Religious freedom is on life support in Cursed Mage

Religious freedom is so decayed in Cursed Mage that the feds will throw you in the back of a cargo van if you’re too literal about your belief in the divine.

This is the part of the show when I talk about forbidden topics and couldn’t care less about who I offend. But when you read Cursed Mage closely, you’ll notice something deep: religious freedom’s not a thing in Kaija Jokiharju’s world.

You can practice it, but the second you claim you talked to a dead relative, your ass is heading for an institution you may not get out of.

I wrote an article last week about paranormal activity in my parents’ home. You can more than bet that if I lived in Kaija’s world and let that slip, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about how her society treats religion.

Still, in our world, if I told the wrong person, they’d say “Go see a psychiatrist.” If they upped the ante and told their friends on social media about what I saw, the netizen mob would be out in full force.

👉 See how far I push forbidden themes in Cursed Mage

Kaija’s a rune witch, and that’s fine until she starts seeing ghosts

Witchcraft is Kaija’s forte. She loves ancient Nordic Runes and will even use rune magic to manipulate universal energies to bring about specific outcomes.

That’s all fine, because the settled science in the world of Catenary (Kaija’s world) confirmed that rune magic is nothing more than pseudoscience. And you know what that means: Believe in pseudoscience, and society will look at you like you’re some kind of nutjob.

But as Kaija discovers early, there’s more to rune magic than meets the eye. The regime running Catenary knows that, so they have no problem luring the masses into mocking such activity if someone dares to practice it.

Now, if Kaija claimed to see dead people? Then there’s a bigger problem at stake, and it’s why she’s so hesitant to tell anyone about her little “gift.”

Not that a few characters don’t know, but next to Kaija’s inner circle she can trust with keeping a secret, the wrong person would call local law enforcement and have her committed. And no, I’m not talking about committing her to a psych ward with padded walls.

Astray Mage, Book II in the series, fills you in on what “committed” means. And even if Kaija, a girl who can see spirits because she’s a special kind of Mage, wouldn’t suffer a similar fate, what the hell does the snitch turning her in know?

Religious freedom means the right to communicate with the divine

Communicate with a Higher Power through prayer? You’re okay. But summon a Higher Power into a circle and talk to it as though it’s facing you will also get you committed and subjected to physical and mental torture. Think shock therapy turned up a few notches.

Claim a dead parent came to you in a dream with a warning? You’re committed, even if it’s okay to read religious texts where people experienced this. And again, chances are, they’ll shock your brains out.

👉 Cursed Mage gives you a hard look at these “institutions”

The hypocrisy in Catenary’s real and selective

They don’t mind if you communicate with the divine, as long as you communicate with it on their terms.

So if you’re drawing summoning circles, you’d better hope the surveillance state’s not peering in. Because if it is, your days on the outside are over until they numb your mind, modify your memory, and deem you okay to rejoin society.

There’s no religious freedom in Catenary except when it comes with an asterisk. That’s the risk Kaija faces when she sees the spirit of a boy who died on the college campus she calls home.

That’s how states always operate—they tell you you’re free to believe, so long as it’s belief that props them up and that they approve.

How does Kaija navigate this, knowing if the wrong person sees her, she’ll never get to help this spirit? That’s what she’s up against in Cursed Mage.