return a lover – Big Lucky Hoodoo

Just stumbled upon The AfroMystic’s article “4 Reasons Why ‘Binding’ a Lover to Yourself is Not Smart.” I’m glad she wrote this. Now I don’t have to. But it needs to be said. Out loud. Regularly.

Now I know not everybody sees eye-to-eye on all the finer points and nuances of potential situations where things like Binding and Intranquility and such get brought up a lot. I don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with all of my colleagues about every single nuance of this stuff and vice versa. And I absolutely allow that not everybody from every culture, society, or country has the same autonomy, access to resources, and legal status as everybody else (and she touches on this issue as well in her article).

But if you’re a rootworker in the 2000s here, or even if you’ve just been hanging around in rootwork circles long enough, you know exactly the kind of thing she’s talking about ’cause you’ve seen it yourself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some version of these:

“Met him last month, want to do binding spell.”
“Takes advantage of me and never spends time with me, want to do binding spell.”
“Regularly sticks his dick in the crazy, comes home, lies about it, and gave me an STD. Want to do binding spell.”

And people get *shirty* (i.e. super offended) when you suggest they should maybe consider this spell instead:

Now don’t anybody get defensive and don’t anybody dismiss this outright. If you are considering love binding work, read this as neutrally as you can, and just check and make sure none of this applies to you. Maybe it doesn’t. If the shoe doesn’t fit, etc., never mind.

But probably 90% of the folks who’ve brought up love binding work to me in the last few decades could have stood to ask themselves these questions. Just give it a read, that’s all I’m saying!

I get more requests for reconciliation of lovers than for perhaps any other type of spellwork. I don’t usually take reconciliation cases involving couples (though I do reconciliation work between friends and family members frequently). But as I often find myself giving the same information out over and over again, I should probably make a post about it.

Client expectations of either the relationship or of spellwork itself are not always realistic when love problems are involved, and this is often the case with reconciliation/lost lover work, which is why so many clients go to so many workers reporting "I have tried other workers but they failed." I do not take these kinds of cases because they are so time-consuming and clients so very often are unwilling to set time limits on the work or to consider adjusting their expectations. If previous workers have failed, this should tell you, the client, that it’s time to consider putting a time limit on the work and to take a cold, hard look at how realistic your expectations are. If multiple workers fail, this sometimes indicates a problem with the case, not the workers.

But some clients are not ready to set a time limit, and in some cases they have had a reading that suggests success in their case is possible and they are frustrated at not finding a worker who will take their case. I can recommend some workers who do sometimes take reconciliation cases, and it may be that they will discuss your case with you. If you write to me asking for reconciliation work, I can give you some contact info for folks to try. But be aware that you will probably need to be prepared to set a time limit to the work; many ethical rootworkers will not take a reconciliation case unless you are willing to do so, especially if the original relationship was very short lived and previous spellwork has either failed or (as is frequently also the case when clients go to more than one worker) has not been given adequate time to manifest.

And to read a little more about lost lover/reconciliation work, including some insight as to why many workers will not take these kinds of cases, and what you can do or consider in order to improve your chances of having your case considered and your situation improved, you might have a look at the AIRR site’s entry on Love, Romance, and Reconciliation work.

Also, Cat of originalninjacat has quite a few excellent posts on love and reconciliation work that can help any hurting lover approach their situation in a way more conducive to a happy ending. You can find her tagged love/reconciliation posts at her blog.

ETA: Dr. E has a post up over at Hoodoo Crossroads on reconciliation as well, and the quotable quote is "Slow and steady wins the reconciliation case!" I wholeheartedly agree. I wouldn’t personally subscribe to everything in the post as a 100% truism all the time(*) (but I doubt he does either – we do have to speak of tendencies and generalities that we see when we write up an article or manifesto on something) – but Dr. E *does* take reconciliation cases, and reading this post will give you a very good idea of the kind of conversation you’re probably going to be having if you decide to try to hire a worker for a reconciliation case, and a very good perspective "from the trenches," so to speak, from a reputable worker who does this kind of work regularly. I say this over and over again but it’s because it needs to be said, and you will find a lot of reputable workers saying it: if 7 reputable workers casting 7 spells have not gotten you the results you want, *you need to stop hiring workers for that result and reassess the case before you waste any more energy and money.* (I would personally advise you to cut yourself off way before 7, but you get the idea I hope.) If you have been working a case for two years and seen zero sign of progress, then you need to spend your time, energy, and money on helping yourself heal and draw a good lover, not in chasing after a cold case.

Finally, keep in mind that I am often willing to consult with clients on many spiritual goals even in cases where I am not prepared to take them on as a client for that goal, should that be an option you care to pursue. Consultations for spell and/or product advice and guidance can be booked at my AIRR directory listing page, and on my userinfo page here at livejournal.

I do not mean to be heartless in giving this advice. I know that sometimes the heart wants what it wants, and I also know that even very difficult cases have sometimes seen improvement. However, I also know that I am probably not the worker for you, as these sorts of cases involve so much more time and correspondence and counseling than other cases, and clients are often impatient due to their great emotional pain. So hopefully this post will do some small part towards helping those hurting folks get some peace.

***

(*) particularly about cursing. I know my products work, and I know I sell a lot of crossing and hexing products, and I sell a lot of them to people who grew up around this stuff. Crossing somebody doesn’t, in my opinion, require any more skill than performing spiritual cleansing work (though it does require a certain temperament or set of characteristics as well as a certain kind of situation, at least in order to be undertaken without ultimately harming the practitioner as much as the target – which is another post).

And I know how many emails I get from people seeking to have me cross up their spouse’s mistress, or their girlfriend’s husband. Now I don’t disagree with the underlying point in the post that many clients think "change in behavior" = "crossed conditions," and that in lots of cases there is no curse causing the change in behavior. I think that underlying point is valid. And there are plenty of folks who are convinced they are crossed, and after they’re uncrossed, they’re still convinced they’re crossed, and they go from worker to worker claiming that the curse on them is so powerful that no living worker has been strong enough to break it, and they begin living a self-fulfilling prophecy which cripples them while it enables them to lose sight of any sense of personal responsibility and spend their whole existence in the role of helpless victim — and that is another post too, with a complex set of beliefs and behaviors underneath it.

So the underlying point Dr. E is making here is right on, I think. But I can’t quite let this pass without quibble: "Most people are untrained and uneducated when it comes to cursing others, and most don’t know the right way to go about." I would say that depends on where your clients come from, what population counts as "most people." Most people in the US? Sure. Most people in an area of South Carolina where I learned a turpentine trick-killing spell in 1995? Nope, patently untrue. Everybody in that neighborhood knew what red brick dust was for and knew what not to step in. That’s not to say everybody with a bag of goofer dust was equally capable of deploying it equally effectively – but it is to say that in that neighborhood, crossing as well as uncrossing was like making biscuit dough – if you didn’t know how, well, you were slightly pitied, but it was gonna be alright because your mama or your sister knew how. So I would just urge folks to consider their knowledge of a person’s background and "habitat" and interests and social circles when they’re deciding how seriously to take the idea of a curse coming from there.

Sorry to use your post as the step-up for a soapbox moment, Dr. E ! I’ve been meaning to post on that for a while anyway 🙂