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HOW TO TELL IF AN ITEM IS CURSED AND WHAT TO DO IF IT IS
Disclaimer: what works for me and what works for you may differ; this is a general overview borne of experience, as nondenominational as I can make it, and your mileage may vary
Objects are very rarely CURSED. That is to say, it's highly unlikely that you're going to randomly come across or pay a non-suspicious price for something someone competent has actually gone to the trouble of imbuing with a CURSE.
So here I'm using a very loose definition of "cursed" that includes objects that have accumulated ~bad vibes~, the opposite of good luck, malice, evil, the negative, dark, malignant. Possibly through intention or possibly by circumstance.
Anything can be a talisman. Anything can be a material carrier of astral energy and forms, which in turn can shape emotion and thought and even the outcome of events that would normally be up to chance.
(You don't have to believe this any more than you have to believe that when you let go of a pencil held out at arm's length it will fall. The pencil falls.)
Some objects are more suited to accumulate and hold different flavours of energy than others; some will take pretty much whatever you throw at them. Take a plain engagement ring. It can be charged with joy, or it can be charged with pain and loss.
Anyway most mass-market items are probably not cursed out of the box. I doubt anyone is sitting in a factory cursing bags of costume pearls or base metal cocaine spoons or USB chargers.
But some of us like to buy secondhand jewellery or amulets or Catholic medals or coins or
if it's made of metal or rock or wood and someone else owned it, you want to give it a good once-over
if it's made of metal or rock or wood and someone else owned it, you want to give it a good once-over
Catholic medals (or the equivalent amulets in all religions and cultures that permit graven images) aren't so big of a risk because by their very nature they aren't particularly suitable vehicles for accursedness.
(However, at least in the case of Catholic medals if they are bought or sold they lose their blessing - some vendors get around this by having the items blessed after purchase, which is I suppose fine.)
(The risk with box lots of Catholic medals is: who had a collection of two dozen medals and why, and what did they die of? I say this having inherited a quantity at one point that I reaaaaallllly should have taken to a priest, especially after I found that newspaper article.)
So given the possibility that an item in front of you may be cursed, how do you tell? The easiest way is clairvoyance or clairsentience/clairtangency.
but andrew
So maybe you're still in the process of developing those senses (if you're devoted to a deity, have you tried asking them for the "gift" of being able to identify cursed objects by touch? it sounds like video games but the worst they can say is no). Fear not.
What you need is to get yourself a cheap pendulum, and learn to use it. If you already have a pendulum you have a good working relationship with, you are already there.
When I say cheap I mean cheap, you can get a heavy brass pendulum that fits in your pocket for two bucks, free shipping. For this purpose, stay away from quartz, gemstones, fake gemstones made from car paint (yes it exists), your grandmother's wedding ring.
Because you want something that does not easily hold a talismanic charge itself. (what if you are so unlucky that you buy a cursed pendulum? or make one from the jewels of a dysfunctional family? or the astral spiderweb that obsidian IS collects too much psychic schmutz?)
Learning how to use a pendulum is easy. Get some quiet time and space. Clear or banish the room if you like. Sit where you can support your elbow, hold the end of the chain between your thumb and forefinger, and let it hang freely. Think "yes"
Now either the pendulum will move or it won't. Maybe for you it moves in a clockwise circle, maybe it swings back and forth, or side to side. I don't know. That's why you're doing this. Stop thinking "yes."
If the pendulum was moving, don't be surprised to see it grind to a halt. Now think "no." Either the pendulum will move or it won't. It's probably going to, and it's probably going to be a different motion than it was for "yes." It may not be opposite in character!
Stop thinking "no" and watch the pendulum return to rest. If this is your first time doing this it's time to put the pendulum down, get your giggles out and take a drink of water. Pick up the pendulum again. Think "yes", note the motion; think "no", note the motion.
Pendulum isn't moving at all? Maybe give it a break, eat something, rest, come back to it some other time.
However if you're lucky (and thinking of the concept, or the feeling, more than the word, will help) you've got a pretty solid idea of what's yes and what's no after a few runs through. This will hold for you and this pendulum.
It's PROBABLY a good idea to also teach it (yourself?) "I don't know" and/or how to reject a question (ask yourself a question that makes no sense, get an idea of the confusion, and see what the pendulum does).
HOW DOES THIS WORK?!?!?! Micromovements of muscles below conscious awareness? Astral vibrations? An angel pushes it? Foucault's ghost? Well, do you need to know how a car works to start it? No, you just put the key in the ignition and turn.
(Discovery of the mechanism by which the machine operates is left as an exercise to the student.)
So now you're a pendulum dowser, and if you head out into the yard looking for the water pipe your pendulum will swing yes when you find it, &c. (okay, that'll take a bit of practice, but everything does)
The importance is that you yourself associate accursedness with the same polarity feeling as "no" and the opposite (blessedness? charmedness? enchantment?) as "yes". At least for the purpose of testing objects. You can go back to thinking those haunted eBay dolls are cool after.
BECAUSE it can be very confusing to ask "is this cursed?" and get a positive response. Or at least that's how it works for me! I ask nothing. I just hold the pendulum over the object and more often than not...
...it does nothing at all.
Because most. objects. are. neutral.
Because most. objects. are. neutral.
A cursed object is like a radioactive object; I've got a Geiger counter and I've been disappointed over the years at just how few times it has detected enough radiation to raise an eyebrow. But when it has, I have not wanted to cuddle with the item it's reacting to.
The important difference, however, is that you can more than likely remove a curse from an item fairly easily.
So say you bought a set of ten secondhand Hamsa amulets from Israel, just to give a random example, and most of them don't budge the pendulum (they're keychains!), a couple of them get a positive reaction
and one has the pendulum going "no no no no no"
and one has the pendulum going "no no no no no"
and you double-check, going back to the others, same set of reactions, then "no no no no NO" on this one
well shit
well shit
So there are two operations you can perform here, only the first of which is really necessary: Purify and Consecrate. If for some reason this whole thing is unexpected and you need some time to prepare, like you opened it before work and have to go, there's also Isolate.
Isolate is easy; get a piece of paper large enough to fold into an envelope to hold the object, get your magic Sharpie out and draw a circle with a protective symbol (pentagram? hexagram?) inside, maybe write a name of power or two around the outside,
put the object in the middle, fold it over, and put it on a shelf where nobody else will touch it until you are ready to deal with it. Don't leave this long; you've just made a talisman (surprise!) and you made it quickly so it's going to wear out.
Purification is really going to depend on your tradition; I say purify with water, consecrate with fire (or oil or incense). Moon water, the holy water of your tradition (or if you ain't got one but the object does, of the same tradition as the object), river water...
*sigh* TAP water (at least add a couple of pinches of sea salt to it)
Clear and/or banish your space, THEN bring the object in still in its envelope, open it up, purify it with water: dip your thumb in the water and make whatever sign is the right one for you on the object, crosses are good
yeah, you're basically baptizing it
yeah, you're basically baptizing it
Do you say something? It's a good idea, and if you don't have something in your own tradition you can always copy-paste code from the Catholics: "I exorcise thee, creature of earth, in the name of Your Chosen Name(s) of the Most High Here, Amen/So mote it be."
You may wish to repeat this, you may wish to remain with your hands in an attitude of prayer and benediction over the object. A Divine White Brilliance may descend, possibly to your surprise, and wash over the object like an astral pressure-washer.
You may sense a change; you may sense that it is done. Either way TEST WITH THE PENDULUM. Honestly for anything that made it through the mail that should be more than enough to make the pendulum react absolutely null. Close up shop, thank and burn your paper envelope.
but andrew I feel silly doing this
well, nobody saw, and the pendulum stopped moving, which was what was wanted
well, nobody saw, and the pendulum stopped moving, which was what was wanted
I'm not going to touch consecration, it's 3:30 in the morning and I should be in bed. The basic theory of purification and consecration as I understand them are laid out in reasonably plain language by Aleister Crowley in Magick in Theory and Practice.
HOWEVER
If you are rather interested in developing clairvoyance, clairsentience/clairtangency, and maybe a less ritualistic but equally (or more?) effective way of getting the psychic schmutz off of an object, I highly recommend @MatAuryn's Psychic Witch (it's right on p. 212!)
Goodnight, 93s, and safe shopping.
