The Power of Magickal Abstinence

The Power of Magickal Abstinence

Given the topics I normally discuss on this blog, you may find the title of this article a bit out of place. However I ask that you keep an open mind and read a bit further, because a recent event reminded me there are times when not performing magick is much more powerful than any spell you could possibly come up with.

I’ve never been the type of person to sink into victimhood. If a situation needs to be fixed, I do everything in my power to fix it. This philosophy applies to both my mundane life as well as my magickal life because I’m an action oriented person and this will probably never change. However, I have had few occasions where I or someone I loved has been wronged and I decide to sit back and truly let it go. I’ve noticed whenever I have done this, the universe will usually dish out some karma to that individual pretty darn quickly and typically in a much harsher fashion than anything I would have ever come up with. The first time this happened to me I felt really guilty and questioned whether or not it was my subconscious mind sending out a negative intention to the person. Upon considerable evaluation of the situation I determined that I had truly let go of the entire event and severed my emotional ties to that person and their behavior. Given this fact, I was pretty sure I was in the clear and hadn’t caused the person harm either intentionally or subconsciously so something else had to be at work.

To demonstrate what I mean I’ll give you an example of an instance where this came into play. It actually happened just a little while ago and involved the death of my husband’s father. Last year my father in law who was quite ill passed away between Thanksgiving and Christmas. After his passing the family decided a memorial would not be held, but rather when the weather got better, the elder son [who is a ship captain] would arrange for the entire family to take a boat cruise and spread their father’s ashes at sea. Some time passed and as spring and summer came and went, the subject was not brought up. September then rolled around and my husband received a group text message from his elder brother with a picture of the sun setting on the ocean and caption stating “Rest in Peace R.H. West”. My husband quickly responded asking if his father’s ashes had been released to which his brother replied yes. This upset my husband considerably, mainly because nobody bothered to inform him before the fact that this was going to occur. Had he known what was being planned, he would have taken time off work to make sure he could be present for the release of his father’s ashes. To exacerbate the situation, all the siblings in the family said “we were just doing what Mom told us to do”. This pathetic gutless excuse further infuriated my husband who said it didn’t matter, somebody still should have picked up the phone to let him know before it was done. It also exposed the fact that EVERYONE in the family was aware before the fact EXCEPT my husband and had intentionally kept it from him. After a bit of stewing, he decided he was finally done with his toxic family and would not be attending any more family functions including Thanksgiving or Christmas. Over the fourteen plus years we have been married, I have witnessed some pretty selfish, manipulative and repulsive behavior from his family so I fully supported him if he was really ready to cut those ties. My husband can be a very kind, supportive and forgiving person but once he draws a line and digs his heels in, he is the most stubborn and defiant person I’ve ever met. I instantly knew this it was it for his family – they really screwed up this time and were toast!

Next came the barrage of phone calls, emails and texts from all his siblings wanting to suddenly talk to him after months of silence. He ignored each and every call and message from them. After a few weeks of this I then started receiving messages from them wanting to know “Is everything okay? We have been trying to reach Bob but he is not answering!” Normally, I don’t get involved with his family’s toxic drama and games but I simply could not restrain myself this time and responded with the following message “Physically he is fine, but not in the best spirits. He doesn’t want to talk to the family right now. He was upset that he didn’t get a chance to say his final goodbyes during his father’s ash release. He is most upset about the fact that he feels it was planned behind his back without allowing him any option to be there and needs some time and space right now.” Naturally they responded with countless feeble excuses as to why nobody could be bothered to pick up the phone and call him ahead of time, but I stood my ground and informed them I understood why he was so upset and fully supported whatever he decided to do. Shortly afterward, we received an invitation to attend a gathering for a day of playing board games to celebrate his father because he enjoyed playing board games. Scoffing at this stupid idea, my husband said his father wouldn’t have liked that and informed them that he would not be in attendance. Instead he planned to take the ferry to San Francisco, passing by the location of where his father’s ashes had been released and then have dinner and a drink to honor his father at Scoma’s [which was one of his father’s favorite restaurants in San Francisco]. More manipulative tactics were employed by his siblings to try and get my husband to change his mind, but knowing the line they crossed, I knew their efforts were futile. Their silly “Game Day” came and went and we followed through with our own original plans in San Francisco.

Getting back to the original topic of this article and how it ties back into magick [or non-magick in this case], there were a series of events which unfolded upon his family members which provide an interesting study of how energy often works. Shortly after their little stunt, his middle brother received news that he had a cancerous tumor. Three days before their game day, his elder brother’s Sea Scout base got robbed of over twenty thousand dollars’ worth of boating equipment in addition to one of his boats. On the actual day of the event, a dark rain cloud poured over his sister’s house where they held their game day while my husband and I enjoyed a very rare beautiful sunny fall day in San Francisco. Additionally, on the ferry ride home as we passed the location where his father’s ashes were and my husband dropped his offering to his father into the water, the lights flickered on the ferry boat as if his father’s spirit was present and saying thank you for the heartfelt and meaningful offering in his honor.

So, what exactly happened here? I did not conduct any spell workings regarding this situation or intend any harm towards them. Neither did my husband. The only thing that occurred from both of us was a very clear, strong deliberate intention that we were done with the family and under no circumstances would we let them control or manipulate us any longer. This was followed up by direct communication to them about our true heart felt feelings and that we stood strong in our decision and would not be swayed. As I have now come to discover, a true release of anger or frustration against a person who has wronged you coupled with the intention that you are cutting all ties to them is one of the most powerful actions a person can perform. I’ve heard several theories on this subject, but basically by letting go of our attachments to them including all feelings and moving on, karma is able to step in and dish out their justice. When we hold on tightly to feelings of resentment, it is essentially the magickal equivalent to not letting go and the universe is blocked from doing its work. My most effective spells have been incredibly strong intentions followed up by practically forgetting that I ever cast them. A few months will go by, something will manifest in my life and I will then recall “oh yeah, I vaguely remember doing a spell for this!” It’s a similar sort of situation when it comes to people receiving the karma which is due to them – if we are still attached to them via our feelings, we block the universe’s natural energy flow. This makes sense why certain people can do horrendous acts against others and often never have bad things happen to them – their natural energetic karma is somehow being blocked.

Now, I am not sharing this as a tool for working baneful magick – so for any naughty witches out there who think they are being clever, don’t think you can work this into a strategy to cause harm! I share this to help others in true release so we can move on to a happier state in our lives and not worry about the villains who have crossed our paths. Of course there are situations where I feel it is necessary to defend one’s self from danger, but for situations involving toxic jerks wronging us, we can learn to let it go and trust the universe to take care of them. The laws of energy cannot be violated forever and their negative energy will eventually come back to them provided it’s not prevented from doing so. So we can take some solace in the fact that for all of us good intending souls out there – never fret because the universe truly does have our back!