Something people don't always get with "curses" and such like, is that it doesn't have to be a baleful ray of withering doom. It could just move a thing in a particular way at a terrible time. It doesn't go this way for you, it goes that way. We are made of these moments.
More often than not, provided that we are not ourselves psychopaths, the feeling of "I want to curse this person" arises because the individual is causing some form of imbalance within your vicinity. Before it ever gets to a "curse", there should be scope to engage in some way with the situation itself, ideally employing multiple angles of approach in terms of magical response and worldly action.
Yet if the most expedient way of resolving the imbalance involves the person causing it seeing the consequences of their actions fall upon them, then the substance of that work is already there and you're just making dinner for it. Uncorking the bottle.
And this cuts both ways in the sense that consciousness and right action are in themselves fundamental defenses against malefica, as we are made of what we conjure around us in our daily actions and the works we clothe ourselves in.
Kicking Against the Pricks
Here are three works for situations where there is an abusive or predatory person or someone giving unwanted attention. The works are non-denominational, non-initiatory and designed so they can be done discretely with accessible materia and minimal setup.
Opening the Table
White household candle and a cup of water. Can look like nothing in a minute. This isn’t magic that needs any elaborate ritual setup or requires you to complete a lengthy course of internal psychic exercises before you can make it work. It’s magic for people under duress, living in difficult circumstances, or with limited space and time on their hands. Magic that has to be done on the quiet, or that you can’t afford to be caught with. Magic that can roar into being out of nowhere to vivid manifestation and then vanish again in a moment as if it had never been there.
Some form of cross symbol is useful to include as a component, on a number of levels, but it may be substituted with another holy symbol or omitted entirely if this is a deal breaker. It may be helpful to think of this usage of the cross as a representation of the crossroads or a point of transition between worlds. Brazilian traditions have the notion of the Cruzeiro or central cross of the cemetery as a kind of beacon for spirit or an access point to the dead. A similar use of the cross is being employed here.
Candle and cup of water can *be* the presence of the Divine Fire of Spirit and the Holy Grail. Illumination and refreshment. Ghost lighthouse and watery medium for the dead. There is a way in which magic can inhabit some of the structural aspects of Christianity and wire into the mysteries that are deeply encoded in it. Grimoire magic does this, as do many cunning and conjure traditions. It can be seen in the Kongo understanding of cross, holy water and vestments as Nkisi, and in many strategies of Espiritismo and Latin American magic. There’s a sense where you’re almost accessing older pre-Christian gear that flies under the radar of regular churchgoing narratives while hiding in plain sight. The syncretism that exists between Christianity and several ATRs is workable because of this deep reach into the mysteries that it is possible to locate within its form and structure.
I intend for these works to be non-denominational, adaptable and not tied into any particular belief system, but structurally - in my own sorcery practice - I will typically draw upon components such as cross, holy water, psalms and saints in this way. It’s therefore important to understand what is taking place below the surface form of these works, as a prerequisite, even if you intend to adapt or embellish upon the format as presented. I would of course recommend simply performing the moves as offered here - and not trying to reinvent the wheel or over-complicate the magic by placing unnecessary obstacles in your own path - but remix if you need to. The important thing here is putting workable, effective magic into the hands of people who need it.
I would open a simple table of practice such as this by placing the cross or other holy symbol in the centre, with a cup of water to the right and a candle to the left. After lighting the white candle – I typically open with a short prayer or series of prayers such as the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary and Glory Be. If I’m doing something situated more firmly in a grimoire mode, I might substitute something like the Astrachios prayer of success from the Grimorium Verum as the opening preamble. There can be some flexibility in your choice of prayers and holy symbol, as long as it makes sense and is cohesive with the rest of what you are doing.
The purpose of these initial moves is to set the scene and open the work. Create a gentle transition into magical space, and provide spirit with a medium for manifestation. None of these works are going to lean too heavily into any particular tradition or call upon any named spirits, but they can be best understood as a low key mode of Spiritism. After saying the opening prayers, in your own words spoken from the heart, call upon your ancestors, spiritual protectors, patron saints and guardian angel to assist in the work.
We’re deliberately not naming anybody in particular here but keeping it loose and generic, and creating an open channel that’s casually conducive to unnamed supportive spirits that are already in your corner and that will already want to help you in your time of need. Just because we might not yet know the names of all our ancestors, spiritual protectors, patron saints or guardian angel - doesn’t mean that they are not there, or amenable to inhabiting works such as this in some sense, if given a viable pathway to do so.
The matter of imposter spirits or unsettled dead entering the picture and potentially causing problems is offset by the presence of the holy symbol and prayers, which provide some structure and function as a kind of filter to minimise the liability of such intrusion. In terms of an ancestral spirit component being brought into play, if your ancestors were predominantly Christian for the past several hundred years, the presence of Christian spiritual structures in the work provides a walkable pathway for those immediate dead, which in turn have deeper reach into further abyssal dead in the waters. If your past few hundred years of immediate ancestors were predominantly of another faith, then you would obviously adapt the spiritual structures of the table accordingly.
“Spiritual protectors, patron saints and guardian angel” covers a lot of bases and could mean multiple things. Opening the table in this way serves the purpose of inviting spiritual support almost indirectly. You’re not concretely pinning anything down to this or that, but rather cultivating a particular environment that is conducive to the presence of spirit, while implicitly sending out an all-points bulletin to whatever sources of spiritual support may be in your corner. Opening the table with these few moves provides this presence of spirit with some of the substance required to strengthen its reach, while also establishing certain venerable structures and frameworks that will provide some degree of firewall against the potential for any adverse or counter-productive spiritual intrusion.
All of that is going on under the surface of these components, and I wanted to provide some sense of the depth that can underpin this prestidigitation of objects on a table, but there’s no need to overthink it. White household candle and a cup of water. Cross or holy symbol. Prayers to open the space. Speaking your need to spirit. There’s no need to spend more than a few minutes on it – but everything needed to open the various works given below on a sure footing is contained in these moves.
To gain the upper-hand against a bully or abuser
Amansa Guapo is a folk name given to several plants traditionally employed in Afro-Cuban traditions as well as other Caribbean and Latin American forms of magic. The literal translation of “Guapo” in Spanish means “handsome man”, but it has cultural nuances depending on the usage. In this instance, it carries an implied meaning of “bully” or “brute”, and refers to an over-bearing, domineering or aggressive man. “Amansa” is a verb form of “Amansar” meaning “to tame or make docile”. It is often translated into English on the labels of spiritual products as “Tame a Bully”.
William J. Irizarry Jr, in his book 'Ewe Osain', a study of 221 plants, herbs and trees used in Afro-Cuban traditions, lists Amansa Guapo as Schaefferia Frutescens, also known as the Florida Boxwood. This is an endangered flowering evergreen shrub that grows from South Florida, through the Caribbean and Central America, and into North West South America. The Florida Boxwood also has the folk name Cambia Voz, or "Change Voice" and is used to change a person's opinion and speech on something.
Another candidate for Amansa Guapo is Savia Sessiliflora, a shrub or small tree native to Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil. Hyptis Verticillata is also often sold as Amansa Guapo, which is a member of the mint family with a long history of medicinal use in Mesoamerica dating back to the ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures. It grows in Florida, Mexico and throughout the Caribbean. Lydia Cabrera declines to give a botanical name for Amansa Guapo in the extensive plant encyclopedia included in her seminal work ‘El Monte’ (translated into English for the first time this year since its original publication in 1954). Botanical names are included for most of the other herbs listed, so this omission perhaps speaks to the inconsistency around the identity of this plant.
In practice, all of the above have a history of being used as Amansa Guapo, so as long as you are buying the leaves from a reputable supplier who provides plants such as this to the religious communities that require them, you should be good. If you live in a large US city where such communities are present and active, you can probably find a supplier who will sell you the fresh leaves. Fresh plants are always better than dried, as they contain more of the living essence or “ache” of the plant intelligence, but dried leaves of Amansa Guapo are also readily available from various suppliers.
During the pandemic, many brick-and-mortar Miami botanicas took their businesses online and opened outlets on Etsy, so you can currently source some quality materia from these online stores. Often the plants will be grown by the supplier, and then cut and dried to order, which is the next best thing to fresh and can easily be shipped to smaller cities that don’t have good botanicas, or indeed internationally. Generally speaking, I am an advocate for using locally available fresh plants such as basil, mint, rosemary, and so on – over more obscure herbs grown in far away places. But I also enjoy geeking out over interesting magical plants with hyper-specific uses such as this, so here we are.
You could use Amansa Guapo in a spiritual bath – either the fresh leaves macerated by hand, or the dried leaves steeped for an hour in hot water, and then strained into a large pan or basin of water. Other appropriate and compatible plants could also be included here to nuance the work in particular ways – but there’s an argument for keeping it simple and not over-complicating the magic for no reason. Amansa Guapo leaves, white flower petals and Florida water would create an easy three-ingredient spiritual bath for circumstances where you need to gain the upper hand over an abusive or controlling individual in your life.
Obviously getting out of a bad situation as quickly and safely as possible is preferable to remaining within that dynamic and attempting to ameliorate the problem, but this is for circumstances where you can’t immediately do that for whatever reason. It can also be used to ease the process of extricating yourself from such a situation and minimising potential problems from the difficult individual in question. Magic such as this deals in the reality of things and their daily minutia, rather than how we might like them to be, and there are often remedies that will meet you where you are rather than where you would ideally want to be.
After opening the table of practice as suggested above, you would fill a large pan or basin with lukewarm water, and then either macerate the fresh leaves into the water by hand or strain the water from the steeped dried herbs into the basin. If you’re using the dried herbs, you can just macerate the flower petals into the water to fulfill this component of putting the work of your hands into the creation of the spiritual bath. As you tear up the leaves and/or flower petals into the water, pray to your ancestors and spiritual protectors for their assistance in helping you to gain the upper hand within whatever the situation is. Speak openly and from the heart, as the expression of genuine need is more important here than any specific wording.
Once the plants and petals are sufficiently macerated into the water, you can add about a quarter of a 7.5 oz bottle of Florida Water, then just leave it on the table of practice for about an hour or so with the white candle burning next to it. I personally like to use a white glass-encased seven-day candle that can actually be placed in the centre of the basin containing the bath.
If I were making a spiritual bath like this myself, I would definitely be doing so at the boveda and in the context of Espiritismo Cruzado, but for these works I’m trying to offer very simplified standalone practical moves that would be accessible on their own terms, and don’t call on anything beyond your own ancestors and unnamed spiritual protectors in a very generalised way. These works are still ultimately a simplified form of Spiritism, however, in the sense that the virtues of the botanical ingredients included are only part of the operative magic, and there is a component where you are calling upon and directing the unnamed spiritual support that is in your corner to inhabit the work and infuse the materia.
Before taking the bath it is recommended to take a regular shower, ideally using African black soap or castille soap. You will then pour the basin containing the prepared bath over yourself from the shoulders down. Try to air dry rather than towel dry as much as possible afterwards, and then change into clean and preferably white clothes.
This same bath recipe – following the same process – could also be deployed as a floor wash – if you wanted to subtly change the nature of a particular environment in such as a way that you will have the upper hand over what takes place there. Similarly, you would clean the floor first with a regular mop and bucket, and then wash it again with the Amansa Guapo, white flower petals and Florida water wash.
In Lydia Cabrera’s entry on Amansa Guapo in ‘El Monte’, she describes the hair or other personal concerns of a problem person being tied up in a bag with Amansa Guapo leaves, which provides another potential angle for employing this herb for gaining the upper hand against an overbearing or domineering individual.
For protection when at risk from physical danger
If a situation has escalated to the point where you are at risk from physical danger, then a simple protection powder can be made from red brick dust, salt and powdered dragon’s blood resin.
Red brick dust is a staple of African American hoodoo conjure and has its roots in ancient folklore concerning the protective properties of red ochre. This natural clay earth pigment consists of a mixture of iron oxide, clay and sand, and its use by early humans has been dated by archaeologists to around 300,000 years ago, coinciding with the emergence of Homo sapiens. The red pigment was used by ancient Africans as a form of sunscreen, which extended endurance, linking it to the ability to travel longer distances in search of food and shelter. The red colouring and presence of iron oxide connects red ochre, and by extension red brick dust, to both Mars and Ogun. A line of red brick dust outside one’s front door is typically deployed to protect a home.
Salt has purification properties and is believed to repel evil in many cultures. It is mentioned several times in the Bible and used extensively in folk magic around the world. Protective folk magic involving salt might include drawing a circle of salt around a butter churn to prevent witches from souring the butter, or throwing a pinch of salt over your left shoulder to chase away the devil. The dead are thought to have an aversion to salt in some traditions, and it can be used as a cleansing and purifying agent following works of necromancy or other dealings with unsettled dead.
Dragon’s blood is a red-coloured resin gathered from several species of tree, such as the Dracaena draco, native to the Canary Islands and Morocco, and from the rattan palms of the genus Calamus of the Indonesian islands, which are also used to make the fighting sticks used in the Filipino martial art Escrima. The resin was known to the ancient Romans and is mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia. It was used in medieval ritual magic and alchemy, and is also used in African American conjure as an incense used to remove negative spirits or influences and as a basis for Dragon’s Blood Ink that is used to inscribe magical seals and talismans. The resin has protective and empowering virtues, and it lends an active fiery quality to the other two more inert primal ingredients.
Red brick dust is readily available as an ingredient you can buy from suppliers of spiritual products, and it’s perfectly acceptable to make use of this if needs be. There is an opportunity here to strengthen the powder with the work of your hands, however, if you can yourself grind a red brick into dust. A red brick might be sourced by scouring the streets on a city drift, or you might go to a particular location that holds a mystery of protection and defense by virtue of its past or present, or you could be guided to a location in a dream or any permutation of these. Smash the red brick into bits with a hammer and then grind it into a powder with a pestle and mortar.
Dragons blood resin can also be found in powdered form for expediency, or you can purchase the resin and grind it in a pestle and mortar also. The salt can be any type of salt but I normally opt for coarse ground Kosher Salt. The completed powder should be equal parts red brick dust, salt and dragon’s blood. Once you have ground and mixed the powder to a satisfactory consistency it can be transferred to a small bowl or dish. A red candle is then placed in the centre of the dish of protection powder and allowed to burn completely out as you recite Psalm 91 over it three times.
“You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.”
Something important to understand about the use of psalms is that the transmitted energetic and emotional pattern of the verses is more important than the specific wording, which will change from translation to translation anyway, and exists in many variants. Some of the wording of the psalms can be icky on occasion, and this can be a real barrier to their use for a lot of people, myself included for many years. However, the magic of the psalms is not really located in the words so much as in the cadence, ebb and flow of the spoken charm and its deeper embedded meaning. The psalms were originally songs set to music, and songs will readily become haunted.
All folk songs are haunted by the ghosts of those who have plaintively sung them, and by the dead whose experiences are reflected in the meaning of the song itself. Similarly, songs in traditions such as Vodou and Espiritismo are essential components that serve many purposes and provide structure within a service. When you are singing for the Lwa, you are joined on some level by all the voices of those who have previously sung these songs. Songs may be seen as a spiritual substance inhabited by the dead over many centuries of repetition. The psalms are thousands of years old, and similar to the use of a holy symbol and prayers when opening the table, their structure provides a road for related spirits to travel into the work.
Once prepared, this protection powder can be deployed in numerous ways. You could use it to draw a line outside the threshold of your door as per regular red brick dust, or you could place it in the four corners of where you live, or sprinkle it around the outside of your house. It could be added to a carrier oil to create a simple protection condition oil and then used to anoint a red candle. If you were seeking to place protection on another person, you might draw a circle around their photo with the powder, dress a red candle in this oil and pray Psalm 91 over it. My own preferred use of this powder is to place a little in my shoes before leaving the house if I feel like I might need a background protective influence.
While these works are all slanted for circumstances where sexual harassment is taking place, they are equally applicable to situations where you are experiencing homophobic or anti-trans abuse, or if you’re holding the line against tinpot fascist knobheeds protesting drag queen story hour outside your local, or any variation of bullying or oppression.
To send away someone giving you unwanted attention
This is a variation on the lemon souring spell that I received directly from spirit during the course of writing this piece over the weekend. The use of a lemon for souring work can be found in numerous traditions, but this adaptation is specifically for when you want to weaken someone’s unwanted interest in you and send them away.
You will need some sort of sympathetic link to the target of the work, ideally some of their hair or other personal concerns if possible, but failing that a photograph or their business card could be substituted. Work with whatever you can get, but the stronger the link to the person, the more effective the work is likely to be.
Next get a deck of playing cards and identify a card that best personifies the person. For instance, the Jack of Clubs would be suitable for situations of workplace harassment, the Jack of Diamonds could be used to represent someone with money and power, and so on. Using a playing card in place of a poppet or doll is an idea given in Professor Charles Porterfield’s ‘A Deck of Spells’ and is a very versatile strategy for this sort of magic. Write the name of the person seven times on the front of the card going in one direction, and then write the words “Go Away” seven times over it going in the other direction so that the words make a cross shape. Then flip the card and write “Go Away” or even “FUCK OFF” on the back of the card. Once the card is prepared, tape a photo of the person and any personal concerns you have been able to acquire to the front of the playing card.
Next get two three-inch nails and place them on a fireproof surface - an enamelware plate or even a terra cotta planter tray are ideal for this. Douse the nails in a little Florida water and then set them on fire, allowing the flame to burn out and being careful not to set fire to anything else.
Then take a lemon, cut it in half, and sprinkle a good amount of alum powder on both sides of the cut-open lemon. Alum has a puckering effect and is used to shut up the mouth and stop gossip in Tapa Boca works within several traditions. The lemon is being used here to sour the person’s unwanted interest in you, while the alum is employed to stop-them-up, shrivel their passions and dull their advances.
Take the prepared playing card representing the target and place it between the two halves of lemon doused in alum powder, and then drive the two prepared nails through the whole thing, making a cross shape with the nails, and pinning together the two halves of lemon with the playing card in between. The nails are not just practically fixing the work together here – but have the action of piercing through the person’s natural defenses, such as they may be, and puncturing their resistance so that the influence of the work may seep in. Setting the nails in a cross shape also represents the crossed condition that you are placing on them.
Once the lemon is fixed in this way, place it on some sort of plate (which you are not going to use again to eat from), and douse the whole thing with more alum powder. Next take a white candle, turn it upside down, and use a knife to expose some of the wick at the bottom of the candle. Place the white candle upside down in a candle holder next to the lemon and light this exposed wick, burning the candle backwards to introduce a reversing principle designed to send the person away. Allow this candle to burn completely out as you pray Psalm 18 over it.
"I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them:
neither did I turn again till they were consumed.
I have wounded them that they were not able to rise:
they are fallen under my feet.
For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle:
thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.
Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies;
that I might destroy them that hate me.
They cried, but there was none to save them:
even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind:
I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets."
"He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man."
The next day, place the whole work, including any remaining candle wax, into a brown paper bag and take it to a location far away from where you live. When I lived in London, I would often carry works along these lines to far-flung stations on the tube line where I would generally never have any cause to go. West Ruislip, Uxbridge, Morden or Upminster. Somewhere far, far away from my own ends where I’ve never been before and that I’m unlikely to return to anytime soon.
The ideal location to leave the work would be a T-junction crossroads – which contains the idea of a blocked road. The symbolism of the crossroads, but one of the roads isn’t there, and that’s the road that they can no longer follow. If you can find a crossroads like that with a Stop Sign on it, even better.
Place the brown paper bag containing the work at the base of the Stop Sign at the blocked-road T-junction crossroads, far away from where you live. Put your left foot on top of the bag and press down slightly. You don’t want to stamp down too hard on it here and fuck up the work, accidentally dislodging the nails from the lemon, but just introduce the component of having the person underfoot. You can apply enough gentle pressure to maybe squeeze the lemon a little so its juice flows into the work, but you want to leave the lemon/card/nails arrangement intact within the bag. With your foot on top of the work, firmly tell the person to “Go Away” or indeed “FUCK OFF!” With this done, leave the work there, turn around and walk away without looking back or returning to the area.
Thinking About Rome
Yes – I think about Rome, and its repertoire of epic 1960s pop music, all the time. The Shoggoth dress, the increasingly oppressive brutalist urban industrial landscape.
Never expected to see a mention of my old teenage stamping ground of Upminster on your blog, but it’s welcome nevertheless!