The Spellcaster's Source Hoodoo and Voodoo Witchcraft Blog of Talia Felix

There are a variety of grimoires attributed to King Solomon which date from the middle ages onward. They may even have their origins in a genuine ancient source. Such Solomonic grimoires have impacted hoodoo practice, partly through their dissemination into European magical traditions which were then absorbed into the American hoodoo tradition; and also through direct reprintings of the grimoires, such as those made by De Laurence, which were sold into the American hoodoo market. Even Lewis de Claremont, of Ancient's Book of Formulas fame and probable inventor of the 7 Holy Spirits Bath , composed his own guide to Solomonic conjuring called The Ancient's Book of Magic . Many of the grimoires instruct the practitioner to wear a certain ring while conjuring, with the designs sometimes varying quite wildly from manuscript to manuscript. Some common basic designs include the three above, going from left to right. Solomon's pentalpha. The version used in the oldest kn...

Talismanic magic is used all over the world. In the hoodoo tradition, certain popular European grimoires of the 18th and 19th century made a big impact upon which talismans were favored by American practitioners. The recognition that not everyone in the 18th or 19th century could read is an important consideration when relating how these talismans were used. Owen Davies in his history book Grimoires remarks that merely owning a grimoire was commonly believed to bestow special powers to the owner, even if he or she could not actually read its content. Even today, many magical talismans contain writing in languages that a practitioner might not be able to read or understand, yet they copy these foreign phrases to the best of their ability. Above we have the Fifth Pentacle of Mars, as put in L.W. De Laurence's 1914 edition of The Key of Solomon the King . (I choose this edition for being a traditionally popular one amongst hoodoo practitioners, even if many people are ho...

One man saith: I am normal; neither spirits nor mortals rule over me! Yet he hath only boasted as a foolish man, who would say the same thing. Another saith: Behold my wisdom! The highest spirits discourse through me. Yet he knoweth not whether it be true or not. Neither does any of them know the fountain of wisdom. For if an evil spirit saith it through them, the spirit himself is made up of borrowed knowledge and falsehood. I talked to a great philosopher one day, and he said: There are no Gods, nor Lords, nor angels, nor any Great Person like Jehovah. Everything is spirit. He showed me a book he had, and I asked: Who made the book? He said: I made it; nay, I made not the cloth, nor the binding; I mean, I made the philosophy that is in the book; nay, I made not the philosophy, but found it; nay, it was not lost; I mean I led myself to find the philosophy; nay, a man cannot lead himself; I mean that I searched and found what was new to me. So that but little of that book was his, a...

L.W. De Laurence was born in 1868 in Ohio. By the time of his death 68 years later, he'd become one of the most influential occultists around the world. He is often despised for his blatant book-pirating of works by people like S.L. MacGregor Mathers: a loophole in US copyright laws at the time allowed him to reprint new books by British authors as if they were in the public domain. Since he had already built up a reputation for himself as a hypnotist, to make these books more sellable from his company, he would doctor the text so that his own name was listed as author. This caused the name De Laurence to be associated with some of the most respected magical texts of the 19th and 20th centuries. His mail-order occult business ensured these texts were spread around the globe, and consequently so was his reputation. In fact, De Laurence is better known outside of the US than he is within his homeland, due to the spread of his merchandise. Eventually, occult products became ...

The original recipe for cologne was reputedly given to St. Elizabeth of Hungary by an angel -- the concoction was known as "Hungary Water" and was used primarily as a medicine, rather than just a mere fragrance. Charles Godfrey Leland remarked that it therefore was appropriate hoodoo practitioners would use such a substance for feeding their conjure bags and other talismans. The term cologne actually comes from a later preparation, Cologne Water (named for the German city.) The original Cologne Water is a spirit-citrus perfume launched in 1709 by Giovanni Maria Farina (1685–1766), an Italian perfume maker from Santa Maria Maggiore Valle Vigezzo, Italy. In 1708, Farina wrote to his brother Jean Baptiste: "I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils and orange blossoms after the rain". He named his fragrance Cologne Water, in honour of his new hometown. The Original Cologne Water composed by Farina was used on...

The so-called Obeah Bible of De Laurence was mostly copied from the 19th century book The Magus , which itself was largely copied from the works of Agrippa . Though very European in origin, De Laurence marketed his books well in countries like Jamaica and parts of Africa, with the result that his publications and his formulas often supplanted the traditional folk magic of the regions. There are numerous recommendations about what herbs and colors to use for each sign of the zodiac ( you can find some of the alternatives in this previous post ) but here are the recommended herbs according to De Laurence's book: ARIES Ginseng TAURUS Upright Vervain [n.b.: regular vervain] GEMINI Bending Vervain [n.b.: probably Small Scabious] CANCER Comfrey LEO Ladies' Seal VIRGO Calamint LIBRA Forget-Me-Not SCORPIO Mugwort SAGITTARIUS Pimpernel CAPRICORN Dock AQUARIUS Tarragon PISCES Pipevine Zodiac herbs can be used by adding them to spells where a per...

I'd written once before, just a little, on De Laurence and his influential Great Book of Magical Art and Hindu Magic (aka The Obeah Bible .) It's interesting to see early uses of common hoodoo ingredients, like when I found 17th century references to lodestone and swallow's heart love spells in Wecker. De Laurence -- plagiarizing from The Magus , which was itself plagiarizing from earlier sources -- brings up the first mention I've seen of black cat and black dog hair for a breakup spell, in the following: ...for divorce and separation of the man from the woman, make a seal of red copper, being the image of a dog biting his tail; and then perfume it [ id est , smoke it in an incense] with the hair of a black dog and a black cat. Interestingly, some of these "seals" that De Laurence/Barret describes in the Great Book, I've seen described elsewhere as being more like poppets or voodoo dolls (in this case, a copper state of a dog biting its tail.) I...

Not so long ago, running water on tap was not all that common a thing. This was especially the case for folks living in poor or rural areas -- like your basic old-time hoodoo practitioner was like to be. The habit of finishing a traditional hoodoo bath spell by way of chucking the water out into a road or river probably seemed more logical when a "bath" didn't mean a giant porcelain tub full of liquid. It meant a sponge and a bucket. Perfumes and scented herbs apparently were even still added when using this washbucket method -- maybe this is why some old spells instruct to use what seem pointlessly miniscule amounts of oils or soaps in the baths ("three drops" etc.) In any event, have fun and use what you can from this data. According to Chavasse's  Advice to a Wife and Advice to a Mother on the Management of her own Health,  a spongebath should be done as follows: [One needs:] (1.) A large nursery basin, one that will hold six or eight ...