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Hoodoo

06:58 / 20.07.01

Anybody into hoodoo and related folk magic?

It's something I've become very interested in lately having just figured out where the local botanicas are. I've been incorporating various hoodoo type stuff into my sorcery to interesting effect and it works great as props for accessing good magical headspace.

I love the way you can buy banishing aerosol spray and stuff. Once you buy into the paradigm and accept that the tackyness of some of the products is all part of the system, you find yourself with access to an entire magical store cupboard of useful ingredients.

On the surface it's just like 'candle magic' and can be easily frowned upon by high flown ceremonial magician types, but the fact of the matter is it works. Despite the smirks of chaos magicians, new age candle magic does seem to have a reasonable success rate, and hoodoo is basically an amped version of that.

Fairly hard to get any decent information on it though, beyond Jim Haskins book "Voodoo & Hoodoo" which is interesting but contains a lot of stuff like "ensure success in gambling by keeping a live toad in a bottle and pouring oil over it before a game" which isn't really the sort of thing I'm after.

The website www.luckymojo.com has some really interesing stuff on it as well, and is probably a good enough foundation to base hoodoo practice upon, but doesnt go quite far enough in my opinion.

There's also the first chapter in Bertiaux's book (see other thread) which seemed very interesting when I glanced through it awhile back but I can't really remember it's contents.

I think this sort of thing is really the essence of sorcery in it's archetypal sense, using the props and ingredients of hoodoo to access a witchy headspace that sigil magic in it's modernism doesnt quite reach. Of course, no reason why you can't combine the two.

Anyone got anything to say on the subject of hoodoo?

13:51 / 20.07.01

I've read it, but I've never tried it.

I'd like to do the crossroads thing, though. Just to see the Dark Man arrive.

15:26 / 20.07.01

I like the "Money Blessing Spray". I'm still trying to talk my boss into letting me spray it around here...he likes the "kitschy" factor of having something like that around as a conversation piece, but as a pious Muslim, he's a bit, ah, nervous about the concept.

"What if it works???

" he asked.

'It would be the Will of Allah, then

" I replied.

He's still mulling it over...

Mordant Carnival

18:02 / 20.07.01

*smirks*

Actually, I've had some pretty decent results using candle-magic.

Yeah... I was wondering about the effectiveness or otherwise of off-the-peg voodoo goodies. There's a super little place near me which serves the local community in the matter of aromatherapy oils, seven-armed candelabras and dragon's blood soap.

What the hell- if the stuff doesn't work, it'll make my flat look cool.

18:44 / 20.07.01

Could you be so kind as to provide a basic intro. to candle magic, while the topic has come up>?

Mordant Carnival

21:34 / 20.07.01

quote:Originally posted by HunterWolf:
Could you be so kind as to provide a basic intro. to candle magic, while the topic has come up>?

Ok: but you should know a couple of things here. First off, it's a while since I did any candle magic; I had some occult down-time, then got into other methods.

Second off, there's more than one way to skin this particular cat. Candle rituals of one kind or another are ten-a-penny.

Since this was back in the day when I was young and still had a headfull of new-age clap-trap, I based my workings around the four elements. Y'know: Earth for material gain, Water for creative stuff, Air for academic endevour. Can't recall what fire was for offhand. Love, I think.

I'd write a little spell, usually in terrible verse libre, detailing what it was I was after in suitably, y'know, magical-sounding terms.

I'd set up my incredible collapsing altar as follows:
Cover altar with the appropriately coloured silk cloth (Earth= green, Water=blue, Air=yellow, Fire=red)

You could have little incence going in the backround, just for the atmos value.

Take four coloured candles to represent the four elements. Arrange them in a square. Take a fifth candle, coloured according to whatever your spell is for, and put it in the middle of the square. Light the suckers, courteuosly acknowledging the various elemental powers as you do so.

Now, I think the next part is where the serious magic got done. I'd recite my homebrewed charm, then I'd stare into the flame of the central candle whilst focussing my mind on whatever it was I wanted. I'd stare at the flame until the only things that occupied my mind were the candle and my objective. Then I'd burn the spell up in the central candle, tidy up, chuck salt-water around, generally get my head togther.

Sometimes it didn't work, usually because I'd written spells like "let me win the poetry competition, oh, unless there's somebody else who deserves to win more than I do or needs the money or something."
Genrally I got some sort of a result, though.

Oh, BTW: If you don't want to spring for overpriced coloured candles, buy cheap white ones and paint them with waterbased paint mixed with soap.

Have fun.

[ 21-07-2001: Message edited by: Mordant Carnival ]

10:19 / 21.07.01

quote:Originally posted by grant:
I've read it, but I've never tried it.

I'd like to do the crossroads thing, though. Just to see the Dark Man arrive.

Any more info on this?

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

11:31 / 21.07.01

quote:Now if Tom was living, he'd tell you. He said the reason he knowed so much, said he sold hisself to the Devil. I asked him how. He said, "If you want to learn how to play anything you want to play and learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar and you go where a road crosses, where a crossroad is. Get there, be sure to get there just a little 'fore twelve o'clock that night so you know you'll be there. You have your guitar and be playing a piece sitting there by yourself. You have to go by yourself and be sitting there playing a piece. A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar, and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you."
Rev. LaDell Johnson about his brother, Mississippi blues singer Tommy Johnson

According to legend, Robert Johnson, King of the Mississippi Blues sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the gift of the blues. As the story goes, the young bluesman was not satisified with his own musical abilities and felt that he needed more talent to achieve success. He was already bitter toward his creator, blaming God for the death of his beloved wife and unborn child. Despondent and irrational, he made a momentous decision. At the stroke of midnight, he walked down to the windswept crossroads at the junction of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, MS. Reciting an ancient incantation, he called upon Satan himself to rise from the fires of Hell. In exchange for Johnson's immortal soul, the devil tuned his guitar, thereby giving him the abilities which he so desired. From then on, the young bluesman played his instrument with an unearthly style, his fingers dancing over the strings. His voice moaned and wailed, expressing the deepest sorrows of a condemned sinner.

He died on August 16th, 1938 after drinking from a bottle of whiskey that might have been poisoned. Either that or the Dark Man came along and took his soul.

quote: Early this mornin'
When you knocked upon my door
Early this mornin', ooh
When you knocked upon my door
And I said, "Hello Satan,
I believe it's time to go."

"Me And The Devil Blues" - ROBERT JOHNSON

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

11:33 / 21.07.01

Tommy Johnson (no relation to Robert) appears as a character in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", by the way.

06:28 / 23.07.01

It was actually Tommy Johnson who was said to have made the deal at the crossroads, the story got attached to Robert Johnson by journalists because he was a more famous bluesman than his contempary Tommy. Robert never actually made the crossroads claim though. That's why Tommy appears in "O brother where art thou" rather than Robert.

You can read more about this and find out loads more info on the crossroads ritual at this website:
http://www.luckymojo.com/crossroads.html

06:57 / 24.07.01

Cool. Thanks guys!

The Mr E suprise

11:38 / 24.07.01

Meeting the devil on the crossroads is a modern version of a fairly old ritual / superstition.

The way it was told to me when I was young was that on the stroke of midnight (and the timing had to precise) you stood at a cross roads, and presented a bowl of milk and a cake.

You left them on the crossroads, and went home, alone.

You had to cook the cake yourself, mixing it whilst singing the thing you want, (fairies like songs).

Crossroads are in a load of old folk rituals. People are meant to be burying something, hanging something or standing looking lost at them, and bumping into the devil/death/the fey/fay.

11:48 / 24.07.01

And of course, before there was the Devil, there was Hecate.

13:10 / 24.07.01

That Lucky Mojo Curio Companysite has lots of useful info on traditional and modern hoodoo practices. Check out the Hohman book and the other "mail-order grimoires".

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

20:06 / 25.07.01

So yahs make this cake, yeh? So while you're making the cake you turn your desires into an abstract sorta song thing, couase you know, that's what the faeries like. So once you do this cake-makin' and singin' yeh take it and some milk and leave it at the crossroads, yeh?

And den ya forget about it? And den the fair-folk come and help ye out, yeh?

Sounds like Sigil Magick to me.

Mordant Carnival

04:40 / 26.07.01

You mean.... fairies are making my sigils work?

Blank Faced Avatar

04:47 / 27.07.01

But for the most insightful and measured exploration of this mythology, the serious scholar should reference "Crossroads"(1986)Ralph Macchio, Joe Senecca, Stevie Vai D:Walter Hill.
A more complete transmutation of these mysteries cannot be found: And indeed, the film comprises such a nexus of raw spiritual power, that while watching we feel nervous that we may invoke Mr.'Skratch' - ( whom some perceptive viewers claim may possibly represent some kind of link to the devil ) - ourselves by the power of immersion in such a whirlwind of pure emotion. For these reasons, the movie in question should not be viewed by any adept not yet attuned to the seventy-seventh level of consciousness.

10:07 / 27.07.01

Quite an entertaining little film that one , apart from the dubious casting decision of having the fucking karate kid as the main character.

Also the cheesy 80's gimmick of having the duelling banjo's scene replaced with electric guitars is a tad cringe worthy.

Interesting in that the 'Skratch' character first appears in the film under the name of Legba though.

More props (whatever they are) must go to the Coen Brothers though, for getting the Tommy Johnson thing right.

10:18 / 27.07.01

quote:Originally posted by The Mr E suprise:
(fairies like songs).

but don't forget they don't like iron...

10:39 / 27.07.01

speaking of iron, that cat yronwode gets everywhere, doesn't she?

The Mr E suprise

11:01 / 27.07.01

Well, it's a cat. One minute its in perpetual wednesday, the next it's underneath your seat, just as your sitiing down......

Unconditional Love

17:05 / 06.01.05

id like to learn about hoodoo, and id like a book list if anybody would be so kind, also id like to know where to begin. anyone?

Charlie's Horse

02:18 / 08.01.05

Lessee...

I think the best thing you can do is avoid buying a book for as long as possible, because two web sources outshine most of the literature I've found locally. Just check out Cat Yronwode's site (Lucky Mojo) and Gypsy Lantern's wonderful lecture at Phil Hine's site. You'll want to read everything under 'Hoodoo in Theory and Practice' at the Lucky Mojo site as well as every syllable of GL's lecture - not because you have to, but because they're very rich sources of information. Double chocolate cake rich. Fo real.

If you absolutely must buy a book, Zora Neal Hurston's "Mules and Men" has lots of African-American folklore in its first half; the second half is dedicated to her personal initiations and workings in Hoodoo. Good stuff.

Beginning stuff - I've been making my own condition oil and dressing candles, then burning them and focusing intently upon my desired result (typically over self-set number of nights; 5 to 9). Relatively simple, but if your condition oils contain traditional ingredients as well as stuff you've found on a drift, it becomes quite involving.

Has anyone else seen Crossroads? Sounds like it's worth buying. Too bad it shares its name with that Britney Spears monstrocity.

Reading through this thread feels so retro.

03:29 / 08.01.05

In addition to luckymojo.com, I recommend cat yronwode's book Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic. It's an encyclopedic book that (in conjunction with the basics provided by Hoodoo in Theory and Practice, online) will give you plenty to work with.

~L

11:34 / 08.01.05

Reading Charlie's Horse answer, I can't help smiling as I really think Stephen and Gipsy Lantern are one and the same person..
at three and half years of distance...
May be wrong on this one... but I don't think so.

13:38 / 08.01.05

Oh, and for some old-time sources, check out cat's companion site, Southern Spirits. It's a growing archive of old writings about hoodoo - magazine articles from the 1800's, etc. All the practical information you can get better from luckymojo, but it's a great site for historical context. [Note: many of the articles were written from a distinctly "Superior White Outsider's" point of view, with the distortions one might expect, but cat includes a lot of commentary to separate likely fact from fiction.]

~L

Unconditional Love

12:02 / 09.01.05

i think your right louise, thanks for all the great info everyone has given, i have alot of catching up to do.

Unconditional Love

22:25 / 10.01.05

Hoodoo Bible : Complete Compendium of Folk Magick
H. Slater

anybody ever read this, published by magickal childe.

?

12:10 / 11.01.05

I haven't seen Slater's "Hoodoo" book, but I'm somewhat familiar with his Magickal Formulary, and he doesn't impress me as a font of rootwork knowledge. Slater has a bad rep in hoodoo circles where his name is known -- his so-called hoodoo formulas have a tendency to be crap, without any basis in the established tradition, or any internal logic. He also plagarizes extensively (I have some links to back this up, uh, somewheres - I'll try to find them and post).

~L