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

  Blindboy Boatclub is an Irish artist and author, who has a weekly podcast on which he talks about pretty much whatever he thinks is interesting. Sometimes the topic is Irish folklore.  On a recent edition of the Blindboy Podcast , he recounted an eerie experience of being out for a walk and hearing a disturbing, shrill scream that he initially took for a child being tortured. He followed the noise and eventually found he had come into contact with a Banshee, or as he later figured out after doing additional research, a female fox with a cough. (No spoiler there, that's the actual title of the episode: "I Thought I Heard the Banshee But It Was a Fox With a Cough.") What struck me most about this story wasn’t the twist ending, amusing as it was, but the folkloric richness Blindboy unpacked along the way. As he explained the origins and traditions surrounding the banshee, I was reminded of my own encounter with another famous weeping woman of folklore: La Llorona. While t...

This is a particularly useful spell when some unpleasant memory is haunting your sleep.  You need: Peace oil White candle (preferably a small chime candle or a tealight) soap and cleaning products -- you can use special spiritual cleaning products like Chinese Wash and Florida Water Soap for some extra oomph if you have them, but regular cleaning products will suffice. The morning after you wake from a dream you wish to never repeat, immediately strip the bedding and open the bedroom windows to air out the room. If you store any items under your bed, remove them to a new location at least for a few days. As soon as you have time, sweep or vacuum the bedroom with special attention to under the bed, and follow the instructions for Spiritual Cleansing of Bedding.   The next night, dress the white candle with the Peace oil, and shower or bathe with the candle burning nearby. Dab your forehead, wrists and the soles of your feet with more of the Peace oil af...

Dust Devils! Whirlwinds! Vortexes! These natural phenomena are considered powerful magic by hoodoo tradition. A minor whirlwind is created when local winds start to spin on the ground. This causes a funnel to form. The funnel moves over the ground, pushed by the winds that first formed it. The funnel picks up materials such as dust as it moves over the ground, thus becoming visible. Terms for such minor whirlwinds are usually a "devil" (dust devil, water devil, fire devil, etc.). They've been called by this name since the 19th century. Whether from the association from the name, or whether the name came because of an already established folklore, the connection is nevertheless that these phenomena are the product of a supernatural being. Consequently, the dirt that's been sucked up in one of these powerful vortexes is believed to have a special power. Acquiring some of the dust is a feat for a practitioner, but not impossible -- it requires seeing one on advance and p...

In the British Museum, there is a fascinating object -- a magical offering bowl dating back to dark ages. These kinds of bowls are often referred to as “incantation bowls” or “magic bowls,” and they were especially prevalent in regions like Mesopotamia, Persia, and parts of the Levant. Their use was surprisingly widespread, with similar artifacts turning up in ancient Egypt, as well as across North Africa and the Middle East. This suggests that such bowls may have once been a common medium for magical working and spirit communication throughout these regions. They were typically buried under thresholds, in homes, or near the foundations of buildings as a form of protective magic, intended to ward off evil forces and hostile spiritual influences. The particular bowl in the British Museum is inscribed in Aramaic, a language that was once the lingua franca of the Near East and remains a subject of fascination for scholars due to its connection to various ancient religious traditions. The ...

  There is always a fascination among witchcraft practitioners with the art of timing -- the belief that performing a spell at a particular hour or day will give the spell an edge, such as the Planetary Hours and their derivative the Voodoo Hours  used to decide when a magical working will be performed. Naturally, there are also beliefs about the best days to perform spells. This listing comes from a Renaissance era grimoire, but which contains spells that date back to Greco-Roman era. (The book is for sale with the translation The Book of Oberon, though you can read the direct transcription for free via Esoteric Archives. ) This is using standard calendar dates, so 1 is the 1st of the month, 31 is the 31st of the month, etc. Good to begin all manner of things For hate and enchantment against enemies "Right naught" -- don't plan for magical work on this day To enchant and conjure wicked spirits For invisibility, and enchant against enemies For works that regard theft an...

It's one of those expressions like "familiarity breeds contempt" and "lion's share" that no one uses correctly anymore. From time to time somebody even observes: "Why would you want luck o' the Irish? Historically the Irish have pretty terrible luck." That, friends, is actually key to the saying. Correctly, when someone talks of Irish luck or luck o' the Irish , it doesn't mean luck.  As one 1838 book put it, "Irish luck -- which means anything but chance." In other words, if you say someone got something through Irish luck, it means he got it through something other than being lucky. It might mean hard work, it might mean bribery, it might mean trickery, but not luck. Anything but luck is Irish luck.  Irish author Blindboy Boatclub relates on his podcast the local explanation for the phenomenon: In Limerick we just believe that bad luck happens to us all the time. Nothing can go right for Limerick, and anytime anything go...

Hoodoo Style Magical Waters for Magic In hoodoo tradition, some of the oldest and most traditional ingredients are natural gathered waters. While cologne and perfume is sometimes classed as a water for conjure purposes, special waters are based on water, sometimes taken from a specific location. They can have additional ingredients added, but the magic is generally held to be in the water itself. They've become a little less common since the rise of commercial hoodoo, perhaps due to manufacturer's tendency to sell any old tap water as "alleged glory water" or whatever it's labeled; and also there is difficulty in shipping liquids like water that aren't inherent in somewhat thicker mixtures like soaps or oils. (For example, a bottle of oil won't evaporate if left out too long.)  Here's a list of some traditional hoodoo magical waters and how to make them: Glory Water Glory Water is a recipe I did not include in my Conjure Cookbook , as it's not ...