This may not seem all that important, but can someone wish another person harm and have it occur? I know the New Age party line is that curses and such are a bunch of baloney, but if this is so, then where did the ancient, pervasive belief that one can be cursed come from?
Sandra
Dreamchaser:
I am so glad you asked this question, for I have wanted to address this for a very long time. I am going to take this step by step.
First, wishing harm on someone and cursing someone are two different things. There is something I strongly believe in called the “Three-Fold Law,” which states that what we wish for and/ or do to someone else will come back on us at least three times over. So if you wish harm on someone, it will come back on you three times. On the flip side, if you wish good on someone, it will also come back on you three times over – so be very careful what you wish for!
I also completely believe in the ability of one person to curse or put a curse on another human being. The power here is not so much in the curse but in the parties believing in the power of the curse. If one really believes that someone powerful put a curse on them, they will start to live as if they were cursed.
When I lived in a tropical climate, I had a family from Haiti living across the street. They were healthy, happy, and financially secure. One day a car drove up and threw a chicken that had just had his head wrung off into the driveway. The chicken was doing his death dance and the family members became nearly hysterical. It turns out that they believed there was a curse attached to the chicken. I then watched the decline of the family until they ended up having to move out of the house. The curse “worked.”
On the flip side of this, my personal belief is that I am protected by a higher power and that nothing can happen to me that is not meant to happen. I feel that I am “curse proof.” I frequently talk about going into a bubble in this column. I believe we can surround ourselves with love, light and spiritual energy to keep ourselves protected from anything that is in any way negative.
As you can see, whether or not we believe in curses and their ability to work will determine whether they have power over us. It is much like someone who says things to intentionally hurt our feelings. We can either take what they say to heart and allow ourselves to get upset, or we can shrug it off and not give it a second thought. No one has the power to make us feel, do or say anything. We give people power over us.
If someone lives in a society that believes in curses, then that person is most likely going to be susceptible to such a suggestion. If someone grows up in a place where curses are not common, then that person will probably be immune to the whole idea of curses.
*****
Astrea:
Here is the easy answer to your question: Curses reflect a wish to control others without having to do anything real. They’re ultimately very silly. People can wish other people harm all day and all night, but their wishes aren’t going to bring sorrow and trouble into another’s life.
While thoughts do ultimately manifest in the physical, the thoughts manifest in his or her reality, not the thoughts of others. When we’re really angry, we might imagine the worst happening to someone. Sometimes, the object of our anger is someone we honestly love!
“Putting a curse on someone” only hurts the person who is trying to do the cursing. “Hate hates the hater” is a powerful statement, because it is so true. By hating another person, the hater creates all kinds of negativity around herself.
In the first chapter of the Old Testament, God throws Adam and Eve out of the garden. They’re cursed with all the daily hassles we experience because they disobeyed a direct order. Genesis is written to point out that if we make a mistake in life, we have to face the consequences of that error. The first curse in the Bible was to be “out of the sight of God.” Satan and his minions were cursed by God. The Bible is chock full of curses throughout the Old Testament.
When things went wrong in ancient times, people said that God had cursed them. Later, we developed superstitions about people being able to harness the forces of nature to get revenge on others. Witches and priests alike were persecuted for putting curses on people. The church cursed people by excommunicating them from the Sight of God.
For thousands of years, the shaman/ priest/ priestess was feared because of the notion that he or she could curse an individual if that person didn’t conform to the tribe or society. This was a way to control others through superstition and religion. People did what they were told, and behaved like sheep for the most part.
The belief in curses also comes from not wanting to take responsibility for choices. When someone says, “I have a curse on me,” or “God doesn’t love me,” that’s the same as saying, “It’s not my fault.” When people take responsibility for the choices they make and the consequences of those choices, superstitious curses don’t even enter into their thought processes. Curses are the product of feeling helpless and weak, and trying to find a way to blame others for our sorrows and get revenge against them.
That’s certainly not an enlightened path.