Dear Worried,

The correct response is to work your spells only for the person who requests them; however since your friend and Mr. Hippie Man are now a couple, what affects one will affect both. Begin with protection, both personal and residential - a warding for her house, and protective charms for her (and him) to wear. (She can call it a good luck charm if she feels that will increase Hippie Man's willingness to wear it.)

However, for a permanent solution, the underlying situation needs to be resolved. "An it harm none, do what ye will - " is a well-known Witchy watchword.

For your friend to be able to do what she wills, everyone involved needs to have a different understanding of "harm." Mr. Seal clearly feels harmed by their breakup. There are two ways to deal with this, depending on the reasons that he and your friend split up in the first place. The first way is to strive for a friendly relationship. To accomplish this, both men need to understand that they are linked by their love for the same woman. If you decide to take this route, I suggest that you inscribe all three names on a green candle. Light it for a few minutes every evening and gaze into the flame until your mind is filled with light. Chant the following spell -

"As I will, so mote it be - Transform harm to harmony!"

As you do so, close your eyes and visualize your friend, Mr. Seal, and Mr. Hippie Man sitting around a table with smiles on their faces, sharing a bottle of good red wine. On the other hand, if the possibilities for friendship seem remote, the best solution is for your friend to sever the ties between herself and Mr. Seal so that he will no longer care what she does or with whom.

Although you can help and offer support, this is not something that you can do for her. She must truly want to let him go. The first step is to get rid of anything of Mr. Seal's she may still have lying around, except for an item to use in the spell. She should get two short candles in colors representing herself and Mr. Seal. She can inscribe their names on the candles. If she has something of his that can be stuck onto or under his candle it will help. On the first night, have her set the candles next to each other and light them. Then strike through the space between them with an athame (ritual knife) and say -

"Thus I sever myself from you, from one make two, from one make two. As close as you were, be far from me So mote it be, so mote it be!"

Instruct your friend to continue this process for seven nights, moving Mr. Seal's candle farther away each time until it is out the door and off the property. On the last night, drop it into a trash can with the words, "Begone, begone, begone!" As far as she is concerned, he no longer exists, and as the bond between them disappears, Mr. Seal's fixation should fade as well.

(One note: if your friend and Mr. Seal Man had a children together, the second spell is not appropriate. In that case, you probably should follow my first suggestion and attempt a "psychic" healing so Mr. Seal and your friend can get off the destructive path that they seem to be on.)

Worried,

Uh, why is this person your friend? She rebounds from one guy to the next, showing poor taste and bad judgment along the way, and then expects you to clean up the mess? Yikes, get a self-esteem. The truth is, you can do whatever you want for or against whomever you want. Just like anything else in life, though, if you cross the line, there will be consequences. As long as you feel the risks are worth those consequences, the field's wide open.

Take Mr. Seal, for example. You could cast any number of hexes, bindings, and banishing on him, but why bother? At this point, it sounds to me like this whole situation is getting blown out of proportion. Sure, Seal-Boy is letting off some steam, but I don't know very many people who don't when they get dumped. If he's never hurt anyone before, just tell your friend not to fan the flames of her new romance in his face for a while and let him cool off. In the meantime, the entire community is seeing him act like a jerk. Why get your own karma involved when he's doing such a great job of destroying himself already? Lace his coffee with Prozac and move on. Or sign him up for the next season of that "Combat Missions" reality-TV thing. He'll fit right in.

If you insist on doing something for your so-called friend, teach her to cast a little magic that every thirteen-year-old will subconsciously understand. Help her go through all of her stuff, pull out all of Mr. Seal's crap that will inevitably be mixed in, and dump it in a box. Burn his love letters. Cut his face out of pictures of the two of them. Break anything that represents a connection between them and add it in the box, throw the collection of picture fragments and any unburned bits of letters on top, and destroy the whole thing: burn it, bury it, haul it out to the dumpster, whatever makes your friend feel the best. Mailing the pile to Mr. Seal would give him a pretty clear message that he can't bully your friend into coming back, but may not be worth the havoc it would create. Let's face it, the real issue here is getting your friend to let go and move on, no matter what Seal or Hippie Man does. Sure, trashing her ex's stuff may seem petty, but it will help to sever any remaining connection between them, and send a pretty strong psychic message to that he can't bully her into coming back. Besides, "petty" would be setting fire to the box on his doorstep.