Breaking a Curse
We talk a lot about the history of witches and witchcraft, but what about the actual practice? One of the most infamous elements of witchcraft seems to be a curse. In short, curses are used to inflict harm, punishment, or pain onto another person. How can you protect yourself against curses...and, how do you know if you’ve been cursed in the first place? If you believe in any of this at all (or, if you’re just curious about witchcraft) keep reading...
I’ll be covering several different ways to break curses that fall into different methods and traditions of practicing witchcraft as a way to get a birds eye view of ways to counteract magic. As a note, it is believed in some traditions that curse breaking is an advanced type of magic so please keep that in mind.
One of the first, and my favorite, is to create a magic mirror. Yes, you read that right - a magic mirror. Magic Mirrors do, at their base, what all mirrors do - reflect. The idea behind adding magic to a mirror is that it will reflect the curse off of you and back onto whoever cursed you in the first place.
To create a magic mirror, first get a small mirror and consecrate it. You can consecrate the mirror by placing the item on an altar and offer the tool the power of the four elements: salt (earth), incense (air), candle (fire), and water (water). Then cast a circle, and say a power or prayer or protection and purification. Once this is done, place the mirror is a bowl or spread of black salt to further add purification. Once the mirror has been consecrated and purified, place something that represents who you believed cursed you, or, if you don’t know, just represent the curser with a symbolic item. This will reflect the curse they have placed on you back on them.
Like casting curses, words and the intent and power behind them are also very important to breaking a curse. A more verbal curse breaking involves getting a small glass container and a simple string. Wrap and tie the string around the neck of the bottle and say:
“Any curses placed on me
I now bury in the earth deeply
The string I knot, once and twice
To turn the luck and make it nice”
Once you have done this, bury the bottle near your home in the ground. The bottle should be left in the ground for at least a week. Once you feel enough time has passed, dig up the bottle and say “The curse was buried deep. The hold over me can take a leap.” Finally, smash the bottle and dispose of the broken glass.
Think you may be cursed but you’re not sure? There are a few smaller acts of magic you can do to check. For example, take a purifying bath (or, if you’re a city-dwelling witch, a shower could also work) that includes salt, rue, hyssop, and at least one other protective herb of your healing. If you use bar soap, you could also carve powerful protection sigils and wash yourself with them.
You can also create and charge an amulet that you can wear that will break spells. You can consecrate an item, in a similar manner to the mirror, and then ritually assign that item the task of repelling a curse or negative spell.
Although curses are quite rare, I feel like there is more information about casting them than there is about protecting oneself. I’d also like to use this space as a reminder that if you practice magic or even magical belief - be kind to others and yourself!
The above image is by flickr user Martin Malec and features hyssop. It is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)