‘Seeking Experienced Witch’: A woman asked for help hexing her ex. She’s part of a long cathartic tradition.

Driving to visit a friend, a Philadelphia woman had time to mull her recent breakup. She thought about all the things her ex hated: spiders, moth-bitten sweaters, overly soft avocados. She typed them on her phone, as curses.

It became a flier: “Seeking: Experienced Witch to Curse My Ex.” She set up an email — for serious inquiries only.

You may have seen her handiwork. The fliers dot telephone poles, originating in downtown Phoenixville, around where our witch-seeker was visiting family for the holidays. They now paper neighborhoods across Philadelphia — hung with a staple gun on New Year’s Eve, while barhopping. (The 29-year-old asked to remain nameless for this story, so as to not affect future job prospects. It also, in a way, protects her ex.)

And though it might seem a bit out of the ordinary, it’s part of great tradition of cursing your ex that goes back to antiquity. Plus, it’s a way to regain a sense of power, experts say.

So, it’s no surprise that the fliers have seeped online, circulating neighborhood groups and on socials, striking a chord. When the fliers appeared in Chester County, a Phoenixville community group sounded off: “I hope she gets him. Good for her,” one commenter wrote under a Facebook post about it. “I think I know the ex,” said another. “It’s a great idea,” writes another. (The witch-seeker also has her detractors: “That man dodged a bullet!” one commenter wrote.)

The flier lays out her desired curses: his hair thinning, house plants withering, his bus seats feeling damp, his wifi buffering during video games, shoe pebbles remaining unshakeable — and the aforementioned too-ripe avocados, copious spiders, and hole-y sweaters (among other ill-wishes).

But, the flier requests, no need for hexes on his wellbeing, or romantic life.

Across relationship research, one of the most consistent findings is that breakups produce a “profound sense of powerlessness,” said Jenn Pollitt, a professor of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at Temple University.

But how do you get from a list on your phone to asking witches to please curse your ex-boyfriend?

It’s not that far a leap.

“Witchcraft has become a more socially legible way to express rage,” Pollitt said. “If you’ve got someone who wants to curse their ex, really what they want to be able to say is, ‘I was harmed. I’m allowed to be angry about this, and my anger deserves to be acknowledged.’ The public posting of this is really like a deep desire and craving, to have that person’s hurt and heartbreak be born witness to.”

The witch-seeker said she needed a place to put her pent-up anger and frustration.

It’s not all maliciousness to her ex, she said. It’s mostly catharsis: She thinks of her ex as a lovely person in a lot of ways. But when she expressed her emotional needs, he’d withhold affection, he’d disappear for a few days or block her number. Then he would return, with words of affirmation and promises of marriage. It became cyclical over the two-year relationship. She swallowed up her frustrations. But several months ago, they parted ways. And despite the turbulence, it was pretty amicable, she recalls.

She grieved. She went to therapy. She journaled. She meditated.

And then she logged on to social media, and saw he was in a new serious relationship that had started within weeks of them breaking up.

“It felt like a slap in the face, and that was my impetus for doing this,” she said. “I couldn’t yell at him, and I didn’t want to yell at him, but I had to yell at someone.”

She’s not alone. For millennia, people have pursued love magic, said Kristine Rabberman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who teaches about witchcraft and sexuality. Roughly 600 Latin curse tablets have survived from the Roman empire, with both men and women calling on various deities to curse their close relations, she said.

These mystical beliefs served social functions, too, she said, addressing people’s lack of agency and control. They channel deep wells of emotion: anger, longing, frustration, hatred.

“Having recourse to love magic could be one approach somebody could take to try to both find expression for those feelings and to also have a sense of agency and being able to act on them,” she said.

Dating culture has changed rapidly, Pollitt added. There’s now a digital component: blocked numbers, social media handles unfollowed. A breakup by a thousand cuts, she noted.

“Breakups often can be intensely private and deeply isolating. Any public display, even this — which is a little bit out of the ordinary — function as a way to reinsert personal pain into a shared social space,” Pollitt said.

The community came fast. As the witch-seeker hung the fliers in Phoenixville, several people high-fived her, she said. Then the emails rolled in: A Caribbean witch who offered a hex. A bruja. A kitchen witch who practices herbalism and herbal manifestations. A helper who sent along a few shops and books, so she could do the curse herself (so it carries the appropriate “oomph”).

But to her surprise, beyond the witches, there were others: People who wanted to know how the story would end. Someone boldly asking her out on a date. And the women who simply could relate.

They wished her a happy new year, they told her they’d also had messy breakups, they told her they supported her.

She did not expect the outpouring of support, or the attention. As a writer and a creative person, it was mostly a way to tap into that, in a way that felt a little more empowering.

“It has made me feel so much better,” she said.

She is thankful for the witches who offered their services, though she feels conflicted about going through with a hex. She won’t be papering the city with more witch requests, either, she said.

The process has let her accept some of her bad, not totally socially acceptable feelings — and create something positive with it, by connecting with others, she said — as people reeling from heartbreak have done for centuries before her.