Suffumigation Or Censing

Some incenses we used in our workings: saffron, frankincense, copal, camphor, sandalwood, storax, and myrrh  

So let's start our discussion with some basic terminologies one would encounter when talking about incense. 

The common English words for covering a person or place of incense smoke are incensing and censing. If the censing is performed to drive out diseases or evil spiritual entities, it may also be called fumigation. Censing a place or location is sometimes called suffumigation. However, in old-time Southern usage, censing or fumigating is also called 'smoking,' while those with a Native American background refer to it as 'smudging.' The use of the term smudging has also been adopted in some forms into several modern belief systems.

As far as we know, the use of incense in Hoodoo, as we see it now, derives from four primary origins: Central West African herbal smoking, Native American smudging practices, biblical incense offering, and concepts from Eastern traditions such as Folk Chinese religions and Hinduism. 

Herbal smoking in Africa is still one of the many methods to prepare and administer medications for physical and spiritual illnesses. Dried plants are usually burned, and their charcoals are used in healing and divinatory rites. Traditional healers are also known to crudely prepare cigars containing dried plant materials. There are also known tribes in Africa that bless and use leaves to create cleansing smoke. They usually utter their native prayers or sing praise songs to dispel invocations and negativity from their sacred space. 

In Native American traditions, sacred space is cleansed through the use of smoke. We find this practice compatible, consistent, and effective with many cultural earth-based traditions such as Ifa.

On the other hand, ritual smoking before performing any spiritual works was learned and adapted from Native Americans by the early root doctors. Cedar, sweetgrass, tobacco, and white sage are just a few North American fauna Hoodoo practitioners use in their workings. Despite being referred to as 'smudging' by many spiritual workers, the herbs used in the Hoodoo tradition are more akin to 'smoke cleansing.' 

Cedarwood is typically used by practitioners from the North. It is one of the most important Native American ceremonial plants, still used by many tribes, particularly on the Northwest Coast, as an incense, purifying herb, and an ingredient in medicine bundles and amulets. Historically, cedar trees were often found in Black cemeteries as they were sometimes used as grave markings. Due to its historical habitat, burning its wood chips became a sacred tradition that African-Americans built a relationship. While it burns with the strong aromatic smell of ceremonial and personal purifications, conjure workers use it to invite the ancestors and benevolent spirits as well.

Sweetgrass also became a common incense of practitioners from the South. The Gullah people of the Lowcountry region of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, in both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands, have an extensive history and relationship with this herb. One of the most visible uses of sweetgrass by Gullah folks is evident in the beautiful baskets they weave. Other than that, Native Americans also shared how to employ this in their workings: it is customary to braid the grass and burn the braid from the tip to the roots when used as incense. It is now often used to sweeten the place after cleansing, recalling positive energies back into space.

Tobacco was absorbed as a sacred spiritual tool in Hoodoo as enslaved Black ancestors worked with that herb in plantations, especially people from the East. During that work, they built an ineradicable relationship with the plant. Tobacco is especially sacred for ancestral spirits too.

White sage was and is still popular among Native Americans from the West. While some root doctors and practitioners use white sage within its cultural integrity, most of them have Native American ancestry. Those non-native people nowadays that use white sage for smudging do so because of the commercial availability of white sage. 

White sage with abalone shells is a spiritual tool used for smoking. 

Smudging or saging is a spiritual and religious practice found in various Native American cultures and indigenous nations, typically used for purification, protection, prayers, and ceremonial occasions such as offerings and invocations, the technique varying from tribe to tribe. Smudging became popular with spiritual workers of diverse cultures, but the practice should not be taken lightly. 

Traditionally, when gathering herbs for smudging, there are rules to be followed to correctly determine the time of day, month, or year when the herbs should be collected; for example, at dawn or evening, at certain phases of the moon, or according to seasons of the year. There are also some necessary ritual gestures when harvesting the plant, such as leaving the root and saying a prayer of gratitude. This is as much a part of smudging as burning the plant is. 

The core of why people advise against using the term smudging (even if you are using sage collected by a Native American shaman) concerns the integrity of the indigenous tradition. This political stance is against White spiritual colonization, consumption, and consumerism. That doesn't mean though that if you're a non-Native and a conjure worker interested in tapping into sage's cleansing powers, the idea has gone up in smoke. It only means that you shouldn't go striking up a match yet. Listening to Indigenous people and what the smudging ceremony means is the first step in using sage for all people.

Smoke cleansing, however, is used to ward off negative energy and evil spirits by wafting the smoke of sage or herbs around an area, accompanied mainly by prayer or chanting. Smoke cleansing is a practice also commonly found in modern-day Paganism. 

Another tradition that contributed to the use of incense in Hoodoo was the biblical reference to the incense offering. Smoke and scent have been significant in biblical thought for thousands of years. In the Hebrew Bible, our sense of scent is considered holy. The very word for the smell in Hebrew, "reach," is related to the word "ruach," or soul. When God created man, the Bible relates, "Then Adonai, God, formed a person from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being. (Gen. 2:7). The site of our ability to appreciate scents became the very site where the soul entered the first human.

The Bible also describes the beauty of the Mishkan, the portable temple where the Hebrew ancestors worshipped God after the Exodus from Egypt. Precious metals and other lavish materials adorned this building. The interior was also beautifully perfumed by sweet-smelling incense. We don't know exactly what this exquisite scent was made of, but we know some of its ingredients, including stacte, onycha, galbanum, frankincense, and other unnamed sweet spices. The components are still being studied by biblical scholars and archeologists and are not determined with absolute certainty. Due to this reference, many conjure workers started using biblical incense resins, herbs, and spices such as frankincense, myrrh, calamus, aloes, spikenard, hyssop, cassia, cinnamon, saffron, Balm of Gilead, and others. Most practitioners regard the rising smoke from the incense as a symbol and vehicle of their prayers to God being elevated, just like in biblical times. 

Some Catholic Church saints, such as St. Cyprian of Antioch, accept and enjoy incense as an offering to them. 

The use of incenses bearing Asian aroma and imageries in Hoodoo, on the other note, is a result of a top-down introduction of Hindu concepts such as Yoga, Vedanta, and Tantra into the American metaphysical community; and cultural intermingling of African-Americans with Cantonese Chinese immigrants who were adherents of Taoist-influenced Cantonese Buddhism and folk Chinese religions and traditions. These both took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Metaphysical publishers such as L. W. DeLaurence, William Walker Atkinson, and others marketed Hindu concepts in the form of books and products nationwide. They distributed and sold talismans, crystal balls, and incense with various conflated Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and other Asian images on their product labels. By the early 1920s, Dr. E. P. Read, an African-American rootworker in Philadelphia, began manufacturing and distributing his brand of what he called 'Hindoo' incense.

At the same time, Cantonese entrepreneurs on the West Coast, Chicago, and New York City established small 'Chinatown' districts that eventually became tourist destinations. These areas were often located adjacent to the ghettos reserved for African-Americans. The intermingling of the two cultures was supported by strong social ties, including shared interests in martial arts, traditional herbalism, and pharmacy. 

From the early 1930s to the early 1940s, the Oracle Products Company marketed many spiritual supplies to Hoodoo shops that bore Chinese Taoist and Buddhist images. These goods became part of Conjure iconography and usage and included items such as Chinese Wash, Hotei the Lucky or Laughing Buddha, lucky Chinese coins, Ling Nuts (known colloquially in the U.S. as Bat Nuts or Devil Pods), and joss sticks. 

From that time onward, spiritual supply catalog terms like 'Asian,' 'Oriental,' 'Hindu,' 'Chinese,' 'Buddha,' 'Temple,' 'Garden,' 'Rajah,' 'Rama' and the like, or products with a turbaned figure, usually holding a crystal ball or bottles of oil; a Chinese man in a Mao tunic suit; or else Oriental landscapes with pagoda or Taj Mahal-esque buildings as labels or covers became popular among manufacturers and practitioners. However, these terms and product label designs referred to the form of the incense commonly used by Asians, such as sticks, cones, ropes, coils, briquettes, and powders, rather than its ingredients.

Incense sticks are simple tools to experience the magic of fumes and flames. 

Speaking of ingredients, one characteristic ingredient in Eastern or Asian incense is the aromatic Sandalwood. As the price of Sandalwood rose throughout the 20th century due to over-harvesting in India, where it is now nearing extinction, non-fragrant filler woods such as Bamboo were added to the so-called 'Oriental' incense blends.  

How to use incense in spiritual workings?

I do not use the herbs mentioned above, namely cedar, sweetgrass, tobacco, and white sage when invoking the ancestors of my bloodline as I know my Filipino ancestors won't recognize these scents. Instead, I use a mixture of resin, locally known as "insenso-kamangyan." It is a combination of yellow and black colored resins from the Alamaciga tree purchased inexpensively from local herbal shops. 

Resins from the Almaciga tree are traditionally employed as incense in Filipino religious ceremonies.

I usually perform this ceremonial smoking by starting a fire using charcoal or charcoal disks in a clay pot or metal pan and bringing the resins to fiery embers. As I straddle the pot or pan, smoke is generated. I let the fumes touch the tools and objects in my ancestral shrine while I say my prayers, offer food and drinks or cast my spell before my deceased forefathers. I add more to it as it is consumed while I perform my workings and offerings. When I am done, the pot or pan with the residuum of the still-smoking incense is taken around the house and finally placed at the back, underneath, or to the far left of my altar. The ritual smoking is believed to help me invoke my ancestors and drive the evil spirits away that might impede my prayers or workings.

Conversely, I use the traditional American herbs when honoring the ancestors of my path, Hoodoo. 

Suffumigation of a client, more generally called smoking the client, makes use of incense or herbs to take off crossed conditions, remove energetic junk, and open the client's road for blessings and better times. The root doctor may use compounded self-lighting powder incenses such as Uncrossing, Healing, Road Opener, Blessing, Fast Luck, or one of the traditional resin and herb incenses that are burned on charcoal, such as frankincense, camphor, aspand, sandalwood, copal, etc. 

During the suffumigation, the censer is usually placed on the floor, the client is instructed to stand over it, or the client may sit, and the rootworker directs the smoke over and around the client's body, particularly the head, while praying. With a fan made of black chicken feathers or black buzzard feathers, the rootworker may waft the smoke around and brush away negative energies. When bringing or drawing good luck, I was taught to brush the smoke upward but when taking off jinxes and crossed conditions, they told me to touch the smoke downward. As I do this, I sometimes puff a cigar or tobacco over my client to further cleanse and strengthen him. 

Puffing cigarette smoke to the client. 

Smoking a place for purification as part of a spiritual cleansing rite is also a common Hoodoo practice. Depending on what the spirits of the place tell me, I either place the censer at or near the center of the area or carry the incense burner or a thurible (hanging brazier) around the site and smoke every portion of the place while praying or reciting Psalms for home or business blessing.

When cleansing a person or a location, I mostly add some couch grass to whatever herb or resins I'm using, just as one of my mentors in Rootwork taught me. Medicinally, Couch Grass supports kidney function, so energetically, not only does it help clear one's space specifically of 'toxic' energy and/or entities, but it's also one that will 'have your back, so to speak, in terms of protection. I also sometimes add Couch Grass to any amulet-type objects I put together for protecting or empowering people, places, or things. 

Also, for protection purposes, I sometimes use mullein, native to Europe and Asia, with the highest species diversity in the Mediterranean. Medicinally, mullein has antimicrobial properties (warding off fungi, viruses, and bacteria) and helps with specific lung issues, soothing inflamed or infected lungs and preventing coughing until infection or inflammation is broken. So this is one I would use most often when the negative energy I'm clearing out is 'upfront,' and I know where it's coming from. 

If part of my intent in smoking is, in addition to clearing or cleansing, to improve the energy of a person or area, I might add hawthorn berries or leaves which when purchased, usually come with some flowers. Its medicinal properties support and protect the heart, which translates nicely as supporting love, balancing interpersonal interactions, and maintaining a loving atmosphere on an energetic basis. Rose petals can also be used for similar purposes.

For calming purposes, for instance, in a household with strife between the residents, I was taught to use rosemary in my suffumigation rites. Medicinally, rosemary is somewhat of a stimulant. Its aroma has improved mood, cleared the mind, and relieved stress in those with chronic anxiety or hormonal imbalance. Rosemary can also be used to relieve headaches, as an antispasmodic, and even to alleviate asthma. Chamomile, of course, is another perfect one for calming the energy of a person or place, as is lavender.

As a rootworker, I heartily encourage folks to make their personal incense blends or mixtures for suffumigation. Yes, it's best to familiarize yourself thoroughly with any herbs or resins you plan to use, as having that knowledge is a great way to deepen your connection with the herbs and help promote your focus while using them. There are no rigid set formulas in Hoodoo when it comes to incense blends and perhaps the best advice that can be given is to try out a variety of herbs, roots, and resins to be burnt. Experiment and use a variety pe for your spiritual and magical work.

You may also combine the smoking of a client with candle work by placing a candle on each side of the incense on the floor while the client stands between the candles and over the smoldering incense. Alternatively, some spiritual workers have the client hold one or two candles in his hands at heart level or shoulder level while being smoked. 

Ritual smoking for myself before blending my bath crystals.  

Aside from cleansing or purification rites, incense is also believed to have effects on the mind that can serve to enhance the ritual or magical work. A heightened mental state is helpful for magical, divinatory, and spiritual works, and smell is an ideal way to achieve various conditions. Different aromas can affect individuals in varying ways, although the fact that they have been used for hundreds of years means that common effects have been documented and that it allows a sophisticated set of olfactory correspondences with desired outcomes to draw upon during ritualistic work:

• Acacia - stimulation of psychic powers
• Bergamot - attracts the right influence
• Carnation - replenishes energy
• Cinnamon - stimulative and arousing
• Eucalyptus - purifying
• Frankincense - empowering and purifying
• Hyacinth - peacefulness
• Jasmine - relaxing
• Musk - sexual attraction
• Patchouli - wards off malignancy and protection
• Rose - calming and love attraction
• Sandalwood - protection, and healing

It is also believed that incense works on the practitioner's mind and provides a suitable environment to invite the spirits. Again the choice of the incense can vary depending on the nature of the ritual, the spiritual presence to be primarily worked with, or even the time of the year. 

Lastly, the smoky haze that lingers in the air is often thought of as an ideal place for spirits that have been invoked to take form or communicate their messages. In my experience, spirits sometimes metamorphosize within the incense fumes where they can be seen and directed. 

Incense smoke can be fed to ritual objects, amulets, and talismans too, such as mojo bags, and set them to work for you, light the incense and when it produces enough fumes, hold the object in one or both hands and pass it through the smoke three times while speaking aloud your intention or reciting a Psalm.

Mojo hands are usually bathed with incense smoke when feeding it.

As well as helping to get rid of unwanted energies, enhancing prayers or meditations or empowering implements, incense can have practical, concrete applications. Citronella keeps away mosquitoes during meditations or contemplative rituals, while saffron or vanilla sweetens and purifies the air of the noxious smells produced by burnt candles or spell remains.

As for preparations for suffumigation: The more mindful I am, the better and more focused my intent when doing any kind of spiritual work, so I always start with some praying to bring myself as fully as possible into the presence of God. If you intuitively feel something else needs to be done before suffumigation, you might want to just sit quietly and give it some meditative thought; see what comes to you. In my opinion, the less one follows instructions from other people and follows intuition instead, the better the results will be. Not that there's anything wrong with gathering information, but the answers to that kind of question vary from one person to the next, and I believe it's best to look for those answers from within.

Here are some popular incenses traditionally burned in Hoodoo:

• Aspand - to rid children of the evil eye and to bring blessings after funeral and burial rites. 
• Benzoin - to purify home, break jinxes and dispel evil.
• Camphor - for purification and to heighten spiritual or psychic abilities.
• Cedar - to invite benevolent spirits, 
• Copal - to bless religious items and aid in divination.
• Dragon's Blood - for good luck, invocations and pact-making.
• Earth Smoke - to increase cash on hand or bring new customers to a business. 
• Frankincense - for empowerment and spiritual worship
• Gum Arabic - to contact the dead.
• Mace Arils - to enhance psychic abilities and mental powers. 
• Mullein - for protection against dark arts.
• Myrrh - for purification, healing, love, and romance.
• Palo Santo - to take off misfortunes and send away evil spirits.
• Pine - to cleanse the home and draw money.
• Sandalwood - for wish-making, safety, peace, and good health.
• Spikenard - to improve love life, enhance sexual fidelity, and encourage marriage proposals.
• Sweet Grass - to draw positive energies. 
• Tobacco - for cleansing and ancestral offerings. 
• White Sage - for purification.

Not all things that are ritually burned in Hoodoo are herbs, or incense, in the way the term is usually used. They may produce an aroma but are not generally said to be 'fragrant.'

Red onion skins are burned for good fortune, luck, and peace throughout the South. Shoes or shoe soles, usually that of a man, are also ritually burned to bring in money-luck to a business. This is generally done in brothel businesses or whorehouses, but could also be performed in other businesses. Some roasted the shoe plain, but I heard some people poured some brown sugar inside or a mix of cinnamon powder and sugar. Sulfur is also a fumigant to rid a home of jinxes and sorceries. Asafoetida has also been used as incense for exorcisms and protection for nearly as long as sulfur. 

Is Hoodoo A Closed Practice?

I am aware that some people believe Hoodoo is meant for African-Americans only. However, I know some people from their community who don't share the same ideology. Most of my teachers here in this tradition are African-Americans, so I disagree that most Black communities are against this cultural exchange and integration. When cultural exchange and integration are done well and respectfully, people become more appreciative of things they tend to ignore.

I also know that some practitioners believe the practice becomes something other than Hoodoo without an African ancestral link. However, as my mentor said, there are two types of ancestors we are asked to venerate: ancestors of our bloodline and ancestors of our spiritual path. My partner, Tim, and I practice Hoodoo, which originates not from our country but from American South. To our knowledge, we both have no ethnic or ancestral lineage to Africans or African-Americans; that's why it surprises many people when they interact with us because they know we are Catholic Filipinos, yet we practice a practically foreign spiritual path.

Yes, we may not have an African-American cultural heritage, but we honor the enslaved African ancestors and our Filipino ancestors correspondingly. We honor our ancestors in character and skills (my partner, Tim, for instance, had particular relatives who were folk healers who used traditional Latin prayers called "oracion" in their spiritual works. It would not hurt him to do the same in their honor) and we revere the ancestors of Hoodoo folk magic through learning and applying how they practice their spirituality.

For us, Hoodoo is a form of folk magic and is not associated with any particular religion and can be practiced by any race.

I practice Hoodoo strictly as I greatly respect Black people and their culture. Our most treasured magical and spiritual practice is built on the sweat of their ancestor's backs. I make sure I perform all that my mentors are teaching me without discrediting their own culture. To dishonor the inherited traditions of African ancestors who struggled to preserve their folkways and customs in the face of slavery and oppression is inappropriate and condemnable.

I do understand, though, why some members of the Black community call us outsiders or, worse, scammers, but I just let them be. The ongoing hatred, contempt, avoidance, and rejection of some people of other individuals who are not part of their ethnic group is a potent reminder that segregation is still in existence. I understand because some people (Whites, Asians, Hispanics, etc.) are outrightly and blatantly dishonoring and disrespecting their traditions by changing and blending their practices instead of keeping them intact. Moreover, they are aided by others who will not stand in defense of 'outsiders.'  Racism, segregation, supremacy, bigotry, and intolerance are the oldest diseases known to mankind, and while they always start with the adherents, the hatred eventually spreads its tentacles to others.

From all corners of the earth, those anti-non-Black invective is shrill. And all of this is meant to pummel us; to adversely affect our morale; to effectively break our dedication to help them preserve their wisdom. It will not happen to us, though, as we are still supported by more open-minded members of their community. My African-American friends and teachers never told me to stop what I was practicing (but instead encouraged me), so why should I? I'd rather listen to them, right?

I also just had a conversation with a practitioner a month ago. She asked me how much 'respect' I have for the Black community and their tradition if there's an ongoing debate on whether outsiders should be taught. I just went on and did it anyway?

My response to her is simple: I asked her back how much respect she has for a community and tradition if there's an ongoing debate on whether outsiders should be taught, and she just went on and support segregation, supremacy, discrimination, and bigotry against the non-Black people practicing conjure and rootwork? Is she also listening to other African-American and Hoodoo community members who believe that Hoodoo is not a closed tradition?

The fact is disagreeing is not synonymous with disrespecting. I may disagree with some members of the Black community who support this ideology, but it doesn't mean I am disrespecting them. The problem nowadays, some people have difficulty accepting that because everyone believes that their view or opinion is the only reality. However, spirituality, whatever path it is, knows of many realities, all of them true, each containing different interesting lessons for us in this current reality.

Hoodoo, as my mentors said, is not an exclusive or initiatory practice. It's restrictive, they would tell, as we are told to honor the African-American ancestors who practiced, preserved, and retained it. We must practice it from an Afro-centric and Judeo-Christian perspective.

Suppose anyone has a problem with us practicing Hoodoo and even the Yoruba religion, Ifa. Why don't they tell their concern with our elders in the United States and Nigeria? They might want to correct their views.

One more thing that I would like to point out is Hoodoo is a conglomerate of different Southern Conjure folk practices. Not all of them are related to West African culture.

Some people also tell me that one cannot practice Hoodoo and other African traditional religions because they were created in response to slavery, the destruction of a culture, and centuries of abuse upon a whole community. I'm sorry, but I don't get why one could not practice a particular spiritual tradition just because of racism and cultural appropriation? I mean, there are a lot of spiritual and religious traditions out there that shared the same fate throughout history. Judaism faced discrimination, and Early Christianity experienced oppression and persecution. Do you mean people can't be initiated into these traditions too?

I firmly believe that culture, with all its religious traditions and spiritual beliefs, should be shared and appreciated. All these different sects, denominations, communities, or groups try to convince others that they are right and others are wrong. They all claim to have divine duty or authority to convert everybody to their mindset. But the truth is, they are all just the same. They all share commonalities and have borrowed something from older traditions. No faith and practice began in a vacuum.

Those practitioners who keep on insisting that Hoodoo is a closed tradition are also standing there with overwhelmed faces adoring Jesus as their priest, savior, and redeemer, not realizing they are calling a non-African Deity and performing some rituals not practiced by Africans but by European Christians and even some Messianic Jews. So what's the essence of fighting and destroying all interpretations or beliefs that are different from or opposed to your own if we're all the same?

Hoodoo is not about race and ethnicity. It's a folk magic practice.

This does NOT mean that Whites, Asians, Hispanics or Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and other races can claim ownership and authority over Hoodoo. I'm totally against it. We should still respect the Black ancestors who preserve it and honor them as if they are worthy of being praised.

Old Southern Graveyard Magic

The traditional attitude of Hoodoo is to encourage frequent grave visitation. Some elders in this tradition are very confident that graveyard visiting should become a pattern of living, thus allowing conjure workers to place their dead in a proper perspective. Most elders I talked to told me that they do this because they want to make the grave a sort of totem or shrine, at which the conjure workers would pray to the dead and God.

Proper Times for Visiting

Various customs have arisen regarding the proper times for visiting the graves of dear ones:

1. Suitable times to visit the grave are on days of calamity or decisive moments in life - if one needs guidance and protection from their ancestors. One or another of these moments seems proper for families to visit their beloved dead. There is no rule of thumb as to the frequency of such visitation, but just avoid complete disregard for them.

2. One could visit the dead before or after celebrations or rites of passage such as baptisms, initiations, weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. During these occasions, one should avoid provoking unnecessary tears. We should talk to them so as not to bewail but rather to praise the dead. These days are days of joy, and the spirit of loss and longing should not prevail.

3. Many traditional conjure workers perform spells and rituals in the graveyard as they call upon the spirits of the dead to aid them. It is imperative that when we invoke the presence and assistance of the dead, we should always pay them. Spells or rituals that lack payment are relatively rarely encountered in rootwork.

Graveyard Magic

As discussed in my previous article, working with spirits of the dead in West Africa is deeply rooted in their cultural beliefs, traditions, and indigenous religions. They are guided by Africans' view of life after death and the power and role of the deceased blood relatives. Looking closely, the graveyard practices of Hoodoo share ritual components from among Temne, Mende, Wolof, Mandinka, Kongo, Ovimbundu, and Ambundu tribes in Africa. These commonalities are indicators of a shared symbolism that incorporates essential elements necessary for the desired result. Working with the dead and graveyard magic evolved through the infusion of Judeo-Christianity, Islam, and various practices from Native American and European folklore, but traditional themes did survive.

African-Americans have a unique tradition of graveyard magic, most often found in Southern rural cemeteries.

Types of Cemeteries:

• Municipal or City Cemeteries - are one of the more common types of cemeteries. The lands are owned by the town or city government. Municipal cemeteries are open to everyone.

• Private Cemeteries - usually owned by an organization or company. Most are run for profit and can be more expensive than a public or municipal cemetery. Still, they also tend to offer a wide array of mortuary products and services, from the construction of various types of monuments for dearly departed loved ones to memorial lots, memorial plans, cremation plans, niches, columbary, etc. They are also highly maintained.

• Church Cemeteries - these are cemeteries managed by a particular church or religious group. They are typically reserved for members of the local church community.

• Family Cemeteries - there are more uncommon today than they used to be because of the many government regulations and legal requirements owners need to follow. Most of these sites later grew into private cemeteries.

• Military or Veteran Cemeteries - these are cemeteries reserved for military members, veterans, and their families. They are owned and maintained by the national government.

Visiting my clients' fathers' grave in Manila Memorial Park. 

Knowing the different types of graveyards can help locate specific dirt and spirits for specific conjure work. For example, veteran cemeteries will have military personnel buried (which could be used for protection work). In contrast, the private ones will have the well-off people (could be used for prosperity spells).

When visiting a graveyard, my mentor taught me to follow some of these customs:

Recite a special blessing upon arrival for the spirit guardians of the graveyard and knock three times before entering.

Some people recite Psalms, including Psalm 91, and some add Psalms 33, 16, 17, 72, 104, and 130. Some also recite verses from Psalm 119 that begin with the letters of the Hebrew name of the deceased and the word "neshema," the Hebrew word for soul. Some recite additional prayers and supplications.

Some have the custom of placing offerings of coins and liquor as signs of respect at the gate or entrance of the cemeteries.

The use of a headscarf (especially the color white) for graveyard work or even when just simply visiting a cemetery is full of historical and spiritual symbolism. One envelops his head in the scarf, creating a private mental space for prayer and spiritual works amid the larger community of the dead.

As a precaution, do not go straight home from the graveyard. Instead, spend some time somewhere else to confuse the spirits so they would not follow you home. In Filipino tradition, this is called "pagpag." If not possible, turn around three times while praying before entering your home. Take a spiritual cleansing (ritual bath or censing) to prevent spirit attachments.

How to choose the spirit?

If you want to work with a loving and caring spirit, go to your ancestor's or relative's grave.

If you want to work with a strong, fearless, and cooperative spirit, go to a policeman's or soldier's grave.

If you want to work with evil or risk-tasking spirits, go to a murderer's grave or the grave of someone who died severely.

If you want to work with a naive and biddable spirit, go to an unbaptized baby's grave.

Other associations are similar to the graveyard dirt correspondence I explained in this article.

How to choose the grave?

If you have no particular grave in mind to visit, then allow yourself to be spirit-led to the grave that attracts you. When you have chosen a grave, sit down and relax. In your mind, release your fear and any negative thoughts and emotions you are feeling. Envision the spirit from the specified grave approaching you. Treat him with respect. A lighted white candle is always a symbol of the divine. It also symbolizes our prayers and belief that when we pray, God and the Higher Spirits are with us as the light that conquered the darkness.

Talk to the spirit calmly. Try to communicate with him and tell him your purpose is that you wish to collect some dirt from his grave. Try to understand his response. Do not take or collect anything until you intuitively feel that he gives you permission.

How to pay the spirit?

1. Throwing the coins into the cemetery. This is one of the many Hoodoo graveyard customs that Tim usually does. He tosses a handful of coins as he enters and leaves the place as payment for the locale spirit or guardian of the cemetery. Other practitioners throw a coin into the graveyard and dig at the soil where it falls, burying it. Some people throw coins over their left shoulder or arm.

2. Placing the coins on the grave. Aside from doing the first method described above, we are often instructed to place coins on the specific grave of the spirit we have chosen to work with. We usually put the money into the hole we made when collecting dirt or soil and then bury them on the surface. Some workers put the coins on the head, heart, hands, and feet of the dead. While others place nine coins in a straight row.

3. Libation. This practice originates from the African custom of libations for the dead. Some conjure workers prefer to pay the spirit with liquor, either whiskey, beer, rum, or any alcoholic beverage. I would advise everyone to avoid such payments when you know that the dead did not like liquor when he was still living. When doing this, I usually take a sip of liquor and spray it into the air from my mouth toward the tombstone, grave cross, statue, obelisk, or any grave markers. This shares the libation of the spirits and my essence with them. Other times, we just pour some out onto the ground or into another glass (shot glass or goblet), then we simply place it beside the grave, or we dig a little hole where we could sit the glass on the surface.

4. Smoking cigars or tobacco. A traditional payment among conjure workers with Native American heritage or influence. I also puff or smoke tobacco to the spirits, especially those who enjoy smoking. I do not recommend this payment to those dead who suffer from respiratory illnesses.

5. Scattering a handful of rice. Some Hoodoo practitioners leave rice grains in the graves to pay the dead for their assistance.

6. Offering food and flowers. In places where most interments are in above-ground tombs, such as New Orleans, the dead are usually solicited by giving them cooked foods, bread, fruits, candies, and even some flowers.

7. Drawing cross mark. The X sign or mark is actually derived from the Kongo cosmogram. People draw cross marks on the tomb of individuals believed to possess great spiritual power. From the late 19th century until the present, the tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau has been a recipient of offerings and cross marks.

Other conjure workers combined everything abovementioned.

Tomb of Marie Laveau in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, Louisiana.

When my partner, Tim, and I visit the graves of our deceased grandparents, relatives, and other people, we always make sure to leave any of the things that I have mentioned – not just as payment but as a kind of "calling card" that we were there, remembering. As we approach their graves, we feel a deep connection, especially to our grandparents, who are part of our ancestry.

As we stand there at their gravesite, it is clear to us that we need to introduce ourselves. We speak to the beautifully carved monuments, reflecting a life once lived. It is as if we are speaking directly to our grandparents, relatives, or other people. We tell them who we are, whose child we are, and how much we know about them.

We stand to recite the ancient words of the Psalms and our own prayer for the dead; we have a connection. It is always a wonderful, uplifting moment for us. We feel we do a tremendous spiritual act to their memory.

Three basic types of graveyard magic:

1. Magic performed in a graveyard without burial.

For this type of graveyard magic, practitioners call upon the spirits of the dead to aid them with their workings, but they do not pay them or bury anything. Due to the lack of payment, some Hoodoo practitioners believe that this is an expression of folk magic linked to certain European pagan traditions and is rarely encountered in rootwork.

2. Magic that involved burial in a graveyard.

In this kind of magic, what practitioners are actually doing is calling upon the spirits of the dead to keep something for them, to hold it down in their realm, and perform what they are instructed to do, like casting off evil, removing problems, addictions, and bad habits, giving justice, fixing bad work back onto the enemy, revenge, and destruction of the enemy.

The Reversing - Mirror Box Spell is a popular Hoodoo spell involving burial in a cemetery. This magic trick is usually done to prevent a recurrence of problems caused by a person's negative thoughts (anger, hatred, grudge, retribution), ill will, psychic attack, retaliatory magic, and malevolent spellwork, sending them back to their source by binding the sender up in a mirror-box spell. This magic has a positive effect; if everyone knows the practitioner holds them accountable for a slight, they'll be reluctant to hurt or take advantage of him. But it also has a not-so-positive effect; since each of us has a powerful tendency to justify our actions and view ourselves as in the right, our magic and/or any of our actions are likely to be interpreted as slight and offensive acts. Or even one mistakenly interpreted as offensive can set off a cascade of assaults and perhaps a permanent feud. So to avoid this, always perform divination or psychic reading first to determine the source of the curses and to make sure that the work is justified in the eyes of God to proceed.

This trick differs from hexing or cursing because it reflects, rather than originates, intentional or unintentional harmful thoughts, assaults, and magic thrown against you.

Reversing - Mirror Box Spell

If performed in authentic Hoodoo folk magical way, the practitioner would incorporate the following materials:

- Poppets/dolls that represent the enemy or the victim
- Chipboard or cardboard box large enough to hold the doll
- A broken or shattered mirror that has never captured your reflection glued into the bottom, sides, and lid of the board

- Personal concerns such as your hair, nail clippings, clothes, a photo, specks of dust of your footprint
- Red pepper
- Black pepper
- Sulfur powder/ gunpowder
- Crab shell powder
- Goofer dust
- Reversing or Crossing oil

Ritual Procedure:

When done working on your doll and mirror box, place the prepared doll or effigy and the personal concern of your enemy in the box and sprinkle it with red pepper, black pepper, sulfur powder, gunpowder, crab shell powder, and goofer dust. As you do so, say, "Blessed are You, Oh Lord, Our God, Our Truthful Judge. God has given, God has taken away, blessed be the name of God. Here you are, [name of the enemy], and here you will stay, and from this time forth, all the crossed conditions, jinxes, malicious workings, and psychic attacks you try to bring about will be taken away from me but will come back to you as these mirrors reflect your image back to you - and in this hell, you have personally conceived you will be imprisoned until God releases you in judgment, Amen. Blessed are You, Oh Lord, Our God, Our Truthful Judge." After this, I usually perform a mock Funeral ceremony over the mirror box.

Mirror-Box Spell and Cut & Clear Spell are being performed simultaneously.

Then close up the box, carry it to a graveyard, and dig a hole. Ask the spirits in the graveyard to allow you to turn your enemy's body and soul over to them and hold him down, and as you do so, pay them a coin for their service by throwing it over your left shoulder as you make your request or placing it at the head of the grave. Then bury the mirror-box, walk away, and don't look back, going home by a different route than the one you took to get there. You can also perform a mock Burial ritual like I usually do when casting this spell.

This reversing spell is difficult to break unless you sneak into the graveyard where the practitioner buried your mirror box and destroyed it.

So, how do you then avoid the cycle of vexes and problems you're experiencing if you become a victim of this spellwork? My answer is - do not hate the practitioner or your enemy. Weave or perform a spell that is beneficial to him; forgiveness, healing, etc. I know this is a hard pill to swallow, but do not hold a grudge; avoid carrying resentment and hatred in your heart for any harm done to you. Do not imitate what the practitioner or your enemy is doing by performing reflective or mirror spells or reversing magic. Still, you should strive mightily to erase any vindictive feelings through spiritual cleansings and/or Cast Off Evil and respond to slights in a way that allows you to protect and defend yourself. If you do this, this will bounce back to you too.

 3. Magic that used graveyard dirt as an ingredient.

Graveyard dirt collected according to ritual precepts can be mixed with herbs, roots, minerals, and/or zoological curios and deployed in various tricks and spells, usually by sprinkling or throwing the powder toward the person. In our previous article, I shared some useful information regarding graveyard dirt; you may read them here: Working with Spirits of the Dead.

Tim's grandparent's grave soil. 

Besides spellwork, graveyard dirt is also an ingredient in some popular Hoodoo powders such as Goofer Dust.

Goofer dust is a magical compound found in the African-American tradition of Hoodoo from the Deep South. It is commonly used to jinx an enemy in family, money, job, and health matters or in love spells of a coercive nature.

There are plenty of different recipes for this powerful mixture. Still, the common ingredients are graveyard dirt, rust, or grease from iron objects found in cemeteries or anvil dust, ashes of graveyard woods (preferably coffin woods), ground candle wax from cemeteries, sulfur, snail shell powder, snake shed skin, dried insects powder, dauber's nest, black salt, dried animal manure, and herbs such as red pepper flakes and mullein. Depending on the formula, the result usually varies in color from a fine brownish-grey to deep black dust, while the odor is always strongly offensive.

The word goofer is an Americanization of the Kongo word "kufwa," which means 'to kill' - thus, a precise translation of goofer dust is a killing powder. That said, I would advise everyone reading this to handle this powder carefully when planning to use it in your workings.

Important advice to prevent graveyard spirits from following you:

As aforementioned, do not go straight to your home. Drop by someplace after visiting, especially working magic in a graveyard. In Filipino custom, the typical venue when we perform pagpag is our favorite convenience store. Funny as it may sound, but that's a fact. However, in Hoodoo tradition, practitioners tend to find a creek, stream, river, or pond and cross over it to prevent spirits from following them home. In Hoodoo, spirits cannot cross water, at least not easily or without invitation. Some people recite the Lord's Prayer once they get to the center of the bridge. The spirit will be forced to turn around and go back to the graveyard.

If you or other people have been dealing with the dead for any reason and want to break the spirit attachment, I would advise you to perform a spirit rescue ritual.

Sometimes, we do not know precisely what these spirit intentions are. Whether or not they want to harm you is also unclear - it isn't necessarily the case. Sometimes earthbound spirits are simply that - lost and looking for someone living to connect with. However, if the entity is making your life difficult (giving you negative feelings, thoughts, and experiences), then you need to part with them.

As a spirit of the deceased, they still need to be addressed warmly and respectfully, and the reality of the situation is explained to them.

Spirits can be very unpredictable, so it's always a good practice to take precautions and protect yourself first. Have a plan prepared if things go wrong and the spirits become more hostile, retaliate, or otherwise unwilling to leave.

Materials needed:

- Piece of paper
- Pen
- Matches
- Bowl or cup
- White candle
- Silver coin
- Pine needles or resin
- Glass of water
- Protection oil

Ritual Procedure:

Write the name of the spirit on the piece of paper. If you do not know the name of the spirit, write any name that comes first in your mind. Burn it in your cup or bowl and gather the ashes and keep them somewhere confined and safe.

Before anything else, anoint yourself with Protection oil, burn pine needles or resin to settle the spirit, call the spirit into a glass of water and sit quietly in the spot where you first experienced the activity of the spirit.

In your mind, release your fear and any negative thoughts and emotions you're feeling. Visualize the spirit approaching you. Treat them with respect and give them sympathy - try to understand what you might feel if you were lost. Forgive them for all the things that they had done wrong in the past and in the present. Talk to them calmly. Try to communicate with them and tell them that you wish to help them to return to the graveyard.

When you have convinced them, recite a blessing. Thank the Higher Spirits around that help you. Carry the glass of water and the ashes to the cemetery. When you get there, dig a hole and put the ashes in it while thanking the spirit and bidding them farewell. Pour the water onto the ground and bury the ashes with your silver coin as payment for your passage. Light a white candle for the spirit, turn away and walk straight out of the graveyard without looking back.

When you get home, spiritually clean your home and burn more pine needles or resin if needed.

And even if our thoughts and prayers have already helped the spirit return to the graveyard, we may continue to pray for it. Our thoughts, love, and prayers do not go to waste; they would still benefit other spirits in your home who also need prayers.