Do You Cast Love Spells? ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

Do You Cast Love Spells?

I am making this blog post since, for some reason, there's a sudden influx of messages in my inbox coming from people asking me to weave potent love spells for them to get the individuals they want. I would like to make a general statement here regarding my opinion about it and why we don't do such manipulative spellwork if the divination says no.

Love spells to make individuals you don't know personally fall in love with you is a very dangerous, deceitful, and manipulative magic. When you cast a spell on strangers or perform some trick against their will (as the initial psychic reading reveals) to manipulate, control, or deceive them, you are doing the same as if you took the regular mundane route to manipulate, abuse, and control another person. It doesn't matter if you think it's 'purer' because you have no intentions of physically or sexually harming the person; it is the same thing.

And when you manipulate someone, if you make them think or feel something they haven't perceived naturally, or they disagree with within their heart, they would eventually find out that there is no foundation for that affection or thought. It is just nothing but an infatuation, not real love - which usually occurs when the effect of magic is starting to wane, vanish or disappear.

When that happens, they would become mentally imbalanced and/or emotionally unstable, become someone they aren't because they don't know how to include and combine the past and present selves to come up with the way they are now (which is impossible because of that unnatural additional thought and fake emotion to their mind). Or they would find out what you have done, and everything you have built before, during, or after that has anything to deal with that person would implode.

Don't get me wrong, the Hoodoo tradition condones and even promotes some form of manipulative and coercive magic, but everything needs spiritual consent through divination first. Asking for and obtaining permission from the spirit world shows respect for everyone involved - you, your target, and your spirit guides. It eliminates one's authority and entitlement that he might feel over other people. From there, seeking guidance from the Divine or spirit means continuing to be impartial with your selfish desires.

Magic isn't a candy machine or a toy; it's not a tool to only get what you selfishly desire regardless of what the Divine and spirits have told us during readings and the feelings or thoughts of anyone else.

To cast on someone like this is just rude, cruel, and harmful - again, even if you feel like it's the right thing at this point, and you're not going to maltreat, abuse, or dominate the person you're controlling.

If you want to make someone fall in love with you, then communication is the KEY! My mentor taught me that love spells are much more likely to succeed if people talk to one another. Otherwise, there is little chance for you to come together and build a romantic relationship.

So what kind of love spells do you cast?

We cast love spells on targets whom the client knows 'personally' and that they wish to have him or her drawn to them. Sometimes, the client will have no specific person in mind, simply a desire for new love, so we also perform love attraction spells on their behalf.

We do workings, too, that are designed to fire up one's sex or romantic life, spells to make oneself appear more attractive and desirable, rituals for tying and untying someone's nature, and spells for reconciliation.

The execution of the spell, of course, would depend entirely on what the divination tells us.

Love Me - Nation Sack Spell performed to make a man fall in love with a woman and a special conjure bag fashioned in a traditional Memphis-style filled with particular tokens and powerful curios for women who want to make their men dedicated to them and make them generous in money matters.

See, What Our Path Is

Being immensely interested in African diaspora religions and Folk Catholicism, we primarily honor our ancestors, Church saints, angels, folk saints, and Afro-Caribbean spirits such as loas and orishas. If we absolutely have to put a label on ourselves, we prefer the label of “Folk Judeo-Christian” as we live according to the customs and traditions of conjure workers and root doctors from the Deep South and syncretic followers of Christ in various nations of the Caribbean and Latin America.

Our spirituality includes West African-based Caribbean-style tradition as well as Esoteric Christianity and Yoruba religion. Generally, we practice Gullah folk magic popularly known in the Deep South as Hoodoo or Lowcountry Voodoo; the ancient wisdom founded by Orunmila in Ile-Ife called Ifa, and a bit of Lihim na Karunungan (Filipino Esotericism or Philippine Mystery Tradition).

Respect, What Hoodoo Is

Despite visible evidence of Central West African, Islamic/Moorish, Native American, Judeo-Christian, European, and even a few East Indian/Hindu, Chinese, and Latino/Caribbean retentions, influences, and admixtures, this does not mean that Hoodoo is an open and unrestricted system of eclectic magic.

Conjure, and Rootwork is rooted in African-American culture and Folk Protestant Christianity. Any practitioners of Hoodoo who did not grow up within African-American culture should still have a fuller understanding and high regard for its origin.

In the beginning, the early conjure doctors were entirely Black. The students were all Black, the elders were Black, the teaching was Black, and they focused only on Blacks as their audience. But other races were accepted when they had also been brought into the Hoodoo community and learned the tradition. Even so, we should still acknowledge that Hoodoo, Conjure, or Rootwork is not ours but only belongs to the Black community. We are just believers who are grafted into their rich yet humble tradition and, by word and deed, embrace genuine African-American folk spirituality and magic. This is all we can do for all the blessings we received from God and our Black ancestors.

Hoodoo's lack of religious structure and hierarchical authority do not mean that any person or group can appropriate or redefine it. If one cannot respect Hoodoo as it is and for what it is, then please, do not play with it.

Learn, How Conjure Is Worked On

Authentic Conjure is not all about blending and selling oils and casting spells online to make money. Hoodoo has its own spiritual philosophy, theology, and a wide range of African-American folkways, customs, and practices which include, but are not limited to, veneration of the ancestors, Holy Ghost shouting, snake reverence, spirit possession, graveyard conjure, nkisi practices, Black hermeneutics, African-American church traditions, the ring shout, the Kongo cosmogram, ritual water immersions, crossroads magic, making conjure canes, animal sacrifices, Jewish scriptural magic, enemy works, Seekin' ritual, magical incorporation of bodily fluids, etc.

Unfortunately, they are currently missing in marketeered or commercial Hoodoo, as they are being removed, disregarded, or ignored by unknowing merchants who simply want to profit from an African-American spiritual tradition, thus reducing Hoodoo to just a plethora of recipes, spells, and tricks.

Tim and I are completely aware that we are not African-Americans, so we are doing our best to retain and preserve the customs and traditions of the slave ancestors to avoid unnecessary conflict with the larger Black-Belt Hoodoo community and prevent them from labeling us inauthentic outsiders and our practice as mere 'cultural misappropriation.'

Accept, Who We Are

The byproduct of eons of slave history, Black supremacists believe that only people with African or African-American blood are real Hoodoo practitioners and are often inclined to consider themselves as the elite of the Hoodoo community; a place in which they believed that Whites, Latinos, Asians or any other races who do not have Black ancestry do not belong. Black supremacists are prone to be very hostile towards both “outsiders” and those accepting of them, fearing that their promotion and acceptance would dilute or even negate the Black identity of Hoodoo.

Although we do understand why some Blacks hold this stance, since a lot of people nowadays are misappropriating many aspects of Hoodoo and teaching the spiritual path even without proper education and training (for purely monetary purposes), we would, however, want to say that not all non-Black Hoodoo practitioners are the same.

WE respect what Hoodoo is, and we never try to change it, claim it as our own, disregard its history, take unfair advantage of it, speak against the people who preserve it, and mix it with other cultures (like our own) and call it Filipino/Pinoy Hoodoo, Gypsy Hoodoo or Wiccan Hoodoo because there are no such things.