To Punish a Book Thief

I'm not sure which situation is the best indicator of having "arrived" in the world of books, but I do know which one I don't appreciate, and that is the pirate.

My books have been pirated so many times, that I once calcuated on one site alone that if I had one dollar for each download of the Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook I would be a millionaire, and that was 5 years ago. Oh how different life could be without the pirate; but alas, they don't care about authors and starving artists.

There are two kinds of pirates. One is the small-minded book thief who feels that if it is on the internet, it should be free. Period. Never mind the months or years it may have taken for the author to write the book, WITHOUT PAY. And, contrary to what some of these folks believe, even after publishing we don't see a payday until any advances are paid back and then hope we sell enough books to get somewhat of a paycheck.

Then, there is the calculated, evil book thief who sets themselves up for a payday on our hard work. They upload the books to torrent sites or other pay-to-download sites where an individual can purchase the download, illegally, for much less than if purchased legitimately. And where does the money go? To the torrent site and the scum bag who uploaded it there.

One might wonder the thought process of pirates who steal the work of witches, warlocks and hoodoos. Clearly they do not believe and stealing our work is not only stealing from our livelihood, it is a mockery of our work and for many of us, a mockery of our belief systems. Ok, that's cool, you don't have to believe. Just call me Honey Badger, because I really don't care if you believe or not.

But I do care that pirates are getting paid from my hard work. And in the world of hoodoo, payback is a bitch.

So, I decided to have a little fun at the expense of the first pirate I discovered completely accidentally, when going to upload a promotional video for the book on You Tube. I mean, the book hadn't even been out 2 weeks and this guys got a promo video for it with a download link.

Xiaolu Guo, it's time to play, New Orleans style!

You have so thoughtfully left me a tail of taglocks to use, so thank you for that, I truly appreciate it. For those of you who may not know, a taglock is a term used in image magick for a personal effect that links to the person to whom it belongs. Taglocks can be physical things like hair or fingernails, signatures or photographs, or simply names. In your case Xiaolu, I have your name (whether or not it is your real name doesn't matter - you have "signed" your name digitally to your YouTube account and in the world of magick, that counts), you have linked to your blog where you are offering countless authors' books for illegal download, so I can use your website header image as another taglock, AND you have provided a link to that wretched torrent site who is also on my Voudou hit list. Download Genius has been enabling pirates for years and its time they get in the hoodoo payback game too.

It's the Voodoo Doll Spellbook in action y'all! Are we having fun yet?

Stay tuned as I take a break to go create my pirate voodoo doll using image magick concepts to link Xiaolu Guo's soul to a conjure doll...I'll be back with photos and the details and my plan for revenge on behalf of all book authors who are victims of pirates across the globe.

Laissez les bone temps rouler! 

Lightning Struck Wood

Lightning struck wood is a powerful curio within Hoodoo and Native American traditions. It is typically hard to come by, but I am fortunate in that we live in the High Desert. When the monsoons come, the lightening is abundant and you can see it strike the trees at the top of the mountains. We have ready access to the trees that are lightning struck, and go and harvest some of the wood and offer it for sale at Creole Moon.Lightning struck wood can be added to any magick work to increase its power. It is particularly good for commanding spells, sex spells, and spells of destruction, which draw on its fire energy to destroy. Fire also has a dual nature to transform; hence, its ability to be used in positive works as well.

The temperature of lightning is around 30,000 degrees C or six times as hot as the surface of the Sun. It is believed that sap is one reason trees are common targets for lightening because sap is a better conductor of electricity than air. When lightning strikes a tree, the energy is discharged through the tree turning the sap into steam, which causes the bark to split apart.

Trees that are struck by lightning are not always burned and do not always catch on fire. When harvesting lightning struck wood, we do tend to try to get some of the wood that has been charred.

Our lightning struck wood is from juniper, cedar, and pine trees. We climb up the Granite Mountains -  which is among our locations - over the top and to the other side where we know trees that have been struck by lightning await. We then make an offering to the tree and the Thunder Beings in the Native way, gives thanks, harvest some of the wood, load up our backpacks and make the journey back over the mountain and down to the bottom. It takes several hours to accomplish, but it is well worth it, and our customers know when they order lightning struck wood that they are getting the real thing that is harvested according to appropriate ritual protocol.

These are the mountains we climb to get out lightning struck wood. It is on the other side where it is harvested.

Part of the way up looking down. 

Getting near the top.

Here is my son, ahead of me, of course.

And on the other side where the trees are located.

Different cultures have different beliefs about trees that have been struck by lightning. According to Navajo beliefs, for example, it is not wise to burn lightning struck wood as a source of wood burning fuel as it can cause illness and bad luck. Lightening struck wood is considered the property of the Spirit of Lightning and so it is avoided.

In Chinese folklore, a special divination system called lingqijing uses lightning struck wood as the material from which to make the divinatory objects. The word lingqijing consists of three characters – ling means 'magic' or 'spirit' or 'supernatural', while jing is simply 'book' or 'classic'. Traditionally, the disks are made from wood taken from a tree that has been struck by lightning, and prepared over a 60-day cycle in a rather involved ritualistic process, with the characters being inscribed with a cutting tool and then filled with red pigment. Lightning-struck wood would indeed be ideal, since lightning is powerfully yang and wood is powerfully yin, and in Chinese mysticism lightning-struck wood is regarded as good for expelling ghosts and malevolent spirits (2003-2006-2011, Yijing Dao).

To consult the Lingqijing you need 12 flat wooden disks. Four are inscribed with the Chinese character shang, meaning nothing more complicated than 'above', four with zhong, 'middle', and four with xia, 'below'. The backs are left plain. You throw the 12 disks to the ground all at once and arrange the fallen disks into a trigraph of three rows, according to their inscribed positions, of which there are 125 possible combinations. (The term 'trigraph' was brought into usage by Ralph D Sawyer, to avoid confusion with the three-line figures associated with the Yijing, the 'trigrams'.)

In Southern Hoodoo, wood from a tree that had been struck by lightning can be used in uncrossings. Find a white oak that has been struck by lightning and get 9 splinters. Follow the person suspected of laying the trick and put one splinter in each of nine of their tracks. Wish, or pray, that if this person does indeed mean to do harm the trick will turn back on them.

Lightning struck wood can be added to mojo bags and gris gris, and it can also provide a serious boost to candle magick. There are two ways it can be used with candles. One way is to take splinters of it and stick it into the candle wax, each splinter representing a specific magickal point in the candle burning. The second way is to grind some of it down to a powder to dress the candles by sprinkling the tops of glass encased candles or rolling altar and offertory candles in the powder.

Lightning struck wood can also be used to enhance sexual nature, particularly with men when combined with 2 High John the Conqueror roots and a pair of lodestones in a mojo bag.

Creole Moon's lightning struck wood comes in two sizes: a small 2x3 bag for $9.95 and a large 4x6 bag for $19.95.  I haven't gotten the curio section of the site completed yet, so if you are interested in purchasing some, email me at orders(at)creolemoon.com or leave a message on the comment section below. And as always, there is free shipping, every day at Creole Moon!

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Reference

http://www.biroco.com/yijing/lingqijing.htm

Article and photos are copyright 2013 Denise Alvarado, all rights reserved worldwide. Do not copy without asking me first.

Amulets and Talismans

A talisman is a small amulet or other object, often bearing magical symbols, worn for protection against evil spirits or the supernatural. Drawings of special seals and sigils are used as amulets or talismans and placed in mojo bags. In New Orleans, they are often an ingredient in gris gris bags as well. Other symbols, such as magic squares, angelic signatures, seals of Solomon, seals from the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, magickal alphabets, and kabalistic signs have been employed to a variety of ends, both benign and malicious. All of these can be used as talismans in hoodoo. Even the Buddha has made his way onto the altars of rootworkers, and talismans such as the one pictured above - the Buddha for Peace and Creativity - double as both talisman and a beautiful piece of jewelry.

The difference between an amulet and a talisman is negligible in terms of their effects. In some magick circles it is said that amulets are charged when the moon is waning and talismans are charged when the moon is waxing. 

Introduction 

The Psychic and Magnetic Influence of 

Talismans and Gems

Excerpted from The Book of Talismans, Amulets and Zodiacal Gems, 

by William Thomas and Kate Pavitt, (1922)

 

From remotest times, back even to the birth of humanity, Precious Stones and Talismans have been held in high estimation by all nations; the former, primarily because of their beauty, and the latter on account of their virtues, as transmitters of good luck and to avert misfortune. The association of Gems with power, civil and religious, has ever been noticeable; and to the fascination of antiquity may be added the allurement of mystery. Moreover, of the many and varied signs of wealth and luxury, jewels have played a most important part in the lives of the great, not only on account of their beauty but because they contained in a small compass the equivalent to a large sum of money and in times of danger could easily be concealed and carried from place to place.

As tokens or symbols they conveyed joy and confidence to their owners, and were thought to give warning of coming events, inspiring courage and faith in the fearful, and the romances and tragedies in which they have played a part, together with their marked influence on the lives of individuals and nations, intensifies our interest in them so that it is little wonder that faith in the mysterious properties ascribed to them should have survived the growth of ages and still find so many believers in all countries. The philosophers of thousands of years ago, understanding their suitability as a medium for the transmission of astral forces and vibrations, invested them with much importance, attributing to them spiritual as well as material powers, special characteristics and medicinal and curative qualities.

In all probability gems had their origin in the very remote period of the Earth's history when it was still in a molten state subject to deluge and fire, before its solidification made it possible for vegetation to appear, and the translucent lustre of certain gems is due to the action of the floods which preceded the fiery volcanic period. The colouring which forms their greatest fascination is due to various metallic oxides in combination with oxygen which in varying quantities gives red,blue, yellow, or green colourings, as shown by the Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Topaz, and Amethyst.

It is most difficult to determine with any certainty in what country Precious Stones were first worn as ornaments, but the consensus of opinion seems to point to India, as far as recognised history is concerned, as their birthplace, for every rare and beautiful production of Nature, Gems and Pearls are associated with the East.

The earliest records of humanity do not, however, stop with known histories, for traces of man's love for gems are found in the discoveries of travellers and the traditions of South America, evidence proving an inheritance from past civilisations of great antiquity. There is an innate attraction to the marvellous in mankind, the imagination leading us to endow the rare and precious with peculiar qualities, particularly when the source of its beauty and rarity is not readily perceptible. It is akin to the extraordinary magnetic influence which one person may exercise over another without any tangible evidence of super-physical powers, or the mysterious attraction which the Magnet exercises over Iron, and establishes the inference that other minerals may be similarly endowed with properties at present unrecognised by our ordinary physical senses.

 

Seal of the Sun from the Sixth Book of Moses

Modern research confirms the old teaching that the Universe was created from the four elements, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, in the order given, each growing as it were from its predecessor and all animated in turn by the Word breathed upon them at the Creation; this force, or energy, permeates all existing things from man, who is the highest of apparent physical manifestations down through the animal and vegetable kingdoms to the mineral, in which this energy, by reason of its very slow atomic changes, is least obvious. This Force manifests in the form of vibrations moving in waves through every composite part of the physical world, and, according to the condition of its medium, helping and giving power when in harmony, and thwarting or nullifying action when under unfavourable conditions. To this Force, or Etheric influence, is due the law of Evolution, or progress, which operates in every department of the Universe, not being confined to any one kingdom, but harmonising each with the other, being naturally most powerful in man whose evolution is the highest, and forms the medium through which man can act on the lower kingdoms and receive desired vibrations from them. We may thus interpret Plato's statement "that gems owe their origins to the stars" as an etheric influence acting on the auriferous matter which forms their composition.

The origin of Talismans and Amulets is lost in the obscurity of the ages, but as far back as we can trace human records they are to be found; the terms Talisman and Amulet have become from indiscriminate use to be considered synonymous, but in his notes to the Archaeological Journal, the Rev. C. W. King says:--

"The meaning of these two words is entirely distinct. Talisman being the conception in the Arabic tongue of the Greek, meaning the influence of a planet, or the Zodiac, upon the person born under the same. A Talisman in olden times was, therefore, by its very nature a sigil, or symbolic figure, whether engraved in stone or metal, or drawn upon parchment or paper, and was worn both to procure love and to avert danger from its possessor. The latter purpose alone was the object of the Amulet, its Latin signification being to do away with, or baffle, its root being Amalior. Pliny cites the word as the country-folk name for the Cyclamen which ought to be planted in every human home, because where it is grown poisonous drugs have no power to harm, on which account they call it the flower, Amuletum."

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If you would like a copy of this book, all 342 pages of it, head on over to the Creole Moon website where you can download it for free.

If you would like to see a large variety of talismans and amulets, head on over to Medicines and Curios. Doc Miller's got a whole slew of amulets, charms and talismans there!