All Things Under My Feet Oil

I recently created a condition oil which I am rather pleased with! It is a commanding and controlling formula with some ZAP. Designed to bring dominion over all conditions, to command all situations and people, to bring strength and crackling power ensuring that I am on top. It includes some of my favourite ingredients for this kind of thing.

Now I don't want y'all to think I am a bossy control freak...
OK maybe a little :)

It's just that I found in a lot of work bringing a commanding and controlling element to something can be a very useful tactic. You just need to keep the upper hand in some situations even if it's something nice like love work or sweetening work.

All Things Under My Feet Oil, ingredients:
Tobacco infusion oil
Calamus and Liquorice infusion oil
Sampson Snake Root infusion oil
Bergamot EO
Patchouli EO
Cedarwood EO
Sage EO
A piece of genuine Lightning Struck Wood


First I start by taking my roots and creating the Calamus and Liquorice, tobacco, and sampson snake root oil infusions. I macerate these in some oil and then cover them up with more oil and leave them in jars on the shelf for a couple of weeks to infuse. Daily I pick them up and pray over them a little.

When these root infusions are ready, I wait till it is twelve noon and the hands are at the top of the clock - because I want to be on TOP.  Take out my bible KJV and find Psalm 8, and in particular I want versicle  number 6:

⁶Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

I take out a petition paper and write this verse out in bold letters. I then get out three purple candles, dress and fix them setting them in a triangle, lighting them with prayerful focus and magical intention. In the centre of these, atop the bible verse, I place my container bottle and blend all the ingredients making sure to get some roots in there as well, some tobacco and lastly my potent piece of twice-struck genuine african, lightning struck wood*. Praying as I do asking that the Spirit fill the oil with its power, I pray the whole of Psalm 8 over the oil and I keep working it till the power is cooking.

I leave it like this so the candles burn down around the oil bringing their heat and spiritual force to it. If I come back to my conjure room I continue to pray over everything every so often.

Then, for an additional 8 days (nine days in total from the start of the work), I fix a tea-light at noon to burn down over the the oil praying psalm 8 as i do so, continuing to work it spiritually, daily, untill it cooks with spiritual heat.

And there you have it - after nine days the All Things Under My Feet oil is ready, brimming with juju and chock full of roots and power. It can now be stored in a cool place and squirt of vitamin E oil should be added to avoid rancidity.

Notes:

*If you don't have lightning struck wood you might want to find another appropriate ingredient with a fiery ZAP to include, such as a tiny bit of gunpowder for instance.

St. Martha's Ribbons

I have tremendous respect and love for St. Martha. She is a kind but powerful saint who exceeds at dominating and tying up tyrants, bullies, wife-beaters and other nasty types - be they employers, officials or persons occupying any other station in life where they have power that they choose to abuse. This is my understanding of her work, based on my own experience with her. I have found that if there is someone in a situation that is abusing their power and in some way and causing others to suffer because of their ego-driven behaviour that St. Martha will powerfully dominate them - quite often humbling them before the petitioner. Her influence is like a gentle, yet unstoppable force that comes down firmly and then builds until the target submits in the vice-like grip of her ribbons.

This combination of gentleness and dominating power is symbolised by the soft ribbons that she wore around her waist as girdle. In the famous non-biblical story about St. Martha, she used these ribbons to tie up and dominate a fierce dragon that had been tormenting Tarascon after all else had failed. Once bound the people where able to successfully slay the dragon with spears and swords. In one version of the story she wept and tried to stop the people from killing it, showing her merciful saintly nature.


St. Martha's Ribbons
I like working with green ribbons when petitioning St. Martha for intercession, and I find that wrapping and tying doll-babies, bottle/jar spells, name-papers or pictures with these ribbons accompanied by a petition for her aid can be a good way to grab hold of a situation, or more precisely, someone. I have a roll of green ribbon (fabric) that I have offered to her on her altar space and whenever I petition her, I borrow some of her ribbon for my workings.


St. Martha Domination Jar
This work was created to restrain and dominate a man who had been physically violent and emotionally abusive towards his wife.


Ingredients:
A glass jar with a flat metal top
Green ribbon
St. Martha holy card
Calamus root
Liquorice root
Red pepper
Tabacco
Picture or name paper, with personal concerns 
Essence of Bend-Over oil, or another commanding and controlling formula.
Glass encased candle


First  set up a small altar space for St. Martha with a glass of fresh water, a flower etc.
Make sure that the jar is well cleaned, and wipe it down with florida water as well as the candle.
Take the name paper, or photograph, and write the command over it nine times. If it's a name paper cover and cross the name. Dress it with condition oil. Next place a personal concern on that along with a small pinch of red pepper to heat the spell. Roll it all up into a tube and begin binding it firmly with green ribbon - by tying towards you if you want to bring the person a little closer as you dominate them, or away from you, if you want to push them away. Each situation has its own unique requirements. Call their name and pray that they be bound and dominated. Once the tube is well wrapped pass it through incense smoke (a simple domination incense might be to burn some of the calamus on coals); tie it with nine knots and place it in the jar. Add to the jar calamus root, liquorice root and tobacco, praying as you do.

Next take some tobacco and light it so it is smouldering. Hold it in the mouth of the jar so that the jar fills with tobacco smoke, and pray to the spirit of the tobacco plant that it helps bring its controlling power into this situation. When the jar is filled with smoke quickly take the lid and close it - capturing the smoke in the jar with the other ingredients.*
Now, take some green ribbon and wrap and tie the jar. For this spell I felt moved to tie the ribbons in a cruciform (crosswise) over the lid, other times I just keep wrapping it around until I feel it is ready. 
Place the jar on a saucer on the altar and dress, fix and light the glass encased candle on top of the jar. As you light it accompany this with your prayer and petition to St. Martha, then place the petition beneath the jar. Repeat the petition daily for nine days, when you do you can also take up the jar and shake it a little calling the target's name as you spiritually work it.

Sources:
*The clever technique of capturing smoke in a jar like this is the innovation of Miss Dara Anzlowar and is included here with her permission. The technique is unique and potent, having been developed by Dara in her own rootwork practice - and she has very generously shared it. Thanks Dara!

Profundity at Speculum Celestae

If you haven't yet I cannot more highly recommend checking out the Speculum Celestae blog by author and magical practitioner Nicholaj Frisvold. His most recent post, entitled Harmonious Aspiration is a tour de force entry plumbing the depths of the subtle non-dual perspective that is emerging in his vision of diaspora magics as well as the greater magical revival as a whole I believe. You cannot pigeon-hole this author's philosophical or magical outlook as he manages to coherently integrate renaissance thought, eastern non-duality, african, western and New World magics and philosophies into a singular dizzying vision. Sometimes it's hard to keep up! 

So, take some time with his blog it really is worth it. The message there seems especially important at a time when we are all being too easily drawn into the moral and philosophical dualisms that our magical work can provoke and the sometimes rather artificial binaries that these dualisms have attendant to them; celestial/infernal, good/evil, white/black etc.

Cumulative power in conjure

I was thinking about some of the differences between hoodoo and other forms of magic today and it struck me that one of its important features, and in my practice certainly, is that spellwork (quite often) is not simply wraught and left to do its thing - but steadily fed and built up. The power of the work needs to be cumulatively cultivated; spiritually through prayer, by adding oils and powders daily, extra candles, moving candles, sprinkling magnetic sand  - whatever. You work that spell daily, whether it be a candle, a lamp or a honey jar - it has to have time spent with it so that it grows more and more powerful. If you think you can just make the thing and leave it your results will be as unimpressive as your effort. Especially in the beginning of a work it is important to feed a spell every day. Once it has its momentum then you can come to back to it weekly, until it manifests the goal. Even a good mojo hand in my opinion needs to be worked for a week or more, daily, by burning candles down on or around it to heat it, praying over it as you do. Until the hand is really cooking and only then is it ready to be handed over. After which you also need to feed it weekly. You see what I am getting at?

It's hard work, working like this - especially if you have a bunch of workings going on as many of us do. But this is also one of the powerful features of the tradition - this kind of cumulative force is extremely potent when it is wielded by someone with the Gift. I often hear people who are peeking in from other traditions, opining about the earthy simplicity and directness of hoodoo tradition and I can hear that in their minds are imagining a little old lady sitting at her kitchen table with a bunch of herbs and a candle mumbling a prayer and comparing it to some elaborate Golden Dawn type ritual where everyone is wearing fancy robes and waving around swords and wands invoking jupiter, or something. This is extremely patronising. Hoodoo has a profound material symbol system belying its folkish charm - a subtle technology and craft that is both sophisticated and complex. One of conjure's core technologies is the secret of building up a spell's power over time, maintaining and manipulating that magical force until something snaps and the stamina and spiritual skill involved in doing that well. That is a true Arte, indeed.

Old Style Conjure Social Network

Be sure to check out the Old Style Conjure Social Network which has been created by Mama Starr Casas - with an emphasis primarily on traditional hoodoo and rootwork. This is a wonderful compliment to the much-loved MyHoodoospace Social Network which takes a more eclectic approach to hoodoo.
There are some great posts on the Old Style Conjure network already by Mama Starr, and they are solid gold hoodoo teaching. I highly recommend you check it out and take the opportunity to learn from some of the best in the business.

Spell Clusters

When devising a strategy for spellwork it can be tempting to try and pour three or more desired effects into a single spell that is designed to deal with a situation. For instance, you might want to sweeten someone to you, but also want to dominate and tie them up and possibly have everyone else in the situation be sweet to you too; additionally you would like it if everyone gave you respect and favours, and, and, and... and before you know it you have that honey jar crammed full of so much stuff that you don't have room for honey and seven different coloured candles burning on top of it! And while it's possible to weave multiple effects into a single spell, I find that if this gets overdone it can get muddled and misdirected with no result; or if there is a result it is as vague and splintered as my swirling mass of intentions.

This is where spell clusters can be very useful. Instead of jamming all your intended outcomes into a single work - one breaks up the spell work into multiple distinct and clearly defined magical 'attacks' aimed at resolving any given situation. You then cluster these spells together and build them up as the situation unfolds, coming at it from multiple magical angles until a critical mass is achieved by the cumulative force of the spell cluster. The results can be quite superb and far reaching as well as being much more stable and long lasting in duration. Each spell in the cluster has a clear focus that in its unique way contributes to the final goal.

Conversely, sometimes, a single-goal spell can have an entirely unintended outcome based on that one force that is brought into the situation. Especially if you haven't thought it through carefully and that force turns out to be counterproductive. What you thought you needed - it turns out - is just the thing you needed to make the situation even worse. That single spell tips the scales in the wrong direction.

For instance:

You find yourself drawn in to a conflict and power struggle with your landlord. The man is pushing you around, not sticking to his side agreement or invading your privacy. Yet you are stuck in a situation where you have to deal with the bully until your lease runs out. The knee-jerk reaction to these sorts of situations can be to immediately resort to full domination work - to force him to bend to your will instead. However, quite often when dealing with a very aggressive, pushy personality type, domination work can really bring an unexpected explosive pressure to a situation. It can escalate things. You find you are locked in a magical power struggle as well as mundane one. You notice when you add that pinch of bend-over powder to the candle, he immediately calls you up making demands - seemingly agitated by an intangible sense that he needs to maintain control at all costs. You get angry and add more stuff and back and forth it goes, frustration levels rising along with the stress and trouble. It's counter intuitive because, dammit, you want the creep to submit !- but in a situation with a guy like this a single domination spell can have entirely unintended consequences. Next thing you are so furious you are considering highly corrosive, and probably unnecessary, spellwork to deal with the ass  - when the mess could have been avoided with a more considered approach.

This is where cleverly orchestrated spell clusters are exceedingly useful. Instead of getting into tug-of-war with a single domination spell - you asses the situation and start with a weakening spell. Something that confuses him and knocks him a little off balance - and you combine that with a second spell that sows some discord between him and his other tenants. At the same time you begin sweetening your allies to your case - his nice wife for instance, and your neighbours. You let those three spells simmer for a while, working them daily for a week or two until you begin seeing effects. Then, you really heat up the weakening spell knocking him further off balance as you start the domination spellwork on top of everything else.

His luck begins to turn sour, his wife is on his case and tenants are calling every five minutes with complaints and queries. He's not sleeping all that well, feeling a little shaky, and he isn't so sure of himself anymore. When he takes your call it is much easier to agree with your request and fix what he promised than to get into yet another tussle with a tenant. In fact the sound of your voice is making him feel rather anxious and he can't wait to wrap it up quickly so he doesn't have to face any more of your calls.
He becomes soft like a kitten.
He submits.

The problem in your apartment gets fixed, the creep drops the bullying and instead goes out of his way to make sure you are pleased.  As a result you let up on the weakening spell, as well as the inflammatory confusion (you keep the honey jar going just in case) - and everyone can get on with their lives, peacefully.