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I seem to be running into more people who have a tendency in confusing regular life for the occult or as an act of witchcraft.

It’s should come as a surprise to literally no one that life is stressful, tricky and irritating. It is complicated, makes very little sense and all around baffling. When you have things like war, the drastic and more overt resurgence of White Supremacy as well as the general terribleness that people seem to be, it can certainly feel easier to say something nefarious is afoot and it is through magick. “Bad/Negative energy”,  accusing someone putting a fix on them or some other flexed about excuse that pretty much conveniently avoids the concept that some people are awful people, no magick needed.

The more recent claims I have heard is witchcraft. Like, “Oh, I’ve studied witchcraft. This is why [person] is being so difficult, they’re doing witchcraft.” Basically, it boils down to no matter what, it is witchcraft somehow. Their terrible attitude towards you? Witchcraft. The fact that you seem to be in their cross hairs for every little thing? Witchcraft. It’s not general malice, or prejudice, it’s supernatural.

This is a Pagan site so I’m not going to sit here and say that magick isn’t real, jinxes don’t happen and folks don’t engage in witchcraft. However, the average person is not engaged in the occult, particularly not to the point of actively putting curses on others. Maybe cursing at others but not cursing on others. When being told things like this and especially by those who never have really worked with anything in occultic studies, it honestly irritates me because it feels like it is hitting a straw poppet instead of looking at the matter at hand.

By focusing on saying “oh, it’s magick/witchcraft/the occult”, it almost works as a some protective shield from the actual reality of the situation. It starts to feel that it is a battle of energies and just a bigger Goliath than expected so if things don’t work out, don’t feel bad because it’s almost like battling an evil greater than life itself. If one faced their situation with a realistic and honest, “This person doesn’t like me and their actions are starting to drastically effect my career/life/relationship,” that can leave a whittling feeling because it’s going to be a battle of wits and a taxing one at that.

It also expresses itself by claiming everything unsavory is “negative energy”. Such as “they’re trying to pass their negative energy onto you”, “this person constantly infects the air with their negative energy”, “I think you’re giving off negative energy when you talk about why gentrification is a bad thing” and other choice quotes. While energy is transferable, it really isn’t this. Sometimes, describing things as giving “negative energy” are just things that just bothering the person who is claiming there is “negative energy” and it’s an easy way to put the issue to bed without dealing with it. It isn’t a case of some weird version of feng shui, it appears to be more of a desire to avoid a problem because it is hard to deal with.

Usually, it is said in situations that the speaker doesn’t want to engage in simply because it is too arduous, generally for them. And the speaker usually, again, does not practice any metaphysics, it’s just a orientalist borrowed phrase. I use the term “orientalist” because it is indeed borrowed from various energy work, spiritual and meditation practices from several different parts of Asia but watered way down into hyper-simplistic ideas such as the binary of “good vibes/bad vibes – positive energy/negative energy” that is easy for Westerns to understand, but only with a bunch of Yellow–scare prejudice slathered on. Hence why it only really gets used when the speaker gets very uncomfortable about a situation. It would simply be better to say, “I don’t want to talk about [this situation] anymore” or “I really don’t like you because [reasons]” instead of dodging because of some mysterious force that seems to simply overpower a situation…especially when it goes awry.

Granted, these sayings get used in the positive, particularly to affirm appeal – “This place has good vibes, I like it” (actually, just “vibes/energy” gets used in the positive but not references to magick or witchcraft) – but when used in the positive, it’s not served as a justification to avoid a bad situation or explain a wayward person’s bad behavior. Not only is it foolish-sounding, it’s also incredibly evasive of actual problem solving. Both excuses – because they are indeed excuses, not genuine practices of magick – seem to be more so diversions than actual examinations of the problem at hand. And from people who don’t practice, just did cursory reading and not even from decent material. Just new-agey, cobbled up nonsense used to deflect situations and unsavory topics.