Hey Occulties,
Today, I’m going to look at a phenomenon which happens from time to time, and surprisingly came up as a topic during 4 of my last 7 calls (and in an email,) which tells me that the universe is giving me a big old hint to write an article about it.
As I’m sure the title tells you, sometimes a target may have a reaction you might find unexpected-, or in opposition to what you’d been working toward. Fear not, your old friend Cat is here to explain the caveats of certain spells.
Let’s begin with an old story. Many years ago when these were the norm, I ran a chat group for a short time. A young lady who had been with her boyfriend for several years at that point had been waiting and hoping for an engagement, but the fellow was clearly phobic of marriage, and I mean incredibly terrified of the prospect. She decided to do a spell to force a proposal. The young man ended up flipping out and landing in a mental hospital, but not before telling her he was so sorry as she deserved to have gotten that coveted ring long ago. What happened? You can’t make someone face their biggest fear on a whim….this guy was acutely phobic of marriage, – something she knew well, – and by trying to make him propose she basically put him in such a terror that he had a break down. Now I can see more than one of you thinking, well but that’s a pretty isolated case, right?
Yes and no. Remember, the target will react according to his or her nature, their mindset. This is why domestic violence situations are difficult at best. The more the violent partner loves the other, the more possessive and mean they can get. The violence is, unfortunately often a twisted expression of love. So, a petitioner with a violent partner may wonder why love spells make the violent partner more angry and possessive, when this is, unfortunately, how this person expresses themselves when they feel strong pangs of love.
So, why are these people reacting as they do above? It is their nature. Normally, you won’t have any problem because these problems arise in relatively few targets, as they generally are, without wanting to be unkind, abnormal reactions due to the target having become warped from personality disorders, massive phobias, mental illness, and so on. There are many people with all of the above who are perfectly functional adults (or enough so that you don't notice their personality disorder or mental illness to the degree that you realize it as being nearly as problematic as it could be,) so I am not suggesting many of us have love targets who are deeply handicapped by severe mental illness. What you need to keep in mind is that an irregular response to a love spell is far, far more likely in someone you know to be, for example, a sufferer of bipolar depression. Or, if someone is suffering from severe borderline personality disorder, they may not react to the work in the same way as someone who does not have this personality disorder. I do want to stress that seemingly normal people (and they are, for the most part quite normal,) can have issues that will cause some contradictory behaviors when hit with spellwork, not just people who suffer from the most severe problems.
I've long said that I believe that commitmentphobia is a kind of personality disorder, for example. Now, if you were working a job alongside someone who has commitmentphobia (of the romantic kind,) I'm reasonably sure you'd not think to yourself "Damn, this person is beset with mental illness!" Heck, if you dated them for a brief period, you'd probably also not realize that they have commitmentphobia – you'd just think things didn't work out. 😛 Yet, if you work on them using spellwork, you might actually notice that most of them follow a distinct pattern of reaction to love spellwork, (one which I see about 1/4 to 1/3 of the time in my cases,) where they "come in like the tide," meaning, they will take 2 steps towards the desired goal of the spellwork, one back, two forward, one back, etc. So, for example, with a client trying a reconciliation, they will notice the target being warm and interested for a week or so, and then suddenly cold and distant for a few days (or even a few weeks, if you're really unlucky,) then even more warm and interested and communicative, followed by a more brief "shut down" time, etc. This is often very upsetting and exasperating to the petitioner, who generally just hopes for an unbroken line of increasingly loving behavior. But why is the target doing this? Commitmentphobia is usually less of a fear of commitment, and more of a fear of being hurt and/or being constrained by love. It is actually hurtful to the person suffering commitmentphobia as they often are quite lonely as they have no one very close to them. 
So, the magic is encouraging their loving feelings, but as they begin to feel strong love towards the petitioner, they get frightened, and have to back off until they are comfortable with how they are feeling. The magic is constant (and the energy should be kept at a consistent level by the petitioner/spellcaster), but the reaction in the target is them trying to resist because they are afraid of love, then giving in to said emotions more and more. It can be tedious, but if you're really invested in having this person, it can be necessary as well. 🙂
Someone had made the rather astute observation to me in the last week that perhaps sometimes love spells bring out the "worst" in people, because that is who they really are. I can agree with that. If someone is being bossy or rude right after you use spellwork on them, they are probably bossy and rude to their partners. Surprisingly, some of the people who make marvelous friends make absolutely lousy partners. That said, sometimes if you use obsession work, you can make a target who is not naturally insecure and possessive become insecure and possessive, despite the fact that they are normally relatively laid back partners.
The key to working on anyone as successfully as possible is KNOWING WHO YOU ARE WORKING ON. This is why when a new client comes to me, I ask several questions regarding the case that they are presenting me with, as well as the people involved in their situation. For example, let's go back up to the story of the young woman trying to force a proposal – knowing that her partner was terrified of marriage (not even of commitment, as I recall, just of being actually married,) meant she was being terribly unwise to force this person to face his fear with such force. It ended with the fellow taking a stay at a mental hospital, which is certainly nothing she ever wanted or expected. Keep in mind, just like some people are allergic to- or have bad reactions to certain medications, so to can people have bad reactions to spellwork. And usually it's easier to identify who would have a bad reaction to a spell than it would be to identify who might react poorly to a medication. 😛 And again, this is likely more rare than the senders of the myriad of emails I'm about to receive after posting this will believe.
The most common problems I see are…
Using controlling magic on someone who is very very hyper sensitive to being "bossed around" or told what to do in the mundane can lead to the person doing the very action the controlling spell is set for them to do, but they are incredibly rude, defensive, and short tempered about it (and towards others.) Binding spells can also make this type defensive.
People who are TERRIFIED of commitment (and I don't mean the garden-variety commitmentphobic,) react very poorly to binding spells, or spells to compel them to become engaged. I suggest using less coercive methods, and love-drawing, and perhaps accepting that they will never get married (but might be more or less married, just not because the state or church said so) if their partner is marriage-phobic. 😉
Commitmentphobic people also tend to react to love magic with 2 steps forward, one step back, 2 steps forward, one back, etc., until they reach the petitioner's desired goal with them.
Someone who is a bossy, over-critical partner (which you may not have known had you never dated them seriously before,) will often show this side. People who are overly jealous and insecure in their love lives also can become jealous and insecure (which again, you may not have seen this side of them previously.)
Violent and abusive people can become more prone to violence and abuse when love work is used as this is their (very sick and demented) reaction to feeling love towards another person.
Some people with bipolar or schizoid problems actually will begin to vilify the person closest to them (this is not magic, it is the mental illness,) and using spellwork to make them more loving can intensify this delusion that their loved one is "after them." I strongly suggest working healing magic and helping your partner get medical attention to adjust their medication if this is happening.
I realize I'm just hitting the tip of the iceberg. If you're concerned your love work is not manifesting as it should be, by all means, feel free to contact me to see if we can't suss out the problem. :)
I apologize for the scattered-ness of this article. Mr NinjaCat is home due to quarantine, and while he stays away when I'm spellcasting, generally also when I'm on a business call, he legitimately just does not get that me writing means don't interrupt. ;)
~Cat
Cat’s Rants: Confessions of an Occult Mastermind 