Those familiar with magical practice may find themselves suspecting every run of bad luck is work of the dark arts. Recognize and defend against real black magic.
Black magic is the use of unseen forces upon another person against their will. Defending against these dark arts effectively requires an awareness of evil spells and entities, and the strength of will to avert, or avoid, any magical attacks that come your way.
Recognizing Types of Evil Spells
Any misfortune can be thought to have some sort of dark art at its source. Real black magic manifests itself as bad luck rather than fire and brimstone. Knowing what evil entity, if any, hurled a black spell in your path is not critical. That being said, there are only two or three major sources of evil magic.
- Bad luck created by an evil entity includes the intentions of physical beings that wish to do you harm (anyone from the child you grounded to an assassin hired to kill you), and the dark wishes of non-physical entities that you may have encountered. These types of beings are often contacted through ouija boards or other psychic media, which can be more easily avoided than real people.
- Misfortune you bring upon yourself due to distraction, carelessness, emotional distress, fatigue, or some other cause.
Black magic pretty much looks the same, regardless of the source. Whether or not bad luck is caused by dark arts and evil spells, it can be successfully defended against.
Signs of a Black Magic Attack
"Magic, like water, always seeks the easiest course to the sea," says Donald Tyson in his article What is Magic (Llewellyn Encyclopedia). "Once a desire has been formulated, and a ritual conducted to bring it about, magic acts in the simplest and most mundane way to allow the fulfillment of that desire." This is why symptoms of black magic attacks and bad luck are similar.
- Short Temper
- Depression
- Uncharacteristic Clumsiness
- Expectation of Negative Outcome
- Impatience
- Lack of Concentration
Recognize these traits as they develop within yourself. An attack of the dark arts will always give signs like these, inside the victim, no matter what the evil spell is intended to do.
Averting the Dark Arts
Visualization and focus are needed to prevent an evil spell from succeeding. Several steps may be taken to prevent evil entities from attacking magically:
- Learning basic magical defense techniques will keep quite a bit of black magic from bothering you.
- Shielding your dreams well will make being vigilant less taxing.
- Recognize negative thoughts as a symptom and stamp them out. Try this visualization technique: when you find yourself dwelling upon a potential misfortune, for example, "Just watch, the car in front of me will stop short and I will hit it," make a fist with the index finger and pinky extended, representing the antlers of a stag. Hold your hand near your chest and then twist it away from you, saying, "Avert!" Picture the bad thought caught on the stag's antlers and being flung away.
Negative thoughts serve as self-fulfilling prophecies, and this spell will cast that thought out before it can take hold as misfortune. Black magic is simply the focusing of the bad things that happen every day, and are focused by our own negative thoughts. Whether it is dark magic or a dark mood, this spell will defend against the negative energy.
