When someone is convinced that another person controls their mind through supernatural forces, where does spirituality end—and manipulation begin?
There is a particular kind of fear that does not need a knife.
It does not need a locked room.
It does not even need the person who supposedly possesses the power to be present.
Sometimes, all it needs is a sentence:
“Someone has performed vashikaran on you.”
From that moment, the mind can become its own prison.
Across India, people have sought help from tantriks, occult practitioners, astrologers and faith healers for problems involving love, marriage, illness, family conflict, money and personal misfortune. Vashikaran is commonly described in popular occult traditions as a practice intended to influence or attract another person’s thoughts, emotions or behaviour.
For believers, it may be described as an ancient spiritual technique.
But there is another question—far more disturbing.
What happens when a person becomes convinced that somebody else has supernatural control over them?
The answer can take us into the darkest corners of human psychology.
The invisible chain
Imagine being told that your thoughts are not your own.
That your sudden sadness is caused by someone else’s ritual.
That your relationship problems are the result of a spell.
That the person you cannot stop thinking about has somehow entered your mind.
That your illness is not an illness—but an attack.
The frightening part is not necessarily whether the alleged ritual possesses supernatural power.
The frightening part is what belief can do to a human being.
Psychological research in India has repeatedly documented the influence of supernatural beliefs on how people understand illness and decide where to seek help. One Indian study of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder found that more than half of participants believed in supernatural causes, while some attributed their symptoms to those causes; supernatural beliefs influenced pathways to care.
Another Indian study examining attitudes toward supernatural explanations of mental illness noted that such beliefs can contribute to delays in evidence-based treatment and can lead some families toward faith healers or ritual practitioners instead.
This does not prove that every spiritual practice is harmful.
It demonstrates something more subtle:
Belief can influence behaviour.
And when fear is added to belief, that influence can become extraordinarily powerful.
The psychology of “someone has control over you”
Suppose a person is told:
“You are under vashikaran.”
Suddenly, ordinary events may acquire extraordinary explanations.
A missed phone call becomes evidence.
A strange dream becomes evidence.
An argument becomes evidence.
A period of anxiety becomes evidence.
A coincidence becomes evidence.
The mind begins connecting unrelated events into one frightening story.
And once the story becomes emotionally convincing, contradictory evidence can become difficult to accept.
This is one reason fear-based supernatural claims can become psychologically self-reinforcing.
The individual watches themselves for signs of the supposed spell.
They become hyper-alert.
They interpret normal fluctuations in mood and behaviour as supernatural interference.
Their anxiety increases.
Their sleep may deteriorate.
Their concentration may suffer.
Their relationships may change.
And then those changes themselves appear to confirm the original belief.
The fear creates symptoms.
The symptoms strengthen the fear.
The fear strengthens the belief.
The chain becomes invisible because the person experiencing it may genuinely feel that something external is happening.
The real danger begins when belief becomes business
There is an enormous difference between a person privately holding a spiritual belief and someone exploiting another person’s fear for money, control or sexual abuse.
That distinction becomes painfully clear in documented Indian cases.
In 2026, police in Uttar Pradesh arrested three people after allegations that a man sought the help of a tantrik to use black magic to control his girlfriend’s feelings and behaviour. The case was reported as an investigation into alleged occult practices and coercion.
The disturbing element is not whether the alleged ritual could actually control another person’s mind.
It is that someone believed control could be obtained through such a ritual—and allegedly attempted to use that belief against another human being.
That is where the conversation about vashikaran becomes much darker.
Because underneath the occult language can be something very ordinary:
possession, obsession, jealousy and the desire to control another person.
When “ritual” becomes a weapon
There are cases in India where alleged occult practices have moved far beyond money and manipulation.
In January 2026, a woman in Kanpur reported that she was sexually assaulted by her maternal uncle and a tantrik under the pretext of performing rituals to remove alleged black magic. Police registered a case and the accused were arrested, according to reporting based on the survivor’s complaint and police information.
The details are horrifying because they reveal how easily a language of supernatural danger can be turned into a language of authority.
“Something has been done to you.”
“We know how to remove it.”
“You must follow the ritual.”
“Do not question the process.”
At that point, the alleged supernatural explanation becomes a mechanism through which the victim can be isolated and controlled.
The ritual is no longer merely a belief.
It becomes an instrument of power.
And sometimes the consequences are irreversible
India has witnessed cases in which occult beliefs have allegedly contributed to violence and death.
In Kerala, the National Human Rights Commission took suo motu cognisance in 2022 of the reported human sacrifice of two women. The NHRC stated that the victims were allegedly killed in a ritual orchestrated by a self-styled practitioner who claimed to bring luck to a financially troubled couple. The Commission described the killings as a grave violation of the victims’ right to life.
In another reported case from Uttar Pradesh, police arrested a self-proclaimed occultist accused of killing two children in an alleged attempt to gain supernatural powers. Investigators said he had planned additional killings.
These are not stories about mysterious supernatural powers.
They are stories about human beings doing terrible things while believing—or claiming to believe—that those acts have supernatural meaning.
That distinction matters.
Because if we call everything “black magic,” we can miss the real crime.
The crime may be murder.
The crime may be fraud.
The crime may be sexual violence.
The crime may be coercion.
The crime may be psychological abuse.
The occult language can become the camouflage.
The ₹76 lakh illusion
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of how supernatural belief can be converted into financial exploitation emerged in Gujarat in 2026.
According to an FIR reported by the Times of India, a 62-year-old woman from Veraval was allegedly persuaded to provide more than ₹76 lakh in cash and valuables after being told that an occult practitioner could recover enormous buried treasure through rituals.
The alleged scheme involved cash, gold and silver items. When the promised treasure did not materialise and the accused allegedly stopped responding, the woman approached police. A case was registered alleging cheating, criminal conspiracy and intimidation.
Think about the psychology involved.
The victim was not simply being sold an object.
She was being sold a possibility.
A possibility of extraordinary wealth.
And extraordinary possibilities can weaken ordinary judgment.
That is one of the oldest mechanisms of manipulation:
Give someone a desperate hope, wrap it in mystery, and make questioning the process feel dangerous.
The most dangerous ritual may happen inside the mind
There is something important we must not misunderstand.
Saying that psychological mechanisms can explain some experiences does not mean that believers are stupid.
Quite the opposite.
Fear can affect educated people.
Grief can affect rational people.
Desperation can affect wealthy people.
Love can affect intelligent people.
And uncertainty can affect almost everyone.
Research on supernatural beliefs and mental health in India has documented that such beliefs occur across communities and can influence explanations of distress and treatment-seeking.
Human beings naturally search for causes.
When something painful happens, the mind wants an explanation.
Sometimes the explanation is medical.
Sometimes psychological.
Sometimes social.
Sometimes spiritual.
And sometimes someone else gives us an explanation before we have discovered one ourselves.
That is where vulnerability begins.
Vashikaran and the illusion of control
There is another uncomfortable question.
Why would someone seek vashikaran in the first place?
Often, beneath the supernatural vocabulary lies an intensely human desire:
“I want someone who doesn’t want me.”
“I want my partner back.”
“I want my family to obey me.”
“I want my enemy destroyed.”
“I want my business to succeed.”
“I want my illness to disappear.”
“I want control over something I cannot control.”
This is perhaps the psychological heart of the phenomenon.
Vashikaran can become attractive precisely because reality is uncontrollable.
People leave.
Relationships end.
Bodies become sick.
Businesses fail.
People reject us.
Loved ones die.
Money disappears.
And no human being likes helplessness.
The promise of supernatural control therefore offers something psychologically intoxicating:
the illusion that chaos can be commanded.
But what about ancient tantra?
This is where sensationalism must stop.
Tantra is a broad and historically complex religious and philosophical tradition. It cannot responsibly be reduced to “black magic.”
Nor can every mantra, ritual, meditation practice or tantric tradition be equated with criminal occultism.
There is a profound difference between studying historical tantric traditions and exploiting the public through claims of supernatural control.
The problem begins when unverifiable claims are presented as guaranteed powers—and those claims are used to extract money, obtain sexual access, threaten someone, delay medical treatment or justify violence.
The question is therefore not:
“Is every tantric tradition evil?”
It isn’t.
The more important question is:
“What happens when someone uses the authority of tantra to exploit another human being?”
That question has very real answers.
The terrifying power of suggestion
Modern psychology gives us another lens through which to understand these experiences.
Negative expectations can influence how people perceive symptoms and distress. This phenomenon is studied under the broader concept of the nocebo effect. Recent systematic-review evidence has found that negative suggestion and negatively framed information can increase perceived symptom intensity and, in some circumstances, produce measurable physiological effects.
This does not prove that vashikaran causes illness.
It demonstrates something different—and incredibly important:
what we expect can influence what we experience.
Tell a frightened person that something terrible has been done to them, and their nervous system does not necessarily wait for a scientific explanation before reacting.
The heart can race.
Sleep can disappear.
Anxiety can intensify.
Attention becomes consumed by threat.
Every sensation becomes significant.
The person may genuinely feel that something is wrong.
Their suffering is real.
But the supernatural explanation may still be wrong.
The real “spell”
Perhaps the darkest interpretation of vashikaran is therefore not that someone can magically control another person’s mind.
It is that humans can sometimes be persuaded that they have lost control of their own mind.
And once that belief becomes deeply rooted, the person may surrender decisions they previously made independently.
They may give money.
They may abandon relationships.
They may stop medical treatment.
They may become dependent on a practitioner.
They may become frightened of ordinary events.
They may begin asking someone else what to eat, where to go, whom to trust and whom to fear.
The alleged spell becomes a psychological cage.
And the person selling the “cure” becomes the person holding the key.
The question we should really be asking
When somebody says:
“I am under vashikaran.”
Perhaps the first response should not be ridicule.
And it should not automatically be blind acceptance.
It should be:
“What is happening to you?”
Are you frightened?
Are you being threatened?
Are you being financially exploited?
Are you experiencing anxiety?
Are you suffering from an untreated medical or psychological condition?
Is somebody attempting to control your relationship?
Is someone demanding money?
Is someone isolating you?
Has someone told you that terrible things will happen if you stop following their instructions?
Those questions bring the invisible into the visible.
They move the conversation from supernatural fear toward evidence.
The darkest truth
Maybe the most devastating thing about vashikaran is not whether a mantra can control another person’s mind.
It is that a human being can be controlled without any supernatural power at all.
Fear can do it.
Obsession can do it.
Threats can do it.
Isolation can do it.
Manipulation can do it.
Money can do it.
Love can do it.
And sometimes, all it takes is convincing someone that they have already lost their freedom.
That is why the real battle is not between science and spirituality.
It is between belief and exploitation.
A spiritual practice that brings reflection, discipline, meaning or comfort is one thing.
A person who claims supernatural authority over another human being—and uses that authority to extract money, obedience, sex or silence—is something else entirely.
The darkest ritual is not the one performed under the moon.
It is the one performed inside a frightened person’s mind:
“You no longer control yourself.
I control what happens to you.”
And once someone believes those words deeply enough, no supernatural power may be necessary.
The prison has already been built.
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