Back to magic. The Gypsy people do not believe the practice of magick is evil, but they do believe it can be practiced foolishly and cause harm. From their point of view, you respect God and look for his/her hand in the world, look for signs. But if you need healing you do it yourself. To pray to God for healing, they feel is disrespectful of God.
How do they heal themselves? Natural medicine and purification rites.
In the movies, they have no use for the non-believer in the crowd. That is actually true. A Gypsy won’t argue with you over religion or magic. That’s actually considered bad luck.
They often kick them out of a reading. They will. If you really are a Gaujo as they call outsiders, then their men will deal with actual hostile behaviour on your part. Part of their purity law involves not marrying outsiders. They are pretty strict about that.
Maybe this is why they have such a fearsome reputation as well. Their treatment of outsiders? They are isolationist, yes. But their views on marriage are not what you might suspect. It isn’t racism.
They would kill if they wanted to? No. They believe murder is bad luck. They would kill only if they feel they have to. If they believe something you did is plaguing them.
On the marriage thing, they believe outsiders are unclean, not evil, just a source of bad luck. But it’s not about race as they do have a practice of adoption. They will potentially adopt a child of any race, and then they are considered Roma, of the people. Then the only thing required of the adopted child is to live as they do. It has nothing to do with race. It’s the purity laws.
The outsider is bad luck because they’re disruptive of the power when they do not having the same belief system? Yes, and they don’t respect the spirits. They do things the Roma consider insulting of the spirits and of God. That, and they just don’t have the Roma luck. That is the basis of their magic. In fact, any magic they practice is actually an act of healing. If you are cursed in their view, they can heal that. If you show some strange weakness, they can heal that. Any problem is something to heal, because it all revolves around luck. They do believe in the evil eye. It’s a curse that arises because you were greedy or disrespectful of someone.
So can an outsider be for lack of a better word “christened” into the Gypsy society? They can become a blood brother or sister. This is by the judgement of the tribal elder, and only after they have determined that you show signs of what they consider the spirit of the people. If spiritually you seem like Roma, and you live along side them enough, they sometimes do declare that you are Roma. But even in that case, you would still be required to live by the purity laws of their people. Adopting adults is rare, but not forbidden. But an adult so adopted, who disrespects their ways or seems to bring bad luck, can be shunned.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~