How to Cast a Spell on Your Neighbor and Change Yourself
Witchcraft might not solve your problem, but it may just shift your mindset
I’ve always been a little bit goth. But despite my spooky affect, I never seriously dabbled in the occult — until the day, six years ago, that I cast a spell. I can’t say it worked, exactly, but it did change something in my life for the better.
It happened after I posted on a local Listserv about the problems I was having with my next-door neighbors, who since moving in had kept up a barrage of complaints about what they saw as infractions and I saw as living my life. (Once, they’d called building management after visiting friends of mine left their child’s stroller outside my door.) Any attempts I made to talk things out were met with pure nastiness, I wrote.
I got back some messages full of commiseration, and a few containing contact information for lawyers who specialized in tenant rights. But one, from a fellow Latina, stood out for its unusual but simple advice. She told me not to bother with a lawyer. “Take a broom,” she wrote. “Put it upside down (behind from door), hat on top, and say ‘Go home now.’ It will make them move.”
While this may have flummoxed other members of our online community, I recognized it for what it was: some good…
