What the tradition actually says. What I will and won't do. And why the request is more common than you'd ever imagine.
If you have ever come to me with this request and I turned you down — don't feel bad. You are absolutely not alone, and that refusal was never personal. What I want to do here is explain, in full, what this work actually is, where it comes from, what the tradition says about it, and why I approach it the way I do.
Because the truth is — this work is real. That is precisely why I am careful with it.
⬡ Hex vs. Curse
In popular culture these words are used interchangeably. In traditional Hoodoo, they are not the same thing. Understanding the difference matters before you open your mouth and make any kind of request.
The Hex
A hex is precision work. It is aimed at a specific person, a specific outcome, a specific situation. Think of it as a surgical strike — intentional, focused, and finite. A hex can range from mild interference to serious spiritual harm, but its defining quality is its deliberateness. It lands where you point it. Or at least — it's supposed to.
The Curse
A curse is older and heavier. It doesn't just land on a person — it can follow a bloodline, attach to a family name, and linger across time in ways the original caster may never live to see. In the old tradition, a curse was not something you threw in anger on a Tuesday. It was deliberate. It was solemn. It was a covenant.
One is a weapon. The other is a sentence. Both are real. Neither should be handled carelessly.
⬡ The Bible Didn't Say Don't
One of the most common misconceptions people carry into this conversation is that cursing is inherently anti-Christian or spiritually forbidden. But if you read the Old Testament with honest eyes, you find something very different. Curses are everywhere — and they are treated as real, serious, and sometimes divinely sanctioned.
The first curse in scripture
Before any human ever opened their mouth in anger, God himself cursed. Genesis 3
The serpent is cursed. The ground is cursed. Pain and labor are cursed into the human experience. The very framework of fallen existence is built on a divine curse. This was not metaphor to the ancient Hebrew mind. This was mechanism — something set in motion that would govern reality from that point forward.
Noah and the curse of Canaan Genesis 9
Noah wakes from a drunken sleep, discovers what his son Ham has done, and speaks a generational curse — not over Ham, but over Ham's son Canaan. "Cursed be Canaan — a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers."
Notice what is happening here. He does not curse the person who wronged him. He curses the one closest to that person — the son who will carry it forward. The logic is not cruelty. It is weight. My grandmother did not invent that approach. She inherited it from something much older than either of us.
Balaam — the professional Numbers 22–24
Balaam is one of the most fascinating figures in all of scripture. A non-Israelite prophet hired specifically to curse the Israelites on behalf of King Balak of Moab. Balak believed so completely in the power of spoken curse work that he sent officials with payment — fees for divination — to hire a practitioner. This was a professional transaction. Balaam prepared altars, made offerings, and sought spiritual authority before he opened his mouth. He was a rootworker by any honest definition of the word.
What is remarkable is that God does not respond by saying cursing isn't real. God intervenes specifically because it is real enough to matter.
The Psalms of imprecation Psalms 58, 69, 109
These chapters are called the imprecatory psalms, and they are breathtaking in their ferocity. David — described as a man after God's own heart — prays things like: Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his children wander and beg. This is not a soft prayer for justice. This is a man calling down generational consequence on an enemy and his bloodline. And it is in the Bible. Sung in synagogues. Preserved for thousands of years as sacred text.
Deuteronomy 28 — the Mosaic curses
This may be the most powerful example. Deuteronomy 28 contains one of the longest and most detailed curse passages in all of ancient literature. Moses pronounces blessings for obedience — and then spends far more verses on the curses for disobedience. Disease, confusion, madness, failed harvests, broken families, exile, generational suffering. The Hebrew tradition did not treat this as poetry. It treated it as covenant law. The curse was the binding mechanism of the agreement.
The tradition never said this power doesn't exist. It said handle it with the weight it deserves.
⬡ How to Know if You've Been Worked
The signs are rarely dramatic. They are persistent. A single sign means nothing. A pattern of signs is when you pay attention.
- A streak of unexplainable bad luck that defies logic and timing — the kind where you start to notice it follows you
- Recurring illness or fatigue that doctors cannot explain and that does not resolve with rest
- Sudden financial collapse with no clear cause — things that should work simply stop working
- Broken relationships falling like dominoes — people pulling away without clear reason
- Dreams that feel like warnings, or like someone is visiting you
- Finding strange items near or on your property — packets, crossed sticks, powders, or pins
- A heavy, oppressive feeling in your home that does not lift with cleansing
- A sense that your own efforts are working against you — like moving through resistance
Diagnostic Methods I Use
There are traditional methods for reading whether a working has been placed. I use two regularly. I will tell you about them — but I will also tell you that reading them correctly is not something you can learn from a YouTube video or a photo. The subtleties matter enormously. If you suspect something, a session with a practitioner who can work with you directly is worth far more than attempting a self-read.
Two wooden matchsticks placed in a bowl of water. The way they move — toward each other, away, spinning, refusing to separate — tells a story about what is attached and how. The read is in the relationship between the two, not in either stick alone.
An egg passed over the body and cracked into a glass of water. What settles, what rises, what forms in the white — each element is information. Eye shapes, strings, bubbles, color — this is a language that takes time to learn to read accurately.
Both of these methods are difficult to interpret remotely. If you are concerned, reach out and let's work through this together directly.
⬡ My Grandmother's Rules
My grandmother was not a woman who played with any of this lightly. She had three rules that governed any curse work she ever did — and I've carried them with me ever since I understood what they meant.
Grandmother's Rule
Only a direct blood descendant can break or reverse it. Not a rootworker. Not a priest. Not a sympathetic stranger with good intentions. Blood called it into being — only blood can recall it. This is a feature, not a flaw. It ensures that accountability stays within the family that initiated the work. You cannot outsource your way out of it.
Grandmother's Rule
The curse does not take effect until after her death. This one stopped me cold when I first fully understood it. She was not going to live to see it land. She did the work anyway. There was no ego in it, no immediate satisfaction, no watching the outcome unfold. Just a reckoning set in motion, patient as stone. That is how seriously she took it.
Grandmother's Rule
Never curse the person. Curse the one closest to them — and let them watch. I know how that sounds. I am not going to dress it up. But in the old tradition, this is the weight of a true curse. It is not a shortcut. It is a life sentence — for everyone involved, including the one who cast it. The suffering lands where it can be witnessed, and cannot be stopped.
My Rule
Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Karma is not passive. It is a delivery system, and it reads intention like a postal address. A spiteful, reactive request sent into the spiritual mail stream does not disappear because you calmed down the next morning. It goes where you sent it — and the return address is you. This rule exists because I learned it the hard way. Twice.
⬡ What Happened When I Didn't Follow It
I am sharing these not because they make me look good — they don't — but because they illustrate every warning I could ever give you better than any theory can.
Years ago I threw a hex in anger. Open-ended, poorly worded, and cast without knowing the full picture of what was actually happening. I was convinced someone was blocking my path — a woman specifically — and I put out the intention that her hair should fall out. Classic, dramatic, reactive.
What I did not know was that the woman I blamed was not actually the cause of my blockage. She was involved in the situation, but she was not the source of it. I had incomplete information and I acted anyway.
That month, a completely different person — a man — was diagnosed with cancer. He went through chemotherapy. He lost all of his hair. The woman I intended to hit was untouched.
An open-ended hex cast in anger with incomplete information does not pause and reconsider. It finds the nearest available match to your words. I said hair should fall out. It found someone whose hair was going to fall out. The precision was mine to provide, and I failed to provide it.
The second time I was working with an old Irish curse — the intention that someone causing me blockage in moving forward should walk with a limp. I cast it. I went to bed. The next morning I woke up and could not put any weight on my ankle. The pain was severe enough that I couldn't walk properly for two weeks.
It took me two weeks to understand what had happened. The reason the curse landed on me instead of the intended target is something I still think about. Imprecise aim. Spiritual proximity. The fact that I was, in that moment, closer to the working than the person I pointed it at.
When you cast in haste without grounding, without protection, without clarity of target — you are the closest warm body to the energy you just released. I walked with a limp I gave myself for two weeks. That is not metaphor.
These two stories are Rule Four in practice. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Know your target completely. And if you are not certain — do not open your mouth at all.
⬡ Do's & Don'ts
For those still reading and still seriously considering this path — here is what the tradition, my grandmother, and my own experience require.
The Do's
- Exhaust every other option first — every single one
- Know your target completely before you move
- Sit with the request for at least one full lunar cycle
- Understand that this work is spiritually yours to carry once set in motion
- Be honest with yourself about whether this is justice or vengeance
- Ground yourself and protect yourself before any working of this kind
- Know that only blood can reverse what blood begins
The Don'ts
- Don't cast out of jealousy, spite, or in the first heat of anger
- Don't cast when you are grieving, intoxicated, or emotionally unraveled
- Don't use open-ended language — say exactly what you mean
- Don't assume you have complete information about a situation
- Don't ask a practitioner to do work you wouldn't carry yourself
- Don't confuse justice with revenge — the spirits know the difference even when you don't
- Don't expect it to be fast, clean, or satisfying in the way you imagined
⬡ Why I Turn Requests Down
Not because I can't do the work. Because most people who come to me in the heat of their pain are not actually asking for a curse. They are asking for relief. They are asking to feel less powerless. They are asking for the universe to see what was done to them and respond accordingly.
And that — I can help with in other ways. Ways that don't come with a return address.
When I do sit with a request and determine I am willing to engage with it, I will tell you what I am and am not able to do, what it requires of you, and what you are taking on by asking. There is no version of this work that I do casually or on impulse — and you would not want a practitioner who did.
What I am always willing to do is help you figure out what is actually happening, where the energy is sitting, what is attached to you, and what your real options are. That starts with a reading.
Whether you suspect something has been placed on you, need clarity on a situation before you act, or simply want a practitioner who will be honest with you — start with a reading. Let's see what's actually there.
You can reach me through the Tarot Beach community on Facebook.