Bone Reading Nonsense

I'll make this post short and sweet. Hey, I tried.

1) Casting the bones is not done with fucking chicken bones. I don't care who taught you this online, or what book you read it in, or what "hoodoo course/class" you learned it in. It's done with opposum or raccoon bones. These two animals are said to "walk between two worlds", this and the spirit world. The information divined from the bones is provided by one's ancestors, which is why these animals with strong ties to the spirit world are used. Not friggin' chickens. The ancestors may more easily physically manipulate the bones and affect the way they fall. Which brings us to the next point...

2) Bone reading is almost nothing like tarot/other cards, runes, or crystal gazing/scrying. You can't just decide to learn it. In real life, in real conjure, there are very, very few people who read the bones. I've never met anyone who does it, everything I know, I know from older family members and workers. Here's what I know: It's mostly a family tradition, and only taught to one or two members of each generation. The bones are passed down in the family and readers are generally middle-aged to older. The reader doesn't just interpret the bones like tea leaves, it is a process of communing with and receiving information from their ancestors.

3) This is what no one wants to hear, but they need to hear it. You are not just entitled to whatever you want. You are not just entitled to learn conjure. These online marketers who are willing to teach anyone anything, so long as they have the cash, are poison. No, it isn't "great" that they're bringing "hoodoo" to a new generation. They're selling a dressed up patch-work of second-hand information, mix 'n match pagan/Asian/African Traditional religions, and a culture of product dependency. It's just so arrogant and disrespectful to treat other peoples' cultures and beliefs like a buffet, where you can just load your plate up with whatever looks good.

Doing everyday folk magic--such as carrying a buckeye for good luck--is one thing, but when one assumes they have a right to learn things so deeply rooted in the blood and ancestry of the people who practice it, they have absolutely crossed the line.

4) This style of bone reading is unique to conjure/hoodoo. It seems that many people online think it's acceptable to mix and match conjure and ATRs "because it's all African". They go and "learn" other forms of bone divination and still call everything they do hoodoo. Here is a great article explaining the harm caused by this, as well as how to spot everything-but-the-kitchen-sink frauds.

Hoodoo is not Vodou/Santaria/Palo/etc "minus the religion" or "just the magic". It is a separate folk-magic and healing practice that is a combination of mostly African American, Native American, and Scots Irish influences.

5) Lastly, if someone is teaching or providing fake chicken bone reading, think long and hard about just how authentic the rest of their work is. A silly "certification" means nothing.

Cultural appropriation and deceitfulness are never ok.

(I wanted to include a link to Dolly Parton's "These Old Bones", but the only quality video on youtube no longer exists.)

Kill 'Em with Kindness

I'm so tired of, and disturbed by, the way that people online take things like goofer dust and hot foot power so lightly, using them for every perceived slight. Let me tell you the truth about this, because the marketers selling these products sure aren't:

-Just because you're not under the aegis of a Rede or Three Fold Law or "karma" (I hate when people use that word wrong), that does NOT mean you are not held to a code of ethics. Real conjure is Christian-based, it's not a free-for-all. Thou shalt not kill, bitches.
-You can't goofer someone "just a bit" or "just until they leave me alone" because that type of work is always a call for death. The person can die before you release them, and you may be unable to release them.
-You CANNOT prevent unjustified bad works from reversing to you by just doing a cleansing and/or protection work. This bullshit (yeah, that's right) about doing a hyssop bath while reciting Psalm 51 after any bad work has got to stop. Psalm 51 is for people who are truly penitent, not people looking for a "Get Out of Jail" card.
-Tricks lain can hurt more than just the intended targets. Let me repeat. TRICKS LAIN CAN HURT MORE THAN JUST THE INTENDED TARGETS. You can even cross yourself up.
-Using graveyard dirt from anyone but your ancestors is like playing Russian Roulette.
-Bad work is only justified for the most extreme of circumstances. Rapists, abusers, sexual predators, and other evil and criminal people. If you go and hot foot a rude/annoying neighbor, you have acted unjustly.
-You can't hot foot someone and then send them good work to cancel it out. The effects can last for years. You just might make them even more miserable, manifesting good things which they are unable to hold due to their mental distress.

There is really so much more, I will write more about unjustified work in another post.

When someone is troubling you, but death work and banishment is unjustified, what is one to do? Well, try some positive work before anything else. Let's look at some examples:

1) Someone is very jealous of you because you make more money than them. You've done protection work, maybe you even wear an evil eye charm, but their behavior is still upsetting. Instead of crossing them up, why not do some money work for them? Try for them to have a steady income, job success, financial security. Once they're happier, they may well leave you alone.

2) Someone wants your significant other. They flirt with them and try to break the two of you up. You've done work to protect your relationship. Fixing this is the same principle as above: you help that person to get what will make them happy. In this case, try doing some love work for the other person. Try for them to meet a new love, whom they will be happy with.

3) Someone is just a bastard to you, and you don't know why. For this you need to be totally honest with yourself. Are you really, truly blameless? Don't brush anything off as insignificant or "not that bad"... what seems small to you may indeed be a big deal to the person who now hates you. Swallow your pride and apologize to them. That may be all this situation takes to fix itself. Maybe you really are blameless, this person is just mean and miserable. Try for them to be healed of the things that cause them to act out. Try for them to be happy at home and successful at work. Do some sweetening work on them. Not those damn honey jars, try rolling candles in sugar or drizzling around them with syrup or honey. You can also stand a taper up in a small bowl or teacup of sweetened condensed milk and syrup or honey, working it for a few nights before disposing of the liquid and wax near where they live. These methods are much more traditional and work much faster.

Instead of jumping right to bad work, you should always look for positive ways to work a situation. Many, many times people are just acting out because they are hurting or they have a void in their life. Not only will you prevent yourself from getting crossed up, but you will actually fix the problem.

Why We Need To Preserve Our "Superstitions"

I can always tell when someone is just parroting what they've learned online/in books/from some silly "hoodoo course". They might know some of the magic, but they have no history, no point of reference. People are being taught by "workers" who were themselves self-taught, and those "workers" focus only on the "magic". They might know a few "superstitions", but they write them off, thinking they're not important. They are wrong wrong wrong.

Our "superstitions" are absolutely a part of conjure. They are part of its heart and soul. They help one to understand why we do certain things the way we do. One can learn the use of every root, memorize all the Psalms... but if you don't understand why my dad won't take the boat out on a day with a red sunrise, or why my mom blesses herself every time she passes a cemetery or funeral procession, or why I never scratch my right palm when it itches, then you don't truly understand conjure.

It's the difference between someone who went to school for 4 years to become a French chef and a French person who has been raised on the cuisine. The person raised on it knows it inside and out intuitively. They also know things not taught in school, like food etiquette and taboos. That's not to say the one with the degree can't become a great chef, but it takes years of immersion to truly get it.

Who Will Cry For The Raccoons?

I have a natural gift for working with spirits of all kinds, including animal spirits. Not everyone who works with spirits works with animal spirits. In fact, some people are simply unable to. If you do have a knack for it, try to be mindful of how you connect with them. Using animal parts is a very old part of conjure, but the methods of obtaining those parts today is so very different from back in the early days of conjure. Whereas a "coon dong" (a raccon baculum, the "penis bone") would have been obtained via responsible hunting*, in which both the meat and fur were used, today most people buy them through marketers. The marketers obtain large amounts of these wholesale as cast-offs from the HORRIFIC fur industry.

I find it so hypocritical that people make a huge fuss and cry about how evil the black cat bone ritual is, then turn around and support an industry dedicated to that same kind of cruelty! In fact (and first let me tell you I am a cat lover and I work with Cat) because the black cat bone's purported gift of invisibility would be absolutely invaluable to an escaping slave, I see this indifference to the suffering, torture, and slaughter of animals by the fur industry and the people who support it as MORE evil. Who will cry for the raccoons? Who will cry for the foxes? Who will cry for the wolves? Who will cry for the coyotes?

There are many campaigns which aim to end the fur industry. Way too many people instantly think of PETA when they hear people about this kind of thing and instantly stop listening. The Humane Society of the United States has an excellent campaign one can donate to.

No animal should have to suffer and die just for you to have good luck at the casino or a spicier sex life. There are so many amazing plants whose roots, leaves, flowers, and other parts do an exceptional job at both of those things, and anything else your heart desires. Marketers need to be held accountable for their support of such needless, evil practices. They buy big wholesale lots of the bones, teeth, and fur of raccoons, wolves, foxes, coyotes, lynxes, badgers, and other fur-industry animals for pennies per piece, then turn around and resell them for a huge mark-up. It's all about money money money.

In my next post, I will show you many wonderful cruelty-free ways to connect to animal spirits and welcome their powers into your life.

*Please take special note of this important distinction. There are many people who hunt and use everything they kill. They are not trophy hunters. I am not opposed to people who utilize the skins and bones of their food. Humans are omnivores, and RESPONSIBLE hunting is far better than the nearly equally cruel factory farming industry.

Blog Feature: "The Greatest Conjure Book In the World"

In her book "Mules and Men", Zora Neale Hurston refers to the Bible as "the greatest conjure book in the world" and nothing could be more true. I might not consider myself Christian, but I was raised in a Catholic family and I respect that conjure is, and always has been, a Christian-based magic. This is a bit confusing to outsiders, the idea that something can be non-religious but Christian at the same time. In conjure, it is believed that one's power comes from God, one works with the spirits (including the spirits of nature) to achieve one's goals and God's will, and the reason why this magic is good is *because* it is a gift from God. It's because of this that conjure is actually not compatible with pagan religions like Wicca.

Let me put it this way... if my mom were to walk in on me lighting a candle to St. Jude, she would ask me about what I was doing, offer to pray with me, and further offer to have her friend, Reverend "Pearl", pray for me as well "because you know Reverend Pearl's prayers always work!" She'll chant to St. Anthony while searching for something without batting an eye. She's got a lucky horseshoe. But if that same candle was to Apollo, she'd have a fit that I was practicing witchcraft. See, the tools and ritual would be the same, but since it isn't through God, it's considered witchcraft and not conjure. Conjure is not witchcraft. But more on that in another post.

I personally consider myself... well, Spiritualism is closest, but it's not a perfect fit. I wear an Isis pendant, but I don't worship her as a god the way one would in a pagan religion... I work with her as a spirit, a spirit of a devoted wife and mother who "really knows how to keep her man together."* I honor the spirits of my ancestors and dearly departed friends. I work with the spirits of nature, found in plants and animals and rocks and places. I work with Jesus, spiritually. I work with several other spirits and Spirit guides me every day. I believe in respect for nature and other people and that those who go around preaching hate like "God hates gays!" are poison.

I of course don't have a problem with any pagan religions themselves (aside from the fluffy bunny mix-n-match Borg incarnation of Wicca/NeoWicca) but I do have a problem with people being taught that because conjure is not a religion, it's anything you want it to be. The people who say it is just want your money. It's not ok to march in and start appropriating someone else's culture just because you find it exotic or you think that just because it "speaks to you", you have a right to it. I think Buddhist malas are beautiful but it would be wrong of me to order one and start carrying it around; they are sacred to the religion and culture they come from. You can't just take what you like and leave out what you don't.

God is a part of conjure. The Bible is a part of conjure. If you want to learn conjure, you've got to accept that we work with God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, The Bible, and prayer. Some of us work with angels. Some of us work with saints, but it's not quite as prolific as the online community would have you think. Just because I, personally, after growing up Catholic and spiritualist, do not believe in God proper (that's a whole other post), that does not mean I'm going to 1) teach conjure wrong, 2) teach you that it's ok for YOU to not believe in God, Jesus, Spirit, or ANYTHING and insert whatever religion you like. [11/27 Edit: To be clear, I mean this purely in the context of conjure. Of course it's ok for you to practice religion freely! It's just not ok for you to attempt to rework and rewrite generations of tradition and cast aside the spiritual foundation of conjure. If you are unwilling to adapt, you must find something compatible with your own beliefs.]

Now that I've said what's needed to be said...

YES, if you can afford only ONE book in your conjure library, THE BIBLE is the one! Powerful prayers and charms are found in books such as Psalms, there is information about rootwork and incense, it's used in a form of divination called bibliomancy, it's used in ritual, and the book itself is carried or placed under the bed/pillow for powerful protection against evil. It doesn't matter whether your Bible is a gorgeous, brand-new, leather-bound beauty with gold leaf edges, or a tatty and well-loved charity shop find. It's the content and what it is that matters. As far as translations go, there's no hard and fast rule about what you MUST have, but the King James Version is very traditional and many classic books utilized in conjure rely on the KJV. Older Catholics may prefer the Douay-Rheims Bible.

"The Greatest Conjure Book In the World" will be a recurring feature here on Coyote Moon Conjure. At least once each week, you can look forward to prayers, recipes, herb and plant magic, and other traditional conjure straight from the Bible. I will be writing about bibliomancy, as well as the many other ways the Bible itself is used in conjure works. It won't be long before you understand for yourself why the Bible really is the greatest conjure book in the world!

*My boyfriend once quipped about Isis, "Now there's a woman who really knows how to keep her man together." I died :D

Pet Peeve: "Cut And Clear"

I have been itching to write about this for quite some time. All over the internet hoodoo community, people are obsessed with various types of lemon-based lines of products called "Cut And Clear", taken from a certain marketer's original name for their line. The formulas all follow the same basic concept: using lemon as a spiritual cleanser. There's nothing wrong with that part, lemon is fantastic for cleaning up all kinds of messes. The part that I have a problem with is that people are being taught you can "cut" with this formula.

Let me say it loud and clear: IN CONJURE, CLEANSING IS CLEANSING AND CUTTING IS CUTTING. You might be about to argue with me that the "cutting" part is just a figure of speech, like when you "cut" or sever ties with someone. This is not so in conjure, where the concept of "cutting" is becoming erased because it's not something marketers can make an oil/sachet/powder/incense/bath out of and sell for a huge profit. In conjure, we literally use sharp objects (knives, axes, hatchets, scissors) to CUT away illness, pain, evil attachments, etc. If someone is sick in bed, you would place the sharp object under the bed to cut away the sickness. If a woman is in labor, you would place the sharp object under the delivery bed to cut her labor pains. To cut someone out of your life, you would literally cut all around you with a knife, praying to cut the ties between the two of you.

AFTER you have done your cutting, you can use all the lemony cleansing products your heart desires. The combination of cutting--totally breaking the hold of something--and then cleansing it away is incredibly effective. If you want to cleanse only, that's fine, but don't let others confuse and erase a very important conjure practice by calling cleansing "cutting".

Start at the Beginning

It's this first post that's delayed this blog for so long. I've felt like I should start with a thorough introduction, including an extensive autobiography, before I even begin to touch on the subject of conjure. Maybe because there's so much mixed-up nonsense online being presented by marketers and "experts", I feel it's important to share what it's like to have a background in conjure that doesn't come from books or (worse) online classes. Actually, the deluge of internet nonsense being passed off as real hoodoo, rootwork, and conjure is exactly what prompted me to write this blog. As I watch all the fascinating folk tradition I've grown up with become distorted and muted, I feel the need to preserve what I can in writing.

So why has this introduction post delayed the start of this blog for almost two years since I first felt moved to create it? Well, besides the enormity of the task, pouring my life out to strangers just feels unnatural. That's not how people get to know each other in person. We don't first sit down and share our life story with strangers so that they can decide whether they want to hear our thoughts and opinions. No, what we say and what we do speaks for itself, and we get to know each other over time. That's how I'd like to work this blog. I've got so much to write about, why rush it?

The stories about learning conjure and folk magic can wait until I actually write about the things I've learned, if that makes sense.

I'm tired of the fake internet hoodoo, full of "spells" like honey jars and mirror boxes (we don't call it a spell, and neither of those are traditional like they're claimed to be), "cut and clear" jobs with no cutting (seriously!), Wiccans/neo-pagans stealing and repackaging conjure, "certified experts" (HA!), repackaged material from Harry M. Hyatt, and marketers who will do anything to get everyone hooked on their mass-produced products, destroying real conjure in the process. I'm tired of the laziness and entitled attitudes. I'm tired of the disconnect from and even disrespect of nature. I'm tired of the "experts" judging that something isn't real/traditional conjure because they didn't read about it in Hyatt's books. I'm tired of people daring to call themselves two-headed doctors when they don't know how to heal medicinally (and half the time they don't do healing work magically!) I'm not saying there are no traditional workers or sites with good information online. There are! The good just tends to get drowned in the sea of nonsense.

It's time for me to stop complaining and start blogging. I hope you, dear readers, enjoy my blog and find it helpful and informative. Always feel free to hit me up with questions and comments.