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A few questions about them...

-Do they work?
-How do they work?
-Will karma bitchslap you for using one to harm someone else? (Even if it's just to get them bedridden with a sore throat?)

1) Like everything in magick, they only work if you want them to.
2) Sympathetic magick -- y'know how there're those people who're scared of cameras because they believe having their picture taken steals their soul? It's kind of like that. Someone's hair, fingernails, blood, sweat, tears, semen, photograph, full name, signature and the like are all bound to that person indefinitely -- maybe it's due to 'energy signatures', maybe it's just like-attracts-like, who knows. In any case, when you're making or using a voodoo doll (also known as a poppet, btw), you're often advised to have something that belongs to or identifies your target, such as the things I listed. When you have that, you can ritually tie that object to the voodoo doll, and then -- to God, to the Universe, to the karmic enforcers, whatever -- that poppet /is/ the target. Whatever happens to the doll happens to the person. In theory, anyway.
3) If you believe in it, probably.

Well, I don't believe in past lives nor reincarnation, so Karma's out of the window. Likewise, I don't believe there's some sort of mystical undercurrent that hurts you when you do things it doesn't like. Seems to much like Christian guilt for me to believe it, but if other folk do, then that's good for them.

EDIT: Oh, and I took "How do they work?" to mean "What are the mechanics behind them?" -- if you wanted an explanation of how to /use/ them, I could fish something up for you.

Heh, just for my own morbid curiosity, I'd love it if you could fish something up for me on how to use voodoo dolls. <3

*is a total shameless information hoarder*

My beliefs in karma were based on observation too -- however, I seem to have got(ten?) a different result. The way I see it, the "good guys" don't always win, and the "bad guys" aren't always defeated. I suppose you could say karma manifests in little actions, like the "bad guy" receiving a lot of little misfortunes, but that assumes:

a) all outcomes are based on karmic retribution,
b) some outcomes are based on karmic retribution and cause and effect.
c) that some outcomes are based on karma, some are based on random chance and some are based on cause and effect.

I (personally) believe only in chance, as well as cause and effect (although you could say chance is a conglomeration of multiple effects from multiple causes).



Well, personally, if I were making a voodoo doll --

1) Cut out two human-shaped bits of cloth from some material.
2) Sew them together, but leave one side open (unstitched).
3) Fill the doll with stuffing and personal affects of the person you're targeting (toenails, semen, blood, hair, their signature, their name, any details you can get about them)
4) Sew the doll up completely.
5) Baptise the doll in some fashion (you could just sprinkle some water on its head and proclaim it to be whomever, or come up with your own rite; so long as you symbolically show that the doll IS that person).
6) Give it life (Most people advise putting a hole in its mouth and breathing into it, but I'm sure someone could just give it some energy or whatever).
7) Do whatever it is you want to do. ninja of Persia raises a good point that voodoo dolls can be used in "good" magick too.

Steps 5 and 6 could be reversed, I think. It'd be personal preference which you do.