hoodoo – Page 11 – New World Witchery – The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft

Blog Post 116 – Cursing Psalms (part II)

Staying on the dark side of things today, I’m going to continue the theme I started in my previous blog post on the biblical Psalms which have been used to curse. In this post, I’ll be looking at several of the most commonly used Psalms, as well as some of the spells which are built around them.

To begin, let’s look at the spell that prompted this whole topic. From Judika Illes’ Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells:

“The Cursing Psalm

The power to heal can be the power to harm. Even something as intrinsically good and sacred as a psalm may be used malevolently. Psalm 109 has been called ‘the cursing psalm.’ It may be chanted to harm an enemy.

The psalm itself is inherently benevolent. It’s your emotion and intention that transforms it. Therefore the fist step is to be in the right mood. Then start chanting and visualizing.” (p. 575)

This is certainly the most intensive of the cursing Psalms, including the admonitions:

⁹Let his [one’s enemy] children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

¹⁰Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

¹³Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

Not pleasant stuff, certainly. This one is powerful enough that merely chanting it while focusing on an enemy should cause him or her some distress. However, before simply writing this particular Psalm off as evil, I should point out that it also gets interpreted in more positive ways. Ray T. Marlbrough says it is used “To protect from an enemy, persisting in bothering you” (Magic Power of the Saints). In this light, it is not so much of a curse as a barrier against harm. Braucher Chris Bilardi recognizes its power to be used “against a tenacious enemy,” but also says it is useful “for acquiring friends” (The Red Church). So even the “cursing Psalm” has its upside.

Next, let’s lok at Psalm 70 in a spell from Hyatt’s books, via the HyattSpells Yahoo! Group:

CUT LIMB FROM A TREE THAT IS WITHERING
WHILE MENTIONING WHICH LIMB OF YOUR ENEMY YOU WISH TO BE AFFECTED, OR WHILE MENTIONING OVERALL WITHERING AS YOUR INTENT;
READ THE 70TH PSALM ON YOUR ENEMY;
BURY WITHERED LIMB WITH YOUR ENEMY’S UNDERWEAR –
– TO HURT BY DRYING THEM UP

When ah want someone tuh dry up, or tuh hurt them, yo’ go to a tree an’ git a tree that’s withered all up, dryin’ up. Yo’ don’t know the cause of the tree dryin’ up but chure not supposed tuh know how come the tree is witherin’ up yo’self tuh do this. Yo’ jes’ git the witherin’ tree that’s dyin’, an’ yo’ cut a branch offa that tree, see. An’ yo’ want that person – whatevah limb yo’ want that person tuh lose when yo’ cut this branch offa this tree, yo’ mention de limb that chew want ’em tuh lose, if it’s the right laig or the right arm. It won’t work on they haid; it’ll work on a limb, yore arm or yore laig. An’ then yo’ bury this withered tree wit some of this person’s underwear. Until it’s found, why they’ll wither away or lose dere laig or lose they arm, whichevah yo’ say, an’ they’ll be lingerin’ from it. Co’se if yo’ don’t want ’em tuh die like that or lose their laig or arm, yo’ would say, “Let ’em wither as dis tree withers.” But chew would have tuh read de 70th Psalms tuh do that work. De 70th Psalms will dry that person up, jes’ wither him up. De 70th Psalms will dry yo’ up jes’ like a herrin’ – yo’ see, a dry herrin’. Yo’ read de 70th Psalms on anyone an’ it will dry ’em up.

[Memphis, TN. Informant #926 and #1538 (this is one informant, two different interview dates); B45:19-B51:1 = 1503-1509 and D96:1-D110:2 = 2779-2793.]

This is definitely a severe curse, in that it aims to cause at least semi-permanent damage to a person’s body. Both Bilardi and the Curious Curandera also list this Psalm as one to be used for overcoming evil, particularly bad habits—the withering of a limb in this case being the withering of the wicked part of oneself that must be removed.

Some of the other Psalms that may be used in a cursing capacity include:

Psalm 7 – Used to overcome enemies, especially those who plot against one secretly

Psalm 48 – To undo envious enemies; according to Malbrough, it can also be used to “strike fear into your enemies”

Psalm 52 – Used to punish one’s enemies, especially those who use magic against one

Psalm 53 – Which can be used to curse someone who is being stubborn, or to inflict blindness (mental or physical)

Psalm 59 – Henri Gamache has a ritual “to overcome an enemy” using this Psalm and several candles (see Master Book of Candle Burning)

Psalm 93 – Used in legal cases where one has been unjustly accused in order to cross the one who brought the charges

Psalm 100 – According to Bilardi, this Psalm is for “overcoming enemies and obstacles” (TRC)

Psalm 109 – The Curious Curandera recommends this one “to overcome a strong enemy, for the ungrateful people who turn against their benefactors”

Psalm 120 – To stop gossip against one or to cross one’s enemies in court cases

Psalm 140 – Against anyone “evil,” though I think that is a fairly subjective idea. It is also used like Psalm 52 against anyone who has worked harmful magic against one

In all of these cases, the Psalms themselves are sometimes all you need, though the more one wants to add to the process, the more potent the curse will be. Muttering the curse over a candle with an enemy’s name carved into it would be a simple and not-terribly-visceral way to do it. Sewing up one of these Psalms into a doll-baby containing an enemy’s hair or foot track and tossing it into a fire, burying it in the earth, or dropping it into a jar full of baneful herbs and oils would be a pretty big curse. The mechanics of the curse really would depend upon the practitioner.

Before I finish up today, I thought I’d also look at a few of the other curse verses employed from the Bible. Just as non-Psalmic verses (like the Blood Verse in Ezekiel 16) and extra-biblical prayers can be employed to do good works, there are a few passages which have some crossing power in them. These are taken from a very fine book on Old Testament magic called Jewish Magic & Supersition, by Joshua Trachtenberg:

“Against an enemy: Ex. 15:5; 15:6; 15:9; 15:19; Deut. 22:6; Is. 10:14 and Prov. 1:17

To cause an enemy to die: Nu. 14:37

To cause an enemy to drown: Ex. 15:10

Against slander: Ex. 15:7

To cause a man who has sworn falsely to die within a year: Ex. 15:12

To cause a curse to take effect: Lev. 27:29” (p. 110)

Pretty rough stuff! All of these curses make me want to up my protection factor quite a bit. You can’t be too careful out there, where magic is concerned.

I hope this has been useful to someone. If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me. For now, blessings upon you for reading this (after all these curses, you might need them!).
And, of course, thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 115 – Cursing Psalms (part I)

Several months ago, I received an email from a reader/listener asking about the use of certain biblical texts in the context of cursing. It said:

“I have been reading Judika Illes’ Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells and came across Psalms 109 being used as a hex. I did not know that you could use Bible verses as a hex. Can you give me more info of this Psalms 109 hex?”

So I thought that today I might start to look at some of the “cursing Psalms,” with an eye to their historical precedents, their place in American folk magic, and some ideas of what to do with them. Before I get too far into the topic, however, please let me emphasize that using any curse is tricky, and biblical ones can be especially so. Many of them are based on specific theological ideas about the Old Testament G-d and His will regarding the administration of justice. If a curse isn’t justified, not only might it not work, it might backfire as according to the theology involved, the curse would go against G-d’s will, and thus invite destruction on the curser. Basically, as always, be careful with curses.

To look at biblical curses historically, the first hurdle most folks have to leap is the hurdle of modern thinking. Many who study the Bible are incredibly uncomfortable with the idea that it contains admonitions to do harm to others, yet it clearly does. Repeatedly G-d tells his chosen people to exterminate tribes, towns, and even civilizations down to the last man, woman, and child (see Deuteronomy and I Samuel). He inflicts suffering on even his most loyal subjects (see Job). Some view this all as an historical account, or a gloss for political struggles in a religious context, or as something undone by New Testament theology. Cursing in the Bible, though, is not limited to cataclysmic events on a national level or a cosmic wager between G-d and Satan—it’s often deeply personal. There are several accounts in the Bible of G-d’s representatives dishing out curses:

2 Kings 2 – The prophet Elisha curses a group of children for calling him “bald,” and the children are eaten by a pair of bears.

Numbers 5 – A magical ritual is prescribed for determining if a woman has abeen unfaithful. If she has and she is pregnant from her adultery, the ritual causes spontaneous abortion.

Acts 5 – Peter curses a man and woman who lied to him, and they die.

Acts 13 – Paul curses a man pretending to be an Apostle/sorcerer, and the man goes blind.

(You can read more about magic in the bible here, by the way)

It should be apparent, then, that the Bible doesn’t contain only sweetness and light and the works of a “good” G-d the way many modern people might prefer it. Rather, it contains a mix of history, folklore, philosophy, and even some occult information straddling the line of morality on all accounts. Rather than viewing it through the lens of today, when we might not understand why anyone would resort to cursing in the name of a higher power, it is helpful to have a little more perspective. Theologian Tomas O Curraoin writes about curses in an article for the Irish Catholic digest The Furrow:

“The stand taken by the Old Testament was certainly uncompromising; whereas the contemporary world which influences us all is, to say the least, more accommodating. The maledictions found in the psalms are merely an expression of that fundamental attitude of the Old Testament to evil and to evil-doers. They take their origin in certain human situations, and express an attitude to God, to Life, to the cosmic struggle between good and evil, which is certainly not characteristic of the world-attitude today. In fact there is no question of justifying, in the sense of excusing, the use of curses in the psalms. The psalms are inspired, and do not need to be justified…” (from “The Malediction in the Psalms”).

(Please note here that O Curraoin makes the point that the Psalms themselves, as divine passages, do not need to be justified—I still stand by my point that the use of thes Psalms for cursing must be justified, however). He goes on to point out that in many cases, the maledictive Psalms are really about justice for those who have no other recourse. In a tribal system where many legal cases come down to one man’s word against another and where death is on the line for what we might consider minor transgressions, it’s not senseless to call upon G-d to smite one’s enemies before one is destroyed by them. From a nationalist point of view, the enemy of a faithful follower is an enemy of the people, and thus of G-d, so again, a curse is a-okay. And in the case of a curse against one who is simply acting immorally to wards his neighbors, well, that is still in line with the whole “G-d’s will” idea because the laws about morality supposedly come from G-d. Or as priest John J. Greehy puts it:

“We must be fair to the Psalmists. They had a keen sense of justice. They realized that there could be no real peace (shalom—the fullness of God’s promise in every sphere of life) unless justice, truth, freedom, even some loving were present in the land. So they invoked the divine justice against unrepentant sinners” (from “The Cursing Psalms” in The Furrow, Mar. 1978).

So, what we have is a system of last resort for someone without other recourse, backed by the most powerful forces he or she can muster.

In that vein, it shouldn’t be surprising that the poor and enslaved are the ones we find using cursing Psalms in history. Harry M. Hyatt recorded a number of spells involving the Psalms among his Black informants, including some curses. One particularly interesting example follows:

HOODOO PSALM SCRATCHED ON NEW TINPAN WITH NEW PIN OR NEEDLE OR NAIL TO
CONTROL

9783. Yo’ kin take a tinpan an’ control a person. Yo’ kin take a
brand-new tinpan an’ yo’ kin write – lemme see. Ah got it right heah, de
psalms yo’ find where it says “Vau – v-a-u.” Yo’ kin take that an’ write
that on a brand-new tinplate. (This psalm in which the word “Vau” is
used?) Yes Sir. It’s in psalms [the psalm of a hoodoo book] an’ yo’ kin
write that. But now yo’ don’t write it with a pencil or nuthin like
that. Yo’ take a needle or pin or new nail that’s sharp – anyting that’s
sharp except a pencil – an’ yo’ write that psalm on that tinplate. Then
yo’ kin take that tinplate an’ put it away where it won’t be disturbed
or be handled by anybody else. An’ you kin control that person if yo’
write that psalm fo’ them.

[Waycross, Ga., (1166), 1959:8.]

The Psalm in question is the acrostic Psalm 119, focusing specifically on the Hebrew letter “vau”in verses 41-48 and its portion of the overall Psalm. From the King James Version:

⁴¹Let thy mercies come also unto me, O LORD, even thy salvation, according to thy word.

⁴²So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in thy word.

⁴³And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments.

⁴⁴So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever.

⁴⁵And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts.

⁴⁶I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.

⁴⁷And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved.

⁴⁸My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.

While this isn’t a particularly virulent bit of cursing, it is certainly not a pleasant spell, as it puts someone under the spellcaster’s control. Hyatt also records Psalms 20 and 93 being used to bind one’s enemies in a court situation, Psalms 35 and 102 being used to get rid of a troublesome enemy, and Psalm 70 to make them wither up and suffer. I should go ahead and say that, of course, the use of cursing Psalms even in hoodoo is fairly limited compared to using Psalms for things like success, luck, love, and protection. I generally interpret the large percentage of non-cursing spells in most folk magic practices probably indicates that curses should make up a minority of any witch’s magical work, but that’s just my perspective.

I think we’ll stop there today, as this is already a rather lengthy entry. In my next post, I’ll be including a list of cursing Psalms and their intended effects, as well as any techniques you might use to bring them to fruition. Until then, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 113 – Spiritual House Cleaning

It’s always nice to start the New Year off with a clean, well-appointed home. In some traditions, this is not mere vanity or hygiene, but a spiritual necessity that must be done on New Year’s Eve to ensure that the home is clear and ready for the coming year. Today, I thought I’d look at a few of the magical methods for housecleaning, as well as some of the most common cleaning agents with a magical touch.

Sweeping & Vacuuming – It has to be done. There’s just no way of getting around it. The floors must be kept clean, at least within reason, and usually a broom or a vacuum is employed to that end. Workers in the conjure and hoodoo traditions tend to have specific techniques for sweeping, often going from the topmost floor of the house to the bottom and working from the back of each floor towards the front (though I’ve seen variations on that, often depending on specific needs—getting rid of a bad spirit might involve sweeping out the back door, for example). While floor washes are the go-to method for spiritually cleansing a house and adding specific magical vibes to the area (see Mopping & Floor Washes below), you can add a degree of magic to the sweeping and vacuuming process, too. Various powders can be sprinkled on floors and carpets and left there for a bit before sweeping. These will absorb some spellwork and leave other magic behind. Some good ones to try out (available at Lucky Mojo):

Fear Not to Walk Over Evil – A powerful anti-hex and anti-foottrack magic powder.
House Blessing – A simple, very peaceful powder.
Crown of Success or Fast Money – To encourage prosperity and abundance.
Chuparosa/Hummingbird – To create love and attraction between partners in the home.

Likewise, you might also opt for simple, household items to do some of your mojo work during sweeping and vacuuming. Many spices make great conjure sweeps (and smell wonderful when taken up by a vacuum and slightly warmed by the machine’s motor—an added aromatic energy). Some that I like to use:

Cinnamon – Creates a sense of prosperity and joviality. Some use it for business success, but I find it creates more of a personal confidence and comfortability than anything purely financial.
Allspice – Another success spice, but also good for stimulating conversation. I like to vacuum with cinnamon and allspice sprinkled on the carpets before guests come over to encourage a warm, friendly atmosphere.
Pine Needles – Good for uncrossing and refreshing a home. Not a kitchen spice, of course, but still easily accessible. Be careful though, as too many pine needles can gum up machinery (like vacuums) quickly!
Rosemary – Good for domestic bliss, as well as helping those who smell it focus and think clearly.
Oregano – Keeps meddlesome influences from interfering in your life. Makes a nice “law-keep-away” substitute, and discourages nosy neighbors.
Garlic Skins – Kills off evil, but it will leave a distinctive odor in the air.
Rose Petals – Encourages love and passion when crumbled around the home and left for a bit before sweeping/vacuuming.
Salt – Great for stopping any hexes put upon you and removing unwanted spiritual energies from your home. I use baking soda (a type of salt) sprinkled on carpets before vacuuming to both absorb odors and remove pesky curses. Jim Haskins records a method of preventing unwanted guests from returning which simply involves sweeping salt after them when they leave.
Sugar – A little of this will add a sweetness to your home, though make sure you get it all and don’t use too much—a little sweetness may be great, but a lot of ants aren’t.

The basic method here is to sprinkle everything, let it sit for a bit (if you can stand letting it sit for 24 hours, that is lovely, but probably a little excessive—30 minutes is often plenty of time, and even a 5-minute wait will give you a quick dose of magic).

Mopping & Floor Washes – This is probably one of the best known hoodoo methods of cleansing, blessing, and enchanting a home. Using a prepared magical floor wash to clean anything that can handle getting wet (including the walls) still makes for great spellwork. Some of the most famous floor washes are (again from Lucky Mojo):

Chinese Wash – An old school formula which reputedly came out of Chinatown (though which Chinatown is not particularly clear). It’s made from several powerful ingredients, many of which are found in Van Van (see below), with broom straws added for extra oomph. Good for knocking out any hexes and doing purification work.
Van Van – We’ve covered this in Blog Post 81, but briefly this is a blend of several Asian grass extracts, chiefly lemongrass and vetiver root. It, like Chinese Wash, cleanses and purifies.
Peace Water – When made in its most interesting form, peace water is beautiful to look at, with layers of blue and white/clear liquid on top of one another in a mesmerizing stasis. When mixed up and sprinkled into a floor wash, this helps create feelings of calm, quiet, and tranquility in even very turbulent homes.
Rose Water – This very basic addition to a floor wash can be found in many ethnic grocery markets. It’s not much more than a strong rose tea stabilized with alcohol, so you could easily make your own, but it’s also fairly cheap to buy. When used in a floor wash, it helps promote feelings of love and agreement.

In addition to these specialty formulas, there are lots of common household cleaners you can use with a magical bent:

Pine-Sol – This commercial floor cleaner basically evolved out of hoodoo floor washes. Cat Yronwode even suggests adding a little Van-Van to a bottle of Pine-Sol and using it as a simple substitute for Chinese Wash. Traditional pine scent is great, of course, or you can go with…
Lemon Pine-Sol – Or any lemon-scented cleanser like it. Lemons have a cut-and-clear effect on a space, and have long been associated with destroying curses and breaking hexes. Charles Leland’s Aradia records an anti-evil-eye charm which is fundamentally a pomander made of a lemon and pins. It leaves a lovely clean smell, too, though a fairly artificial one in most cleansers. Feel free to add some fresh squeezed lemons to your mop bucket for a rootsier version of lemon-cleanser.
Ammonia – Draja Mickaharic recommends a simple floor wash of ammonia and salt added to mop water, and it really makes a wonderful cleansing and protecting wash water. It can really neutralize almost anything thrown at you, magically speaking, and it disinfects beautifully. Mickaharic also recommends a little ammonia down every drain when you finish cleaning (just a teaspoon or so), to finish off your magical housecleaning.
Vinegar – Four Thieves Vinegar is popular as a counter-curse wash, and as a protective mix-in for a mop-water. But really, any vinegar will help get rid of unwanted energies and protect the home from invaders and malicious forces. If the scent is strong enough, it may protect you from visitors altogether.
Urine – This one is very traditional in hoodoo, though much frowned upon in modern use. It has, however, been long used as a cleaning agent, and a little urine diluted in some mop water can be very powerful for “marking your territory” and protecting the home. It can also instill a sense of good luck in the place, and ensure fidelity in your mate and passion from your lover. If they don’t catch you doing it, of course.

There are lots of other cleaning agents out there that you can use, of course. Almost anything scented probably has at least some tenuous connection to a magical formula, so a little homework can help you transform that bottle of Mop-N-Glo into a powerful apothecary’s potion.

Windows & Doors – You don’t do windows, you say? Well, you should at least open them up! Whenever you do a good house-cleansing, throwing up the windows and letting some fresh air circulate is vital to getting everything “right.” It helps balance out all the forces in the home, allows bad spirits to leave, and refreshes the air in the house. It’s cold to do this in winter, of course, but turning the heat off for 10 minutes and letting a little fresh air in can make all the difference in getting a home feeling good and happy again. Likewise, the doors should be opened for a bit to let the air circulate.

When it comes to washing doors and windows, you can really use any of the same washes I talked about above in the Mopping & Floor Washes section. You can also use a variety of other ingredients to get things right at all your entrances and exits. For example, many folks take a little olive oil (or holy oil, which is basically blessed and sometimes lightly scented olive oil) and make a little sigil in the corner of every window, to seal that entrance against evil intrusions. Some folks put blue bottles in the windows, or jars full of sand or marbles, in the hopes that any witches who might try to get in will be forced to count the contents of the container and be unable to do so before daybreak (when their power ends). You can make a wash water of red brick dust, urine, and salt in warm water and use it to scrub your door to add a powerful layer of protection. You can also sprinkle salt or brick dust lines down at the threshold and in the sills of every window to keep out unwanted spirits and spells.

Clearing the Air – Once the house has been aired out and all the windows and doors cleaned and opened for a while, some folks like to light some incense, use room sprays, or even just make a little something in the kitchen to add an element of magic to the home. I’ve covered some of the holiday scents and their uses in Blog Post 108, and I’ve already mentioned pine and citrus scents as powerful agents for spiritual and physical cleansing. Other odoriferous offerings to your home can include:

Fresh Bread – One of the best symbols of abundanace and prosperity. Bake a loaf in your oven and let the scent fill the home. Cookies are also good for this.

Floral Scents – Like jasmine, rose, or lavender. All of these have specific uses, and add specific magical “vibrations” to an area (rose fragrances inspire love to many, for example), so look into the flowers you like and figure out what note they will set in your newly cleaned domicile.

Sweeteners – I did mention this in Blog Post 108, but I also said it’s a bit strong when burned. If you are airing your house out, however, a little honey, brown sugar, molasses, or even table sugar might be a good thing to burn or warm on the stove, as it will provide a sublimely “sweet” feeling to the area. Draja Mickaharic highly recommends this, and I can’t say I’m against it either.

Nailing It Down – This is a practice particular to conjure and hoodoo, though there are likely variants or similar practices in other magical systems. The basic idea is that by pounding nails into your home’s corners (and the corners of your property), you fix it there and create a stable environment. You also assert your ownership of the place, and help to guarantee your continued residence there. The most commonly used nails for this are the “square-cut” kind, usually sold cheaply at hardware stores. For doing the corners of your property, you would want to use something bigger, like old railroad spikes. The basic idea is that you simply nail them into every corner of your home, particularly the ones along outside walls. You can bless them with oil or holy water or anything else you feel is appropriate, or simply nail them down while saying a little prayer that you remain safe, happy, and comfortable in your home as long as the nails remain in place. Remove them if you ever have to move away for any reason.

That’s a lot of cleaning! But it’s always good to have a clean home, for both practical and spiritual reasons, so give some of these a go and see how they work for you! And if you missed your New Year’s cleaning deadline, well, you can always do these things during your Spring cleaning, too.

I hope this has been useful! Thanks for reading!

Oh, and Happy New Year!

-Cory

Quick Post – Hoodoo in the Wall Street Journal

Hi all!

Not a major post today, just something I found that I thought might be interesting to you:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989004575653102537901956.html

It’s an article about hoodoo in the Wall Street Journal! Take a look and let me know what you think!

-Cory

Blog Post 108 – Holiday Magic in the Kitchen

Today I thought I’d look at some of the holiday lore surrounding baking and cooking. What would the holidays be without the smells of cinnamon and nutmeg and clove and allspice slowly seeping out of the hot oven? And who imagines a holiday home without the presence of gingerbread or ginger cake of some kind? Chocolate and peppermint add extra luxury to an already indulgent season. In short, much of the magic of Christmastime and Yuletide seems to come from the kitchen (I’m sure many kitchen witches reading that chuckle in amusement that such sentiments even need to be typed out).

So let’s start by looking at some of the ingredients in those festive holiday treats:

Cinnamon – This handy kitchen spice has lots of magical uses. Cat Yronwode recommends it as a business drawing and gambling botanical. It can be used to make a wash-water which one would then use to scrub down the walkways in front of a business. This has the effect of drawing in new clients. In Jim Haskin’s Voodoo & Hoodoo, cinnamon is mixed with sugar and sprinkled in the shoes to increase gambling fortunes. Draja Mickaharic describes cinnamon as “calming” with a “protective vibration” and also cites its money-making properties in his Century of Spells (which refers not to a unit of time, but rather a unit of enumeration—a century representing the roughly 100 spells found in the book). Mickaharic also notes that “it has a claming and quieting effect on young children,” though I imagine in cookie form this may not be the case.

Cloves – Mickaharic says these are “psychically protective,” and keep “negative thoughtforms out of the place where it is burned.” Presumably including cloves in any baked or cooked dish would involve at least heating them, thus releasing some of this power into the kitchen and home. Yronwode says that “cloves appear in spells for money-drawing, prosperity, room-renting, and friendship” (HHRM, p. 73). These are also used to make pomanders, clove-studded oranges rolled in orris root powder and hung as protective talismans in the home (well, protective talismans and lovely nosegays to help imbue the house with that sweet, spicy holiday scent).

Nutmeg – This botanical has a mild narcotic effect and has been a staple of magic for some time. An old hoodoo charm found in Harry Hyatt’s work and later disseminated by other authors involves sealing a small amount of liquid mercury inside a drilled nutmeg, then carrying the charm around as a gambling mojo (this is NOT RECOMMENDED as mercury is highly poisonous—DO NOT DO IT!!!). Mickaharic describes nutmeg as an herb which inspires conviviality and jovial behavior, and promotes an air of happy friendship in the home.

Allspice – “Good for social gatherings; increases the flow of conversation and the rapport between people” says Mickaharic (CoS, p.50). These hard, dried berries can also be soaked for a few hours, then strung as a type of herbal rosary using a needle and thread. Carrying this can help relieve stress and provide peace of mind. Yronwode recommends this for business and gambling (there’s a pattern here), and also describes a floor wash one can make with ground allspice. Mixed with cinnamon and burned as incense, Mickaharic says it “places a smooth and witty feeling” in the home.

Ginger – This fiery herb is used to “heat up” or enhance the potency of various other magical ingredients, and also provides a little kick in spells for love or money (HHRM, p.103). The root can be used as a poppet due to its shape and sometimes-resemblance to a human body, and would be especially effective in a love or lust working. It can also be carried for protection.

Sugar – Sweetening! This can be used to add a “sweet” or happy vibration to the home where it is burned (though it can smell very sharp when burned, too…baking it may not have the same oomph as burning it, but will smell better in the long run). Of course one can keep all of one’s visiting relatives’ name papers in the sugar jar in order to better provide a happy, congenial home during the holidays, but offering them lots of sugary sweets might help ply a good attitude out of them, too.

As you can see, most of these herbs have to do with prosperity and getting along with one another (and a little protection thrown in for good measure). This makes sense during a season where money might be tight, tension runs high, and houses are full of dangerous things like fire and hot ovens. So when doing the holiday baking, it might be worth throwing an extra pinch or two of these spices in to up the magical ante of your confections.

I mentioned gingerbread earlier, and it made me think of a couple of stories from early American folklore about bakers whose experiences with cookies certainly have a magical bent:

“The Baker’s Dozen” – A piece of reputed folklore recorded by Charles M. Skinner in 1896, this story revolves around a stingy baker and his encounters with an old crone who bewitches his bakery. Only through the magnanimous efforts of St. Nicolaus (and by swearing better behavior on a gingerbread cookie shaped like him) does he manage to break the spell.

“The Gingerbread Man” – This famous story tells of a gingerbread man come to life who flees his baker and eludes capture by the people and animals of the village. He meets his match in the swift (and often crafty, in various retellings) fox, who finally devours him.

Finally, I’ll leave you with my family recipe for gingerbread:

1 c. sugar
1 c. shortening
1 c. molasses
½ c. hot water
1 Tbs. cinnamon (or to taste)
1 Tbs. ginger (or to taste)
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 egg
7 c. flour, plus a little extra for rolling dough

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour and mix in dry ingredients. Add egg, molasses, and shortening and mix. Slowly add hot water, mixing as you go. When dough is sticky, begin to work it into a ball. Dust a flat surface with flour and begin rolling out the dough, working it until you get it about ¼ inch thick. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a knife. Bake cookies on a lightly greased cookie sheet for about 15 minutes (or until they are crisp at the edges and fully cooked. Cool on a wire rack, decorate, and eat!

My mother and I used to bake several batches (rather, a whole day’s worth) of gingerbread, then spend time making the finished products into houses, sleighs, people, and animals. We gave them as gifts, decorated with royal icing and candy, and were often very popular around the holidays. I hope you enjoy! It’ll be like taking a little bite out of your New World Witchery host during the holiday season.

Wait, that probably sounds kind of creepy. Enjoy anyway!

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 103 – The Chapbook Tradition

My ambitions got ahead of my time last week, so I am behind in posting about magical books in American traditions. I thought today, though, I’d start at the cheap and plentiful end of the spectrum in the hopes that I might make up for any lack of posting.

Chapbooks—small, cheaply made books usually containing no more than a hundred pages or so—have been a part of the New World landscape since Colonial times. Many of the most important texts leading up to the Revolutionary War were published in chapbook format, such as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. These booklets, which were also frequently referred to as “tracts” or “pamphlets,” were cheap to make and cheap to buy, and could often be found in the stock of travelling peddlars (also known as “chapmen,” where the term chapbook comes from).

In addition to political messages, these little books frequently served as repositories for folklore and folk music, fairy tales, religious information, poetry, fiction, almanacs, and most importantly to us, magic. I’ll be addressing the topic of almanacs separately, as they have had a tremendous influence on the occult in America, so in this post I’ll focus primarily on the booklets of magic which circulated in North America from the 1600’s until modern times.

Early occult chapbooks generally originated in places like London or Scotland, and bore titles such as Dreams and Moles with Their Interpretation and Signification (London, 1750), The Fortune Teller & Experienced Farrier (Exeter, 1794) or the Spaewife, or Universal Fortune-teller (Scotland, 1860’s). They contained advice on interpreting signs, reading palms and other body parts, and performing basic divination such as taseomancy (tea-leaf reading). Some examples of the esoteric knowledge they contained:

When a woman dreams she is a man, and is not married, she will have a husband; or if she’s without children, she’ll have a son, but if married ‘twill be ill to have a son; and to a maid-servant, much incumbrance [sic]; ‘tis very fortunate to a harlot, because she will forsake her evil ways. (Dreams & moles)
Either he or she that has a mole on the upper part of the ear, and on the right side of his belly, shews the party guilty of such crimes as may endanger their life. (Dreams & moles)
[On Palmistry:] The liver line, if it be straight and crossed by other lines, shews the person to be of sound judgement. (Fortune Teller)
To dream you are pleasantly sailing on calm water, denotes a peaceable and quiet life. (Fortune Teller)
A Mole on the hip, shows that the person will have many children. (Spaewife)
A face naturally pale denotes the person very amorous. (Spaewife)
He that hath a great and broad mouth is shameless, a great babbler and liar, proud to an excess, and ever abounding in quarrelsome words. (Spaewife)
He that hath a decent beard, handsome and thick of hair, is good-natured and reasonable. (Spaewife)

Some of these books gave medical advice as well, and instructions for livestock management. In The Fortune Teller & Experience Farrier, author Ezra Pater tells anyone with a horse suffering from a cough to “take five or six eggs, and lay them in a sharp white-wine vinegar, till the shells be somewhat soft, then fling them down his [the horse’s] throat and it will cure forthwith.” Such remedies would go on to be de rigueur for magical practitioners in rural locations, and especially in the New World. The reasons for the popularity of such simple guides probably stems from their low cost, but also may have something to do with the rough medicine of frontier life. In many cases, settlers lived days away from good medical or veterinary care, and so a small practical guide would be indispensible to a rural family. As for magic’s entanglement with practical medicine, I can only reiterate that until very recently (the mid-to-late twentieth century really) there was no separation between the two, especially not in rural communities. Not everyone used every remedy, and not everyone used magic, but they were not at odds with each other, either. I find the best analogy here is a cookbook: just because you have one hundred recipes doesn’t mean you cook all of them. In most cases, you specialize and repeat the recipes you like or are best at, and those become your signature dishes.

Over time, other chapbooks emerged and became more and more popular. In rural and farm communities, such as the Pennsylvania Dutch areas of the middle Appalachians and the Ohio Valley, little books like Hohman’s Long Lost Friend became household texts. Individual families would also compile their own books, not unlike family recipe books, which might be kept on the same shelf as the family Bible. In many cases, these chapbooks would be the only texts in the home other than the Bible and perhaps a cherished tome or two of literature like Shakespeare. In more urban areas, cheap editions of Grimoires found their way into chapbooks, with publishers like Chicago’s William Delaurence producing a number of pirated works in reduced pamphlet form, including The Egyptian Secrets of Albertus Magnus, The Sixth & Seventh Books of Moses, and Hindu Magic and Indian Occultism. In Owen Davies’ excellent history of magical books entitled Grimoires, he explores the influence of the occult in Chicago:

Chicago may have an image as a grim, grey industrial city, but in the early twentieth century it was also a hotbed of mystical, magical, and prophetic activity. Rural Pennsylvania may have been the cetre of pow wow and New Orleans the home of hoodoo, but Chciago was the undoubted centre of organized occultism and grimoire publication…[it] proved fertile ground for mystical and magical groups. (p.210-11)

Other cities, like Chicago, also began producing quantities of occult chapbooks. Detroit—which had and continues to have a strong tie to hoodoo—was home to countelss candle shops with shelves full of pamphlets on luck, love, and money magic. In Harlem, stores like the Hindu Mysterious Store were selling racks of booklets on occult topics into the mid-to-late twentieth century. Some of the many titles included:

Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed
The Ancient’s Book of Magic
The Book of Luck
Sen Chu’s Sure Way Number System
The Ancient Book of Formulas
Rajah Rabo’s 5-Star Mutuel Dream Book [sic]
Aunt Sally’s Policy Player’s Dream Book

Books like these, especially the dream books (which purported to interpret dream symbols into lucky numbers to be used in lotteries), were tremendously popular. While the number of shops carrying such literature has diminished recently, the occult pamphlet remains popular and can still be found in many urban magical retailers.

Today, chapbooks still exist and continue to be published, though in two distinct veins. Some occultists (myself included) like to produce very limited runs of such booklets as artisan items. The publishing company responsible for the marvelous Witches’ Almanac also issues lovely chapbooks such as Spells & Incantations, Magical Creatures, and Magic Charms from A to Z. I’m still working on the illustrations and additional material for our New World Witchery cartomancy chapbook, which will eventually be sold through our Etsy shop. Many classic chapbooks are also still available, such as Henri Gamache’s Master Book of Candle Burning.

The other form in which one can find modern chapbooks will likely lead to scowls from some readers. If you’re ever standing in line at the grocery store, however, look over at the racks of gum and magazines, and usually near the top there will be small, palm-sized books of cheap newsprint paper and glossy stock covers. Some of them are all about alleged dieting secrets and pop psychology, but occasionally you can find little tomes of herbal lore, astrological information, and even love spells. While it may seem unsavory to think of magical literature as an impulse buy in the checkout lane, I would recommend perusing them. They’re often incredibly cheap and sometimes have good information in them, as well as guideposts to other resources that might be even more worthwhile. Of course, you may also find all you can do is line your familiar’s cage with them, too, so browse before buying.

I hope this has been useful to you! If you have any favorite chapbooks or magical booklets, I’d love to know about them! Please leave a comment or send an email and share them with us.

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 102 – 15 Books

Hello everyone!

I recently saw a rather interesting post from a friend on a social networking site in which she listed her “Top 15 Most Influential Books” when it comes to witchcraft. Since I posted a book review last week (and since most book reviews going forward will likely be shared between this site and the Pagan Bookworm site), I thought that continuing that “bookish” trend might be good. So this week I will be posting about various texts which have a place North American magical traditions. Some will be of the grimoire type, and others may just be good reads, but hopefully all of them will be tomes you get much pleasure and use from if you crack the spines and turn the pages.

To start with, however, I’m going to re-use that meme and list my own Top 15 Most Influential (Witchcraft) Books. These are not necessarily books that I think of as “great,” or even in some cases “good” books. Many have erroneous information or are, at best, a good starting place for further exploration. All of them, however, have help shape my study of magic, folklore, and witchcraft in some way, and that’s what this list is really all about. I’m presenting them in a (roughly) chronological order, since that’s how I best remember them.

TOP 15 MOST INFLUENTIAL (WITCHCRAFT) BOOKS
(2010 Edition)

The Encyclopedia of White Magic by Paddy Slade. This book was the first book of “real” magic I ever procured. I’ve talked about it on the show, but the short version is that I was about 11 or so, and I pestered my mother into buying it for me. Since then, I’ve definitely grown away from its ideas, though I periodically return to it for nostalgic reasons. It also got me thinking about magic as a folklore-based thing, rather than a sci-fi/fantasy phenomenon.
Earth Power/Earth, Air, Fire & Water by Scott Cunningham. I know there are lots of folks who regard Cunningham with disdain, but I’m not one of them. His two books of folk magic, focused on practical spellwork using natural elements, absolutely cemented my interest in spellwork as something more than an esoteric psychological tool. I still find some of his spells useful, though I’m no longer in tune with his particular worldview or ethical stance. Moreover, I think that there are far worse books with which one could begin one’s magical studies. I’ve found over the years that many folkloric sources bear out the techniques described by Cunningham, and I still regard his work fondly. There are certainly weak points in these books, but winnowing the chaff away is fairly easy with a little work.
Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham. I’ll not launch into another defense of the author, but instead say that this book (and to a lesser extent, his Complete Book of Incense, Oils, & Brews) augmented my practice of magic again and helped me to start making my own spell ingredients. It also helped me to cultivate an interest in gardening, for which I am most grateful. This book also has one other great thing going for it: an amazing bibliography. While it obviously pulls from sources like Culpepper’s Herbal, it also contained references to things like Vance Randolph’s Ozark Magic & Folklore (which is also on this list). So I am quite thankful to this book, and this author.
Jude’s Herbal Home Remedies by Jude C. Todd. This was an impulse buy to augment my growing interest in herbs after I had eagerly devoured the Cunningham tomes. It’s not a magical book, per se, but focuses mostly on the physical properties of herbs and their applications as health and beauty aids. It provided a wonderful resource for learning how to interact with various herbs and brew potions, ointments, tinctures, etc. at home. I still turn to it sometimes for home remedies, and it also has a place because later encounters with books like J.G. Hohman’s Long Lost Friend reminded me that most magical workers had plenty of practical, non-magical herbal info at their fingertips, too. Jude’s book filled that role for me.
Magical Tales: The Storytelling Tradition by R.J. Stewart. In my sophomore year of university, I participated in a storytelling class that changed my life. It took fairy and folktales off of the written page and showed me something deeply vital about them emerges when they are shared with others. I also happened to be taking classes in things like fairy and folklore interpretation using academic studies like Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment and Mary Louise von Franz’s The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Into this mix came R.J. Stewart’s book, which looked at the phenomenon of storytelling from the point of view of a magical practitioner. I know a lot of folks were influenced by Stewart’s The Underworld Initiation, and I think that book is absolutely wonderful. As far as my own personal influence goes, though, this is the one I’d say really connected to me. It convinced me that stories contain more than just helpful magical tidbits, but sometimes are magical rituals in disguise, if you’re willing to work through them.
Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, & Folklore by Lady Gregory & William Butler Yeats. I couldn’t have really appreciated this book prior to encountering book no. 5 on this list (and going through the courses I did at the same time). I actually had picked up this text years before because of a passing interest in Ireland which I inherited from my mother (we have family ties back to County Mayo). After I began to understand fairy tales as something more than fanciful stories, however, this book became an absolute mother lode of good magical material. I’ve since discovered many of the tales have parallels or retellings in Appalachian and Southern folklore, too, which makes me feel even closer to it.
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, Jack Zipes trans. I actually borrowed this specific collection from a girlfriend, and its completeness stuck with me. It included a number of tales often omitted, and several tale fragments I’ve not seen in most editions. Particular variants aside, this collection falls into the same category as nos. 5 & 6 on the list. Again, I didn’t know what I had until long after I had it, and now I don’t think I could live without it.
The Marriage of Cadmus & Harmony by Roberto Calasso. At some point, I became a bit of a mythology junkie, particularly Greek myths. I read and re-read Edith Hamilton, Bulfinch, and the textbooks from my college classes on the topic. I went to source material by Hesiod, Homer, Euripides, Aeschylus, and anyone else I could find. I’m definitely not an expert, but as enthusiastic amateurs go, I foment with glee when I encounter new Hellenic tales. When I got to Calasso’s book, however, I was taking an advanced course on mythology at school, and everything completely changed. It was this book that taught me one fundamental thing about mythology (and likewise storytelling and therefore magic): it changes. More importantly, there is no “true” or “right” version of any story, but simply the stories themselves. Mythology isn’t linear, but a web of tales—sometimes they contradict each other, sometimes they conflict with what we think about the culture, and sometimes they don’t make much sense to us. In all cases, though, the tales are true at a level not related to cross-referencing and documentation, but someplace deeply human. Calasso showed me that by bombarding me with the stories over and over again in his book, every time a little different, but all connected together, until I got it. I really do need to send him a thank-you note for that.
Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches, by Charles Godfrey Leland. Encountering Leland, for me, was like having someone splash very cold water on my face by the bucketful. I devoured his work Etruscan Roman Remains and his Gypsy Sorcery & Fortune-Telling, of course, with all the tenacity of a budding folklorist. It was Aradia, however, that really sent me sailing when I read it. At the time, I was studying with the outer court of a Gardenerian coven, and had to read things like Gardener, Dion Fortune, and other modern occult classics. When I got to Leland’s book, though, it felt so different, so authentic that I refused to believe its wild claims and actually got angry at it for deceiving me so well. I’ve since, however, learned that this book is something special—neither entirely true nor entirely false. More importantly, it is useful, and its mythos grips me in a very strange way. I can’t come down in favor of Aradia as a piece of unsullied witchlore, historical to its last printed letter. But I can say that figuratively, it’s as close to a witch’s gospel as I’ve seen yet. In short, it just “feels” witchy, and makes me feel the same every time I read it.
Call of the Horned Piper by Nigel A. Jackson. As I branched out and away from Wicca, looking for something I could connect with better, I began to find a lot about something called “Traditional Witchcraft.” There were dozens of websites, letters (mostly from Robert Cochrane), and books which I suddenly had to read, and in a very brief period I managed to get through most of them. While there have been a number of very influential and powerful works in the Trad Craft vein that I love, one stands out to me. Nigel Jackson’s tome is slim, barely the width of a pencil. It’s a chapbook, really, yet it contains so much information that I can’t imagine life without it (much less because finding a copy is becoming harder and harder to do). This book is probably more responsible for my religious magical practices than any other, and encapsulates in about 150 pages what many books cannot in 300 or more.
Ozark Magic & Folklore by Vance Randolph. This is a book that I found first by accident while seeking information on weather lore, then again by chance looking for an herbal reference. Finally, I was browsing one of Cunningham’s books and saw this title again in the bibliography, and realized I needed to seek it out. I’ve since read it many times, and it always offers up a plethora of magical information to me. Randoph’s book is not a how-to, but one could build a complete magical system out of his work. Yet it also guides one to several other magical books and traditions as well. This is the book that made me realize North America is full of occult power and lore, if I was only willing to dig for it a bit.
Hoodoo Herb & Root Magic by Catherine Yronwode. I’ve referenced this book and the accompanying website (Lucky Mojo Co.) so much on this blog and in the show you probably don’t need me to tell you it’s been an influence. I’ll just reiterate what a valuable piece of work it is and suggest that without it, I’d probably be fairly lost when it comes to making hoodoo charms, mojos, potions, and formulae.
The Silver Bullet by Hubert J. Davis. Following the ideas gleaned from Vance Randolph, I began looking for other folklore collections from America which might contain a few sprinklings of witchcraft. A friend suggested I look into The Silver Bullet, and it truly was a revelatory experience. In the pages of Davis’ book, the complete repertoire of the American witch dances out. The book’s segments on what witches do, how to become a witch, and what to do to counter curse read like thinly veiled instructions on American witchery taken right out of a cauldron. Like Randolph, a person could likely develop a complete magical system based on what this book contains. It is a marvelous book, and one I turn to repeatedly for witchlore.
The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells by Judika Illes. This is another one I constantly reference. Its real influence on me lies in the fact that I share a love of it with Laine. We both get so much out of it that it acts as a sort of magical bridge between us. The Secret Garden likewise strengthens that bond—it’s one of her favorite books and another example of magic buried in storytelling which appeals to me—but Judika’s wonderful book (books really—they’re all quite good—but I decided to go with this one as we use it the most) really is our default grimoire at this point.
The Bible. This one is the last on my list because I’ve only been able to really understand it as a book of magic recently. I’ve known that certain metaphorical elements of the Bible have always had parallels in world mythology, but it’s only since working with things like Psalms, the Blood Verse (Ezekiel 16:6), and folk Catholic prayers that I’ve come to understand it as a sort of grimoire. Magic pervades the text, though it often must be disentangled from a lot of theology, history, folklore, etc. And while I do use the Bible as a sourcebook for magic, I also am not a monotheist, so I have to struggle with certain elements of it. This is rewarding in its own way, though, and I tend to think of the Bible as a “family” book—since most of my immediate predecessors were Christian (and mostly Catholic), my use of that magic ties me to them, even though I’m not worshiping the same deities they did, exactly. I also prefer to work with some of the deuterocanonical books, such as the Book of Wisdom found in the Catholic Bible, or the Book of Enoch which is mostly found in the Coptic or Ethiopian Orthodox Bible. But that’s just a personal preference.

So that’s my list! Long, I know, and probably way too much commentary, but maybe it will give you some insight into the places I’ve come from and the type of magical person I am. Or maybe it will give you a reason to catalogue your own influences. If you do that, I’d love to see them! Please let me know what books influenced your path, and feel free to post your lists (or a link to your blog if you do a list there) on the comments.

Thanks so much for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 100 – Winter Lore Contest!

So I said last week I wanted the 100^th blog post to be special, and I thought a contest might just be the way to add that little bit of extra charm. If you listened to the podcast we posted yesterday, you probably already know about this contest, at least to some extent. We’re hoping to put together some Yuletide specials, and part of that will involve getting lore from all over the continent (or the world, even) and incorporating that into our shows during December. We’d love your lore, especially, and we’re even willing to give away some prizes to encourage you to send in your best winter holiday traditions. Here’s the gist of it:

What We’re Looking For: Your winter folklore, including (but not limited to) holiday traditions, recipes, songs, and stories; superstitions about specific days, events, omens, or signs are welcome; ghost stories set during the winter, bits of historical information, and ethnic customs are greatly appreciated, too! We already know that many folks put up decorated trees and exchange presents, so no fair telling us that. Pretty much everything else is fair game, though. Try to include as much information as you can, and give us your general location (such as “Pacific Northwest” or “Southern France”). Also, please tell us if we can use your name when we read your contribution.

What We’re Giving Away: We’ve got two (2) signed copies of Judika Illes’ latest book, The Weiser Field Guide to Witches that we’re giving away as runner-up prizes. If you don’t know about this book, here’s the blurb from the publisher:

“Witches peek from greeting cards and advertisements, and they dig twisted roots from the ground. Witches dance beneath the stars and lurk around cauldrons. Witches heal, witches scare, witches creep, and witches teach! A compendium of witches through the ages, from earliest prehistory to some of the most significant modern practitioners, The Weiser Field Guide to Witches explores who and what is a witch. From such famed historical legends as Aleister Crowley, Marie Laveau and Elizabeth Bathory to the popular literary and cinematic figures Harry Potter and The Wicked Witch of the West, Illes offers a complete range of the history of witches. Included also are the sacred–Isis, Hekate, Aradia–and the profane–the Salem Witch trials and The Burning Times. The Weiser Field Guide to Witches is appropriate for readers of all ages and serves as an excellent and entertaining introduction for those fascinated by the topic.”

Those of you who are familiar with our blog and podcast probably know how highly we regard Ms. Illes, and this book is a wonderful addition to anyone’s magical library.

Our grand prize is a Compass & Key Hoodoo Kit, which will contain a number of sensational conjurational goodies, including:

A bottle of each of our current condition oils (Attraction, Crown of Success, Uncrossing, Saints & Spirits, and Wall of Flame)
A custom-made mojo bag, designed for Success & Prosperity
Herb and Curio samples, such as a High John root, Chewing John, Gravel Root, & Spirit Money
Condition Soaps designed for ritual bathing
Flannel squares for making your own mojo bags
A Lucky Rabbit’s Foot
And more!

This kit would be a great way to get started with hoodoo, or build upon your current practice.

How to Enter: We want this to be easy, so please just leave a comment on either this blog post or the Podcast 19 Shownotes, or better yet send us an email with your submission at compassandkey@gmail.com! You can get an extra submission by blogging, tweeting, or sharing our contest and contact information with your social network and sending us either a screenshot or a direct link to where you’ve posted about us. The cutoff for submissions is Midnight (12:00 AM Central Standard Time) on December 6^th (St. Nicholas Day).

If you have questions, feel free to email us those as well! We really want to get as much lore as we can, so please encourage others to send in their contributions (or if they aren’t interested in witchcraft, just find out their lore and send it in as part of your own entry).
Thank you so much everyone for making this blog such a wonderful place, and we’ll be looking forward to all your submissions very soon!

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Podcast 19 – Curses & Hexes

-SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 19-

Summary
This episode is all about the controversial topic of hexing and cursing. We discuss the ethics, methods, and types of cursing, as well as some personal experience with the subject. Then Laine talks about Goofer Dust in WitchCraft, while Cory looks at Uncrossing in Spelled Out.

Play:

Download: New World WItchery – Episode 19

-Sources-
We cite Peter Paddon’s Crooked Path series on ethics.
Many spells and recipes discussed are in Judika Illes’ Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells
Lucky Mojo’s page has excellent entries on Hot Footing & the Evil Eye
Cat Yronwode’s Hoodoo Herb & Root Magic contains information on the Live Things in You Curse

Our contest will feature products from our Compass & Key Etsy shop and Judika Illes’ book, The Weiser Field Guide to Witches.

Promos & Music
Title music: “Homebound,” by Jag, from Cypress Grove Blues. From Magnatune.
Promo 1 – Appalachian Witch Doctor Tales
Promo 2 – Pennies in the Well
Promo 3 – Lakefront Pagan Voice