Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is - Lon Milo DuQuette 2010

A Midsummer Night’s Curse

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

SHAKESPEARE⁵⁷

Curses. Now here’s a subject for a discussion of low magick!

Do curses work? Have you ever been cursed? I mean really cursed—cursed by someone who believes they know what they’re doing and makes no secret of the fact that they’ve put a curse on you; someone who stands ready to delight in news of your misery and adversities and hungrily take upon themselves karmic responsibility for your every misfortune? Even if you do not believe in the power of curses, it’s very unsettling to think that someone out there fears or despises you so much they profess to willfully project a current of malice toward you in a poisonous ray of concentrated hate.

That’s why, in a way, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a believer in curses or not. If somebody has cursed you and you learn about it, and you feel uncomfortable about it, then the curse is at least already partially working. How would you handle something like that? How would you go about neutralizing a curse without being dragged deeper into the mad, toxic world of the curser?

This is a story of a misunderstanding, a curse, and an improvised magical operation designed to neutralize the curse. The misunderstanding was between two very dear friends of our family, both of whom are/were practicing magicians. One is a prominent foreign filmmaker (I’ll call him F.F.); the other, at the time, a struggling artist and writer (whom I’ll call S.A.). One is still living; the other is now sadly deceased. To respect the privacy and memories of both living and dead, I will not reveal their identities other than to say it is likely that both their names would be recognizable to at least a few of you who are reading these words.

S.A. was a huge fan of the work of F.F., and in the autumn of 1981 he convinced me and several other adventurous lodge brothers to travel to upstate New York to attend a film festival where F.F. was to speak and exhibit several of his films. After the event, S.A. and I had an opportunity to have drinks with F.F. and talk at some length. All three of us were students of magick in general, and the magick of Aleister Crowley in particular, so we hit it off like kindred souls. Before we parted, I gave F.F. my phone number and encouraged him to call me the next time he was in the Los Angeles area, adding that he was more than welcome to stay with the DuQuettes while he was in the neighborhood. I never dreamed he would take me up on the offer.

About a week later, I received a call from F.F., who said he was still in the country and staying with a friend in San Diego. He told me that in two days he was scheduled to visit Catalina Island, but, if my offer of hospitality was still open, he would be happy to come stay with us until then. He even offered to bring a copy of his newest film and screen it at our home for our lodge members. It was an outrageously kind and thoughtful offer that I immediately accepted.

Naturally, S.A. was beside himself with excitement and was one of the first to arrive for movie night. Another of our lodge members went to the mall and purchased every copy of one of F.F.’s books that the store had in stock. After an exciting night viewing the film, everybody went home with an autographed copy. It was truly a very memorable event. S.A. stayed late chatting with F.F. and, before heading home, offered to chauffeur him to the Catalina ferry the next afternoon. F.F. accepted.

We were all in bliss over this brief but pleasant brush with celebrity, and I’m happy to say that F.F. continues to this day to be a dear friend to the DuQuette family. Sadly, his friendship with S.A. would not so long endure.

I feel the need to pause and remind the reader that artists of great genius often possess highly mercurial temperaments. They can be high-strung, unpredictable, and moody. Also, at times the creative energy bubbling inside them cannot be contained within the narrow confines of their artistic medium. Occasionally it just bursts out upon the world—sometimes visiting chaotic and devastating effects upon unsuspecting people around them.

A couple of days after dropping F.F. off at the ferry, S.A. received in the mail an elegantly adorned letter from F.F. He excitedly opened it, expecting to find a thank you note or some other such pleasantry F.F. is known for. Instead, he was stunned to find an eloquently composed poem (penned in fine calligraphy) casting a hideous curse upon him. The reason?

It seems that when F.F. arrived at the hotel in Catalina and unpacked his bags, he discovered that a medicine bottle that should have contained doctor-prescribed tablets important to his health and peace of mind had been emptied of its contents and refilled with ordinary aspirin. Understandably upset, yet completely ignoring the possibility of any other explanation, F.F. became convinced that our dear S.A. was the culprit, and that such larceny must be answered with a magical curse.

Naturally, we were all very shocked and confused by the news. As his host, I felt particularly responsible for anything that might have taken place in my home under my watch. I immediately sent F.F. a check to cover what I estimated would cover the cost of refilling his prescription, along with a note affirming my conviction that S.A. would be the last person on earth who would tamper with his luggage or have any interest in that particular medication, and that I was sure there must be some other explanation. F.F. accepted the check and graciously assured me that he did not in any way blame me. However, he held firm in his belief that S.A. was the culprit and that was that.

S.A., of course, was heartbroken. Later, his sadness turned to anger at being accused of such a thing, especially by someone he idolized and only wished would think well of him. In the days that followed, he fell into a dark depression. Even though he’d done nothing wrong, his resentment and frustration had the effect of the curse actually working on him. He performed the standard banishing rituals and took the usual steps recommended for psychic self-defense, but nothing lifted his spirits. I eventually suggested we try something altogether different to neutralize the curse and help our brother snap out of it.

It was my firm belief that this whole matter could be blamed upon a “demon”—not a demon from the Goetia or the Book of Abramelin—but a spirit of misunderstanding. F.F. was simply not seeing clearly—as if his eyes (in a metaphorical sense) had been bewitched. The magical solution became obvious when I took another look at the stationery upon which the curse had been written.

But before I go into that, and so the details of our little curse-breaking ceremony might make more sense to you, I need to share a little more information about the extraordinary life and magical world of F.F., whose connection to the film industry goes back to the early days of sound pictures. In fact, as a young man he appeared in the cast of Max Reinhardt’s 1935 masterpiece, A Midsummer Night’s Dream,⁵⁸ the first sound movie of a Shakespeare play ever produced. His participation in this classic production ignited his brilliant imagination and engendered in his young heart a passionate love and fascination for both the art of cinema and themes of magick. The world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream became an abiding magical reality for him, and he would throughout his life personally identify with its magick. Even the curse he cast upon poor S.A. was written on personalized stationery that was festooned with beautiful and whimsical images of the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The largest image on the parchment sheet was that of Puck, the mischievous aide to Oberon, the king of fairies.

I saw certain haunting parallels between the plot of the play and the events surrounding the misunderstanding that led to the curse. In the play, Oberon wishes to play a trick on Titania, his fairy queen. While she sleeps, he squeezes the juice of a certain plant in her eyes, bewitching her to fall in love with the first creature she gazes on when she awakens. When she does wake up, she casts her eyes upon Bottom, one of the clowns of the play whose head (because of other magical shenanigans) has been magically replaced by that of a donkey. She immediately falls helplessly in love with this monster, which leads to all manner of fun. Confusing matters even further, Puck applies the magick flower juice to the eyes of other characters in the play while they sleep, and they too awake to mistakenly see things incorrectly. Things become hilariously chaotic as misunderstanding piles upon misunderstanding until finally Oberon and Puck apply an antidote (the juice of another kind of plant) to the eyes of the bewitched characters, and everything is set right in the end.

Everyone in our family’s circle of friends during those years was very familiar with this delightful play. Each summer for many years running, the DuQuettes hosted a backyard A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream party. We would meet early in the evening, divvy up roles, hand out scripts and flashlights, and then, in the company of dear friends and underneath a bright moon and summer stars, we’d sip wine and read through the entire play.⁵⁹

In an ironically adverse way, the similarities between the play and S.A.’s curse were unmistakable. Something—some force or circumstance or delusion or bias—had bewitched F.F.’s eyes so that when he discovered his property missing, he blamed the first person who came to his mind—the last person he saw before stepping on to the Catalina ferry—S.A. If only we could apply Oberon’s antidote to F.F.’s eyes! We certainly couldn’t do it physically, but perhaps there was a way we could do it magically, and so the play itself became the blueprint of a ritual to lift the curse.

Shakespeare was well aware of the mythological and magical properties of plants and herbs. He mentions by name at least eighty varieties in his plays and poems, twenty-six in A Midsummer Night’s Dream alone! I wanted first to confirm exactly what flower was used by Oberon to bewitch the eyes of Titania and the others, and then, what other flower was used to lift the curse and allow everyone to see things clearly again.

In Act II, Scene I, Oberon himself tells us about the first flower when he informs his servant, Puck, precisely what it is, why it is magical, and where he can find it.

Oberon. My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest

Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath

That the rude sea grew civil at her song

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,

To hear the sea-maid’s music.

Puck. I remember.

Oberon. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,

Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal throned by the west,

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;

But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon,

And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,

And maidens call it love-in-idleness.⁶⁰

Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once:

The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid

Will make man or woman madly dote

Upon the next live creature that it sees.

Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again

Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

In Shakespeare’s day, love-in-idleness was the name of a violet and white European wildflower, also called heartsease (Viola tricolor), which was the ancient ancestor of the pansy. His description of the mythical genesis of the flower (that of being created when Cupid’s arrow missed the heart of “a fair vestal throned by the west”) is a not-so-subtle reference to Queen Elizabeth I, whose virgin heart was officially never pierced by Cupid’s arrow. The purple of “love’s wound” of the once-pure-white flower was a poignant reference to the fact that Elizabeth had shunned the personal pleasures of marriage, and the garment that would have been her white bridal dress was transformed by greater duty to the royal purple of the monarchy. She quite literally became the bride of England.

When you think about it, there was big magick in that flower. The sexual power of Cupid’s arrow, shot “as it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts,” instead of casting a powerful spell of passion on the great queen, injected all its love magick into that tiny quivering flower. I love this stuff!

The identity of the other flower (the one Oberon used to free Titania and the others from the spell of misunderstanding) can be found in Act IV, Scene I:

Oberon. But first I will release the fairy queen.

Be as thou wast wont to be;

[Touching her eyes with an herb]

See as thou wast wont to see:

Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower

Hath such force and blessed power.

Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.

Dian’s bud (Artemisia absinthium) is named for the chaste goddess of the hunt (another virgin). It is the archaic name for absinthe or wormwood. Associated with sorcery from prehistoric times, its feathery, greenish-gray leaves are poisonous in concentrated doses and produce a narcotic effect in smaller doses. This was starting to sound like serious pharmacology.

The basic format of our ritual was to be very simple. After due preparation, we would have S.A. smear certain parts of the curse parchment with the juice of a love-in-idleness plant. These parts would include F.F.’s signature, the image of the mischievous Puck, and particular words and phrases that most demonstrated F.F.’s temporary inability to see things accurately.

Then, once the curse itself was anointed and fully “alive” with the delusional “spirit” of misunderstanding, S.A. would neutralize the spirit by liberally smearing the juice of Dian’s bud upon those same areas of the parchment. All of this, of course, would be accompanied by appropriate incantations gleaned from the works of Shakespeare. The whole operation promised to be not only magically viable, but also a lot of fun.

We chose for our magical temple one of the most beautiful places on earth—the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Nestled within its 140 acres is a charming Shakespeare Garden containing many of the herbs and plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s works—all with little plaques displaying the names of the plays in which they made their appearance. It would be no trouble at all to find our Love-in-idleness and Dian’s bud, but how would we pluck them up without drawing the attention of the groundskeepers? “Ay, there’s the rub.”

It was a cool Sunday afternoon when Constance and I, S.A., and a handful of interested lodge members carpooled up to the Huntington. As expected, the place was crowded. The Shakespeare Garden, however, was nearly deserted and it took us no time at all to locate and feloniously pluck up a pocketful of each of our flowers. Before leaving the Shakespeare Garden for more private environs on the grounds, we placed a small offering of some of our ill-gotten herbs at the stone bust of Shakespeare to invoke the presence and blessing of the immortal Bard. After all, he would play the deity role in this magical drama.

The spirit Ariel’s greeting to the magician, Prospero, from The Tempest served as our invocation:

All hail, grave master! I come

To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curled clouds …⁶¹

We then strolled down to the lily ponds and found ourselves a quiet spot in the shade of a giant magnolia tree and set to work. We all sat on the ground and surrounded S.A. to shield his magical operation from prying eyes. The ceremony was short and very simple. S.A. crushed the love-in-idleness between his hands and rolled them back and forth until the plant was pulpy and wet. He then smeared the areas of the curse I described above. He then held the anointed paper in his hand while he read Oberon’s original “curse.” The words didn’t exactly match our situation, but we thought they’d do.

What thou seest when thou dost wake,

Do it for thy true-love take,

Love and languish for his sake:

Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,

Pard, or boar with bristled hair,

In thy eye that shall appear

When thou wakest, it is thy dear:

Wake when some vile thing is near.⁶²

Then, doing the same with the Dian’s bud, he smeared the paper with the antidote, saying;

Then crush this herb into (F.F.’s) eye;

Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,

To take from thence all error with his might,

And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.

When they next wake, all this derision

Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision …⁶³

That was it. I banished the “temple” with Puck’s closing line:

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber’d here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend:

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call;

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.⁶⁴

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the gardens and art museum. S.A. said he felt much better. We debated whether or not to burn the curse letter. S.A. would have none of it, insisting that he’d like to keep it as a memento. We would later discover that over the years F.F. made something of a habit of cursing people whom he thought had somehow wronged him, and that most of them took it in good humor; some were even amused and flattered at the distinction.

Did our Midsummer Night’s Dream ritual work? I guess it’s a matter of opinion. S.A. certainly stopped worrying about the curse, and in the years to follow went on to become a successful illustrator and author. His untimely death twenty-six years later was not likely the result of any curses other than those his life choices sadly loosed upon himself.

And F.F.? We would learn from a third party (nearly ten years later) that his friend in San Diego (the one with whom he had stayed in the days just prior to his visit with us) had eventually confessed to the pill substitution, stating it was a foolish act of misguided concern for F.F.’s health and well-being.

And so ends the story of A Midsummer Night’s Curse. I hope it has served as an illustration of how magick ceremonies can be drawn from virtually any source that inspires the magician, and that it isn’t always necessary to lift a magical ritual directly from the works of John Dee, or the Golden Dawn, or Aleister Crowley, or Gerald Gardner in order to assure that … Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill; The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.⁶⁵

[contents]

57 Puck. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act II, Scene II.

58 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Warner Brothers, 1935. Directed by William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt (who also produced).

59 When he was very young, our son Jean-Paul played the parts of all the minor fairies. As he grew older, he moved to more manly roles. It remains a warm and magical memory for all of us.

60 Bold type and underlines my own.

61 The Tempest, Act I, Scene II.

62 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene I.

63 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene II.

64 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I.

65 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene II.