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Undoing Someone Else's Working

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Tinevisce:
Hello, everyone!

I didn't know exactly where to post this, so I put it here; because I intend this to be a discussion rather than a query.

Anyway, has anyone here ever tried to undo a magical working someone else cast; but used a different paradigm (that term, I believe, I'm borrowing from Chaos Magic. I guess, belief system is roughly equivalent to what I mean here. In any case, I'm sure you guys know what I mean) to your own?

The challenge, to my mind, is this:
Depending on the paradigm you're using, you can, theoretically utilise different mechanisms to arrive at the same result (protection, binding, healing, ill luck; what have you). If you try to undo this working using a different paradigm- and, more importantly, without any substantial knowledge of how the first paradigm operates; would the counter really be as effective?
Personally, I'm inclined to think that if you try to counter someone else's ill luck curse (for example) without knowing what went into the spell, you'd only be treating 'symptomatically' and not really destroying the roots.

I actually have a specific situation that has me wandering down this path; and if anyone here shows interest, I wouldn't mind sharing the story: but for now, I'll keep this general.

Being the magical theory nut that I am, I hope this topic garners a lot of debate and discussion.

Thank you.

Crystal Dragon:
I don't do spellwork perse, but from a perspective of working with energy in general, it doesn't matter who did what or how ... if you believe that something will work, it will.

Spell casting is just one manner of focusing your intent to bring about a desired outcome.  But it is the intent and the level of focus mustered that truly matter whether one uses spellwork or some other means to set that intent with the Universe.

To more directly answer your question ... I disagree.  Negative energy (be it from a curse or just someone thinking bad thoughts) can be traced to the person sending it and any of the energetic threads connecting us to that person can be severed.  It is all a matter of how adept one is at sensing and working with that energy that determines the outcome.

earthmuffin:
I'm really out of my depth even commenting on this but I'll do so just to generate conversation. What Crystal said makes sense to me and I trust her know-how in this department.

The only situation I could imagine what you say to possibly make any difference would be if the spell cast had say certain conditions attached to it so that it activated or reactivated again and again based on certain other things occurring. In that case, it would seem a counter working that aimed at protecting against effects of it once would not be effective at stopping it from happening again if the person doing the spell did not understand the full intention and working of the caster. I don't know if a person could even do a spell like I am describing or if they could, if another would not be able to detect the nature of the spell. Since I am totally making this up without good knowledge of the subject, I have no idea if what I am saying even makes any sense at all. Sorry if this is just a bunch of dog doo, lol.  :rolleye:

Crystal Dragon:
That does make sense EM, but I'd think that even if someone were to cast such a spell that there is no way to guarantee it's success.  Once the energetic ties are cut, either shielding against future "attacks" or a mirror spell would prevent reattachment of that energy.  This presumes of course that the "target" becomes aware of the negative energy attached to them. 

But once aware, in such a case knowledge of the situation and a belief that it can be corrected would circumvent any special conditions attached to the working.  I do not believe that knowing how the person who did the initial working did so makes a difference ... once ill intent from another is known, most people will immediately put protections in place to prevent future events from occurring.

One of the reasons I'm strongly against any working to manipulate others in any fashion is because it is detrimental to the person doing the working in the first place.  Not only is it an attempt by the person sending the energy out to avoid personal growth, mirror spells or the right sort of shield will send the energy right back to the sender so they'll likely end up limiting themselves (at best) or possibly actually being harmed (at worst) by their own efforts.

Working toward positive growth of the self is always the best way to handle an issue.  Yes, there are extreme cases where a working against another could be deemed necessary, but most humans will never run into a situation that warrants it.

Tinevisce:
Thanks, Earth Muffin and Crystal Dragon for the replies. :)

@CD
You could say that I agree with you almost completely, save for a few caveats. Of course, my reservations are mostly intellectual/theoretical in nature (for the most part) and aren't based on copious amounts of practical experience. So feel free to point that out any time. :)

@Earth Muffin
I actually agree with you when you say that there might be a few conditions set into a spell's mechanism to make it a little resilient to general 'symptomatic' counters.

Maybe it's best if I give you guys the specific situation why these questions occurred to me at all. My good friend, colleague and roommate just got out of a ridiculously messed up relationship. I would call it abusive, although the abuse the girl heaped on him was the emotional variety. Daily dramas, tears, accusations- and one memorable instance wherein she ostensibly popped a few tranquillizers because she wanted to end her life (the reason being an unanswered text on his part, and she wanted to teach him a lesson). I won't go into the details of it all, because I'm still emotionally affected by the anger and vitriol; and it would be beyond hilarious to dump all of that onto you guys. So, bottom-line: it was a messed up relationship.

The weirdest thing is, my friend always had this strange compulsion to always, always fall short of ending things. And when they'd been in the same town, it has been a compulsion to always meet her no matter what. Now, while I'm aware that many, many people in love might or do act the exact same way (heck, I know I would); that kind of behaviour was not in tune with who he was as a person.
The biggest litmus test for me? You could point out all of this girl's problems and negativity, the kind of ways she manipulated him in; and even insult her: but you would not be able to illicit a defensive reaction out of him. However, if you so much as insinuated any insult toward the girl he was seeing before this one, he would honest-to-God fly off the handle.
So it's not like he was incapable of fighting back for the people he loved/or regarded with affection.

However, what made me and his mother (who has had her own personal run-ins with malevolent workings)- independently, because we never really discussed her son's love life- suspect magick was because she would keep talking about a renowned astrologer/tantrik who had a lot of ability, etc, etc. In fact, not just her, her parents would also keep extolling the man's virtues.

I realise, of course, that it's all circumstantial; but either way, nobody is contemplating retribution (imagined or otherwise) aimed at the girl. But the fact remains that in local tantra folk magic in India, a vashikaran (Vash: Sanskrit, to make someone your thrall) is one of the more well known malevolent workings that someone can attempt to put on you.
Unfortunately, although I'm an Indian myself, tantra is something I am not well-versed with. However, I do know these things about vashikaran:

The way it works is, you feed your target food (usually dessert), that's been mixed with powdered ingredients, which has been chanted over/bespelled, if I may use that term. The idea being, the influence becomes a part of you rather than something that acts on you from the outside.

In India, any kind of magic/folk magic is usually magico-religious; meaning that any sort of working like this will involve explicitly invoking a deity; so you wouldn't be dealing with just someone's personal will.


In the end, however; like CD mentioned above, the target's awareness is very important here. Once his mother voiced these concerns, he was able to see the relationship for what it was, and end things.
If it was a vashikaran, I would say a few echoes still linger because he's still unable to personally hurt this girl. He's still petrified of getting calls from her or seeing her, because he doesn't trust himself around her.
He knows that I occasionally do spell work, so I offered to cleanse and counter any remnants- he declined, because he feels giving it more attention would only grant it more power.

So this is where my question stems from. If I attempted to simply shield him from incoming influences, with runes, talismans, mirror spells or what have you- I would be missing the part of the influence that's inside. I'm inclined to think that the shield would not have been so effective.
Of course, CD mentions that anyone adept with energy work would be able to tell if there are any influences or energies present inside as well, so one would start with a cleansing right there.

I was just thinking of what form the counter would take, had I been requested to cast one. And my mind keeps cycling back to the form of the original spell- ingestion.
Anyway, sorry for going on this long.

:)

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