how much spellwork is too much?

A reader asks:

Q: I’ve heard that working a few spells at around the same times would "divide" my intent and energy.. So how long would you recommend to "rest" between spells?

A: In my opinion – and this varies by person, so this is only my opinion – I think this is largely rubbish. Of course there is such a thing as spreading yourself too thin, or of not seeing the forest for the trees and worrying small things to death when you could be working on the larger things. And of course it will depend on your own knowledge of where your limits are. But in general, as long as you’re not losing sight of "the big picture" of your life and you’re not getting obsessive/compulsive about working magic to where it’s interfering with your ability to deal with issues in other ways, I don’t think there’s any particular need to "rest" between spells just for the sake of resting. I mean, hoodoo is very, very practical. And it developed in a culture in which there isn’t a big divide, as there is in Wicca and Ceremonial Magick, between "high" and "low" magic. It’s designed to solve problems. And in real life, people’s attention *is* divided, every day. You spend some time on one thing and some time on another and you keep all your plates in the air. The idea that magic or spellwork energy is finite seems a terribly limiting one to me that doesn’t make much sense in the context of root-and-herb-based folk magic. YMMV.

[on the need to wait an interval between doing a honey jar on a lover and also doing a mojo bag – would you need to wait between doing these things?]

A: Absolutely not. They’re all smaller components of one larger, long-term work, in my opinion – the relationship. Practitioners often keep honey jar spells going for months or years, so you can imagine that the idea of "taking a break" between spells doesn’t mesh with honey jar traditions. The honey jar is a central and long term part of a work that you might add specific things to over the course of time.

There’s no need at all to "take a break" between doing a honey jar and a mojo bag on the same situation. I think it’s true that there is such a thing as "overdoing it" when it comes to work, esp. with relationships/love, in that it can be dangerous to keep throwing magic at something without giving what you already have going time to work. It’s a danger when people get impatient and decide that if one spell is good, five is better, or if three herbs are good, thirty herbs are better. However, I do not think that a honey jar and a mojo together is too much.

new stuff

Ending today

Lucky Black Cat Bone bracelet

New stuff:

Customized honey jar spell kit. You provide jar and honey; I provide the oil appropriate for your situation, an appropriate candle, instructions, and a packet of herbs custom-blended for your situation.

St. Brigid altar piece

Bringing back a lover

I had a really sweet client order some supplies for a reconciliation working. She said she’d love to hear any input. Well, I have a bit. First of all, I should say that these are among the hardest workings to accomplish. I’ll give you an example of why.

About a year ago, a friend came to me for rootwork help. She was having husband problems, or, rather, the marriage was having problems because there was an extra person in it, at first unbeknownst to her. When this extra person became known, she came to me and said she wanted to do two things: break them up, and draw him back to her and their home and family.

I made her up a working to break the extramarital thing up and a honey jar spell to sweeten the married couple, and I tried to make sure that we were on the same sheet of music with what she wanted ahead of time. I confirmed she wanted him to come home and for things to be good again. I explained that there were certain behaviors she should not engage in in the meantime. If she wanted to sour the affair and sweeten her husband on the home, she should let the breakup working do its job instead of trying to do it on her own with threats and ultimatums and frequent phone calls. If she were trying to sweeten him on her and the home and kids, she had to make the home and kids and the marriage something that he wanted to come back to. (That does NOT mean taking a bunch of BS from a partner with no comment in the interest of being some kind of June Cleaver, in the interest of Perpetual Compromise, nor does it EVER mean taking physical or psychological abuse — but it DOES mean not chewing his ass out from the moment he enters the door. It means that conversations are constructive and exploratory and not harangues or endless bitch fests on either side.).

Well, she couldn’t help it. She was too angry and she’s never been one to hold her tongue. Needless to say, the honey jar spell did not work. The actions that she took in Real Time directly conflicted with what the honey jar was supposed to do. Her heart was not in the working. (Had she tried a Commanding type working, to get him under her thumb, that might have been more in line with her feelings, but that can come with its own set of problems, which I’ll save for another post.) See, she didn’t really want to sweeten him to the marriage. She wanted him to crawl back groveling. I made the mistake of listening to her words instead of reading between the lines, and I fixed her a trick that didn’t work because it wasn’t really what she was after.

This is only one example of how a reconciliation spell can go wrong. there are many, many more. In the meantime, I suggest a cautionary lesson from the above example — be sure you really want what you think you want, or what you say you want. This type of work requires some serious soul-searching, and sometimes it helps to have a third party, maybe a friend, maybe a psychic or reader, to be a sort of objective listener and maybe even advisor. It helps to get this stuff out, in the open or even on paper.

In Magick Without Tears, Aleister Crowley said,

20. Man can only attract and employ the forces for which he is really fitted.

(Illustration: You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. A true man of science learns from every phenomenon. But Nature is dumb to the hypocrite; for in her there is nothing false.)

Hoodoo your heart out — you can’t force love to happen where there is no love. And really, why would you want to? You can’t turn a cat into a turnip, and really — why would you want to? Just go buy a turnip and let the cat enjoy the cat nature in which it is immersed.

Now, back to my sweet client, the current one. I am in no way implying I think she has not thought this out. I am just offering the caution I feel I must offer. So assuming she has done the soul searching and there are no Impossible Tangles or Towering Rages of Righteousness involved, what can she do to get her lover back?

…to be continued…