By Christin L. ColeContributor

Be careful what you wish for. That’s what one local collegestudent found out after hexing her ex-boyfriend.

University of California, San Diego student Katie Smith,* learnedthe powers of witchcraft one night after she found out her boyfriendcheated on her with her best friend.

Extremely angry and hurt, Smith burned her boyfriend’s picture andwished aloud that he would never find happiness or love again untilhe realized what he did to her.

Three years later, Smith saw him at a club in Hollywood.

He told her he had never been happy with anyone and did not feelhe deserved happiness after treating her so poorly.

He apologized for hurting her and the last she heard he washappily dating someone.

Smith felt awful for ruining his chance to find happiness duringthose three years and decided Wicca was much more powerful than sherealized.

She has not practiced Wicca since, but the ritual she enactedsymbolized great importance to Wicca because it created energy.

“People want the power of their destiny,” said Jolynn Collins, apracticing Wiccan witch employed at the Psychic-Eye Book Shop in LaJolla. “They want to make someone fall in love with them or they wantto be rich.”

Wicca is an earth-based religion used to heal through energy andthought, Collins said.

“But witchcraft is not all about power over your destiny,” shesaid. “(‘White’ witches) leave it up to the universe to decide ourfate.”

Unlike the “real” world where there are shades of gray, witchcraftis either “black” or “white.”

While “black” witches selfishly focus on a negative energy to harmand manipulate others to achieve power and control their fates,”white” witches focus on positive energy that heals, SandyLinebarrier said.

Linebarrier is a “white” witch who lives in Boston -possibly ironic since the infamous Salem Witch Trials occurred inMassachusetts.

“‘White’ witches live by a code,” Linebarrier said. “If (witches)cause harm to anyone, we understand negative karma will come back tohaunt us three times as harsh. But ‘black’ witches do not believe thethree-fold code will affect them.

“As long as you harm no one, do what you will. But you must neverharm anyone under any circumstances.”

For instance, if a witch wishes to make her ex-boyfriend’s newgirlfriend’s hair fall out, then the witch may suffer the same fateor much worse.

“Karma is taken very seriously in Wicca,” Linebarrier said. “Inthe Wiccan religion there is no scapegoat. If you hurt someone, youhave to make it better.”

Most witches practice the “craft” or Wicca for healing purposes.Wicca is an earth-based religion, not a set of beliefs; it is apractice of spirituality, according to Linebarrier, who practicesWicca.

“Thoughts are energy, and energy has mass,” Linebarrier said.”People can produce enough negative or positive energy to make aneffect on someone or something else through their thoughts.

“That’s where the magic is — in thought. We each are the strengthbehind (magic).”

* Name has been changed.