Putting Things in the Right Place

 

It is a commonplace among the fluffy bunnies and the white light crowd that you can't possibly engage in baneful magic because that disturbs the balance of the universe. I am probably caricaturing them rather but I understand this to be a misunderstanding of the idea of balance often found in martial arts. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido put it as

合気道は天地人和合の道と理なり。
“Aikido is the Way and Principle of harmonizing Heaven, Earth and Man.”

 Source where you can read more of these ideas.

We also know that in magic thoughts are things and that things impact on each other in rather unexpected ways. What if the reality is that much of the energetic stuff we come across on a daily basis is in fact because of an imbalance? For example, if a work colleague is jealous of you, even if they don't say anything that would significantly impact on you. 

My suggestion would be that diagnosing and correcting these imbalances would be a major part of the witch's role. We are also of course priests and priestesses and so we have a role in divine correction of the universe's imbalances.

I suspect the fear of baneful magic, apart from being a doomed public relations exercise, comes from a worry about getting things wrong. That's easily dealt with - if you send something back where it comes from you'll see the correct source. If we don't put things in what I am calling the 'right' place it means someone whose business it isn't, carrying this weight, which is itself an imbalance.

Of course usually sending these things back doesn't involve drama. The event which prompted this post was that I bought an item of clothing from EBay (I do wear clothes sometimes). It took forever to arrive and was not as described when it came and I left feedback accordingly. The next day I got this message from the seller:

Mate.... 

Honestly be a human. The hoodie was fine mate. If your not happy send me a message rather than negative feedback and I’ll refund you rather than you paying for a broken hoodie? 

Let us know pal

Do I strike you as someone who might be his pal?! The simple fact is if you do what he did you expect the feedback he got - I suspect when a seller gets negative feedback eBay sends them a message saying (in Gordon Ramsay's voice), 'What the fuck do you think you're doing, you've upset the Hound'. And hesh now trying to get out of the consequences of his actions, so I know the energetic thing has gone back where it belongs. Going to the post office and sending back for a refund just feels too much like having the piss taken out of me by someone who can't be arsed.

Now you may say he won't learn his lesson and will just set up a new vendor account to start with no bad reviews, and of course he may do that. But I would put money on the same thing happening again if he does...

Ueshiba again:

「合気というものは、初め円を描く。円を描くこと、つまり対象力。相手に指一本ふれないでも相手は跳んでしまう。この一つのものをつくりあげるにも十年ぐらいはかかる。これからは大飛躍をしよう。」

“In this thing called Aiki, first describe (draw) a circle. Drawing a circle is, in other words, opposing powers. Without touching with even one finger your opponent will be sent flying. Just to be able to do this one thing takes about 10 years. Let’s try to advance quickly.”