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

Historical recipes of Van Van indicate it was originally one of the standard alcohol perfumes of conjure , and due to its power evolved into being made up as oils, powders, etc. It can be hard to adapt some of the old time recipes for this reason -- for example, Van Van oil doesn't dissolve in water like some of the recipes expect, and doesn't light easily on fire (this procedure was used to add strength to candles: one would light the flame of the candle wick from the Van Van perfume set on fire.)  A straight perfume that can be used like old time Van Van, or applied in other creative ways like sprayed on your hairbrush, on your cloth covered clothes-hangers, on a plain piece of paper in your briefcase or school-bag, on your clothing before wearing it, etc. Shampoo or soap in a Van Van scent is a great way to remove and keep off curses, hexes, jinxes and other negative influences. Scented sachet bags like this can be laid wherever you store clothing or bedding to gentl...

This history of the St. James Infirmary song is an interesting one. While hanging around a folk music bar in Scotland, I found it interesting that there of all places, someone to whom I showed the early lyrics for the song was able to identify that St. James Infirmary has a common musical ancestry to The Streets of Laredo. Something in the lyrics that is lost on many modern listeners is the implication that the "baby" of the St. James singer, who is dead at the infirmary, has died of syphilis or some other venereal disease. This is the reasoning behind the "chilling" sense that Sarah Vowell complained of  where the narrator seems more concerned with his own funeral arrangements than longing to rejoin his dead lover -- thing is, he already KNOWS that he's next in line, hence the hurry toward " impressing his buddies with a big dumb coin". She's dead, and she gave him the same stuff that did her in.  The original St. James' Hospital song i...