Let's Try That Again...

Way back in April, I covered the failure of a highly publicized attempt to curse Donald Trump. As far as I could tell, the spell maybe had a small effect, but it was limited to a couple weeks of bad news for the campaign. And clearly, since Trump went on to win both the nomination and the election, it has to be considered a flat-out failure. In my article, I posted a couple of critiques regarding the methods used, and why the operation might have failed.

So now another group is at it again. This binding ritual was recently posted on Medium, and is scheduled for next Friday. Reading through the ritual, I did see some elements that suggest somebody involved either (A) read my critique of the last attempt, or (B) just knows how to construct a ritual. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive. Given the size of my audience, I would guess (B) probably explains it, but who knows?

A Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him: February 24th Mass Ritual

This document has been making the rounds in a number of magical groups both secretive and public. It was allegedly created by a member of a private magical order who wishes to remain anonymous. I make no claims about its efficacy, and several people have noted it can be viewed as more of a mass art/consciousness-raising project (similar to the 1967 exorcism and levitation of the Pentagon), than an actual magical working. But many are clearly taking it very seriously.

If this is the sort of thing that interests you, go ahead and read the whole thing. It's a ritual, so clipping an excerpt won't really do it justice. For the record, I think the "mass art" thing is basically bullshit. If somebody needs to tell themselves that in order to do this ritual, I think it's very unlikely that they're going to raise any amount of magical power or have any real magical effect. But I digress.

There are a couple of suggestions I can make that might improve the effectiveness of this one, but I would also caution anyone performing it as a group ritual to avoid varying the structure too much. Mass rituals do derive some of their power from synergy between practitioners, and the closer your form is to that of the other participants, the better that should work. I would definitely add the operant field at the beginning if I were to perform it and close with a banishing pentagram ritual to send the created form on its way, but otherwise I would probably leave the rest alone.


The ritual is done in more of a hoodoo/rootwork/traditional witchcraft style than ceremonial. In Protection and Reversal Magick, Jason Miller reports that in his experience, these two styles work on different "planes," which is why it is difficult to deal with hoodoo spells by exclusively ceremonial means, and difficult to deal with ceremonial spells by exclusively hoodoo means. By combining the two methods, you can cast "on all cylinders," so to speak, striking on both planes at once. Obviously, this should make for a more effective spell.

The operant field method will help extend this operation into the ceremonial realm, while providing minimal disruption to the group operation by keeping the rest of the spell the same. This "wrapper" method is generally applicable to all sorts of spells of whatever style. The lack of focus on a single operation was in my opinion one of the biggest problems with the earlier attempt. A few of the participants did spells that looked effective, but many of them settled on methods that were more amusing, but which looked more like performance art than any sort of real spell.

For midnight EST on February 24th, the simple electional timing method shows that the final aspect is Moon sextile Saturn. That's a yes, especially for something like a curse because Saturn is involved. The day is Jupiter (because it's before sunrise, when planetary days start) and EST is in the hour of Venus. The chart victor for New York City at this time is Jupiter, so even though the hour of Venus strikes me as a little odd for an operation like this, the time would seem to be a pretty good election for a political operation.

It may not be clear why you would use a Jupiter operation to go against a sitting politician, as Jupiter is the Greater Benefic, but if you've been following my planetary work series you should understand that Jupiter rules political ascendancy and thus has the power to bestow and the power to take away. Venus rules love and emotions, so the association there may have to do with those individuals who love Trump despite (or maybe even because of) his many flaws.

So the timing looks good, and the structure seems to be effective - but at the same time simple enough that it shouldn't confuse novice magicians. All of those factors would seem to bode well. At the same time, though, it should be pointed out that for whatever reason, cursing public figures often doesn't work very well. Trump supposedly has bunches of Evangelicals praying for him, which as anyone who understands magick knows is just another style of spellwork. It's relatively undisciplined and not very effective without large numbers, but this spell will need to overcome any resistance posed by such operations.

A couple of other points about the article - I completely disagree with the author of the piece regarding "cursing" versus "binding." As I see it, restricting the will of another person is one of the worst things you can do, so there's really no meaningful distinction and this is totally a curse. At the same time, not only is there a time and place for negative magick, all the stuff about "karma" and "blowback" is likewise nonsense for the most part. "Karma" would be taking down Trump and then having to deal with the action of President Pence (which could indeed turn out to be a bad thing). But that's where it ends. No supernatual agent is going to slap you for casting a "mean spell."

I'm not going to say whether or not I think that performing this operation is a good idea at this time, or whether or not I will be participating. I never do that, as a matter of principle, and in my opinion no magician should ever discuss the operations he or she performs until they have run their course. What I will say is that based on my analysis, this is a far better ritual than the previous attempt and the timing is such that it strikes me as substantially more likely to succeed.

As always, I'll be following the story and reporting on any signs of success or failure that show up after the 24th. You know, like a real journalist. Or, I suppose as Trump would say, "fake news."