Uncrossing, Trick Killing, Jinx Breaking, and Related Formulas

Uncrossing, Trick Killing, Jinx Breaking, and Spiritual Cleansing are usually all related and/or have some overlap, but are not always identical. Different blenders and creators of formulae may focus on different components or cover multiple bases in their blends, so some folks make an Uncrossing formula that does a slightly different job or has a slightly different focus than a Jinx Killer formula, for instance, where others may only offer one type of Uncrossing blend that is designed to cover all those bases. If your product supplier has multiple options for Uncrossing-type blends, you can always ask what they recommend for your situation.

Here’s a quick breakdown of my own formulas. In general, they are all designed to get rid of nasty, negative junk that is messing you up. Technically, Uncrossing is to remove crossed conditions. You might use this if you know somebody has laid tricks for you to cross you up, but it’s also useful more generally to clean off stuff that’s not deliberately laid on you but has just “hit you” or accumulated (the evil eye, or a nice long career in a toxic workplace full of envy or some of those people who just thrive on aiming spite at others). If you’ve got a long-standing streak of bad luck and you can’t seem to get free, or if you have had a reading or “spiritual checkup” done and you’re suffering from an unnatural illness, or if you’ve got a general sense of spiritual malaise or like negativity is stuck to you, Uncrossing has elements to help with that. In some situations you might also want to do some spiritual cleansing, Cast Off Evil, or Van Van work too, but my Uncrossing is designed to cover a few different bases, even if you aren’t sure exactly what the deal is or whether you’ve been specifically targeted.

So what’s the difference between Jinx Killer and Uncrossing when you are suffering from a crossed condition? Honestly, not much. The scent is a little different. The ingredients are a little different. Jinx Killer (and Hex Breaker) are targeted more toward situations where you have been hit with something, have been deliberately targeted by someone, so they focus a little more tightly on the crossed condition, jinxing, hexing, goofering, etc. and a little less on the “I just feel like I have some sticky, low-grade crap hanging around” stuff. Honestly, the only reason I started carrying Jinx/Hex Breaking stuff separately, as separate formulae, is because when I started selling my formulas after I got back to the States (which meant I had to actually, finally, formally come up with names for them), I had lots of clients and customers from a specifically-not-hoodoo background. In 2002, in fact, the overwhelming majority of my non-local clients probably weren’t entirely sure what hoodoo was. “Crossed conditions” was not a phrase they were familiar with (nor was “goofering”) – they were familiar with “jinx,” “hex,” and “curse.” So that’s why I carry Jinx Breaking as well as Uncrossing, really. But all of these are useful for removing crossed conditions and taking off hexes and such.

And the only reason I call my soap Can’t Cross Me and not Uncrossing is because I name my formulas consistently based on the ingredients and recipe – meaning that if you get my Uncrossing oil, Uncrossing bath crystals, and Uncrossing candle, they all have the same scent, same herbs, same oils, same usage, etc. So if it’s called Uncrossing, you know what it will smell like, what it’s for, and how you react to the blend, no matter which form of it you get. Because Can’t Cross Me does not use exactly the same formula, even though it does the same job, it has a different name. Trick Killing foot soak and Jinx Killing powder do the same job, but the recipe is different, so they have different names. I don’t have a Trick Killing oil, although I could make one to go with the foot soak, simply because it’s only in powder or wash form that Trick Killing does anything that Jinx Killer oil doesn’t do (or doesn’t do as easily). When I name a line of products, they all have the same ingredients if they have the same name. They are the same formula, just in different form. My Attraction formula doesn’t have a liquid bath version, for instance — if it did, all I would be doing is brewing up the bath salts in water for you, which means you’d be paying extra for water and for shipping the weight of it. And because it would then contain nothing that will preserve it like cologne or alcohol ingredients, it might go bad before you could use it if I brewed it up before I shipped it. The recipes that make brewed baths that can be shipped all contain something that makes them a little more stable to ship, like a cologne ingredient or some kind of essential oil or herb that gives them a bit more travel-time than plain old herb-water would (though no brewed bath is meant to have a long shelf life – get a dry bath or a soap if you won’t use it right away). So regular conjure formulas that come as salts/crystals are not usually going to have a liquid brewed bath version with that same name. But if you want something freshly brewed, or want a liquid soap that will be cool to ship internationally, then there will be something suitable in my shop – it will just have a slightly different name. You might need Can’t Cross Me liquid soap instead of Uncrossing crystals, for instance, or you might want a brewed herb bath, which comes in a kit called Hex Breaker. Fortunately, though, the majority of this stuff is traditionally named for what it does, so once you get the general idea/vocabulary, it’s easy to find a formula that comes in the form you want.

Trick Killing Fizzing Foot Soak

Foot track magic is an ancient art and it’s used every day by people from all walks of life, even in this age of pavement when some people never go barefoot at all.

This recipe is adapted from a good old-fashioned homemade foot soak blend to rejuvenate tired feet. To this, I’ve added ingredients traditionally valued for killing tricks laid for you, eliminating any jinxing messes you might have walked through, or simply managing a quick Uncrossing when you can’t manage the full ritual bath just yet. I consider it first-aid for crossing work and malevolent foot track magic, and it has the beneficial side effect of soaking away daily stress and grime, too.

If you have a loved one who won’t take a spiritual bath but you have reason to fear they’ve been targeted, and they *will* indulge in an innocent-sounding foot soak, this can be a handy tool in your arsenal for sneaky-uncrossing work. It smells perfectly innocent and contains all-natural ingredients. Just add a scoop of the powder into a basin of warm water, stir gently, and relax.

Can’t Cross Me Ritual Soap

This is an herb- and essential oil-infused liquid castile soap, containing ingredients believed by many to end crossed conditions and stop streaks of bad luck and negativity. This is a modern urban hoodoo formula along the lines of an Uncrossing formula, with a fabulous scent in an easy to use soap base. No time for a traditional spiritual bath? At least wash your hands!

This is a proprietary formula made here at Karma Zain. This is pure, undiluted castile soap containing essential oils and botanicals; a little goes a long way. I could dilute it for you, but you’d be paying for water, so I haven’t – thus, it’s more like a concentrate than a soap proper. You only need a splash – it won’t make big suds like a shower gel that has additives and detergents for big soapy bubbles, but you only need a splash to get all of you clean.

Extra-Strength Jinx Killer Powder

This is an old Hyatt formula for hex breaking that is used specifically to neutralize enemy work *when your enemy has been using your personal concerns.*

One of the special ingredients is graveyard dirt; I have gathered it from the appropriate grave using the appropriate means of payment. Sprinkle it around your home, yard, and office if your enemy has been sprinkling powders around your home or work; dust your hands and feet with it before you go around your enemies; use it in mojo bags, spell bottles, and amulets; mix it with some baking soda or rice powder and use it as a “dry shampoo,” to sprinkle in your hair and then comb out (it’s dirt, but it’s perfectly safe as long as you don’t eat it or inhale it, so don’t get queasy about putting it in your hair).

My ritual powders and hoodoo dusting powders are not for internal use and are not cosmetics. They are heavier and grittier than talcum-based powders — especially this powder — and are for ritual use (they are also much easier to sprinkle than talcum-based powders and they do not pose the health hazards of talcum based powders).

Trick Killing Water – Hair Rinse

Too weirded out by the idea of putting graveyard dirt in your hair if your enemy has used it against you? Trick Killing Water will seem much less weird and much more familiar. This is another old Hyatt formula. The informant gave this recipe to Hyatt, specifying that it could be used to wash a victim’s head if a trick had been laid on them using their hair.

Many old conjure tricks call for the hair of a target or victim to be used in various ways, and these tricks using personal concerns can be hard to take off sometimes if you can’t get to the actual vector or mechanism of the work (like a bottle spell kept in the worker’s home, or a coffin with your hair in it buried in a graveyard). I specialize in protection and uncrossing work, and over the years I’ve gathered and developed and mixed and collected several different “cures” for tricks laid with personal concerns — because I like to recreate these old recipes, but also because they’re useful!

This one is a liquid wash or rinse. It is not a brew (brews are made by steeping herbs in water) and it is NOT a shampoo or soap – you simply pour it on your hair as part of a spiritual cleansing or ritual bathing if you have reason to believe an enemy has laid a trick on you using your hair as a personal concern. You then let it dry, just like you should be letting your spiritual bath water dry on your skin afterwards. This formula is said to kill that trick. You use it by actually rinsing your head in it, hopefully as part of a larger uncrossing bath rite. Fortunately, it actually smells pretty good, which is kind of uncommon for some of these old-school conjure recipes.

***
I don’t have time to get into spiritual cleansing and Van Van and such now, but I’ll return to the topic for a part 2 later. Happy hoodooing!

questions you’ve asked (in search terms): ratings, goofer dust, saints

Q: Who is rated the best on AIRR of hoodoo rootworkers? I have a complex problem that needs solved, who can do rootwork?

Every worker at AIRR can do rootwork. Every worker at AIRR has a minimum of two years’ experience working for the public, professionally; most have much, much more than that. We all handle complex cases all the time.

There is no rating system, and “ratings” and “awards” are two of the warning signs for scam artists and unethical practitioners. Anybody claiming to have received a spellcasting award or to have been voted #1 in something or other is lying or is misrepresenting the nature of the organization doing the awarding. There is no such organization that awards such things, tracks workers, assembles ratings, or anything like that.

I’ll just touch on a few of the numerous underlying problems with looking for ratings.

First of all, what are the established criteria by which to “rate” a worker? If you named yours, I can guarantee you that the next person to name their own will have different criteria and/or will weight them differently, and I guarantee that you two wouldn’t agree on what counts as meeting or exceeding the criteria in every case, too.

Every case is unique, every worker works a different way, and so much depends on “fit,” on communication and on the worker and client “clicking.” If you go read one of those forums dedicated to folks reporting on their experiences with spellcasters, you will quickly realize how ridiculous and often contradictory the various members’ criteria for rating or judging a spellcaster are.

Put simply, there are no rankings and there is no organization that would track such things. There are no criteria by which to “rate” workers that are logical, fair, verifiable, and able to be applied across the board. Workers, like doctors and lawyers, have different specialties, different criteria for taking cases and accepting clients, different styles, and different ways of working. There is no such thing as “the best worker” any more than there is such a thing as “the best lawyer” or “the best doctor.”

There are LOTS of criteria for choosing a worker or lawyer or therapist or financial advisor or anything else, and if you look at customer comments/ratings on some of those sites, you’ll see pretty quickly that “customer satisfaction” is usually the biggest thing people base a rating on. But that’s a pretty nebulous thing to go by, and it’s actually not a characteristic of the worker him/herself. On being told that the thing they’re pushing for is not going to happen, so the worker can’t take their case and they should consider letting it go, one client will leave 5 stars and mention the worker’s honesty and ethics. But another will be angry, leave 1 star, and write, “a fraud! couldn’t do the work, not a real worker!”

To be blunt, a client is often not in a position to rate a worker on anything other than bedside manner and communication style, which are part of the picture but certainly not the whole picture. The more a client understands about spiritual work and the more experience they have with it, the better, but even so, different people will have different criteria and priorities. You just can’t apply statistics to this kind of thing.

And workers have different skills, specialties, setups, policies, and preferences. For instance, if you are looking for a phone reading so you can have reconciliation work done, well, I usually don’t do phone readings and I usually don’t take reconciliation cases. I’ll tell you out of the gate I’m not the worker for you. If you want some good old fashioned smiting on your deadbeat ex, some workers don’t do work like that and some will (after a reading or intake appointment or consultation or something). I will do that kind of work if it’s justified, if it will benefit the client ultimately, and if the client is not a total stranger to me or comes recommended by a colleague.

But I have no patience with frantic lovers who think their breakup is an emergency and who will label messages “urgent” and then say “he didn’t call me last Friday!!!” You will not want to come to me about that kind of thing. The kind of client who would label this urgent is also the kind of client who rarely pauses to consider that their worker could be dealing with an actual emergency with a client whose child is being abused by the custodial parent, or who is facing eviction, or whose spouse has just died and left him with tons of secret debt which is all past due. So no, I’m not going to consider your boyfriend’s texting frequency an emergency, sorry. But there are other workers who work with those clients well and have the patience to deal with them and educate them about how reconciliation and return-a-lover work works.

Most professional workers will be able to tell you something about themselves, their way of working, and their philosophy and communication and reading style; you should find one who appeals to you and drop them a line. I’m sorry to say that that’s the only way to do it – there is no ranking system and no way to rate rootworkers in any kind of across-the-board system, no way to get reliable statistics (be wary of anyone who says they have a percentage success rate – that’s a warning sign that I’ve written about in another “questions you’ve asked” post), and no way to tell whether they will take your case or what they will say or do until you talk to them. I know some very good, very experienced workers who have a reputation for being “testy” or “bitchy.” I have been included in that number, in fact, before. But I have plenty of clients, some of whom actually like me. It takes all kinds!

For some people, being treated with kid gloves is more important than the truth or the bottom line (and what constitutes “kid gloves” or even “respect” varies wildly from person to person). For others, they can take a blunt response if they know the worker is being honest and has their own best interests at heart. No two clients will have the same criteria that are ranked in the same order of importance anyway. One client can get along famously with one worker and their best friend can be turned off by or dislike that worker. (Same with clients on the worker’s end.)

But I can tell you that every member of AIRR has been trained, vetted, investigated, and tested; interacts regularly with at least some of their AIRR colleagues; adheres to AIRR’s code of ethics; and will participate in mediation if the client has a legitimate problem with a contracted service. (“She hurt my feelings” or “my lover hasn’t come back yet” are not legitimate problems.) Also, you can always contact a worker and, if they can’t or will not help you, ask them for a recommendation to a colleague. We are all colleagues and we know each other – if we think another worker will be a good fit for your case and your personality/communication style, we can probably suggest someone. But while some of us may like or dislike certain types of work or specialize in a handful of things and stick mostly to them, none of us is across-the-board “better” or “higher-rated” than another. There is no such thing as a legitimate rating system. And when someone contacts us expecting such a thing, we are cautious because we know they will need some educating on the basics if we take them on as a client.[*]

Why did my goofer dust fail?

There are way too many moving parts in any given working for anybody to be able to answer that without more information, or for any query you type into Google to be able to supply you with an answer. You might have made or deployed it wrong, you might have done everything right but your target has thorough protection from such tricks, or you might have done everything right and your goal is simply not the will of God.

How to make Martha the Dominator work in three days?

First of all, I would caution you that you can’t “make” a saint do anything. Second of all, don’t micromanage stuff like this. If you go to a lawyer for a problem, you tell him your problem, and he takes your case, and then you let him do his job. You don’t dictate the terms and you don’t tell him what day your court case is going to be and what the sentence is going to be, and if you tried, he’d at best laugh and he might just show you the door. You don’t go to a doctor or therapist with a problem and then tell them how and when to fix the problem; if you do, you’re a fool.

You don’t go to a family member or friend and ask for a favor and then demand that they carry out that favor according to certain details; you ask for the favor, and you politely let them know what you need (“I really need to have the car by 3 pm so I can pick X up at the airport and then I could return it on Sunday, if that’s ok with you”). They may tell you to get stuffed, or it would be fine but you need it back that night, or whatever. You need to prioritize your request and stick to the most important parts of it. Don’t get hung up on the how and why and details that don’t matter as much.

martha dragon You petition a saint for their intercession, and you let them know what you need, and then you get the hell out of the way. If they grant your petition, you thank them. If they don’t, well, maybe it was the will of God, or maybe you were a jerk. Maybe there is a good reason that you can’t have what you asked for in the way that you asked for it. Maybe 3 days is unrealistic, and you screwed yourself by insisting on it – they could have done it in 7, but since you were a jerk about the 3 days, now they aren’t going to do a damn thing, because you need to learn a lesson.

The saints answer prayers, but sometimes the answer is “No.” You still treat them with respect because you have a relationship with them. If you didn’t have a relationship with them before you asked a favor, then that was your mistake right there. What would you think if a new person moved into the neighborhood, knocked on your door, and asked to borrow your car for the weekend? You’d think “who the hell is this guy and what is his problem? He can’t even introduce himself first?”

Sure, there is a long tradition of “compelling” saints and spirits through such measures as turning a picture upside down, whipping a statue, taking something off their altar to return when they come through, etc. But you had damn sure better know what you’re doing, have a pre-established relationship with the saint, and know that you aren’t risking extreme wrath if you go that route with this saint (not every saint is petitioned/treated this way). Traditionally, such coercive measures were used in emergencies – if the monastery crops were failing and people were starving and the continued existence of the Church and thus the saint’s home was threatened, it might be appropriate to set the statue on the floor and be a bit more emphatic about your needs. If it is not an emergency, though, and if you don’t already know what you’re doing, I would think twice about taking this route.

***
[*] I don’t mean to imply that the only ethical, experienced workers are AIRR workers. There are good workers elsewhere too, and I count plenty of non-AIRR readers and workers as colleagues and friends. I just happen to know the ethics and vetting of AIRR workers, so I can speak in detail and in confidence about them.

Conjure in pop culture – Supernatural S2 E8, “Crossroad Blues”

In Season 2, Episode 8, “Crossroad Blues,” the boys encounter a tin box buried at a crossroads surrounded by yarrow plants, which they remark on as being useful for “summoning rituals.” The box contains an old apothecary bottle they surmise is full of graveyard dirt, a black cat bone (the whole damned leg bone, all still attached, including foot, tarsal/metatarsal, and radius/ulna), and a photo of the pact-maker, which they call “deep South hoodoo stuff.” There also appears to be a bundle of something that might be spanish moss, but you only get a glimpse. Ten years later, the pact-makers who did the crossroads rite see hell-hounds who come to fetch them at the expiration of their contracts, in this universe sealed with a kiss by a demon at the crossroads.

“So it’s just like the Robert Johnson legend, right? I mean, selling your soul at the crossroads kind of deal?”
“Story goes that he died choking on his own blood. He was hallucinating and muttering about big evil dogs.”

They find a pact maker with a peppery powder at his door, which he identifies as Goofer Dust. He then tosses them a leather mojo full of it that “keeps out demons.” Apparently it works even on hell-hounds, at least for a while.

We are largely in the realm of creative liberties here; this is a gumbo of influences, or perhaps it’s more like fusion cuisine. The writers seem to go to hoodoo when they want to evoke something particularly Southern or relating to a specifically African-American character with family knowledge (though to be fair, they mix it up pretty well and so far at least don’t seem to be painting with too broad a brush stroke or singling any one group out for any special treatment – like I said in the comments to my last Supernatural post, there’s a little something to annoy everyone of every religious persuasion in this series, not least of all orthodox Christians of several persuasions; the universe’s view of God is actually breathtakingly grim, and with so many sexy demons running around, I’m kind of surprised I haven’t heard more moral outrage from more quarters).

But while this is hoodoo-flavored, and there are some definite hoodoo spices mixed up in this one, as a whole they still don’t quite make a hoodoo dish. Individually, the crossroads, the black cat bone, the goofer dust, the photo, and the blues allusions all smell like hoodoo, but they don’t make a whole lot of sense mixed together. They’re just designed to evoke hoodoo associations and set the stage for where this particular universe is taking its particular characters.

I’m not here to enter the fray about when, where, how, and if Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for supernatural talent in blues-playing. There is tons of crap out there about it, and we can’t ever know the truth about anything that happened at midnight at a rural crossroads. Those rites usually require that you don’t have an audience, after all. I can recommend Lucky Mojo’s page on the crossroads legend, most especially for the explanation of how this “black man” or “devil” that you encounter is a distinct entity from the Judeo-Christian devil. (Though cat yronwode also gets into the question of whether that was really Robert Johnson who made that claim publicly, and the record would suggest that it was not.) That accords with my experiences and background as well: in deep South conjure, the rite done at the crossroads did not traditionally involve *selling one’s soul to the devil* or any kind of Faustian pact like that. That sort of thing was layered on afterwards by folks from outside the tradition, splicing in European lore. And if you peruse the Hyatt material, pertinent bits of which are excerpted at the Lucky Mojo page linked to above, you’ll find some remnants of surviving lore about a rooster leg (rather than a cat leg) involved in the rite. But the simplest form — the heart of the rite — is just showing up for a set number of nights in a row and waiting on the entity to appear to teach you a skill, usually involving manual dexterity of some kind. Again: this rite, done traditionally, does not involve selling your soul to any entity, never mind the Judeo-Christian devil; you do not need a black cat bone; you do not need yarrow; you do not need graveyard dirt; and you do not need to worry about hell-hounds coming for you later (though there is lore that sometimes the entity that comes to the graveyard is a creature rather than a man, so the black dog is a nice touch there).

As far as Goofer Dust goes, I imagine everybody reading this knows that it’s not a first pick for keeping away bad spirits, though it could very well be peppery, depending on your recipe. While some of the ingredients in Goofer Dust might sometimes be used for situations involving nasty spirits, Goofer Dust itself is usually used to harm people, and some of the elements in it are sometimes used to *draw* nasty spirits. Generally speaking, Goofer Dust is less an element of protection than an element of crossing (often with killing intent). I would not use Goofer Dust in any sort of protective rite – various recipes differ depending on what the creator has on hand and the region they live in, but my formulas (for both regular Goofer Dust and Extra Strength Goofer Dust) all call for some kind of poisonous or venomous insect or creature, and my dust is created with intent to harm, so there are plenty of better ways to work.

As for yarrow, for all I know it might be used for summoning in some other tradition or possibly even some other region, but not in deep-South conjure. I have never heard of it having any relationship to any crossroads rite, either. I find it’s more often used for courage and, by extension, for strength. I suspect that its associations with psychic power or divination come in through a combo of European herbal lore and the flowering of the sort of faux-world-mysticism of the 60s that introduced many Western practitioner to things like the I Ching, in which yarrow stalks were sometimes part of that particular form of geomancy (though coins are a lot more common these days). I have things I much prefer for psychism, divination, etc.; I don’t imagine I would use yarrow for this unless I was inexplicably out of all the other stuff I prefer to use. I use it for courage and strength, and it’s a great additive to Success or Road Opener mojos/formulas for clients when the reading shows that part of what’s holding them back is internal or emotional fear or self-doubt or weakness.

And if you want guitar-playing skill without the crossroads rite? Try putting a rattlesnake rattle in your guitar. (If you play electric, you’ll have to make do with a mojo in your guitar case. Put the rattle inside a plastic globe from one of those gumball machines that the toys come in, or else use an Altoids tin, to keep it from getting crushed).

***
[*] In Season 3, Episode 5, “Bedtime Stories,” one of the characters goes back to the crossroads, and this time there’s a wooden box containing a silver skeleton key, a cat foot/paw skeleton on a leather cord (not the whole drumstick-and-thigh), the apothecary bottle presumably full of graveyard dirt, and some silver coins (most too large to be dimes but I can’t really tell what they’re supposed to be). Here are screencaps of the character adding his own photo in the form of a fake ID.

Limited Edition, Extra-Nasty Goofer Dust

Limited edition, extra-strength Goofer Dust contains all the usual herbs, minerals, and curios, but this special batch also contains:

powdered rattlesnake
powdered scorpion

This is nasty, nasty stuff. Please handle with care, keep away from eyes and mouth (and children and pets), do not burn as incense, and take a spiritual cleansing bath after you use it.

back home

I’m back, trying to get caught up with orders placed while I was gone.

I have some water from the Gulf of Mexico, some sand from Dauphin Island, and a wonderful array of dried insects and reptiles. I also have a few new black cat bones — some had to be reburied, and some didn’t survive the burying/cleaning/digging up/dog avoiding process.

What this means:

Good time for Yemaya and La Sirene baths, goofer dust, hot foot powder, and stuff involving black cat bones. This set hasn’t had time to be bleached white yet, but if you don’t care about them being a little more “natural” looking, then these will be right up your alley. I should be able to get them white in a few more weeks.

If you’re new to my journal, please note that I do not harm animals to make curios, jewelry, etc. All animal curios and parts used in my formulas and items are gathered humanely.

Also, I’ll be putting up some original art by my mother (she did a lovely Green Man that needs framing) and some veve paintings from my cousin pretty soon, I hope. These two are much better artists than I am, so keep your eyes peeled.

goofer dust, graveyard dirt, silver dimes

Seen recently on the web: assertion that goofer dust is just another name for graveyard dirt, used because people don’t like to think about graveyards, and that it can be used for healing. This all gets really confusing, since other folks, largely of the Wiccan variety, will tell you that graveyard dirt is just mullein, maybe with some patchouli in it, maybe not. So I can go get some goofer dust at the health food store at the end of the day! Yay!

Um… no. You can believe that if you want, I guess.

In which case I have a 2000 year old amulet blessed by Jesus Christ, the Pope, St. John the Baptist, and St. Isidore of Seville to sell you. It contains a splinter of the true cross, nineteen angels dancing on the head of a pin, and an eyelash of the dove of the Holy Spirit. It will do your laundry, save your soul, give you longer, harder erections, help you lose weight, increase breast size, get you the home of your dreams, drive your car, raise your kids, fast forward through dentist visits, and bind the soul of a sexy vampire to you to do your eternal bidding during naughty midnight visits. I got it from my great aunt Esmerelda, who was an Egyptian priestess and a gypsy and a voodoo queen and a cousin of Marie LaVeau, and Esmerelda’s mother came from a long line of Scottish witches, some of whom were burned at the stake in Salem and some of whom are now studying Shaolin KungFu in a monastery in the mountains of China and will come back to their successful lives as jewelry resellers and stockbrokers full of witchy martial arts goodness, the ability to heal from a great distance, mastery of feng shui and telekinesis, and a satchel full of special jewelry items, every single one totally unique, found in a canopic jar at the base of an Egyptian pyramid.

Goofer dust is nasty stuff. There’s an old legend that wearing a silver dime around your ankle will help protect you from walking in Goofer dust. One of the ingredients in Goofer dust would indeed turn silver black. Try that with mullein. If you buy goofer dust that smells like roses, you are probably getting ripped off. If you buy goofer dust that can be burnt as a pleasant smelling incense, you are most assuredly getting ripped off.