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

Carlos Esteban Deive is a respected writer and intellectual in the Dominican Republic. His book Vodu y Magia en Santo Domingo is a great resource for information about Latin American magical practices. He talks at one point of love spells and of rituals involving the Anima Sola. As I'm reading along, with my rather poor Spanish, I become excited to see him describe a Guatamalan prayer to the Anima Sola which he says involves a " sacrificio de un animal. " This is new! I want to see this unusual ritual, as it might shed some fresh light on the Anima Sola's history and behaviors in the region. I keep reading, in Spanish:  En esta oración, la mujer que desea conocer el hombre que habrá de ser su esposo atará dos pequeñas ramas de álamo blanco a sus medias con una cinta de hilo del mismo color. Colocará después la medias debajo de la almohada al momento de acostarse y frotándose la sangre con el animal sacrificado, un abullide(?), recitará el siguiente tex...

Robert Burns' poem Halloween is a delightful snapshot of 18th-century Scottish life, offering a vivid, lively portrayal of the folk customs practiced during the October (or, on the old calendar, November) holiday.  But unlike the commercialized Halloween we often think of today, Burns takes us back to a time when the holiday was all about superstitions, fortune-telling, and celebrating community. Written in 1785, Halloween captures a variety of activities that were common in rural Scotland during the festival, which originated in that area of the world. Because it had once been a Celtic New Year festival, many of the practices revolved around trying to glimpse the future -- particularly when it came to that eternal preoccupation of the human mind: love and marriage.  The poem is written in Scots dialect , which might be a bit of a challenge for many readers, but it’s also part of what makes it so authentic. Burns is preserving not just the practices of the time, but also the...