“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” – St. Paul, Romans 12:19-21
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“Put your trust in God but… keep your powder dry.” – Attributed to Oliver Cromwell

Above we see two competing philosophies… which is best? That question mark can mean only one thing, friends and neighbors:

IT’S PARABLE TIME! Grab a cold one and a bite to eat; this is going to take some time.
Listen: Many years ago in New York City a friend of mine was walking along in the prosperous Upper West Side neighborhood. The dark velvety curtain of night had just started its descent over the town. Seeing the sun go down, leaving in its wake beautiful neon-orange, purple and gold tones, my friend turned west on one of the side-streets heading for Riverside Park which runs along the Hudson.

He went to the park for a better sunset view.

What he got was something else. In the shadow of a small brownstone building a block away from the park, my friend heard a woman’s muffled cries.

His pace quickening – speeding up as much as a man who required the use of a cane could go – my friend went towards the source of the commotion. What he saw when he got closer made his blood run cold. Under the stairs which led up to the building, my friend saw a scruffy unkempt young man in a ripped t-shirt and grungy denim pants attempting to restrain and rape a woman! My friend pulled the attacker away from his would-be victim and shoved him firmly to the ground where my friend held him while shouting for someone to call the police (no cell phones in those days…).

The police came in what seemed like an instant.

They interviewed the woman who was clearly disheveled from the manhandling she sustained. After speaking with her and getting the eyewitness account from my friend, the cops hauled the miscreant off to the station house for processing into the criminal justice system. My friend assured the woman and the police officers that he will be available to testify, should this go to trial.

And go to trial it did.

At that trial it seemed to my friend that the perp had not bothered to show up. When the Judge opened the trial and the defendant stood up, what my friend saw gave him a shock. No longer the wild animal from the attack several months earlier, here stood a clean-cut young man in a well tailored suit looking for all the world like a corporate lawyer.

At first my friend thought the perp was indeed one of the lawyers, but as the trial commenced it grew clear that this was the man from the attack, only cleaned up.

As things got moving, the defendant waived his right to a jury trial, opting for a bench trial, so the Judge would decide the case.

What happened at the start of the trial gives new meaning to the term “travesty of justice.”

“Who’s the defendant here?” the judge asked.

The now-cleaned up man rose up and said, “I am, judge.”

“Really,” the judge huffed, then asked, “do you have a job, young fellow?”

“Yes, your Honor,” the man replied. “I’m a dentist.”

“A dentist!” echoed the Judge, displaying an impressed awe. “And this is a rape trial?” he asked incredulously. “Where’s this alleged victim, this woman,” the judge briskly demanded.

The complainant stood up and meekly identified herself.

“You’re pressing charges against this man?” the judge asked. “I don’t believe it,” the judge muttered. “I just don’t believe it.”

Then the judge turned to the woman who had been through so much pain and fear and said, “You shouldn’t be putting this man on trial, for goodness sake! This looks like the kind of man you should be dating!

That remark instantly brought the Assistant District Attorney prosecuting the case to her feet. She attempted to speak, but the judge shot her down. “I won’t have this in my courtroom. No, I won’t have – young man, you stand up again.”

The man rose and the judge said, “I don’t believe this. I’m dismissing the – no, the verdict is not guilty.” And with the loud crack of the judicial gavel the case ended.

Almost. To pour salt into the wound, the judge again turned to the victim and said, “You really should be dating this man, you know.” Then the Judge got up and walked out of the courtroom. That was that. Just another day at work for the Judge.

My friend sat contemplating this in utter disbelief. The trial had lasted all of maybe two and a half minutes. The defendant faced assault and attempted rape charges, and got off without so much as a fine the likes of which he would have certainly gotten for littering or for double parking. Since the judge declared him not guilty, he could never face charges in this matter again.

AFTERMATH

After allowing a couple of months to pass, my friend again paid a visit to the Upper West Side at sundown, but this time he ignored the sun save for the shade of darkness its descent provided. In the looming shadow, my friend waited unseen, his heavy walking stick poised in the air. When the young man, the clean-cut dentist, got to the doorway of his building he fumbled with his keys. That’s when my friend brought the walking stick down sharply across the crown of the man’s head. Even before he hit the pavement, the man was out cold. My friend waited. After a few moments, the man roused himself with a horrible moan. As he attempted to get up off the pavement he felt the clean smack of wood hitting his left kneecap, thoroughly shattering it. The pain shot through his whole limp body. He let out a scream, more like a hiss. That was all he could get out of his throat before my friend swept the walking stick across the man’s Adam’s Apple, silencing him. Next to go was the other knee and then the lights went out for guy. He sank down unconscious. When he awoke, pain choking his throat, the rest of him wracked with agony, he saw that whatever it was that attacked him, had taken a last shot at his hands. Four fingers on each hand were broken, hideously swollen like over-stuffed gherkins ready to burst. He saw nobody around. And he never knew what had happened to him. His life, as he had known it, was now over. With his hands shattered, his career as a dentist was as dead as a gaffed mackerel. He never knew what happened.

But we know what happened and why it happened.

SUMMATION

Do you think what my friend did was right or do you think he did wrong? Think about why you believe as you do while you chose your answer. For if you say wrong then perhaps the rest of this page is not for you. It too will seem “wrong.” I strongly suggest that you return to the Home-page or any other page within this site.

However, if you think my friend acted properly, then you will not be quite as swift as others in judging the correctness of the information which follows.

Vengeance Can Be Yours!

We never expect to need it… but if you do
need it here’s what’s what

Yes, there comes a time when you have exhausted all other remedies; positive energy, legal action, compromises, threats… even your uncle Vinnie over in Brooklyn. No matter what you try, that certain S.O.B. you know just has to get a good, solid dose of real justice. It could be an intolerable neighbor who simply does not let you live in peace, or a corrupt manager at your work place, or someone who owes you some much-needed money (and your money spells/rituals haven’t turned the trick). You know what I mean. Sometimes you just have to get downright nasty.

While I don’t condone casual use of such rituals, rituals of the Black Arts do have a place in the scheme of Life. And if you are the kind-hearted sort of person who only uses these measures once or twice in a lifetime, then they will carry extra strength coming from you. You may need them more often; that’s a judgment call you’ll have to make either in meditation or with a Spiritual Advisor. But if you do decide that this is the way to go, I can help you.

Just so you don’t feel too uncomfortable when you feel the time has come to go nuclear, I present herewith some guidelines, or at least some food for thought. And speaking of food, let’s begin with that marvelous Pashtun adage, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Actually, we should really begin with the saying of K’ung Foo-tsze, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

The idea has some validity but I cannot help believing that it serves to hinder revenge through fear. Note that it does not read “Before you seek revenge,” but rather contains the verb “embark” and the word “journey.” Thus it becomes fair to infer that the great K’ung Foo-tsze meant the kind of drive for revenge that consumes a person; that becomes a driving force in life. Hence the vision of one who embarks upon a journey. With the use of Magick Ritual to bring retribution upon those who have done you grave harm, you need not dwell upon the matter. Revenge does not become a focal point in your life. You do the ritual, call upon the forces behind the Universe to have at a specific target, and then you just forget about it. This serves several purposes:

It offers the seeker of revenge a catharsis. Just “set it and forget it,” so to speak. Get it out of your system. You did what you had to do and now you can move on, thereby avoiding that fatal, all-consuming journey of revenge.
It takes a good bit of time and preparation to perform such a Ritual, not to mention the expense. For this purpose, one must purchase special incense, oils, candles and so forth. This means that you have to deliberate upon the mission and its costs. Do you really find it worth the effort and the monetary price? From this cogitation we fulfill the very wise advice to “serve revenge cold,” and not in the heat of a moment.
Additionally, by taking your time about it you get to ruminate over your own role in the matter. Did you perhaps deserve what was done to you? Did you have any part in bringing this about? How have you acted toward the perpetrator(s) of the perceived wrong? If you are clear on this, you can determine the severity of your action toward the offender. Always remember the command in the Torah, עין תחת עין “An eye for an eye.” This does not mean that we go around exacting some kind of gruesome literal form of revenge, but that the punishment fit the crime. You don’t seek to exterminate your target and his entire immediate family if the target, say, slandered you around town. Be fair. Then nail the bastard…

As you see, REVENGE calls for a great deal of reflection. Recently we have seen a spate of news articles about self-styled “witches” announcing that they will sent a curse to any politician they happen to agree with. BIG MISTAKE. This kind of work should remain a LAST RESORT to right a true wrong – not something we do out of pique because a preferred candidate lost an election. MISTAKE TWO: telling people about it. In Magickal work we have several serious injunctions:

To Know
To Will
To Dare
To Keep Silent

To blab about your workings will only weaken them, at best. At worst… you don’t want to know. Sending out press release saying what you are doing and when you will do it just begs for astral trouble. Think about those 4 points I listed and you will understand. Worse yet, some of these dense-dilettantes actually make videos of their rituals. In my book Rev. Eliot Explains It All, I go into great detail concerning this folly in the chapter FEAR AND MAKICK.

Revenge is serious business If you think you need it, but don’t know all that much about ritual work, I have three vital suggestions for you.
The first suggestion, read this book:

Click To See More

This is no “shameless plug” – because I wrote this book specifically to help get people get off on the right magickal footing when they want to start learning about the venerable art and science of magick. Mistakes at the beginning can come back over and over to hurt the person doing the work – and it may not ever stop. As granny would have put is: an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. This advice applies all across the board in life, but in Magick work, you can multiply that by millions of times since we cause ripples on the earthly and the astral planes. Don’t underestimate this warning.
The second suggestion concerns KARMA.

KARMA & REVENGE

The subject of Karma always comes up when people seek revenge. Many people believe that their actions to avenge a wrong helps Karma do its thing. Alas, Karma is a subject that we in the West vastly misunderstand. Karma, simply put, means DOING. It is not a Celestial Vengeance Machine doling out Frontier Justice like some Otherworldly Judge Roy Bean. Doing Magick work, doing anything, creates Karma – whether it be good or bad remains to be seen. In this case I suggest you pop over to my page on Karma and listen to the two in-depth discussions of Karma. Get there by clicking this image:Suggestion # 3: Before you do anything CONTACT ME. Do it now. Use this form. It doesn’t get any easier. I will not judge your decision – I will just explore it with you. Together we can find the best way to handle this. I can, and indeed I have, created ritual kits for the most extreme revenge one can imagine. I don’t shy away from this. I merely take it pretty damn seriously.