Okay - seriously no offence was intended. I was simply throwing out some thoughts and ideas. If I offended or such, please understand that was no where near my intent.

I'm not offended at all by your posts on this thread. I don't know what to think about it all myself, which is why I asked what everyone else thought about it.

The only thing I'm sure of is that my brother had warts and that the warts disappeared right after my aunt said they would. Why or how is all speculation. Also, whether her will somehow caused the other events is totally unknown to me. I don't know what to believe about it all. I can tell you from personal experience that I would not have wanted to make her angry. She was pretty scary, even if she didn't really have any powers.

My brother's were real warts. Like I said, he'd been to several doctors about them and had suffered from them for quite some time. I don't think they came from stress, since he was only a kid and a pampered one at that.

I think it all has to do with mind over matter. He believed that the warts would heal and they did,

Okay - seriously no offence was intended. I was simply throwing out some thoughts and ideas. If I offended or such, please understand that was no where near my intent.

Google - "THE 10% Brain Myth" ....

Another similar is the "Bumble Bee's Cannot fly", this too is a myth.

What Causes Warts?

I actually had one friend that went hiking with me. As I was eating my lunch, he had to go off and 'answer natures call'. Thus I have no idea exactly where 'he went' ... but a few hours later, he had warts starting to show on his arms, legs and face. Not massive, but enought to go, "WTF??"

Later the doctor told him, likely it was an 'alergic reaction' to something around his "nature call"... or just something he specific was alergic to. I've also seen reports of people getting what they thought were warts from being overly stressed out.

My brother's were real warts. Like I said, he'd been to several doctors about them and had suffered from them for quite some time. I don't think they came from stress, since he was only a kid and a pampered one at that.

I think it all has to do with mind over matter. He believed that the warts would heal and they did,

Another similar is the "Bumble Bee's Cannot fly", this too is a myth.

What Causes Warts?

I actually had one friend that went hiking with me. As I was eating my lunch, he had to go off and 'answer natures call'. Thus I have no idea exactly where 'he went' ... but a few hours later, he had warts starting to show on his arms, legs and face. Not massive, but enought to go, "WTF??"

Later the doctor told him, likely it was an 'alergic reaction' to something around his "nature call"... or just something he specific was alergic to. I've also seen reports of people getting what they thought were warts from being overly stressed out.

I totally agree, Monk. I think our gut tells us a lot about our surroundings but most people don't listen. I've mentioned before that I think the same instinct that warns us of danger is also what makes us aware of a spirit.

My aunt had a string of successes with her charms and folk healing and was well respected (and feared) by her community.

I agree with both Milomilford and NoWhammies that the power of suggestion is very strong and in the power of the self-fulfilling prophecy. However, in the instances of the "curses" (dare I say "whammies") that she put on the dog-killer and my dad, the dog killer had no idea that she had cursed him, but he died anyway. He had to be worried, though, when he found out whose dog he had shot.

My dad only knew that she was sending him a "gift". The timing of the bird coming through the window was odd enough, but that fact that it dive bombed my dad was really strange.

There are many, many stories about this aunt. Apparently, when someone would come to her with a problem involving a transgressor, she would always say that she had to "think on this". Woe be unto whomever she was thinking about. Apparently bad things happened to bad people when she thought about them.

In her defense, she was an avenging angel for people who had no other recourse to justice. Men who beat their wives and children (or worse) weren't subject to any official outside punishment back then, for instance. My aunt was all these women had and apparently, she was a powerful friend to them.

I've always heard that bad things come back on your three-fold, but that certainly wasn't the case with my aunt. Maybe because she only ill-wished bad people and mostly worked for the good of others who asked her for help? Other than the dog killer and one other person (who really, really, really had it coming to him) her curses weren't fatal. Just unpleasant.

There is a person I know who considers herself a witch, and she absolutely HATES me. My guess is she's been "cursing" me as much as humanly possible, and giving it the old college try. I know from some second-hand information that this is so. Either she's not very good, or my refusal to buy into it makes it like water off a duck's back. There is the belief in Wicca that if you use your powers for bad, then whatever you do comes back to you three-fold. One would think that would be a deterrent, but I guess sometimes, it isn't.

For some reason, I have been thinking about my Aunt E. today. She was considered to be a witch by everyone in her community, even by her own family. From the stories about her, she was capable of both healing and harming. My whole family once witnessed a healing by her folk magic, what she called a "charm".

My youngest brother had suddenly become plagued by warts. Seriously, he woke up one morning with warts all over his body and kept getting more. My parents took him to doctor after doctor, but they could do nothing but watch them spread. Ten would appear for every one they removed. The doctors were baffled and my parents were beside themselves.

He literally was covered in them by the time we went to WV to visit my father's family. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but they were pioneers. They had actually been among the earliest settlers of Virginia before settling WV. My point is that they are pure Irish and Scots, straight from the old countries, who lived in almost total isolation until radio was invented.

My mother told my aunt about the warts and she said that she could cure them with a charm. Naturally skeptical but hoping against hope, after making sure that it wouldn't hurt him, my mom told my little brother to follow our aunt's advice and she led him away from all eyes and ears. None of us knew what was happening.

She told my brother to go find a stick and then count his warts. He had to be careful to get this count exactly right, so my aunt helped him count the ones he couldn't see. Like I said, there were hundreds of them. He had to carve a notch in the stick for every wart and then hide or bury the stick where no one could ever find it. I'm not clear on what else he had to do, but I do know that she promised him that if he did the procedure properly, the warts would be gone in a few days. She also cautioned him not to tell anyone about the charm until the warts were all gone or the charm would be broken. Bless his little heart, he didn't.

Two days later, we heard him shouting from his bed. We ran in there and we was beside himself. Every single wart was gone. They never came back, either. That's when he told us all about the details of the charm.

This makes me wonder: did the charm work because it was actually a magical charm, or did it work because my aunt convinced my brother that it would work and his mind made it work?

The other side of my aunt was not so pleasant. It really seems that she had the power to curse someone. According to my parents, she once told them that she wished that the man who shot her little dog (for good reason, I might add) would "burn". A few days later, he was driving and a power line broke and landed on his car. The electricity literally burned him to death when he got out of his car. I can't personally be a witness to this story, but my parents both swear that it is true.

I did witness another "curse" of a much milder nature. My aunt caught polio when she was a new born and was terribly crippled. She had many, many surgeries over the course of her life but still had to hop around, for want of a better description. As a result, she led a very lonely life with only her family and close family friends for company. Perhaps as a result of this, holidays were precious to her and she loved to get cards and gifts in the mail. Everyone was religious about sending them to her, whether out of pity, love or fear I do not know.

One year my father forgot her birthday. The next morning, he got a call from his sister, the first ever. She told him that since he hadn't sent her a gift, she was sending him one and then hung up. My father told us about the call and kind of laughed it off. Just then a bird flew in a window and dive bombed my dad. It took us forever to catch that dang bird. Once we got it outside, my dad called my aunt to beg forgiveness and promise never to forget her birthday again. To the best of my knowledge, he never did. I'll never forget that.

My question is this: do you believe there are people who can actually cause good or harm through intention, or is it all coincidence?

I've made this comment elsewhere, so perhaps it's time for my yearly dusting off of Monkology 101. From all accounts the human brain is an incredibly powerful tool capable of all manner of wondrous things. If what "they" say is true that most humans only utilize a small portion of it's power, then what's to say what we'd be capable of if we tapped into the rest of it? (I've been saying this long before that Limitless movie so blah). There are forces in this world that science can NOT explain and predate most of the organized religions, so who's to say what is and isn't possible. We've lost so much information over the years from when man was less technological in the sands of time. i think that's why so many people are into archeaology, a thirst for knowledge and I think specifically, lost ancient knowledge. While mankind has progessed, in many ways we've regressed. I'm no tree hugger by ANY stretch of the imagination, but I think we've lost touch with the earth and our animal nature. I believe it's the animal nature that gives us that gut feeling or instinct when something doesn't feel right, but we can't quite identify the nature of that "odd vibe". Life and school sort of beat that intuition out of you I guess. If you watch little kids or animals when they're around strangers they pick up a vibe and not being able to communicate as we do, they do so the only way they know how, by acting out. It's not 100% but I'll tell you what, when I've walked into unknown circumstances where there could be some danger, I immediately focus on those groups and I've seldom been led astray. I think if something happens once out of the blue, coincidence anything beyond that...it's a trend, sooooo

My youngest brother had suddenly become plagued by warts. Seriously, he woke up one morning with warts all over his body and kept getting more. My parents took him to doctor after doctor, but they could do nothing but watch them spread. Ten would appear for every one they removed. The doctors were baffled and my parents were beside themselves.

He literally was covered in them by the time we went to WV to visit my father's family. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but they were pioneers. They had actually been among the earliest settlers of Virginia before settling WV. My point is that they are pure Irish and Scots, straight from the old countries, who lived in almost total isolation until radio was invented.

My mother told my aunt about the warts and she said that she could cure them with a charm. Naturally skeptical but hoping against hope, after making sure that it wouldn't hurt him, my mom told my little brother to follow our aunt's advice and she led him away from all eyes and ears. None of us knew what was happening.

She told my brother to go find a stick and then count his warts. He had to be careful to get this count exactly right, so my aunt helped him count the ones he couldn't see. Like I said, there were hundreds of them. He had to carve a notch in the stick for every wart and then hide or bury the stick where no one could ever find it. I'm not clear on what else he had to do, but I do know that she promised him that if he did the procedure properly, the warts would be gone in a few days. She also cautioned him not to tell anyone about the charm until the warts were all gone or the charm would be broken. Bless his little heart, he didn't.

Two days later, we heard him shouting from his bed. We ran in there and we was beside himself. Every single wart was gone. They never came back, either. That's when he told us all about the details of the charm.

This makes me wonder: did the charm work because it was actually a magical charm, or did it work because my aunt convinced my brother that it would work and his mind made it work?

The other side of my aunt was not so pleasant. It really seems that she had the power to curse someone. According to my parents, she once told them that she wished that the man who shot her little dog (for good reason, I might add) would "burn". A few days later, he was driving and a power line broke and landed on his car. The electricity literally burned him to death when he got out of his car. I can't personally be a witness to this story, but my parents both swear that it is true.

I did witness another "curse" of a much milder nature. My aunt caught polio when she was a new born and was terribly crippled. She had many, many surgeries over the course of her life but still had to hop around, for want of a better description. As a result, she led a very lonely life with only her family and close family friends for company. Perhaps as a result of this, holidays were precious to her and she loved to get cards and gifts in the mail. Everyone was religious about sending them to her, whether out of pity, love or fear I do not know.

One year my father forgot her birthday. The next morning, he got a call from his sister, the first ever. She told him that since he hadn't sent her a gift, she was sending him one and then hung up. My father told us about the call and kind of laughed it off. Just then a bird flew in a window and dive bombed my dad. It took us forever to catch that dang bird. Once we got it outside, my dad called my aunt to beg forgiveness and promise never to forget her birthday again. To the best of my knowledge, he never did. I'll never forget that.

My question is this: do you believe there are people who can actually cause good or harm through intention, or is it all coincidence?