people. In some situations, I thought I was the victim, only to find out I was in fact the villain. I have a shadow side that’s probably deeper than my light side. These things are all difficult, but they’re part of my journey, and witchcraft has helped me find my way through. That was one reason I chose to write about these topics.
The second reason I wrote this book is because I know that so many people are curious about “dark” magick, but it’s difficult to get honest information about it. Most practitioners really do try to avoid causing harm and so have no experience with dark workings. Many times, if you ask about cursing, you will simply be told, “Don’t do it—it’s bad energy that will come back to you.” But this doesn’t answer the questions. It merely dismisses them, and it certainly doesn’t help explain why witches are associated with the dark side in the first place. We’re linked to some spooky stuff, such as blood, sacrifice, and evil, from error and misinformation, yes, but there is a small element of truth in there, in that witches can, and sometimes do, perform dark magick. The controversial ingredients in this book, such as menstrual blood and animal organs, also fall into the shadow category, as these topics are kept hushed up and because they cause so much argument. It’s time we really looked at these subjects.
A Blessing or a Curse?
What is a curse to one person is a blessing to someone else. It just depends on where you happen to be sitting. That’s why the ethical lines are so blurry. Here is an example from my own experience that sums this up.
When I was quite young, I suspected someone I cared about was committing crimes of theft and fraud. They were doing these things to get money to support a drug habit. I cared deeply about them, but they inflicted a lot of emotional pain on me and repeatedly put me in danger. This was a very difficult position to find myself in, and I didn’t know what to do. Going to authorities wasn’t an option, as that would possibly put me in more danger.
I did a spell to stop them from further harming themselves and others. I didn’t specify how this would come about, just that they would be unable to continue on their destructive path. While this sounds like a reasonable thing, it’s actually considered a curse, because it actively targeted an individual and interfered with their life.
Shortly after my spell, the person was arrested and went to jail.
Clearly, to them, this was a curse. However, to everyone they were hurting, it was a blessing.
So what seems like a curse to one person is a blessing to someone else. The opposite is also true. You may think you’re doing good with your magick, but is it good for everyone? Is it harming more people than it helps? Does it benefit the whole picture? These are questions to ask yourself concerning your own ethics.
If you are in a dangerous situation, magick is not a replacement for legal counsel, nor is it a means of taking the law into your own hands. My own spell was cast out of desperation, powerlessness, and fear, as many curses are, and I share it here only to illustrate just how complicated the topic of ethics in witchcraft is.
How to Use This Book
Part 1 of this book focuses on inner work, encouraging you to look inside at yourself, your feelings, and your motives. Before you perform dark magick, it’s essential to look inward and understand your own place in the situation and how you got there. Divination helps with this process, as do meditation and dream work. In the midst of heated emotions, the desire to skip the inner work may be tempting, but introspection is absolutely necessary in order to move forward into the spells effectively and with clear intentions. If you jump straight into manipulative magick, there’s a good chance it will only make your situation much worse. Understanding the true feelings underneath your motives is imperative for preventing disastrous results. The interesting thing is that once you’ve fully done the inner work, you may discover there is no need for cursing at all because you have solved the problem within yourself.
The other parts of this book are outer work, meaning actions that can affect the world and people around you. In order for the outer work to be effective in any positive way, it’s imperative that you first do your inner work. Both are necessary for balance.
Welcome to the Shadows
The dark moon phase plays a dual role in this book: workings are often performed during the dark moon, and the dark moon phase, or current, is a recurring experience in our lives as well. The subjects that this book addresses fall into the category of shadow work, which is the equivalent of the dark moon phase. Most situations that call for the workings in this book occur during difficult life experiences, or when the dark moon phase is cycling through our lives on a larger scale.
Are you ready to face your own darkness? We all have beasts to confront, but with practice and honesty, some of those beasts may become friends and allies, and some of those beasts may turn out not to be as terrifying as we have been taught to believe. Some beasts can be tamed and some may only be lulled to sleep for periods of time. It’s how you choose to work with your inner darkness that counts.