SEPARATE LOVERS/CREATE QUARRELS
Separating lovers is one of the areas where justice can be blurred; but workings are usually used to split up your lover and their mister or mistress. Now, there's sometimes a whole emotional can of worms behind folks doing this, which is why I no longer do it for folks—but what you do about a situation is your own business, so here are some recipes to split folks up. These can also be used to simply create fights between two parties, regardless of their relationship with one another.
Cats and Dogs
This method is probably the most popular in all of the South. Take an empty glass bottle (you can reuse a beer bottle with a screw cap—just wash it with vinegar and let it dry for a week or so) and fill it with vinegar. Add black cat hair and black dog hair (both from animals without a speck of white on them), along with the names of both people written on one paper. Mark out all the letters that appear in both names with a slash. This removes the harmony between them. Every day, agitate them by shaking the jar and telling them to fight. Continue until the desired result is achieved, after which the item can be buried at a crossroads.
Moving Candles
Take two white candles and carve the name of one person in one, and the name of the other in the other candle. Anoint them with ditchwater and powder with black pepper. Set them next to each other and light them while praying for the two parties to separate. Move the candles away from each other a couple of inches. Do this each day for nine days as the sun goes down. When they finish, they should be far apart from each other. Dispose of each candle at separate crossroads going different directions.
Boiled Egg to Break Up Parties
Write the names of the two parties on either end of an egg and boil it in water along with 1 tablespoon of vinegar, a bit of graveyard dirt, and some beet juice. Once boiled, peel the egg and burn the shell in a fireplace or pit. Cut the egg in half and feed one to a cat and the other to a dog. The animals should not live in the same home or get along with each other. Alternatively, bury one half near an anthill and the other in a faraway field.
Separation Hex
Make a cloth bundle of bloodroot, beetroot, alum, salt, red pepper, and coal, along with the names or photos of the parties to be separated. Bless the bag and spit on it, cursing the union and praying,
A house divided amongst itself cannot stand:
so shall you crumble like the temple,
so shall you fall like wormwood,
so shall you come to ruin like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Push nine new needles and nine new pins into the bundle and douse it with vinegar. Powder it with asafoetida and bury it on their property where both will walk over it. If it can be concealed under the bed on the boards, that's even better.
MAKE THEM MAD
“Witches” have been causing madness for centuries, just like the conjurer. In many texts of southern footwork, hoodoo, folk magic, and conjure, there is likely a recipe to cause madness, and it will likely include a person's hair or underwear as an ingredient. One story I was told growing up was about a witch named Gussie Proffit who lived on a mountain outside of a small town in Virginia. She never caused anyone harm or otherwise aroused any suspicion until the river flooded and everyone's crops were ruined. The townsfolk blamed the woman, and a couple men vowed to burn her cabin down, which they did. Some of it still stood, but she was homeless now with no one but her pet toad.
A while passed, and those same men decided to go up to her old cabin and drink their asses off and destroy more things. Then a bad storm rolled in. Most of them were afraid and wanted to hightail it out of there, but one man, the presumed ringleader, made them stay and hold their ground. Once they were calmed down and had returned to their game of cards, a figure appeared in the doorway. It was the old woman and in her hand was her toad. A few words were exchanged between the men and witch. The head man said, “Now you're just gonna die” and charged after her. Before he could get to her, the toad jumped and morphed into this great big awful demon creature and picked up the man by the throat. The other two men, making brown, ran out of the cabin. Years later, the head man was never the same. He never came home. Folks would see him wandering the woods following a toad hopping along, muttering to himself with wide eyes, “I've been witched. I've been witched.” He went mad.
That's what these result in:
I was always told if you bury someone's hair or unwashed undergarments, it will drive them mad.
Stop their hair up in a bottle filled halfway with water and bury it at the roots of a tree on the north side.
Place their hair or photo in a snuff box with lye shavings (or limestone) and nine new needles. Toss this in the river to keep their mind wandering.
Powder the skin of a graveyard snake with graveyard dirt, crossroads dirt, railroad dirt, and white pepper. Scatter this where they'll walk over it.
Make a doll of the person that includes a personal concern of theirs. Once it is baptized, dip it by its feet into a bucket or cup so it's halfway underwater. Leave it.
Take a piece of the person's unwashed clothing and use it to make a bundle containing the following: graveyard dirt, mud dauber's nest, corrupted buttercup roots, nine pins, nine needles, nine open safety pins, black cohosh root, white pepper, and two bear's-bed roots that have been tied in an X. Boil this in a pot of water with nine slips of paper, each containing the first portion of Zechariah 12:4:
In that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness.
Recite it until half the water has boiled off. Place it in a good size container and hide it somewhere on the property where they will walk by it. Leave the lid off. As the water evaporates, their mind will go.
TIE UP MONEY
The only time I will ever mess with someone's money or livelihood is when they try to mess with mine. That could be in the form of theft, betrayal, or tarnishing my name or business. The following two recipes are ones I personally use, for individuals or their business. They can not only bring someone down but also shut the doors of the business altogether.
Borrow a one-dollar bill from the person. On one side, write their name and birthday on all four ends. On the other side, write James 5:1–4:
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
4 Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
Fold the bill lengthwise away from you three times to thin their funds. Bind it with a black cord under nine knots. Bury it on their property.
In a jar place the person's photo and a dime acquired from them. Add devil's shoestring, alum, lemon, corrupted ginseng root, and graveyard dirt.5 Fill with equal parts beet juice and vinegar. Every day for thirteen days, roll the jar away from you, toward the doorway, fifteen times while praying James 5:1–4. Do this until the desired result is achieved, then bury it at a railroad track.
The path and work of the conjurer and witchdoctor is one that requires knowledge of two hands. As I said previously, one hand must know how to make up the roots, while the other needs to possess the power to destroy them. Never conjure something you cannot get rid of. As such, let's look at how roots are destroyed and Devils are sent running.
5 Corrupted roots have been twisted out of form. To corrupt a root such as ginseng, dig the root up yourself and bend it gently without breaking it. While you have it bent, wrap it in string or twine to hold it in place. Let it dry like this. Every day while it dries, rub the root and tell it what it's being remade for. This is done with roots to work the opposite natural effect of them. A “pure” ginseng root can attract strength and luck, while a corrupted one repels it.
13
RUN, DEVIL, RUN
