The Element Encyclopedia of 1000 Spells: A Concise Reference Book for the Magical Arts

Demons

Demons are most frequently understood to be evil spirits. This is a misnomer, a perhaps deliberate misinterpretation of the Greek “daemon,” which merely indicates one’s personal guardian spirit, who may be benevolent, malevolent, or both, as the case may be. With the emergence of Christianity as a power, any spirit interaction beyond what was authorized by the Church was perceived as evil. Thus the daemon, once a part of one’s personality and existence, was transformed into the demonic.

The word “demon” is frequently understood, within the context of the classical grimoires, to indicate a low-level malevolent spiritual entity and it is used in that context within this book. In general these low-level entities are anonymous, jealous, maliciously mischievous, and stupid.

Orisha and Lwa

These very similar spirit beings emanate from West Africa. The orisha derive from Yorubaland, part of modern Nigeria. The lwa derive from Fon traditions in Dahomey/Benin. “Vodou” means “spirit” in the Fon language.

Adored in their homelands for thousands of years, these spirits accompanied their enslaved devotees to the West. Traditional African religions were outlawed under slavery, devotees were persecuted, and the spirits were driven underground, but they were not forgotten. Instead they emerged in great prominence in the latter part of the twentieth century as the foundation of increasingly prominent and influential African-derived spiritual traditions.

The orisha are the presiding spirits of the Santeria religion as well as the Afro-Brazilian cults, such as Candomble, Umbanda, and Quimbanda. The Portuguese spelling is orixa; many of the same spirits are prominent among the different cults. Their names may be spelled differently, sometimes the same spirits use different names, their personalities may even manifest slightly differently depending upon location, but underneath their basic nature remains the same. For instance Oya, spirit of storm winds and the Niger River retains that name in Cuba but is known as Iansa in Brazil. Her mythology and basic personality remain the same.

The lwa are the presiding spirits of Haitian Vodou as well as its descendants, New Orleans Voodoo and Dominican Vodo. (Lwa is the modern Kreyol spelling; older French texts may use the term loa.) Although there is an entirely different pantheon of spirits, a few are common to both traditions and the behavior and manifestations of orisha and lwa are similar.

The influence of a few spirits was particularly well distributed in Africa and thus they are common to virtually all African Diaspora traditions. This refers particularly to the trickster Master of the Crossroads, Eshu-Elegbara, and Ogun, spirit and embodiment of iron. Although their names may vary depending upon location—particularly that of Eshu who, by nature, enjoys tricks, illusion, and confusion—their core essence remains consistent.

Conventional wisdom has it that there are thousands of orisha, but only approximately forty have any interest or dealings with people. These forty, however, are passionately interested and involved with humans.

The official, formal African-derived religions, Santeria and Vodou in particular, continue to expand, attracting new devotees. The orisha and lwa, in addition, are gregarious powers. They’re eager to work, eager for attention. Because they are constantly fed, they’re full of energy. They will also work with independent practitioners and have been assimilated into some Wiccan, Pagan, and Goddess traditions. However, ritual possession, the spirit’s use of a person as a medium, common to a vast number of traditions worldwide, only occurs in the formal, official setting, as it should. These are extremely powerful, potentially dangerous practices that should not be attempted by the novice, the unsupervised, or the unitiated. Ritual possession is a shamanic art, not a magic spell.

There is a formal, lucid, structured way of working with the orisha and lwa, which serves as an excellent model for any spiritual interaction. Vodou and Santeria are monotheistic faiths: there is a supreme deity who created all of existence. This creator, however, prefers to be an overseer. Olodumare, the Yoruba equivalent of God, created the orisha spirits to supervise creation. Each orisha or lwa is responsible for certain departments of life. Conversely every area of life has its own presiding orisha or lwa. Each individual person also has presiding orisha or lwa, typically a male and a female, the “masters of your head.” They are your patrons, protectors, and advocates—providing you don’t anger them too much.

Each orisha and lwa has a distinct personality. Each has a color, number, special foods, plants, and objects in which they recognize themselves. Attract their attention by manipulating these things: thus spells invoking the power of Oshun, Spirit of Love and Beauty, inevitably draw upon the color yellow, the number five, water, cinnamon, and honey, all of which share Oshun’s essence. Petitions to Oya draw upon the color purple and the number nine. The spirits will communicate with you with these colors, numbers, and items as well. In general, when spirits perform a service for you, they want the credit. They will attempt to let you know that they have accomplished the miracle or the magic as the case may be. This system may be used to effectively communicate with spirits of other pantheons as well.

The orisha most involved in human every-day matters are sometimes invoked as a group and known as the Seven African Powers:

1 Elegba

2 Ogun

3 Obatala

4 Oshun

5 Either Oya or Orunmila, depending on individual tradition

6 Chango

7 Yemaya

By petitioning the orisha as a group, you may rest assured that all your bases are covered. The Seven African Powers provide all of Earth’s potential blessings and protections. Commercially manufactured Seven African Powers products frequently depict them in their guise as Roman Catholic saints (see Identification/Syncretism, pages 90–3).

The Exus and Exuas (Pomba Giras)

(Singular, exu and exua, pronounced “Eh-shoo” and “Eh-shoo-ah.”)

The West African trickster orisha Eshu-Elegbara is traditionally the first spirit petitioned during a ritual or spell. Because he controls all doors and the access to roads, Eshu determines whether your petition will be blocked or will reach the proper ears. Similar to the Greek god Hermes, devotees contact him first, propitiate him, then request that he invite and escort any other desired spirits. Although some traditions encourage everyone to simply contact whom they please directly, others consider this initial communication with a gate guardian to be proper spiritual protocol.

Eshu, more than most, manifests different aspects of himself in different places and to different people. But then, he is a trickster. In his original West African incarnation, he’s young and handsome, always ready for sex and romance. In the Western hemisphere, he rarely displays this side of himself, usually appearing as a deceptively frail old man with a cane or as a young, rambunctious, playful child.

In Brazil, Eshu transformed into a completely different type of spirit, into a class all his own, the exus, multiple personalities, distinct from the other orixa (orisha). Powerful, volatile, and dangerous, the exus emphasize the extreme trickster aspects of the spirit. Because an exu is closer in nature to humans than the other orixa, he is the spirit most frequently appealed to for mundane matters, like money and love.

By definition, Afro-Brazilian spiritual paths possess this concept of exu.

Each orixa possesses his or her own exu, who serves as the orixa’s personal messenger.

Confused? The confusion only increases.

There are a multiplicity of exus, each with a slightly different nature and slightly different role. There are also female exus, the exuas, except that that term is rarely used. The female aspects of exus are instead known as the Pomba Giras, the whirling doves. Despite the fact that these traditions are grounded strongly in West African spirituality, and despite the fact that exus, in particular, clearly derive from Africa, the Pomba Giras are not completely African. Rather they seem to represent a merging of African traditions with those of the Portuguese Romany, deported en masse to the Brazilian colonies, concurrent with the African slave trade. The pre-eminent Pomba Gira, Maria Padilha, is a deified former Queen of Spain, also known in European magic spells. The superficial image of the Pomba Gira, at least, has little to do with the historic Maria de Padilla, wife of Pedro the First of Castile and Leon, but derives from what is at best an outsider’s romantic fantasy of Gypsy women and, at worst, an embodiment of every clichéd, negative stereotype: a promiscuous, hard-drinking prostitute/ fortune-teller with a razor hidden in her cheek, a rose clenched between her teeth.

In addition to their function as messengers and servants of the orixa, exus and Pomba Giras may also be petitioned independently, specifically for more selfish, malevolent forms of magic in which the orixa may refuse to participate.

Exus and Pomba Giras are frequently perceived as dangerous and volatile, although this is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. Those who approach exus and Pomba Giras from a purely African or Pagan perspective will find them no more or less volatile than any other spirit. Maria Padilha Pomba Gira, in particular, can be a being of great power and generosity. Because many devotees are also either devout or lapsed Roman Catholics, there is often inherent ambivalence toward magic. Yes, it’s powerful but is it “good ”in the ethical sense? From this perspective, exus are frequently associated with Satan, the Christian conception of the devil. The qualities that most correspond to this concept are emphasized in the Brazilian concept of the exu: lurking at the crossroads, the smell of brimstone, and assistance that brings ultimate doom.

The Pomba Giras in general are perceived as dangerous, disreputable spirits. Their favorite haunt is a T-crossroad. They prefer working with women but will work with men, if requested. Those who fear them suggest that long-term contact will inspire transvestitism in men and prostitution among both men and women.

The traditional offering for exus are plates of yellow manioc flour cooked in oil or drizzled with oil. Pomba Giras prefer flowers to food. Exus drink wine, rum, and cachaca while Pomba Giras prefer anisette or champagne.

Saints

Whether fairies are spirits or humans may be subject for debate. Many spirits, from orishas, to those of ancient Greece and ancient Hawaii, may or may not be deified humans. The important orisha Chango, for instance, was once a king in Yorubaland. After death, he was deified and took his place among the orisha. That’s one version of his sacred story, anyway. The ancient Greeks demonstrated this process when Heracles and Psyche, both originally mortals, were permitted to shed their human energy and enter the Realm of the Divine.

Saints, however, are resolutely human—or at least they were when they were alive. Because the word “saint” has become so strongly associated with Roman Catholicism, it often comes as a surprise to realize that a concept of sainthood, albeit not an identical concept, exists among many other cultures, including the African Diaspora, Buddhist, Jewish, and Muslim traditions.

Roman Catholic saints are required to fulfill certain expectations before sainthood is officially conferred, and it can be a lengthy, bureaucratic process to prove their miraculous deeds. Other traditions use different criteria: sometimes the magic power (heka, baraka) contained by a person is so potent that it defies death, allowing others to continue to access it, for purposes of healing and magic. For many traditions, power of this magnitude is what confers sainthood. It is usually an informal process. There’s no official beatification or canonization: word of miracles simply gets around. Shrines spring up and crowds gather.

The behavior of these saints may or may not be exemplary. Many are described as devout, charitable, generous people, although others demonstrate what might be characterized as profligate tendencies. Regardless, a saint’s great power, baraka, is accessible to those in need.

Marie Laveau, the self-proclaimed Pope of Voodoo born in 1792, has ascended to this concept of sainthood. Thousands venture to her grave in New Orleans annually to beseech her for favors. In particular, Laveau has earned an excellent reputation for remedying legal issues, as she did during her life. Attempts to contact her are made by knocking three times on the front of her tomb or by drawing three x’s in red brick dust or chalk on the stone. Offerings and payments are left, most customarily salt water or seven dimes.

What is euphemistically called “folk Catholicism” has been the bane of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. The desire to work with a saint, as with a spirit, or perhaps the desire of the saint or spirit to work with the person, is too strong to resist: magical practices creep in. Certain official Vatican-approved saints are also frequent participants in magic spells, particularly Saint Anthony, San Cipriano, Saint Martha the Dominator, Saint George, and John the Baptist. A saint’s magic powers may have little to do with their official hagiography: Saint Anthony, for instance, is invoked in almost as many love spells as Aphrodite. San Cipriano may or may not have been a reformed wizard in real life, but as far as magic spells are concerned, he’s returned to his old profession with gusto. When they are invoked for magic, these saints are treated like any other spirit: offerings and payment are made for miracles begged and received. Saints, like spirits, have favored numbers, colors, fragrances, and gifts.

Unofficial Saints

The impulse to work with saints can be too powerful to wait for permission—or sometimes even to ask for permission. This isn’t a problem with traditions with no “official” concept of sainthood. In a sense, all Jewish saints, for example, are “unofficial.” There’s no authority or criteria to make them official, although popularity conveys its own kind of official status. It’s between saint and person. What happens, however, within a system where these criteria do exist? What happens when, during what usually starts as a local phenomenon, people begin to recognize a saint’s capacity for miracles, without official recognition? Will people be patient and wait for the official verdict or will they create their own rituals? For those who are inclined to magic, the choice is obvious.

So-called “unofficial saints” are invariably tied to the Roman Catholic tradition, because it is the only tradition that insists on a lengthy organized bureaucratic procedure of conferring sainthood. There is a vast range of unofficial saints. What they have in common are consistent miracles performed following death. They may be accessed in magic spells in similar fashion to any other spirit.

Identification/Syncretism

Syncretism is the system by which one spirit is identified or fused to varying degrees with another. Although the process is most commonly and consciously associated with modern African-Diaspora faiths, the tradition goes back millennia.

When the ancient Greeks began to travel their world, they encountered other people (Egyptians, Persians) with other pantheons. This frustrated them. Although they didn’t insist on one god, they did insist on their own gods. Who were these other spirits? In some cases, spirits from abroad (Dionysus, Hecate) were merged into their own pantheon. In other cases, the Greeks decided, other cultures simply used other names and told other stories about spirits who were the same as the Greek gods. Thus they created a system of identification: Hathor was a beautiful spirit of love, who liked perfume and music. She must be Aphrodite, also a beautiful spirit of love, who liked perfume and music. Although sometimes neat, obvious identifications can be made, sometimes this leads to confusion. The Persian spirit, Anahita, was a beautiful deity interested in human romantic and reproductive matters. Obviously she was identified as Aphrodite (identification means she was Aphrodite), but Anahita also had a martial aspect, driving a chariot, leading men to war. Therefore she must be Athena, too.

Identification therefore attempts to identify one spirit within another. Syncretism takes this a step further. One spirit wears the mask of another. When one pantheon is outlawed, the only way to continue devotion to now-banned spirits is to pretend that you’re worshipping others. This is precisely what happened to enslaved Africans in the Western hemisphere. Forbidden to practice their own faith, they accommodated it to another. Syncretism permits forbidden spirits to wear acceptable masks. Syncretism also means that acceptable saints are incorporated into magic spells in surprising ways because, in essence, they are fronting for that forbidden someone else. How else can one reconcile the conventional and devout “official ” Saint Anthony of Padua with the witch-doctor persona he displays so powerfully and benevolently in a multitude of magic spells?

Spirits, like magic in general, are fluid in nature. Shape-shifting isn’t hard for them, even without conscious syncretism. Hence India’s Durga is an aspect of Parvati. In a moment of terrible stress, Durga unleashed her alter ego, Kali. All three are aspects of one, but all three are distinct beings, too. Confused? Well, you should be, it is confusing.