money – New World Witchery – The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft

Episode 108 – Doing Magic for Others

Summary:

This episode finds us looking at the idea of doing spells for other people (even when they may not know about it) as well as doing magic for communities and doing magic for money.

Please check out our Patreon page! You can help support the show for as little as a dollar a month, and get some awesome rewards at the same time. Even if you can’t give, spread the word and let others know, and maybe we can make New World Witchery even better than it is now.

Producers for this show: Corvus, Diana Garino, Renee Odders, Ye Olde Magic Shoppe, Raven Dark Moon, The Witches View Podcast, Sarah, Molly, Corvus, Catherine, AthenaBeth, Jen Rue of Rue & Hyssop, Little Wren, Jessica, Victoria, Daniel, Johnathan at the ModernSouthernPolytheist, Montine, Achija of Spellbound Bookbinding, and Hazel (if we missed you this episode, we’ll make sure you’re in the next one!). Big thanks to everyone supporting us!

Play:

Download: Episode 108 – Doing Magic for Others

Play:

-Sources-

We mention both our recent Money Magic episode and Episode 48 – Healing Magic as inspirations for this episode.

Several of the stories that Cory references are found in books like Mexican-American Folklore by John O. West; Witches, Ghosts, & Signs by Patrck W. Gainer; and The Silver Bullet, and Other American Witch Stories by Hubert Davis.

We’re also planning an excursion in early to mid-summer to see the ancient magical artifacts exhibit at the Penn Museum and we’d love for you to join us! You can find out about it in our Special Update post on it, or check out the Facebook Event page.

If you have feedback you’d like to share, email us or leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to follow us at Twitter! And check out our Facebook page! For those who are interested, we also now have a page on Pinterest you might like, called “The Olde Broom.” Have something you want to say? Leave us a voice mail on our official NWW hotline: (442) 999-4824 (that’s 442-99-WITCH, if it helps).

Promos & Music

Title and closing music is “Homebound,” by Bluesboy Jag, and is used under license from Magnatune.

Episode 106 – Money Magic

Summary:

We finally take a long-overdue look at various money magic and prosperity spells in our repertoire in this episode.

Play:

Download: Episode 106 – Money Magic

Play:

-Sources-

We haven’t really covered money magic on its own before, but we have mentioned some aspects of the luck and prosperity in Episode 13 – Lucky Charms.

Additional sources/mentions:

We mention early experiences with the books Teen Witch by Silver Ravenwolf and Earth Power by Scott Cunningham.

We make extensive use of The Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells by Judika Illes.

Cory mentions a “money purse” spell found in the Brer Rabbit stories of Joel Chandler Harris.

There are several mentions of spells from the Lucky Mojo Rootwork Radio Hour with Cat Yronwode.

And we also suggest that perhaps all magic comes at a price (and via mummified animal curios) by invoking the English class standby, “The Monkey’s Paw,” by W. W. Jacobs.

We’re also planning an excursion in early to mid-summer to see the ancient magical artifacts exhibit at the Penn Museum and we’d love for you to join us! More details will be coming soon.

If you have feedback you’d like to share, email us or leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!

Promos & Music

Title and closing music is “Homebound,” by Bluesboy Jag, and is used under license from Magnatune.

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

Podcast 13 – Lucky 13

-SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 13-

Summary
On this, our Lucky 13^th episode, released on Friday the 13^th, we’re looking at luck charms and where they come from. We’ve also got a money bowl spell in WitchCraft, and Van Van oil in Spelled Out.

Play:

Download: New World Witchery – Episode 13

-Sources-
We reference lots of sources, including:
-Cat Yronwode’s Lucky W Amulet Archive
-The Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris
-Harry M. Hyatt’s Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork
-The article “Charles Chestnutt & the Doctrine of Conjuration”) by Bettye Jo Crissler Carr
-Judika Illes’s book Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells
– Ozark Magic & Folklore by Vance Randolph
-The Chan Chu money frog of Chinese lore
-Richard Dorson’s Buying the Wind

Promos & Music
Title music: “Homebound,” by Jag, from Cypress Grove Blues. From Magnatune.
Promo 1- Witchery of One
Promo 2- Media Astra ac Terra
Promo 3- Borealis Meditation
Promo 4 – Iron Powaqa

Blog Post 78 – More Mojos for Success

Back in Blog Post 76, I mentioned that I’d be following up with some other types of success mojos. Academic success is fantastic, but if you’re not in school it’s probably not going to help you much. So today I thought I’d take that scholastic success mojo hand and rework it for a few other needs. I hope it helps!

Building upon the basic Crown of Success mojo, which would generally include a John the Conqueror root in a red flannel sack anointed with Crown of Success oil, you could vary your specific ingredients for particular results:

Better Business – Add herbs like sassafras, five-finger grass, or cinnamon, plus a lodestone and magnetic sand. Try to use an odd number of ingredients. Pray Psalm 8 or a similar prayer.

Gentle Judge – A court-case success hand. Use gravel root, little John to chew/galangal, cascara sagrada bark, sugar, and tobacco. Pray Psalm 36 or a similar prayer.

High Rollers – This is a gambling success mojo. Use Job’s tears, a gator paw, a badger or gator tooth, a raccoon penis bone, a rabbit’s foot, and/or a four-leaf clover charm (primarily use curios for this one). Pray Psalm 41 or Psalm 62 or a similar prayer.

Lucky in Love – With this success hand, it’s less about attracting a new love and more about strengthening one that exists (say, for example, during the process of courtship and marriage). Add angelica root, violets, and roses (if trying to court a woman) or vanilla, tobacco, and dragon’s blood resin (for courting a man). You can use lavender if you’re courting someone of the same sex, as well. Pray Psalm 139 or a similar prayer.

Make It Rain Money – Add cinnamon, collard seeds, beans or peas, lucky hand root, rice, and/or rose of Jericho (things like seeds, beans, peas, and rice all signify abundance). Add a lucky penny or a silver dime if you like, or a silver charm like a four-leaf clover. Pray Psalm 126 or a similar prayer.

There are so many variations on these types of mojos, so please try them out and experiment. I’ve had a lot of success (and the irony of that is not lost on me) working with these types of hands, so I encourage everyone to give them a try.

I’d like to close this post by sharing something one of our wonderful readers mentioned to me. Odom of the Evil Eye recently wrote me about an academic success hand he’s working on, and he included an ingredient that struck me as just perfect for that kind of work: coffee. He made an excellent point that as a stimulant coffee can help keep one awake and alert, and that the university coffee house is such a ubiquitous piece of the college landscape it almost serves as a shrine to this kind of work. So good eye for that connection, Odom!

Thanks for reading,
-Cory

Blog Post 74 – Sassafras

While passing by the cemetery on campus one day, I noticed a few little sprouted saplings with very particularly-shaped leaves. I got very excited when I moved in closer and saw the definitive “mitten” shape of some of the leaves. I pinched one and sniffed, smelling a strong spicy aroma almost immediately. I knew at that point I was dealing with sassafras.

Sassafras is one of those herbs that you can’t avoid in the South. It grows in all sorts of adverse environments: roadsides, hedgerows, waste spaces, etc. It can be short and bushy in its early years of development, but becomes a full-sized tree given enough time. The roots and bark have long been used in culinary and medicinal applications. If you’ve ever had a root beer, there’s a chance that you have tasted this plant, as sassafras and sarsaparilla were the two primary flavors in that drink for a long time. In recent years (since 1960), active ingredient in sassafras, called safrole, has been officially banned by the USDA as potential carcinogen. So most of the root beer sold now uses artificial flavors to reproduce the sassafras and sarsaparilla taste. The leaves of sassafras also feature in Cajun cooking; dried and powdered, they become file powder, which is used to thicken stews like gumbo.

Medicinally, sassafras is a tricky root to use. According to botanical.com, “Oil of Sassafras is chiefly used for flavouring purposes, particularly to conceal the flavour of opium when given to children. In the United States of America it is employed for flavouring effervescing drinks…Aromatic, stimulant, diaphoretic, alterative. It is rarely given alone, but is often combined with guaiacum or sarsaparilla in chronic rheumatism, syphilis, and skin diseases.” It also seems to have a strong effect on women’s reproductive systems, easing menstrual pain, but also potentially causing abortions. Several health problems have been connected to consuming overdoses of safrole, including vomiting, collapse, pupil dilation, and cancer. WARNING! Consult a physician before taking ANY herb or root internally! Sassafras is NO EXCEPTION!

Sassafras bark and root have long been made into teas in the Appalachians. In Foxfire 4, informant Pearl Martin showed students Bit Carver and Annette Sutherland how to gather the herb and make the drink:

“Sassafras is a wild plant that grows in the Appalachians…The spicy, distinct flavor of sassafras makes the tea a popular beverage, served hot or cold…Pearl told us that she could gather roots any time of the year without affecting the taste of the tea. However, the roots should be gathered young, so they will be tender…She chops the roots from the plants, then washes the roots in cold water. Next she scrapes off the outer layer of bark and discards it. Either the roots or the bark can be used in making the tea, but Pearl prefers the roots. They can be used dried or green. She brings the roots to a boil in water. The longer they are boiled, the stronger the tea. To make a gallon of tea, she boils four average-sized roots [which appear to be about a foot long and an inch thick] in a gallon of water for fifteen to twenty minutes. She then strains it, and serves it either hot or iced, sweetened with either sugar or honey” ( p. 444).

While the safrole content of the tea is relatively low, again you should consult with a physician before drinking this tea.

Magically speaking, sassafras is a money root. It attracts business success and material wealth. Putting a little sassafras root in one’s wallet or purse keeps money from running out. Catherine Yronwode has several good charms in her Hoodoo Herb & Root Magic book, including a business attracting sidewalk scrub made from sassafras, allspice, and cinnamon (which has the added bonus of a pleasant aroma), and this powerful little Money-Stay-with-Me mojo hand:

“Jam a silver dime into an alligator foot [available from Lucky Mojo and other botanicas and curiosity shops] so that it looks like the ‘gator is grabbing the coin. Wrap it tightly with three windings around of red flannel, sprinkling sassafras root chips between each layer as you wind, and sew it tight. Just as the alligator foot holds the coin and won’t let go, so will you be able to save instead of spend” (p. 179).

Sounds like a pretty wonderful charm to know, in my opinion. I’ve not seen anything particularly about burning sassafras as incense, but I did find a book called A Collection of Folklore by Undergraduate Students of East Tennessee State University edited by Thomas G. Burton and Ambrose N. Manning which records a bit of superstition claiming that bad luck comes if you “burn sassafras wood” (p. 74). The lore in this particular collection is all from first-hand sources, so I tend to think it’s got some weight. A similar folklore collection from Kentucky elaborates on this point, saying, “If you burn sassafras wood or leaves, a horse or a mule of yours will die within a week” (from Kentucky Superstitions, #2993). I tend to think this refers to burning wood in a fire or fireplace as opposed to using a little bit of it as incense, but take your chances as you see fit. Particularly if your horses or mules are dear to you.

I hope this post has been of some use to you! Enjoy the slowly waning summer, and get out in the woods to find some sassafras and other plants!

Thanks for reading,

-Cory

Blog Post 42 – Five-finger Grass

Catherine Yronwode calls this “the most popular green, leafy herb in hoodoo” (HHRM, p. 95). It’s known by several names, including Cinquefoil and Tormentil (which is actually a particular species in the broader genus of Potentilla, which also includes Five-finger Grass). This herb, which is not actually a grass, is one of the best to keep around. It’s fairly easy to grow from seed, or from root cuttings as it is a rhizome.

The value of this herb has been known for a long time. Sir Francis Bacon noted that it seemed to attract a particular type of wildlife, saying “The toad will be much under Sage, frogs will be in Cinquefoil” (The Works of Sir Francis Bacon, p. 548). John George Hohman mentions it in his The Long Lost Friend, saying “If you call upon another to ask for a favor, take care to carry a little of the five-finger grass with you,

and you shall certainly obtain that you desired” (Hohman, #14).

This particular herb is a very positive one. It’s used for protection because of its hand-like shape (imagine a hand held up to halt evil in its tracks), but also in love spells, money and luck workings, and even travel magic. Here are some of the basic ways to use it:

Take a pinch of cinquefoil and put it behind a mirror (in the space between the mirror and its backing). Then hang the mirror where it faces your front, or main, door. A landlord or debt collector will be unable to force you from your home, and anyone coming to see you will be predisposed to show you kindness.
Carried with Comfrey Root and Lodestone in a black bag and dressed with Commanding Oil, it prevents you from getting lost in your travels (this spell is from Catherine Yronwode, HHRM, p. 95)
According to Judika Illes’ Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, burning Cinquefoil as incense before bed will let you dream of your lover
Mixed with Deer’s Tongue and Calamus root and powdered, it can be used to dress love letters in order to encourage loving thoughts from your intended.
Putting a pinch of the grass in your wallet or purse will keep you lucky with your money, helping you to spend it wisely, find good bargains, and have luck when you risk it at games of chance.
Add it to a mojo bag with a Lucky Hand Root and an Alligator Foot or Rabbit Foot charm, then feed the bag with Hoyt’s Cologne or another lucky scent for help when you’re playing cards.
Made into a strong tea and used as a floor wash (or combined with another floor treatment like Chinese Wash) Five-finger Grass will remove curses put upon your household. You can also add other protective herbs like Rue or Rosemary to help with this.

Botanical.com mentions that the herb has also had reputed healing qualities ascribed to it for quite some time. In days of yore, it was used to heal aches and sores (esp. those which were ulcerous, such as sores in the mouth), and also to help ease coughs. Today, they say that “the dried herb is more generally now employed, for its astringent and febrifuge properties.”

You can grow or buy this herb, and it’s definitely a good one to have around your front door (remember the protective qualities; it might even keep the Jehovah’s Witnesses away!), if there’s a sunny spot for it—it prefers full sun and does well in rock gardens. It’s got very pretty little yellow flowers, similar to a strawberry plant’s. However you get it, I definitely recommend having it on hand if you are going to be doing hoodoo for luck or money. Or any number of other spells, for that matter. I hope you’ve enjoyed this herb, and this week’s posts!

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 40 – Dirt Dauber Nest

With warmer days just around the bend, lots of our little insect friends are getting out and about. One of the insects I least liked before studying hoodoo was the wasp (having wandered into a nest of them once while trying to get newborn kittens out of a barn, I feel I had some justification for my squeamishness about them). However, hoodoo has given me a new appreciation of at least one kind of wasp: the dirt (or mud) dauber.

This relatively harmless little black wasp (colors vary a bit, but most of the ones I’ve seen have been dark brown to black) likes to build its nests in long “pipes” from mud it gathers near puddles. This has earned the wasp the occasional nickname of “pipe organ wasp,” and its nest is usually described as a pipe organ nest. While the dirt dauber is a keen predator, often hunting spiders which it paralyzes and brings back to its nest for food, it seldom stings people unless provoked. Though I don’t recommend provoking them.

However, if you can find an abandoned mud dauber nest, it’s well worth collecting it and keeping it in a sealed jar (just in case it’s not as abandoned as you thought) or plastic container. Often, individual tubes may be abandoned and can be harvested for use as long as you’re careful not to bother any of the more active tubes.

In folk magic, these nests have all sorts of uses. Once you’ve powdered the nest—an easy task since it crumbles readily—you can add it to hot foot workings, break-up spells, good luck hands, business drawing blends, and lots more. Harry Middleton Hyatt lists several uses of dauber nest in his work, including:

Carrying around a bit of nest in your wallet or purse to draw money and luck (Vol. 2, p.1552)
Adding it to a vinegar jar with a couple’s name paper (names written crossing each other, of course) and red pepper and beef gall in order to break them up (Vol. 2, p. 1513)
Adding it to a Hot Foot working and placing it someone’s shoe to drive them off (Vol.2 , p. 1505)
Mixing it with Graveyard Dirt and Sugar in order to help heal a marriage (the wasps are one of the few where the male wasp stays at the nest to guard it, thus ensuring that the “family” is safe and united, which is probably why the dauber is associated with a faithful marriage) (Vol. 2, p. 1325)
Adding Dauber Nest to Graveyard Dirt and throwing it on train tracks to kill someone (there’s more to it than this, of course, but I’d rather not get too into that here) (Vol. 2, p. 1089)

Catherine Yronwode mentions many spells involving Dauber Nest in her book, including spells to destroy an enemy, control an errant husband, and draw new customers to a business. This last spells involves mixing the nest with Grains of Paradise and sprinkling the powder around the business, as high as you can. According to Yronwode, because daubers build their nests up high, it symbolizes success.

As a final bit of folklore, if you happen to have daubers building nests on your front porch, leave them there. They will bring peace and protection to the home, and it can be fun to watch them build their nests on a summer day over a glass of iced tea.

Thanks for reading!

-Cory