Hands-On Chaos Magic: Reality Manipulation through the Ovayki Current - Andrieh Vitimus 2009

Resonance Sorcery and Material Bases: An Introduction to Talisman Work

In the previous chapters, we looked at how to scry, form, and cast sigils. In this chapter, we will build upon our sigil workings. In traditional sigil magic, a sigil was created and shot off into the universe. In the anchoring style of sigil magic, we used sigils to draw forward specific mental states. Now, we are going to use both methods, along with physical material bases, in our spell work. In this chapter, I will offer only an opinion from practical experience, since no one agrees on the specific mechanism, but I offer a way of thinking about this that makes sense to me, and hopefully it can help you.

Physical Materials and Sorcery

There are multiple books and webpages that list the correspondences of various plants, herbs, candles, and minerals. Some of these books and sites are contradictory about what some of these materials do. What's worse is that many of these sources only mention mixing the plants or minerals and as a side note mention that a spell worker must pray, push energy into, or work with the mixture. Most of these books and webpages follow the "instant spell recipe." Other people and sources assume that you can get results merely from the power of the plants alone. Underlying the attitude in many of these resources is that the gifted and special practitioner will be able to get results.

"Gifted" is a particularly troublesome word. First, it implies magical ability or insight from birth. From my personal experience, using materials such as candles and incense is one of the easier routes to do enchantment, if the practitioner has some baseline understanding of magical theory and energy work. For us, all of the previous chapters are that baseline understanding.

Hidden in between the lines of hoodoo and some of the spell work literature are a couple of secrets. First, multiple books will say it is the power of prayer that makes the hoodoo work. Essentially, it is the power of directed belief. There is still a process of clearing your mind and then using prayer to generate a trance state (and produce energy). Using sigils, some of the energy techniques, and focusing, we can charge the herbs with states of mind while mixing the herbs, staring at candles, etc.

On the flip side of the equation, it doesn't jibe with my personal experience that the root and herb part of rootwork magic has no effect. A way to think about the interaction between material, spell work, and energy is to think of it like a container. A glass bowl might be the best type of container for one type of liquid, whereas a metal bowl might well be a better container for a different type of liquid. In a way, especially with resonance-type magic, the container can have a major impact on how long something remains "magical," and how easy it is to push the energy you want into the container.

First, if you do your research on herbs, minerals, and base combinations, you can make your life a little easier when you are starting to use them. However, you must ultimately pick out the herbs by smell, since so many herbs and oils have similar uses (Yronwode 2002). Again, intuition and experimentation are your real friends, and the correspon dence tables are merely loose guideposts. You are not stuck without the specific materials you need; you can substitute based on intuition.

Now, before I go any further, there are two basic underlying principles in these types of magic that seem to work together. I refer to these principles as resonance and sympathetic magic. Later on, we will layer different techniques and paradigms, but these two ideas consistently come up. We will cover sympathetic concepts in the next chapter. But what is resonance?

Depending on your model, there are multiple ways to explain this concept. From a spirit model, resonance magic is about attracting the "right" kind of spirit helpers. From an energy model, it is about waves of energy streaming out from the source. From an information model, resonance could be thought of as starting a localized information pattern that acts as a wave. Simply stated, resonance works on the principle that like attracts like. So if you put out a vibe or charge a powder with lustful energy or information, it attracts lustful things to you or the powder.

Making an Herbal Talisman

Well, after mentioning the lust vibe, I got in a certain mood. Go to http://www.luckymojo.com and look at the listing of plants. Pick some plants that seem in right relation to lust and love, and pick an odd number of ingredients. If you are working with a favored love/lust god or goddess, by all means pick a number of ingredients consistent with that entity.

In the previous chapter, we talked about creating components for your personal alphabet of desire. If you haven't yet done a lust sigil of desire, go back and try to create one using the anchors to multiple different memories of lust, or scry one out while in a heightened lust state. Here, the beauty of sigil magic comes through, since you could simply create a new mantra to find a sigil while putting yourself deeply into the throes of lust with your anchor. Once you have the lust alphabet component, clear your mind and combine your physical materials into a powder. Crush the herbs or use a mortar and pestle if needed. Now, use your alphabet of desire glyph for lust and a mantra for lust to entirely take on the lust state of mind, while imagining a group of people of your preferred gender crowding around you. For me, this would be women, and I would visualize all sorts of women around me. For this exercise, it is important to visualize all sorts of members your preferred sexual partner gender around you. At this point, we can use the energy flow exercise to visualize and feel that energy flowing quickly into your powder. Again, try to do this for at least thirty minutes, but you most certainly can go longer. Place the powder (now charged) into a small red bag. Do not banish after you are done, but center yourself. Put the bag down and leave it sit for a few hours.

After a few hours, how does the bag feel? Hand it to a friend. What impression does your friend get? After this, take the powder with you when you go out in public. Do people treat you differently? How does your powder feel after a while?

Now repeat this exercise with lust and love states of mind, but choose herbs relating to spells that cause a break up of a relationship or strife. How does the powder feel in this exercise? Does your friend get a different impression? Do people treat you differently out in public? Is there a change in your experiment by using a different container for the energy?

Of course, you can repeat this exercise with almost any mantra, memory, type of energy, sigil, or even an entity later on, when we cover evocation. A personal favorite of mine is to combine this style of mixing herbs for prosperity with an evocation of Jupiterian planetary intelligences and use that powder incense as the prosperity talisman in itself.

Charging herbs in this fashion is the basic premise of charging incense, bath salts, or oils with a particular state of mind. In some systems of magic, charging these substances helps or is the primary mode of spell work. In my opinion, it is the beginning of talisman work.

To summarize this general idea, use the general correspondences from a Google search or luckymojo.com. Try to find general corre spondences for the general area of magic and use herbs or oils that you think are in line with your intent. Use your intuition as you are smelling, looking at, and feeling the herbs. If you are using oil, make sure to smell it. Involve your senses so you can get intuitive answers about herbs, oils, or any other material base you are trying to pick. The correspondences in Catherine Yronwode's books or other herb books are useful. As you experiment with more and more herbs, you may disagree with the correspondences from books, or your personal correspondences may seem to work better. For you, your experience trumps all. Use those prewritten materials as guideposts to your own work.

Of course, you must use common sense when you are selecting material bases to create a certain resonance. If you are mixing herbs that cause skin problems, you might not want to use them in a mixture that is for a bath. Toxic herbs probably should not be part of a tonic, and you might not want to use stones that cannot burn for incense. Stones don't taste very good without large quantities of spices, either.

Overpowering or Re-engineering an Implanted Resonance

Hoodoo and rootwork books rarely consider the effect of the interplay of multiple magical systems on folk magic. In my experience, ritual magic and folk magic overlap. Draja Mickaharic noted in his book Magical Techniques (2002) that the cleanest spiritual place he has seen was an ammonia processing plant (ammonia is a strong spiritual astringent). Likewise, he notes that the worst place he felt, with the worst spirits, was a coal processing plant. Of course, with the dust and smoke, I might also feed the surroundings with aggravation energy, but the ammonia plant is equally aggravating to people, and, assuming Mickaharic is telling the truth, it lends credence to the effect that herbs or even chemicals can have.

To take a step back slightly, if a recipient of an herbal pack (otherwise known as a trick) is conditioned to believe that hoodoo spells and rootwork work unconditionally, his or her subconscious mind will manifest that reality. However, as magicians, we don't have to accept that anything that is not advantageous to us will work unconditionally. Of course, we don't have to accept that advantageous things will work unconditionally either, but I usually like to train myself to accept that advantageous things working is a good idea.

In hoodoo and rootwork, the idea of a trick or curse is a very common occurrence. For now, I am only going to cover the resonance style of these tricks. These can include hiding bottles in other people's yards, sprinkling powders under their beds, or even dressing their door with toxic oil. The premise, of course, is to set up a resonance that attracts unwanted things or is used in a beneficial way to attract good things. Just like in the lust packet we made, the base acts as the container for the prayer/energy/spell. Let's try this experiment.

Overpowering Resonance: Experiment 2

Go to an abandoned building that you can get access to, or even a parking lot. I personally wouldn't do this in my house. Create the material base, tied to a negative state of mind with herbs that you have discovered through reading, a Google search, or experimentation that seem to match a particular negative state of mind. Essentially, pick ingredients that would make a good container for the negative energies. As with the lust example earlier, put the trick down and leave it alone for a couple hours. How does that trick make you feel when you hold it? Give it to a friend to hold. What is his or her impression? Is it a similar state of mind to what you were intending? As an aside, I should specify that your mixture could be as simple as a rock with certain oil spread across it. Make sure to banish after touching the trick.

Now use the energy exercise and take on a state of mind that would be essentially opposite to the state of mind you had when you created the initial talisman. So, if you created the talisman to reflect despair, go back in your mind and think about memories with hope, and let the bright-eyed, optimistic hope overwhelm you. Use the simple energy flow game to push the energy into the ingredients. Keep pushing the energy while maintaining your state of mind till you believe that the ingredients are more in tune with your new state of mind. Record how long it takes. Let the ingredients sit for a few hours. Do they feel the same? Hand the ingredients to a friend. What does he or she think?

Once you have done this, repeat the experiment with herbs or ingredients neutral to the initial emotion or state of mind. Does this change the length of time you believe it took to change the "impression" something gives off? Does it change how strong the impression is when you come back to the mixture or after you have charged the material with the opposite state of mind? What if you started with herbs or ingredients that seemed to oppose the initial charging but favor the opposite charging? Does this affect the impression at any time? Does one set of mixtures seem to hold longer than the other?

After you have tried these three experiments, remake the initial mixture of herbs or ingredients and take on the same state of mind you did in the first experiment. Completely charge the mixture for a similar length of time to the first experiment until it leaves a similar impression to the first experiment's mixture. Place the mixture in a pouch and then on the floor. Using a banishing that you created, banish space around the area where the trick is placed. How does that change the impression of the talisman? Likewise, do multiple banishings have an impact on the impression that the talisman gives off?

If you have access to a vacant building, abandoned factory, or other associated negative place (preferably in a rundown part of town), repeat the experiment and leave the trick there. See what impression you get over the pouch, and then banish over the pouch. When you return the next day, what impression do you get? Return to the trick every day, and perform only one banishing over the item, until you feel that the resonance of the trick as been neutralized. However, you are not allowed to pick up the trick. Was this more difficult than doing the banishing in your house? Why do you think it would be different? This is a very realistic situation with a trick. You may not know exactly where the material base is, but you might feel something is there. Make sure when you are away from the trick to banish again before continuing your day.

How does the proximity to the negative pouch affect you? What happens as you get closer to the source of the resonance? When you are trying this experiment, make sure to banish before you go to the site, and after you walk away. Try to notice how you feel as you get closer to the trick and how you feel after you walk a bit farther away. Try to concentrate on the effect the trick has depending on how far away you are from it. Sometimes the trick feels stronger when you come back after performing your banishing. What's going on there? Remember, like attracts like, and like energies and spirits may have, in your absence, coalesced around the trick. Just keep banishing until you feel it is neutralized.

Try to repeat this exercise using a positive material base and a negative state of mind at the same location. Abandoned buildings tend to be somewhat derelict. They attract all sorts of interesting animals and characters. Use common sense, and be careful. In fact, such a trick might have ample "like" energy or information patterns to attract to it, whereas a positively charged and biased material base might not. Try to attempt this in different isolated locations. What happens when you try it in a forest? (Try different parts of the forest with different impressions and different states of mind.) What happens when you try it next to a river? Experiment and see what happens with the resonance in areas with wholly different purposes and feelings.

Washes and Baths, Powders and Gesture

So far, we have been experimenting with different combinations of states of mind and herbal/ingredient mixtures. The point of the last exercise was to give you a sense of the interplay between the herbs and the purpose of the spell. We can use this idea of resonance for our enchantment purposes, as well as to create talisman-like products. Again, you have to do your homework on the Internet and visit a library to get lists of herbs and ingredients and, using the previous methods, fig ure out which combination seems to hold the energy the best for your intent. Experiment and have fun.

We can also use baths, washes, and powders in a positive way. I cannot see any sane person taking a bath with an herbal wash that had a negative charge (unless you lied about it), but powders, baths, and washes all can work the same way. Once you have a list of ingredients that corresponds to the intent you have, match up that intent with a state of mind, emotion, or set of memories. You might have even created a mantra and possibly a sigil. You can then empower the ingredients by using the methods we have already discussed and can visualize the sigil over the mixture, chant the mantra, and take on the state of mind while pushing the energy out into the mixture. This is simple enough. If you were to throw the mixture on the floor, it probably would have an effect on the area (do check this out with a friend); however, we can do more.

In practical terms, floor washes, baths, and even powders (or mojo bags) have to be applied to a space. This is a great opportunity to make the application a ritual act in itself and empower the process further.

Most floor washes either are clearing something out of a space or bringing something into a space. Likewise, baths and powders are supposed to push things away or pull things in. A cleansing floor wash, for example, would be used to push negativity away. So you charge it with various positive emotions. Using all of our five senses, we can make the application of the wash even more powerful. In this example, I might imagine the negativity in my house as black ooze. And then I imagine, with as many of my senses as possible, that it does not return to any area I put the wash in. I might even imagine it sloshing away, and perhaps even feel the movement of this ooze running away from where I put the mixture down (in this case, probably with a mop). Given this metaphor, I would obviously want to start from a corner and then work throughout the house, so that the last place where I apply the wash would be right by the door. I wouldn't want the black ooze to occupy any place in my house, so I would make sure that it is all forced out by leaving no place for it to go. Similarly, if I were cleaning negativity from myself, I would wash from the top of my head down and away from myself. The water rolls right down off me, so that's how I would use my five senses to augment and empower the cleansing. Of course, I could use a mantra and visualized sigil to keep the right state of mind going while the negativity was pushed out of my house or away from me.

If I were drawing something in, I clearly would start at the door and work inward. Again, this is just common sense. If I want money to flow into my house, I have to imagine the money flowing in from the outside to every corner of my house. You are only limited by your imagination, but applications like this are why we were practicing our visualization skills. If you can imagine a metaphor that seems to explain what you want to happen, you can use all of your senses to strengthen the application of your mixtures. Just think about how the wash or bath could work. If you are pulling in things like lust, what might you imagine when applying the mixture? Again, you have to do your own homework here. The metaphor and experimentation with resonance should help you to get the magic to work.

Remember, there are huge amounts of pre-made spells for this, and you should and can use those as guidelines. This is not a book on folk magic or hoodoo, but the goal of this chapter is to understand the type of hoodoo spells known as resonance spells. Other magicians I personally know have referred to this as "contagion sympathetic magic."

Cost vs. Time, the Supermarket, and More Postmodern Goodness

If you really start to dig into sorcery and hoodoo, you can tell that some ingredients are downright expensive. You might have the idea for a set of ingredients and, having experimented with it, you personally know it provides the base foundation for your work. The problem is that the mixture costs $50 to make. A magician well versed in wealth magic might regularly be able to afford such a nice mixture to experiment with. Most of my readers, however, might find this a little steep.

The purpose of this chapter is to get you to experiment with physical bases and how they seem to hold an "impression" Now, some mixtures might not be quite as good as other mixtures you discover, but really, anything can hold an impression. The question is whether something holds that impression with ease and how long it holds the impression. Expensive or high-quality materials might be easier to work with, improving this process. Generally, it is my experience that even the worst materials can hold an impression or magical charge for a long while if I am willing to spend more time to create that impression. In this way, there is sometimes (but not always) a cost-versustime equation.

A mojo bag with exactly the right components might be relatively easy to charge and work with. A stone from a river might not be quite so easy to work with, but it will get the job done. If you can explain why something works, it probably will. Improvise and work with magicdon't get locked into exactly what any one book tells you to do. One of my favorite talismans is in fact a purple plastic gun that is charged with solar energy. Sure, it took some effort to charge it; sure, a metal gun might have worked more easily; but do I really want a real metal gun for magical work? (That would be no for so many reasons.)

If you get into sorcery of this sort, try out your experiments, and then for fun limit yourself to what you can find in the grocery store with relative ease. Can you find all the necessary magical components at a grocery store? (It's really fun to see what you can get in a grocery store.)

Entities, Incense, Material Bases, and More Fun

We have purposely not discussed entities or more ceremonial magical operations. Physical bases within the idea of resonance magic can work as "storage" for energy. Often, in more ritualistic settings, incense, oils, or offerings will be used that help a bigger working. We can charge these materials in the same way we were working with them before, by using the energy flow exercise while maintaining a state of mind congruent with the bigger ritual. In this way, we can add to the power of a working. The incense or materials that will be consumed can act as batteries to help a longer ritual. For offerings, we can empower everyday items with energy and make a more attractive offering for a spirit, entity, etc.

Later on, we will see that even consumable "herbs" like this can be charged with a state of mind so that the vibrations help piece together more complicated workings.

One Last Note on Culture, the Subconscious, and Tricks

In some cultures, merely having materials placed in a person's house is enough to "cause" an effect. Who is really causing the effect here? When people have been conditioned to believe that a certain combination of herbs will cause them misfortune, it is easy to see how their subconscious minds will manifest that causal relationship. The keys to this spell have been drilled into their heads for a long time, and the subconscious understands what has to occur. Now, various books talk about how some African Americans have said that hoodoo doesn't work on white people. This is in quite a few books, but I am hardly ready to believe that this has anything to do with skin color. I would be more willing to believe that it is due to culture. In a different culture, merely seeing the herbs in your house means you have to pick them up and throw them away. When you start to fully charge your hoodoo work, in the way I have described or in other ways (like strongly prayed psalms), the hoodoo seems to work across the board for many people, regardless of skin color. Of course, if you had cultural reference points for a person, you may be able to get good results by merely playing off of superstitions from his or her culture. In eastern European tradition, that might be the Evil Eye or a similar gesture. Of course, that means a lot of research and work to understand the culture, but hey, I am a consummate scholar.

Instant Magic Game

Go buy a folk magic book, instant spellbook, or hoodoo book for the correspondences, or go to luckymojo.com. Mix up some herbs and try to get the spell to work as listed. You can change the amount of time to set up the spell, adding more repetitions or changing the words so that it is possible for you to get into a deep trance state, but do try to understand why the spell had the herbs it did in it (i.e., research the herbs), and what the limerick or rhyme (or prayer) implies. Try to understand what the information and energy being sent out to the "Universe" is at each step of the spell, and amplify that "information stream" until the spell does seem to produce results. If you feel up to it, for fun, write to the authors and explain to them your "improvements" on their spells, if you have some (in most cases, if you are getting into a deep trance state, you will have a lot of improvements to talk about). What kind of results do you get from fully charging even instant spells (in deep trance states)? We will go over this more in the next chapter.