A correspondant, we’ll call her Angela (not her real name of course), writes:
“Joshua, I’ve been working with a wiccan witch for the past few weeks. She’s been trying to reunite me with my husband… After casting three different spells she told me that there is black magick on my husband and that the only way to clear it is to raise a cone of power. She said that because she’ll need help from four other witches I will have to pay her $1,200 to do this. I’m devastated — I’ve already paid her more than $560 and that’s all the savings I have. I’m scared that if I don’t find the money to pay her then all the spells she’s already done will have been for nothing. But I don’t have that kind of money. I’m stuck and I can’t sleep or eat and I don’t know what to do. Please help me”
Wiccan Nonsense
Emails like Angela’s make me very sad. Unfortunately I get them all the time. It pains me to see scammers take advantage of people at their most vulnerable. The so-called cone of power is just another weapon in their armory — a big gun that supposedly justifies a huge price tag.
The myth of the cone comes from the Wiccan practice. Wicca is a pagan religion that, its proponents claim, worships a Great Goddess and a Great Horned God, also sometimes called the Lady and the Lord.
For all its ancient sounding rituals and practices, Wicca is a surprisingly modern invention, having begun in 1954, although it has it roots in Paganism. As such, lots of its rituals are based on sun and moon cycles. These rituals might have seemed to have some merit back in the dark ages when the heavenly bodies must have appeared powerful and magical, but in these more enlightened times its easy enough to debunk everything to do with the religion.
Cone of Power
With the understanding that Wicca is made-up nonsense, what exactly is a cone of power supposed to be? The scammers email is correct in that it is a practice that involves several people. If you’ve ever watched Charmed, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the cone will be familiar to you. It involves a number of ‘witches’ arranging themselves into a circle. They work together to channel their power into a cone shape, which they send into the air to do their bidding. If that sounds like nonsense, that’s because it is.
Having said that, it’s the kind of nonsense that is based on just enough fact to sound convincing. Because the fact is that there is universal energy and power all around us — it’s what I use to cast my love spells. It’s also a fact that when more than one person comes together with the same aim, greater amounts of power can be manipulated and worked. So there is some basis to the idea of a cone of power. Why then, am I so sure that the email to Angela is a scam?
Three reasons: Firstly, there’s no such thing as black magic and so no reason to use such a powerful spell. Secondly, because when it comes to a love spell, combining the energy of more than one practisioner would be downright dangerous. And third, because there is no way anyone who practiced real magic should be charging that kind of money, especially given what Angela has already paid them.
A Delicate Touch
Love is a delicate emotion. I often liken it to a flower. It cannot be forced into existence, it cannot be made to blossom in an instant. Instead it must be gently fed and watered, nurtured and allowed to grow, blooming when it is ready.
Creating love with a spell requires a delicate touch. Yes, a fair amount of power can be used, but that kind of power is well within the grasp of a single spell caster. When I cast a love spell I spend many, many hours on the work. I don’t do this because I am trying to muster huge amounts of energy and power, but because I am spreading the power thinly, easing it into the subject, threading and weaving it gently. I am a craftsman, not a bulldozer.
Even if a cone of power was a real thing, the idea of trying to channel such an immense amount of energy into the service of creating love is laughable. It wouldn’t be so much a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it would be more like rolling an eighteen-wheeler truck over a delicate seedling and hoping that would make it flourish.
Steer Clear of Scams
Given all of the this, it is very clear that Angela’s ‘spell caster’ has no intention of gathering a coven of fellow witches to raise a cone of power to blow away some non-existant black magic. Their sole intention is to relive Angela of as much money as she can get her hands on. Everything else she has told Angela is scare tactics, designed to force her hand and push her into a decision before reason and sense prevail.
Happily I was able to reply to Angela before she parted with any more money. I cast a spell for her and she is now happily reunited with her husband. My hope is that anyone who is reading this and who finds themselves in a similar predicament will not fall for these kind of scams.