You know that whole deal about those bad, black magic people, they’re attacking me! Well, sometimes it isn’t entirely rubbish. But that doesn’t mean that all is what it seems! Now read on…
I can’t believe I’ve never written an article about fighting off a magical attack from another person. First time for everything. I’ve had a few experiences of magical combat and I generally seem to do quite well with it.
In the last week or so I’ve been a target (gods, I feel so ridiculous even saying that, like ‘dark adepts of the fifth dimension of evil are persecuting me’ and all that occult stupidity). I think I have the problem addressed for now, and I even am pretty sure about who is responsible (because isn’t it always someone you know? Ugh!).
It got me thinking about an experience I had years ago with being magically attacked, and I think it is a fun story worth the telling. To be precise, I wasn’t the target, a friend (ex-friend) was the target.
I was hanging out with this friend and another person one evening. My friend had been having conflict with her co-worker who was also inclined to the magical arts. She also had a flair for the dramatic and that night managed to summon up a fair bit of drama!
It was so long ago that I don’t remember exactly how it all went down, but something along the lines that while we were sitting around (gods, back when I smoked cigarettes, yuck!) she started reported feelings of pain, discomfort, and then began to freak that her co-worker was attacking her.
From there somehow she found herself dismantling a piece of art he had given her and declared that she had found dried urine on it and that he must have given it to her as an anchor for a curse. In hindsight, I have to say I think she was wrong about the urine, but whatever. A shame, it was cool artwork.
Well the magical attack on her gets more and more intense. In short order she is freaking out, writhing, in physical pain, crying out, melting down. Her other friend and I are wracking our brains about what to do! So I create a little spell.
I set up magic to backtrace the attack to its origin, and once there, to cause the liver of her attacker to start rupturing. Yeah, I know, that seems kinda mean, right? I was pretty frightened for my friend and I was very loyal to her. Someone wants to mess with her? They’ll stop or they’ll go to the hospital. At least if there had been time to think about it that would have been my logic.
I don’t remember how I activated this magic, just some visualization if I recall. I felt the spell connect, the trace was in, and I sent through the liver attack spell. I hadn’t told the others what I was doing, it was totally internal.
So imagine my surprise when, immediately after I had triggered the liver attack, my friend cried out “my liver, my liver, they’re going after my liver!” I immediately stopped the spell, checked my trace, and sure enough the attack was wound in a big loop around her. She was lost in her own magical drama and was attacking herself out of her paranoia that her co-worker would do so. He, no doubt, was utterly oblivious to the whole episode.
I changed tack and with the other person bound up the attack into a psychic box, took it out of the building and down the street, and imaginally blasted it to smithereens. My friend was no longer reporting or demonstrating any symptoms of being magically attacked.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was self-inflicted as I thought she would react badly. Maybe I should have. I think her other friend independently came to the same conclusion though, based on some things he said in passing on a later occasion.
It was a good lesson for me in the dangers of magi who get self-obsessed. She was stunningly clairvoyant but lacked the willingness to question herself and the result was talking herself into a bad magical situation. There were other times where that insecurity/self-blindness cause her (and me!) embarrassment, but thankfully no other occasions I know of where it led to unpleasant magical shenanigans.
The friendship gradually fizzled as our differences magnified and it became clear that our alchemy was off. I haven’t seen or heard from her in many years and I hope she is doing ok. She had some amazing gifts as a psychic, card reader, artist, musician, writer.
The lesson from this story: cultivate a powerful sense of irony. We can destroy ourselves trying to make ourselves safe from our fears.
