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Berserk
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A HEX DEATHS AT A DISTANCE (drawn from Larry Dossey's book, "Be Careful What You Pray for", 98ff.
I agree with the replies of Bruce and Matt to Juditha. But occasionally supernatural forces seem to be involved in hex deaths. Here is one example.
During his investigation of Hawaiian kahunas, psychologist Max Long interviewed William Brigham, the eminent curator of Honolulu's Bishop Museum. Brigham had also studied kahunas and even mastered some of their skills. He shared a hex-death experience from his 3-week expedition to collect native plants up Mauna Loa.
One of the 4 Hawaiians recruited to help him was a youth (age 20). Near the top, this youth got too sick to move and experienced a `slow paralysis of the lower limbs and threatening general collapse,' the symptoms of the death prayer. Some time ago, the old kahuna of the youth's village wanted to keep the village isolated. So he threatened the villagers with the death prayer if they dared to join the whites. The youth...had forgotten this prohibition and, in any case, believed that the order did not apply outside the village. An angry Brigham recounts what he did next:
"I decided...that I was going to try my hand at sending the death prayer back to the kahuna. The spell had been initiated and the trained spirits sent out. All I had to do was...talk [them] over on my side, and then exert all my will to send them back and make them attack the kahuna. I felt this would be fairly easy as the boy was guilty of no actual sin...I...said to the men: `You all know that I am a very powerful kahuna?' They agreed most enthusiastically. `Then watch me,' I growled. I went over to the boy and went to work."
Brigham put on quite a show on the slopes of Mauna Loa that night. His strategy was to convince the spirits that their master must be a devil to send them to kill one so innocent:
`I knew that if I could win them over and get them worked up to a high emotional state and ready to revolt,' he said, `I would be successful.'
Kahunas traditionally protect themselves from spirits through a ti leaf ceremony. Brigham suspected the old kahuna had not invoked this protection, since he would have no fear that Brigham or his aides would send back the hex.
The air seemed to tremble with `the fury of some unearthly confict of forces.' Suddenly Brigham felt that he had killed something deadly and that the tension had vanished from the air. Within an hour, the youth's health was restored to normal.
When Brigham and his team visited the kahuna's village, an old woman and a girl working in a taro patch spotted them and ran away screaming. The grass huts were deserted. He soon discovered what had happened on the night he had sent back the death prayer. The old kahuna had awoken from a deep sleep, screaming, and had rushed to get some ti leaves. He had performed the protective ceremony, but it was too late. He soon fell to the ground and began to moan and froth at the mouth. By morning he was dead.
The reality of hex deaths is confirmed by anthropologist Michael Harner, author of the classic, "The Way of the Shaman." In an interview with Dossey, Harner explains: "In Jivaro culture distant hexing is taken for granted... Many of the shamans I've studied in the Amazon have claimed to be very good at it. I have no reason to disbelieve them." "Why do they hex others at a distance?" I asked. "If the victim is unaware he's being hexed, he won't take measures to counteract the hex or take revenge on the shaman. As an added safety measure, the Jivaro shamans perform distant hexing in teams of 2 or 3, not alone. It the victim tries to get even, there's safety in numbers [Dossey 103]."
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