Cursing is a prayer to cause someone harm. A spell is a prayer sometimes with physical components and always with directed intent. The physical components like a candle or herb are to help you focus the energy that you want to send out or direct but you are always asking for help from the universe or a deity and that makes a curse a prayer.
Now I have no problem cursing some one that is doing or has done you physical or mental harm, if that harm can be verified by an objective outside party. (I don’t mean actually asking someone unless you are uncertain whether it really is harm but if you would hesitate to ask maybe it really isn’t harm.) So go ahead and hex a rapist or other person that has done harm to you like rob your house that harm already done is equal by far to any blow back but and it’s a really big BUT if it wasn’t physical was it harm you caused and you got what you deserved?
Too often we cause people to say hurtful things or do things we don’t like. That doesn’t constitute harm no matter how mad you are. Did you behave badly? Are you behaving like a petulant child in a relationship and you got slapped down? Are you the one with the bad attitude? Have you been wanting something your own way and you just didn’t get it and now you want to fling a curse? That is a slippery slope and I advise several hours or meditation on your own part of whatever happened. And did you do everything you could to avert whatever happened.
Bad grades are not enough to throw a curse. You didn’t do the work. Someone bad mouthing you is not enough to throw a curse. What did you say or do to them? And it may be as little as ignoring someone instead of acknowledging them or nasty face on your part. You caused it by your behaviour and you and only you are responsible for that.
Too many times we do not always have the maturity to see where we are the cause of other people’s actions towards us and part of being a witch is having the maturity and the honesty to truly look at what we are responsible for causing. We have a responsibility to be kind and not bad mouth someone even if you think they will never hear what you said. We have a responsibility to be inclusive and not act like one of the “mean girls”. It can be as subtle as a look on your face. People know and read body language. They know if you give them a look like you are better than them or that you think they are beneath you.
That being said, I still only ever use two spells and not very often and even less as I get older. One is putting someone in the freezer to stop their actions but remember stopping someone’s actions can mean they can’t always behave better, remember? You froze them.
And two, the mirror or Christmas ball spell to make someone’s actions reflect back on them. If they do good, good is accelerated and if they do something bad then they get whomped, however you may never see the whomp. You can’t sit and wait in anticipation of them getting hurt. That would be wrong and a really immature but human attitude.
So just because someone made you mad or cut you off in traffic do you really want to go out of your way to throw that curse? If you do then I suggest you have some growing up to do before you throw it.
I always teach those 2 spells to new witches, but I can’t remember the last time I actually used one of them. Like you said, if you freeze someone, the situation can’t improve, and, if you put them in a Christmas ball, well, both the inside AND the outside of the ball are reflective. The spell works both ways. I find that I am better off using a version of the Prayer to Isis in the Golden Ass that I modified into a Purification/Forgiveness spell. I’m better off releasing my own hurt, fear and anger, then just walking away from situations that are beyond my capacity to deal with in a positive fashion. LIke you said, every relationship has two sides, and both parties hold responsibility, unless, of course, one is raped, robbed, or shot by a completely random person. Most of the people I meet are angry with people with whom they are in relationship with (in some form or another) and have the power and capacity to improve the situation in some way if only they, themselves, can let go of their own anger and/or fear. But that is INCREDIBLY hard to do, especially when one is in the middle of it and feeling very threatened. Sometimes Freezing or Christmas Balling is the only way to make things stop long enough for everyone to kind of catch their breath, which is why I teach them.
Is a curse (or even a beneficial spell) a prayer? I hear this a lot (usually to ease the fears of the monotheist crowd) but I’m not so sure that it’s true (or at least, not always true). A prayer is a prayer if you are calling upon a deity to perform some action. A spell is a spell if you are attempting to enact change through the power of your own will. To my mind it is possible to invoke the name of a deity with the context of a spell (to get ones self into the right frame of mind or to channel certain energies) without flat-out asking the deity to do the thing you are wanting. Therefore one may ask a deity to perform some action (at which point you are putting the decision into the hands of said deity) or you may perform a spell to achieve the same goal (in which case you are putting all the responsibility upon yourself). Saying a prayer is like asking a favor. Casting a spell EXPECTS success or you might as well not bother it because the will and intent are not there and it will fail every time. Thoughts?