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.)

Syrup

 

I just love retro packaging.

People used to use the syrup from preserved fruit.

 I do the same, both with fruit I've canned myself, and canned fruit.

Guys, it's time to break free from the honey jar madness. Honey jars are not some traditional, ultra-powerful trick that's been used for over 100 years... they're something made-up by a marketer a few years ago which have exploded in their popularity. When the honey jar work was first posted, people were only really using them for love, reconciliation, family, in-laws. Now I see them being used for every single thing, even domination and success in school work. Some people don't even want to learn anything else!

Honey is slow-running and comparatively expensive. 100+ years ago, it was even more expensive, most all of the people practicing conjure could not afford it. My great grandmother and a few other farmers in my family kept apiaries, so I do have a certain fondness for honey, but honey was never used so wastefully as it is in a honey jar. You don't need a whole jar of the stuff to sweeten people! Honey is really not appropriate for many long-term goals. Since honey runs slow and gets thicker over time and in the cold months, it holds things and makes them stick. If you try doing a honey jar for riches, you aren't going to grow your wealth exponentially. You'll really just sweeten money to you for a bit and then hold what you have.

One of the sites with instructions for creating honey jars lists a few different sweeteners that can me used, and on this list they've put molasses. When I first read that, let me tell you my mouth fell open and I actually said "Nooooo!" out loud. Molasses can be used to curse, it is the worst possible choice for this type of work.

I was taught to work with sugar and syrup. I roll candles in sugar all the time. In fact, I have a post on sugar coming up where I'll talk about a little trick only I use. Mama Starr at Old Style Conjure was the first to put the truth out there about sweeteners, she's got a great article on her site you should read.

Syrup is awesome to use. It's sweet, viscous, and cheap. It doesn't matter whether it's real maple syrup or just flavored corn syrup, it's all sweet. Many people also used the syrup from fruit they had preserved. Canned fruit in syrup is really cheap, you can use the syrup strained off of that as well.

I like to drizzle a little on a candle and then roll the candle in herbs, then drizzle a little more around the candle on the plate. When doing jobs that utilize fruits or red onions as containers, you can add syrup to give them extra sweetness. You can stand a taper up in a small bowl or teacup of sweetened condensed milk and syrup. There's just so much you can do with it.

If you don't normally keep canned fruit around and you want an "excuse" to strain off some fruit syrup, here's my recipe for ambrosia salad. Drain the syrup well.

Dr. Trixie's Ambrosia Salad

-2 cans of mandarin oranges
-1 can of pineapple chunks
-1 jar of maraschino cherries
-Shredded coconut. Most people use dried or toasted, but I try to use fresh.
-Only a dollop of sour cream if you must add it. And never yogurt!
-Splash of Grand Marnier. This is my secret ingredient: people rave!

Easier than easy. Just combine everything in a large bowl and stir together. One of the most delicious parts of Christmas time!

It also always reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas movies:

 

"I noticed that you have not tasted any of the ambrosia salad I made especially for you."

I also found a great recipe online for true, old-fashioned violet syrup. (I love violet candy.) This would be amazing for love and reconciliation work. It's simple to make, too! This recipe can be adapted to make other edible flower syrups, such as rose and lavender.

Tragedy! (Edit: Now With Audio Aid)

Today we mourn the loss of my beloved, authentic van van oil. I have no idea how the bottle got this strange hole in it :( Just this morning I had an idea to dilute it to stretch it out a bit until I could buy some verbena and the other herbs and oils needed to make my own. This was purchased from a spiritual shop which is no longer in business, so I can't get another. The smell was just transcendent, I will be devastated if I can never match it.

There's something I'd like to educate everyone about. Ok, Van Van is so named because the Creole pronunciation of vervain (verbena) sounds like "veah vahn"†, and this was eventually corrupted into "van van". Some people know this, some don't. It baffles me why the people who know this don't put vervain into their formulas... it's the name of the damn oil! Even the people who fancy themselves grand high masters of hoodoo (yeah, el oh el) leave it out.

Now, some forward-thinking merchants have realised that you can't have Van Van without the van van, and have attempted to fix this. The problem is, every. single. one of them, that I've seen, uses lemon verbena. Lemon verbena is a completely different plant. I guess I can see the logic, if the formula has lemongrass, it must also call for lemon verbena. Lemon verbena was also very popular in turn of the century perfumery. However, it was expensive and rootworkers weren't working with perfume compounds, they were working with mostly wildcrafted and culinary plants.

Lemon verbena wipes your slate clean and sweetly attracts new things to you, especially in matters of love. Bees and butterflies absolutely love this plant! There is a lot of misinformation about lemon verbena going around, with people thinking it's a crossing herb due to a certain person with a big following misinterpreting the mechanics of a break-up job. But I guess that's what happens when you shamelessly plagiarize and try to pass yourself off as a real conjure worker. (Oh, I should stop.) Anyway, lemon verbena is best used situationally. Some things just cleanse so strongly that they pull everything off.

Verbena, on the other hand, has quite a long history of magical and spiritual use. There's the famous True Love Powder*. It was said to have been used to dress Jesus' wounds. It has been used to protect against vampires, witches, ghosts, and other evil creatures. It's mainly used for love-drawing and protection from evil and jinxing. Unlike lemon verbena, verbena is great to use on a continuous basis.

 A good Van Van recipe should look like this (sorry, I never measure, but remember that ingredients are always listed in order of quantity, greatest to least)
-Verbena
-Lemongrass
-Citronella grass (NOT the leafy plant sold as "citronella")
-Palmarosa
-Vetivert

You can use only herbs, but it's difficult to find citronella grass and even more difficult to find palmarosa. At least incorporate as many herbs as you can. You can get everything you need very cheaply from PennHerb and Edens Garden. I have not found undiluted essential oils at a better price than Edens Garden, I'm starting to build up a nice little collection. The Biblical Set (Frankincense, Myrrh, Spikenard) is wonderful, and a great money-saver to boot.

 †Edited to add: I remembered that Google Translate has a text to speech feature, so I checked to see if Louisiana Creole was on its language list. Sadly, no, but the word's pronunciation in Haitian Creole is nearly identical, give it a listen. LA Creole just has an almost inaudible "r".

*Earliest mention I remember seeing of the verbena-mistletoe-elecampane formula is H. U. Lampe's "Famous Voodoo Rituals & Spells", copyright 1974. MANY authors have plagiarized this great little book since its printing, including the certain person I mentioned above. ;)

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.

True Names

Right now, there is a lot of bad information being taught in regards to what name to use for things like petition papers.

Allow me to say this loud and clear:

A PERSON'S TRUE NAME IS THE FULL, LEGAL NAME THEY WERE BORN WITH. 

True names hold power. This is something that spans across just about all cultures. Just look at the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Or DC Comic's Mister Mxyzptlk.

I am such a geek, I know.

I've seen people online be instructed to:

-Use a person's nickname.

-Use the name a person has changed their name to.

-Use a person's married name.

And even:

-Use a person's online handle/screenname.

Dude. No. No no no. NO.

If all you know is one of the above, you can use that, but they should never, ever be used over a true name and should be bolstered with any other things you do know that can be used to identify them. This can include a birth date, one or both parents' names ("X, daughter of V and W"), zodiac sign, address ("X, whom resides at 123 Street St), etc.This is also a good tip for anyone whose target has an extremely common name, like "John Smith".

(This is, of course, assuming you do not have a personal concern of theirs. If you do, you already have a direct link to them and will have a much easier time even though you don't have a true name.)

Your true name is something that cannot change. You can change the name on your birth certificate, but not the fact that you were born as "John Smith".

There is this mistaken notion that the name a person has chosen to call themselves, including screennames, is much more personal, and therefor powerful. This is wrong because the power of one's true name does not lie in how personal or attached to it one is. I go by Dr. Trixie online, but that is an artificial thing, it only encompasses the parts of myself I like and wish to share. Your true name is everything about you, even the parts you don't like and wish to abandon and forget.

As a genderqueer individual and staunch LGBT rights activist, I completely understand that this gets very murky and even painful for transgendered people. Remember: a true name is just that, a name, an identifier. It is not a true identity as an identity is fluid. In this, and only this, situation, I tend to use the person's current name, especially since many people change their names to a feminine/masculine version of their birth name. The feminized/masculinized name is more properly in line with their spirit. Please show respect: a transgendered woman is not "a woman trapped in a man's body" or "born a man". She is a woman. The true name does not change that.

As far as married names go, if you do not know the person's original name, you can write something like "Dana Brown, wife/husband of Jordan Brown", plus the birth date and anything else you know.

If the person is a Jr., Sr., III, etc include that!

This current online culture where everyone befriends each other and goes to "hoodoo conventions" is unheard of in real life, with real workers. I used to go to this great little spiritual shop, owned by three real workers. Let me tell you, these guys did not even use their first names with customers, just initials. They knew exactly how much power names hold.

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.