Wish to Undo Your Cast?

[Charmis de St. Remy]

Severance Ritual by Charmis de St. Remy

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

Perhaps just my own notions and concepts but what worked on Charmed does not tend to work in real life. I find once woven a spell / glyph / warding / etc is a lot harder to undo than just speaking a few words and using some leftover candle stubs. Like water that has passed beneath the dam the energy and purpose is not so easily recalled or cancelled once released with a purpose and direction.

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Just to add in my experience one does not leave a cord connected to a casting. Most often it is more of a fire and forget casting which releases the spell to perform its function and leave no trace back to the caster. About the only exception to this is through the usage of protection or healing spells where the caster wishes to remain connected to the target of their spell, potentially to read if it is working and if it needs to be modified in some way. Any other option would be severed or hidden to the best extent possible to avoid detection or retaliation against them.

It is also my experience that kill spells only work when a practitioner has woven them into the spell construction. Either set to kill once the target has learned from the spells purpose which allows it to destroy itself or a kill component cast into its creation. Yet in my experience such a component would causes the caster to not create and release the spell to begin with if there was such doubt and need to create the kill code.

Of course this is all based upon my training and practice so may not pertain to anyone else.

[Bjorn]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

^^

I couldn't agree more.

When you cast a stone, how do you undo the ripple? You might take the stone out of the water but then you've created more ripples.

I honestly do not believe there is any UN-doing. There is doing, and there are consequences, and there is atonement. Nothing that is done can ever be UNdone. You must hope that your intent was weak to begin with and was cast to the side of other, better wills, or you may send a deflection spell, or perhaps do something to try and attract that energy back to yourself, but...even that is weak.

This is why it is important for any and everyone who wants to follow a path of any kind: FOCUS YOUR INTENT. Know what you want to do well before you do it. There are no take-backsies. Get it right the first time, yanno?

[Dez]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

I can think of an exception where something like the above might be useful: a clean break from ties to another tradition.

I couldn't just walk away from things I had sworn, but no longer believed. Since I couldn't find anything to help me make that emotional and psychological break(and not allow fear of the threatened reprocussions dog me), I ended up needing to invent my own thing.

While that's not the intent of the spell, I could see it being modified in that way to be very useful.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

I can think of an exception where something like the above might be useful: a clean break from ties to another tradition.

I couldn't just walk away from things I had sworn, but no longer believed. Since I couldn't find anything to help me make that emotional and psychological break(and not allow fear of the threatened reprocussions dog me), I ended up needing to invent my own thing.

While that's not the intent of the spell, I could see it being modified in that way to be very useful.

Truthfully I'd doubt that it would even work as your suggesting. You may walk away but can never unlearn or change what you did in the past. As such the ripples will continue to move outward and influence things longs after the event. Nor can you ever truly un-forget, or un-dedicate yourself from something all you can do is promise to no longer continue with it or revert to it. Accepting the disclaimer that should you fall back upon it then you accept the potential of any cost that a god / goddess or other divine source may elect to charge you with should you do so.

That was one of the reasons dedications and initiations were so critical and required one wait such a long period before being accepted.

From my perspective the only utility of that point is to make one feel good about taking a dedication / initiation / oath to something and breaking it. Then it does not truly make them feel good as much as it allows them to justify to themselves why. It removes them from accepting or adhearing to what they swore to. One can step away and still retain many of the promises and commitments they made even though they may no longer fully believe in them.

Of course that is my own belief and influences of my own oaths, dedications and initiations so others may view it differently. Even those I have long since moved away from but still honor in many ways such as not speaking of inner things or practices.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

Undoing spells is possibly the most difficult type of magic there is - which is why I always recommend recording spells - exactly what you did, when and why etc. Sometimes you can unravel a spell backwards (in very specific circumstances) and sometimes you can cast a spell to lessen the effects of the first one.

But as others have already commented here - better by far not to cast anything without full consideration.
The Law of Unintended Consequences can be an absolute bugger.

[Charmis de St. Remy]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

No, I cast to put them together. Used a spell that involved tying their pictures together (face to face). I used a red ribbon and placed it in a location where I knew it would lie undisturbed.

[Dez]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

Truthfully I'd doubt that it would even work as your suggesting. You may walk away but can never unlearn or change what you did in the past. As such the ripples will continue to move outward and influence things longs after the event. Nor can you ever truly un-forget, or un-dedicate yourself from something all you can do is promise to no longer continue with it or revert to it. Accepting the disclaimer that should you fall back upon it then you accept the potential of any cost that a god / goddess or other divine source may elect to charge you with should you do so.

That was one of the reasons dedications and initiations were so critical and required one wait such a long period before being accepted.

From my perspective the only utility of that point is to make one feel good about taking a dedication / initiation / oath to something and breaking it. Then it does not truly make them feel good as much as it allows them to justify to themselves why. It removes them from accepting or adhearing to what they swore to. One can step away and still retain many of the promises and commitments they made even though they may no longer fully believe in them.

Of course that is my own belief and influences of my own oaths, dedications and initiations so others may view it differently. Even those I have long since moved away from but still honor in many ways such as not speaking of inner things or practices.

This is certainly an issue where personal experience is key.

In my case, I was born into a Christian sect which means that before being allowed to be married, I was initiated into the "higher" aspects of this sect, including a great many oaths and vows.

I take this very seriously, however, feel that due to the details of that initiation (including my age at the time, intense pressure from family, and no one telling me what I was going to be expectd to swear to, including obeying my husband as I would The Christian God, giving all of my time, resources and money to the Church in question for the rest of my life, and being struck dead if I spoke against what any church authority said or divulged the content of any of the ceremonies involved) that there should *always* be an out. Not all organizations let you know what you're getting into.

My wish to undo oaths made under duress included what I feel to be intervention on the part of the Norse pantheon. Otherwise, whether real or purely in my own subconscious, I shudder to think what the consequences would have been.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

This is certainly an issue where personal experience is key.

In my case, I was born into a Christian sect which means that before being allowed to be married, I was initiated into the "higher" aspects of this sect, including a great many oaths and vows.

I take this very seriously, however, feel that due to the details of that initiation (including my age at the time, intense pressure from family, and no one telling me what I was going to be expectd to swear to, including obeying my husband as I would The Christian God, giving all of my time, resources and money to the Church in question for the rest of my life, and being struck dead if I spoke against what any church authority said or divulged the content of any of the ceremonies involved) that there should *always* be an out. Not all organizations let you know what you're getting into.

My wish to undo oaths made under duress included what I feel to be intervention on the part of the Norse pantheon. Otherwise, whether real or purely in my own subconscious, I shudder to think what the consequences would have been.

Oh I'm not saying and hopefully not coming across as suggesting there is no way out of an oath / initiation / dedication. Just saying that one may walk away from such but they can not remove the oath / dedication / initiation and the lingering results of such. Even to the extent of being held to them by the group to whom they were made, think of many gang oaths and initiations for instance where walking away does not remove you from the gang.

But to be honest I also think its a matter of cult in your description of what was expected. A cult falls into a different critter when it comes to oaths / dedications / initiations and whether they were willing and the person mature / educated enough to enter such a pact. As such I do not think one truly commits to such for they are not old enough or mature enough to make such a commitment. In fact at best i'd suggest it is a pact to follow parental guidance until old enough and mature enough to reach their own conclusions and commit to such beneath their own determination. I suppose almost a promise to give it fair consideration but not commitment to it.

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No, I cast to put them together. Used a spell that involved tying their pictures together (face to face). I used a red ribbon and placed it in a location where I knew it would lie undisturbed.

So you created a glamoury that did nothing but make them aware of one another and join under false pretense of what you though was best. Sorry what you describe is not a binding nor joining spell but simply in my experience wishful thinking on the part of an interloper who thinks they know best.

Not even considering all you trapped at best was a time capsule taken at the time of the photo and not the unfolding future of the people depicted in the photo. A poor Harry Potter imitation of creating a Horrocrux or Silver Ravenwolf love spell trapped at a certain age and instance of time.

[MaskedOne]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

My normal rule is that once a thing has occurred, you can't simply reverse it. If however something is in process then you can halt the process at whatever point it's in and try to deal with the aftermath.

To modify a scenario that I used when Tylluan and I discussed this years ago:

If I curse a man to receive aids, then once the spell completes its goal then dispelling is absolutely useless. The spell is done, no craft is currently in play to dispel. There's simply a very physical virus that has to be dealt with.

If instead I curse a man to receive seven years of bad luck where every possible turn of fate goes against him, that bit of craft is gonna stick around for 7 years. I can break the damn thing at any point in that time. The car that it breaks will stay broken, the wife that left won't come back, the children that got into drugs are still addicts and all attendant side effects of the above (and anything else that happened) will remain very much in play but the odds of the universe conspiring to break the man's back in strange ways drop considerably, it becomes more likely that he'll find the resources to handle the problems that have already afflicted him. Basically dispelling the curse doesn't directly make anything better but it will tell Fate the target no longer needs to be at the top of the universe's **** list and that he can get the occasional lucky break again.

Mystical pledges are a touch different but they're still partially ongoing effects so they can be nulled, the issue is whether the party on the other side is going to try and make an a** of itself. In Dez's case, if memory serves, after significant grumbling, the LoH stepped aside. That may not reverse matters to status prior to the dedication (undoing events is rather difficult) but in my mind, it nullifies any obligation by either party to the other and leaves her clear to find another road. There are various mortals that could decide to be ***es in retaliation but the only party with a mystical claim stepped aside so the mortals can screw themselves on that front.

EDIT ADD: the above paragraph is a touch biased in perception. There are legitimate reasons for the other side of an oath to take a very dim opinion of attempts to back out on obligations. Depending on the oath, there are also legitimate reasons for delivering less than polite sanctions against those who try and forswear an oath. Forswearing a vow isn't something to do casually. On the other hand, there are occasions where it can be the best of several bad options.

[Heka]

Re: Wish to Undo Your Cast?

^^
When you cast a stone, how do you undo the ripple? You might take the stone out of the water but then you've created more ripples.

What a fantastic metaphor. I'm going to remember this one. Cheers!