I lived in Ajmer till I was eleven years old. It was a very small one horse town in those days. There was a single bus plying on the route where I lived and the only other forms of transport were either horse driven carts (tongas) or human powered rickshaws. Since the railway was the singular employer at that time, may people living in Ajmer worked in the loco-sheds. And everyone knew everyone else. Those were the most tension free times of my life and nothing else after that has even come close.
In those days women used to sleep in the house on the upper floors and the men used to sleep either outside the house on the porches (which everyone had) in the summers or inside the house on the ground floor in the winters. Since it’s a desert, Ajmer has extreme temperatures in summers and winters. Because of the extreme heat in the summers, the monsoons are also just as extreme with violent thunderstorms and incessant rains that go on for days. At least that’s the way I remember it.
Anyway, I can do the reminiscing later on since there is a lot of it concerning Ajmer. Back to the magic part. The hair or the nails, we were told, are part of our ‘essence’. There is enough of ‘us’ in them to be manipulated successfully towards magical ends. Often these ends meant control over the other person. Keep in mind that I have never done magic or witnessed it in a way which could not be attributed to understandable principles. I have no first hand experience in the matter, I just have a curiosity for the paranormal. I don’t think I have the guts to actually attempt any real magic since I have heard of countless people who have lost a lot more than an arm and a leg when things go wrong.
The actual process seems to be simple enough. Just get the material, perform a few rituals, chant a few mantras and you are all set. Both the rituals and the mantras differ depending on the nature of control you want. Most of these rituals demand sacrifices ranging from the minor (like a few grains of rice or salt) to the extreme (like human sacrifice) in case of several notorious tribes of thugs of lore. And there seem to be specific times and places for each type of spell as well as duration of the magic process. One mantra, I have read, takes almost a million recantations before it becomes effective and manifests itself.
In Hinduism, there is no good or bad magic, there is only magic. If you use it to do good, it is good and if you use it to do bad, it is bad. If you know a person who is doing something bad – drugs, gambling, womanizing… whatever, and you go to a sorcerer (tantrik) to cast a spell and control the person enough to turn him from his ways, then the magic is good. And if you use the same magic to control a person to do your bidding for your own personal gains, then the magic is bad. I think that’s the way it goes and this control, whether good or bad, is what you need the hair or the nails for. Its not meant to control the mind like a zombie but just influence a few percent either way and for most people that’s all it takes. Most people make decisions with a margin of just a few percent either way.
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