Hex

A spell or bewitchment. The term comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch, who borrowed it from their native German word for “witch,” Hexe, which in turn is derived from Old High German hagazussa or hagzissa (“hag”). In common usage, hex means an evil spell or curse, but among the Pennsylvania Dutch, for example, a hex can be either good or bad. It is cast by a professional witch whose services are sought out and paid for with a donation. Witches also are consulted to break and protect against hexes.

## Hexes

The term hex comes from Early American Folk belief, and implies the use of magick to hurt or harm another person’s body, family, or property. The hex was usually cast by a hex-doctor or sorcerer, who used deep concentration and symbolic imaginary to affect his or her target. Although the hex is considered to be an evil curse or black magick, the process of hexing can be used in a positive manner to bring about good luck, heal the sick, and conjure up good fortune.

A good example of using the hex process to bring about favourable results still thrives in this country. The Pennsylvania Dutch have been using a form of hex-craft for centuries to protect their property, heal the sick, and maintain a measure of personal peace and harmony. To the modern city dweller, Pennsylvania Dutch hex-craft may seem a bit odd. But to early Germanic people, magick was tantamount to survival. The early pioneers of this country did not have it easy. If they did not maintain a strict vigilance over loved ones and make the best of what Mother Nature had to offer, they never would have endured. The most noticeable aspects of the Pennsylvania Dutch magickal system are the elaborate symbols, or hex signs, that they use to decorate their barns, homes, and village stores. These colourful signs represent hundreds of years of tradition and come in many patterns and sizes. Similar to a Voodoo veves, hex signs are combinations of natural symbols that convey specific intentions. They are used to protect property, attract love, bring good fortune, and enlist the aid of the four elements for agricultural purposes.

## Hex Death

Also called “voodoo death,” hex death is death from a hex or curse resulting from black magic or the breaking of a taboo. The critical factor in hex death is belief. If a person believes that a witch or sorcerer can make him die by cursing him or by pointing a finger or bone at him, he probably will expire, and no amount of Western conventional medicine can save him. Hex death may be in part a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In her studies on hex death, anthropologist Joan Halifax-Grof lists four causes: 1) secretly administered poisons or other physical agents; 2) the relationship between physical and emotional factors in the victim; 3) societal reactions in a particular culture; and 4) parapsychological influences. Poisons and physical agents are obvious malefactors; if administered “magically,” with plenty of ceremony, they may kill without the victim’s knowledge. The second category refers to the fact that a person literally can die from fright. In stressful situations the adrenaline surges, preparing the body either to fight or escape. If neither is possible, the body could suffer both short- and long-term damage, such as shock, lowering of blood pressure and attacking of the body’s immune system. Rage affects the body as well. Finally, if the victim believes his cursed situation to be hopeless, he begins to experience feelings of helplessness, incompetence, despair and worthlessness. Illness sets in, which the victim has no desire to fight, and eventually he succumbs. Psychologists term this situation the giving up/given up complex.
Cultural determinants play as large a role in hex death as the victim’s own perceptions. Once cursed, the victim may be forced to withdraw from daily community life, becoming almost invisible to his neighbors. The cursed individual becomes despondent, expecting death, and his friends and relatives do not dispute such notions but corroborate them. Eventually, those not cursed see the victim as already dead, even performing funeral ceremonies over his body, which technically still lives. In Australia, aborigines actually take away food and water from the accursed, since a dead person needs no sustenance. Suffering from starvation and dehydration in the searing Australia bush, the victim indeed dies.

In many cases, however, the victim dies despite the efforts of his friends or family to save him. In such instances, Halifax-Grof speculates that the sorcerer makes a telepathic connection with the victim, somehow influencing his mind. If psychic healing can work, so can psychic killing. One of the most sinister acts of the obeahman, or witch doctor, is to steal a person’s shadow. By taking a human’s spirit and psychically “nailing” it to the sacred ceiba tree, the obeahman has deprived the victim of his spirit and of the need to live.

In Haiti, French anthropologist Alfred Metraux observed a phenomenon called “sending of the dead,” in which Baron Samedi, god of the graveyard, possesses the bokor, or sorcerer, and through him commands a client to go to a cemetery at midnight with offerings of food for the Baron. At the cemetery, the client must gather a handful of graveyard earth for each person he wishes to see killed, which he later spreads on the paths taken by the victim(s). Alternatively, the client takes a stone from the cemetery, which magically transforms itself into an evil entity, ready to do its master’s bidding. To start the process, the sorcerer throws the stone against the victim’s house. Metraux found that whenever a person learned he was a victim of a “sending the dead” spell, he would soon grow thin, stop eating, spit blood and die.

In all these cases, only the reversal of the spell by good magic can save the victim. The mind’s capacity for belief and action overpowers all other attempts at conventional logic and scientific rationality.

Sorcerers in various cultures contend that it is possible to cause a hex death without the victim being aware of the hex

## Hex Signs

Round magical signs and symbols used by the Pennsylvania Dutch, primarily to protect against witchcraft but also to effect spells. Hex signs are both amuletic and talismanic. Traditionally, hex signs are painted on barns, stables and houses to protect against lightning, ensure fertility and protect animal and human occupants alike from becoming ferhexed, or bewitched. Hex signs also are painted on cradles, on household goods such as kitchen tools and spoon racks and on wooden or metal disks that can be hung in windows.

Each hex sign has a different meaning. Some of the symbols and designs date back to the Bronze Age—such as the swastika or solar wheel, symbol of the Cult of the Sun—and to ancient Crete and Mycenae. The most common designs or symbols, all enclosed in a circle, are stars with five, six or eight points; pentagrams, or Trudenfuss; variations of the swastika; and hearts. The six-petaled flower/star, a fertility hex sign, is painted on utensils and tools relating to livestock, especially horses, and on linens, weaver’s tools, mangling boards and other items. Pomegranates also are used for fertility; oak leaves for male virility; an eagle or rooster with a heart for strength and courage; hearts and tulips for love, faith and a happy marriage.
Hex signs are designed for healing, accumulating material goods and money, starting or stopping rain and innumerable other purposes. A charm or incantation is said as the hex sign is made. Little is known about hex signs, as it is a taboo for the Pennsylvania Dutch to talk about them to outsiders.

The custom of hex signs comes from the Old World and was brought from Germany and Switzerland by the German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s and 1800s. In the Old Saxon religion, it was customary to paint protective symbols on barns and household items. In Germany, tradition calls for hex signs to be placed on the frames of barns, but not on houses; in Switzerland, it is customary to place the signs on houses. The Pennsylvania Dutch borrowed both practices. Among the Pennsylvania Dutch, regional customs developed in style and placement. In the 19th century, hex signs proliferated throughout the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside then diminished along with interest in the folk magical arts.

## How to make a Hex Sign

Be sure you have all the tools you will need to complete the sign you have designed or found. If you are doing an original drawing, plan it out first on a blank piece of paper.

Be sure that the picture will represent the result you desire. On a round disk of wood or metal, draw out the hex sign. As you draw, ask a blessing. For example: “This is the universe that surrounds me. It is blessed with the universal power of the almighty forces of creation.” After the initial drawing is completed, paint the sign with colors selected for their symbolic harmony with the aims of the sign. For example, a design featuring a rooster, representing watchfulness and spiritual vigilance, might be painted red and white for power and protection.

Once the hex sign has been painted, it should be blessed and consecrated to the purpose for which it was made. This is done by holding your hands over the sign and charging it with personal energy and power. If the hex sign is for protection, you will want to recite a simple chant or prayer that will convey your thoughts verbally as you focus on the sign. For example: if the hex sign was made for protection, you might want to say:

Powers of the present and the past

There is none beside thee.

Be now a guard, remain steadfast

In perfect love and purity

As soon as the sign has been blessed, you will want to hang it outside of the house in a place for all to see. If the sign is for protection, you might want to place it over or next to a bedroom window. If the sign is for love, hang it over the kitchen door or window. If the sign is for prosperity, fertility, and good fortune, hang it over the front entrance of your home.