Praying and cursing – do they work?

THEY’VE DISCOVERED a stone on the island of Canna. I am psychic, you know, and can read your thoughts: “So, as it were, what?’ That is a good question, well put. It demands an intelligent answer.

However, in the absence of one, try this: it’s not just any old stone. Oh, and you can quote me on this, no.

It’s a cursing stone, known as a bullaun in auld Ireland.

A fellow or burd with a grudge waddled surreptitiously down to the graveyard at night, placed a paw upon the stone, uttered their curse, then turned the stone in a clockwise direction (otherwise, obviously, it just wouldn’t work).

You could also say a prayer at the cursing stone, and here is the precise amount of good it would do you: a fat lot.

Praying doesn’t work. I should know. I’m still poor and plain-looking.

In the absence of anyone contesting that last remark — even out of politeness or pity — I’d like to modify radically my earlier thesis that prayer doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work on the external world, but it’s a useful exercise in focusing the internal mind.

It’s a matter of in and oot, or yin and yang, as the Chinese say.

Yin thing for sure is that if you went to the special stone with a prayer or curse in mind, it would serve to focus your energies, just as meditation does, even if its eastern variants advise you to focus on nothing. I find the latter simple. I just think of my bank balance. Or what my footer team brought to the recent Scottish cup final.

I didn’t manage to get to the Canna stone before the game, but I did wear two lucky Buddhist charms. Nothing ostentatious, you understand. Just a flower in my hair and a spot in the middle of my foreheid.

Somebody said I had the wrong religion, which was arguable, as I don’t know the first thing about Buddhism.

Certainly, I don’t believe in it now, after that result.

I appreciate the fact that Buddha died on the cross for our sins, but clearly he knows nothing about football.

Indeed, he may have been reincarnated as Hibs manager. But I digress. The round stone on Canna has an early Christian cross on it, though you’d have thought cursing was more of a voodoo kind of thing.

We’ve come a long way from such nonsense to what my researchers tell me is the present day, when folk bearing grudges take to the internet using pseudonyms.

It’s better than traipsing doon to the graveyard in your jammies.

It’s a bit more difficult praying on the internet, though I daresay there are virtual churches.

Some of you, I know, have computers, so perhaps you could look that up for me.

Indeed, why don’t we all join together now in prayer? Come on, everyone after me. Down on your knees. That’s it. Actually, no, let’s not bother. Stand up again.

Put the kettle on instead.