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.)

Tips For Working With Animal Spirits: Addendum

I feel so stupid for leaving this stuff out, I was just in a hurry to publish my post. Again, these posts are to help people work with animal spirits without supporting the horrific fur industry, not to condemn the use of animal parts. I work with animal parts, just look at my post on turkey bones.

Other things you can do:

-Use animal parts that can be obtained without killing the animal. This is very traditional; for example, cat and dog hair is used to make people fight. Feathers are used for communication, love, or even uncrossing, depending on the bird they came from. Black cat hair is used for good luck or stealth. I actually have a gaming hand made with fur from my black kitty-boy and it works unbelievably well. You can use fur/hair, shed claws, shed feathers, snake sheds, nail clippings, hoof trimmings... things either the animal loses naturally or which can me obtained without harm.

-Keep items with the animal whose spirit you wish to work with. This is another very traditional practice, where the hand/talisman/packet/whatever is empowered via transference. One example is keeping an item for protection under a guard dog's bed for a set number of nights.

-Use parts from animals that have already died. This means death due to natural causes, bones you find in nature, and even roadkill. Be extra careful about that last one. Pray for the animal and petition Spirit beforehand. Follow hazardous waste precautions.

Tips for Working With Animal Spirits

In my last post, I spoke out against the cruel source of many of the zoological curios sold by marketers for use in conjure/hoodoo. (Just in case I wasn't clear, I am not opposed to zoological curios obtained responsibly.)

How can one work with animal spirits in more humane and positive ways? There are lots of possibilities. Remember, even if you're "just" using something like a coon dong for money luck, you are still, in fact, working with the spirit of that animal. Animal spirits, just like plant spirits and, really, all spirits, will be much more willing and much more generous with their powers to people who have forged good relationships with them. If you start out that relationship by callously buying cruelly/irresponsibly obtained curios, you are obviously off to a bad start.

-Connect with responsible hunters. Offer to buy the pieces you seek from them. They'll more than likely be thrilled to get some cash for their scraps. Avoid trophy hunters and fur-trappers, who only kill for the hide and discard the rest.

-Buy vintage, and I mean real vintage. Don't readily trust online sellers who claim to be selling vintage bones, teeth, fur, rattlesnake rattles, etc.

-Buy authentic Native American goods. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 made it illegal to mislead consumers by presenting non-Native American made goods as if they were authentically Native-made. If a manufacturer wants to, say, sell a line of dreamcatchers, they may do so, but if they label them "Native American/American Indian/Indian Dreamcatcher" or attach a specific tribe name, like "Ojibwa Dreamcatcher", they are in violation of the act. Don't let this lull you into a false sense of security when shopping, especially online. Check out the Buy Native campaign.

-Find ways to work with wild animals. Set up things like bird houses and feeders, bat roosts, and hummingbird feeders. You may bless them beforehand and tell the spirits that in return for their help, you will maintain and care for the shelters/feeders. I will write more about the uses of hummingbird feeders in a future post.

-Construct a spirit altar. You can either have a general spirit altar, a specific spirit altar for animal spirits, or even an altar for a single spirit. Decorate your altar with pictures, statues/figurines, a glass of water, things associated with the animal (for example, fresh or dried flowers which are known to attract hummingbirds), and maybe even Biblical passages that mention the animal if appropriate.

A neat way to honor animals spirits and build up your altar(s), while helping real wildlife, is to "adopt" an animal through charity. Both World Wildlife Fund and Defenders of Wildlife offer these great packages where, when you symbolically adopt an animal, they will send you a plush of that animal, pictures, a certificate of adoption, info sheets, and other things.

For example, if you work with Hummingbird (I know, everyone online seems to prefer the Spanish name, La Chuparosa), how sweet are these plush versions?

Or maybe you work with Bat or Wolf?

Whatever you choose to do, just be responsible and ethical.

EDIT: I forgot to mention another great method.

-Incorporate symbolic elements, such as metal charms, small figurines, pictures, and plants associated with the animal. Take my silver Hummingbird charm, for example:

Check out places like Michaels and A.C. Moore for inexpensive charms and pendants. I got my sterling silver Hummingbird charm from Michaels for under $4.

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.

Turkey Bones

With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I'd do a quick write-up on the use of turkey bones in conjure.

Most everyone in the United States knows all about the wish-bone and the wishing ritual. Some people hang the whole wishbone above their door like a horseshoe for good luck. I've also heard of girls hanging wishbones above their doors to discover their future husbands, with the first man to walk through the door being the one. I assume this would be done on New Year's Eve or maybe the night before May 1st like many other "husband divination" methods call for. Turkey bones are also used in love work.

Let me first explain something about using bones. Bones are a link to the spirit world. When working with bones, they are not lifeless objects. When you work with turkey bones, you are calling upon the spirit of Turkey to help you. When we work with spirits long-term, we "feed" them to keep them strong and working for us. You can feed them with either some whiskey, Florida Water or similar cologne, oil, or a sprinkle of corn meal.

If you're a woman who wants her man to be more passionate, more attentive, and just stupidly enamored with her, turkey bones are the way to go. You can keep them under your bed. (I really recommend this over the cruelly obtained coon dongs marketers buy wholesale from the horrific fur industry.) You can hide them in your man's home, under his front steps where he walks, in his car. You can even keep one in your purse so you always have one around when the two of you are together. Taking this a little further, turkey feathers are sold in craft stores cheaply, dyed all kinds of vibrant colors. You can get these, trim them, and use them to write petitions and love letters.