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

 * A voodoo doll made from feathers bound in place; the strings are slowly unbound and the doll falls apart, bringing destruction to the target. * urine and/or red brick dust used as a scrub on the front steps to keep away evil. * coin and a piece of stale bread for luck in love (no description of how). * revenge bag worn around the waist. * nutmeg, ammonia , sugar , sand, as a floor scrub in a church with low attendance to bring visitors. * a bag of "worthless stones" in a bag, swung by a childless couple as they walk a mile each of 9 mornings, to conceive. * St Joseph's bread baked in alligator molds (same used with the coin for love?). * scrub off doorstep and sprinkle with red brick dust (said to have been common "a generation ago"). * rub (yourself?) with Uncrossing Oil to make any spells put on you go away. * dragon's blood to ward off evil spirits and ghosts ("The concoction was actually powdered bloodroot," adds the writer.) * Van Van Oil ...

  On a freezing night in January 1800, a voice rose from the cellar of a house on the Maine coast and identified itself by name. In a dark London lane in 1804, a man fired a shotgun at what he believed was a ghost and killed a bricklayer dressed in white. In the hills of Tennessee, an invisible entity slapped a twelve-year-old girl unconscious, quoted scripture in multiple languages, and then sang drinking songs at the funeral of the man it claimed to have poisoned. In Cheltenham, a tall woman in black walked the same route through a house for seven years, pausing in the drawing room where a dead woman's jewels were hidden under the floor, while a medical student took notes. In Greenbrier County, West Virginia, a murdered woman appeared at her mother's bedside four nights running and turned her head all the way around on her broken neck to show exactly where her husband's hands had been... These aren't campfire stories. They're sworn depositions, trial transcripts, ...

Before the Demiurge botched the material world, before Sophia made her catastrophic independent decision, before any of the cascading disasters that Gnostic myth uses to explain why existence is the way it is, there was Barbelo — the first emanation of the Invisible Spirit, the divine Mother-Father, the one whose existence preceded every other existence except the one at the top of the hierarchy that is too abstract to be called an existence at all. She is understood as the first self-revelation or ‘thought’ of the Invisible Spirit, which makes her simultaneously the first act of divine self-reflection and the origin of everything that followed, including all the trouble. She is also, depending on which Gnostic text you're reading, a cosmic power, a first principle, a triple-formed divinity who descends through the world three times in different guises, and a figure whose name turns up in magical papyri and on protective amulets. She appears in some of the most important survivi...

One beginning in the tradition of hoodoo should know about the importance of baths. They are vital tools in hoodoo work and cannot be dispensed with.  Many people nowadays don't have bathtubs, and some adaptation can be achieved by way of showers. Other people use a large bowl or bucket of water to pour on themselves in place of a spiritual bath. In olden times, and also in some places today where water on tap isn't common, people will perform their spiritual baths in a river or pond outdoors.  A spiritual bath is similar to a regular bath, but with certain key differences. Spiritual baths are not meant primarily for physical cleansing and so washing items like soap might be taboo depending on the exact bath type. However there are some types of magical bath that do use the multitasking property of soap or other cleansers, and in those cases the cleaning aspect is appropriate to the work. There is some controversy around washing the hair in a spiritual bath. Many people don...

 

from Cuban Folk-Lore by L. Roy Terwilliger In Cuba as in all pro-Catholic countries the natives have a host of saints to whom they attribute various supernatural powers; they are held in greater or less esteem according to the miraculous cures they have achieved or the concessions they have granted their followers. Each family or individual has a special saint to whom they appeal in times of trouble or sickness. Sometimes however when a saint has repeatedly proved inefficient or has failed to grant the wishes of a devotee, it is cast aside or exchanged for one that has been recommended by a friend. It is no unusual thing to hear one lady advising another to try such and such a saint. “Rece á San José, él me ha concedido todo lo que yo le pedí”. Pray to San José he grants all I ask him. There are also a number of saints who are specially efficient in certain diseases or conditions. One always prays to San Blas to cure throat trouble, and young ladies know that San Nicolas with gladly a...

Every now and then someone will tell me they’re a traditional witch — not hoodoo, not ceremonial, not chaos magic or folk practice or anything like that. No, they’ll say, they follow the old ways . And what they mean by that is Wicca. Which is kind of like saying you practice ancient medicine, and then pulling out a bottle of Tylenol. Wicca is not ancient. Not in any historical sense. It is a 20th-century religion that incorporates a few bits of older lore and a lot of Victorian fantasy, welded together with some Margaret Murray and Aleister Crowley, seasoned with folklore-sounding verbiage, and packaged as if it were The Old Religion™. But in truth? It dates to the late 1930s. That’s after cornflakes, after jazz, after the invention of television. This doesn’t mean Wicca is bad. It just means it’s not old. We’re absolutely allowed to like and to practice new things.  There’s also the other small matter of using "Wicca" as a synonym for witchcraft. Because of how language w...

Cats and dogs have been sharing homes with humans for thousands of years, and unsurprisingly, they’ve ended up sharing a place in magical practice as well. Often when people talk about animals and witchcraft, they’re picturing the classic black cat with glowing eyes, or fantasy wizards with their fierce hellhounds. But both cats and dogs have had longer, stranger magical histories than the modern stereotype suggests — and not always as cuddly companions. Let’s start with the obvious: the cat familiar. This is the most recognizable icon in pop culture today, but the origin of the familiar spirit is murky. In early modern Europe, "familiars" were spirits that might take the shape of small animals — cats, ferrets, rats, toads — and do the witch’s bidding. Some believed they were demons in disguise. Others thought they were spirits sent by the Devil.  Cats had long been associated with mystery and nighttime even before this. In ancient Egypt, the cat was a sacred animal, associat...

Many sources online say the oldest pumpkin pie recipe is from the 1670s, but that's because they're specifically seeking American recipes. This 1650s recipe is from a cookbook by "Monsieur Marnette" called  The perfect cook: being the most exact directions for the making all kinds of pastes, with the perfect way teaching how to raise, season, and make all sorts of pies, pasties, tarts, and florentines, &c. now practised by the most famous and expert cooks, both French and English. If you like historical cookery the whole text is worth looking at here, at Early English Books Online.  To make a Tart of the mellow of Pumpkins, Gourds, or of Melons.  Take the mellow of a Pumpkin, or of a Gourd, or Melon, cut it into peeces as small as a Nut, let them be half boyled in the same water which they will yeeld, over a gen∣tle fire, and have a care sometimes to turn and stirre them that they may not burn, or stick to the pot. And that you may have the less trouble with them,...

It's one of those expressions like "familiarity breeds contempt" and "lion's share" that no one uses correctly anymore. From time to time somebody even observes: "Why would you want luck o' the Irish? Historically the Irish have pretty terrible luck." That, friends, is actually key to the saying. Correctly, when someone talks of Irish luck or luck o' the Irish , it doesn't mean luck.  As one 1838 book put it, "Irish luck -- which means anything but chance." In other words, if you say someone got something through Irish luck, it means he got it through something other than being lucky. It might mean hard work, it might mean bribery, it might mean trickery, but not luck. Anything but luck is Irish luck.  Irish author Blindboy Boatclub relates on his podcast the local explanation for the phenomenon: In Limerick we just believe that bad luck happens to us all the time. Nothing can go right for Limerick, and anytime anything go...

Color is one of the most powerful symbolic tools in magic, allowing practitioners to communicate intent and manipulate energies in a way that feels both natural and intuitive. In hoodoo, color symbolism is often utilized in spells of candle magic , mojo bags , and powders and oils . But hoodoo is far from the only tradition where color matters. Many magical systems, such as European folk magic, ceremonial magic, and even pop-culture new age witchcraft — draw on color associations to shape their workings. In old spells, colored objects were difficult to produce; recipes for making the colored cloths, candles etc. were frequently included as part of the magical instruction. Once artificial dyes became commonplace in the 19th century, the magical practice really brightened up and colors became common additions to spellwork.  Red In the oldest African-derived American hoodoo spells, the only commonly mentioned color of importance is  red ; it was used to add power to any spell, ...

This is Conjure Cookbook's recipe for Dark Arts Oil , also called Black Arts oil or Black Magic oil , used to cast wicked and harmful spells upon enemies. patchouli, black pepper, wormwood, valerian root, spanish moss Why no quantities? Because most home practitioners don't use them! Of course if you were to be selling commercial hoodoo formulas you'd want to invent a formal recipe for yourself, but magic doesn't require scientific level measurements. Add the items in whatever amounts feel right to you. This is the secret of magic! You can find more recipes for occult ritual oils in The Conjure Cookbook , which includes even these harmful recipes which many books of witchcraft deliberately leave out!  There are a few magical recipes that I know but did not include within the  Conjure Cookbook.  I wish I could say it was due to some grand scheme like wishing to prevent the careless from misusing such knowledge or trying to protect occult secrets, but frankly, i...