This paper analyzes a drought removal ritual that I recorded in a Tamil village, South India. It shows how this ritual has the same epistemological framework and sequence of actions as the ceremonial removal of sorcery spells that is performed nearby this village. In a first phase ritual practitioners objectify the forces of affliction (drought, sorcery) in small or large effigies. Then they “open the eyes”, a process that is simultaneously life-giving and lethal. Finally, they dispose of the effigies, borrowing practices integral to Tamil funerals. My paper shows how this general ritual pattern focuses the eyes on a self that becomes a subject for contemplation and an issue that is vital to eliminate. My basic argument is that these removals are premised on the notion that it only when people “see” themselves as afflicted, disgraced, disempowered and so on that they can move on and get well. To be healthy, these rituals seem to be saying, Tamil human beings need to be reflexive and self-conscious. They also need the rituals (and associated symbolic representations, narratives, effigies and so on) that allow them to know themselves.