Mastering Lucky Hoodoo!

By PortaLucis93, orginally posted at

http://fraterindeed.blogspot.com/2015/01/mastering-lucky-hoodoo-part-1-core.html

Prelude: What is going on in this weird little book?

I've tried a few times to write this post at the request of a few correspondents interested in
Voudon Gnosis. Each time I hit a mental road block. It is too long, too descriptive etc.
Sometimes it was regurgitative bile that I wouldn't put on a facebook post! So after several
months and promises, I write this for You Sylph and Mr. Plisken!

First things first and this is most important: while How to Become a Big Lucky Hoodoo, or the
LHG, is part of the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, it does not initiate one into the Voudon Gnostic
Continuum of Rev. Michael Bertiaux. What it does do is bring you to the attention of the Hoodoo
spirits. Bertiaux refers to them as the spirits of the dead & the sea but essentially these are the
local spirits where you live and their power goes back in a chain to the most ancient civilizations
including Atlantis.

*Gasp*

*Horror*

*Shock*

"Did he just say... Atlantis???"

Yes, yes I did. It is right there in the first lesson.

"Absurd! Preposterous! He shall face our ridicule and obnoxious taunting!"

And I retort: why is this such an absurd notion when one looks at the classical grimoires? The
classics are filled with mythology and absurdities! Claims of making flying carpets, turning an
item instantly into gold and other such matters that were they taken literally everybody would be
using them and we'd have an economic collapse from all the gold turds people would be
making! Mythologies? Is Atlantis anymore preposterous than the Bible?

No, what we have here in critics of Bertiaux's work is a double standard. While on the one hand
we are expected to accept that in order to work the classics we have to enact a shift in
consciousness so that we feel, literally and completely, that the mythologies of these grimoires
is absolute Truth, with a capital T.

The matter with Bertiaux's work though is people look at it and think "Oh my god, this is insane,
what madness possessed this man?" and write it off as fantasy on the part of the author.
There is reason for that and it boils down to three things.

1. The Golden Dawn

2. Traditional Voodoo
3. Southern Rootwork/Conjure/Hoodoo practices

I will now address each in their turn.

1. The Golden Dawn

The pollution of HOGD style teaching befowls the whole of the western tradition. Yes my
language is strong in saying this and there is a reason. First I will clarify that I, as readers of my
blog are well aware, come from a background in the branches of the A:.A:. and so I have lots of
experience with Golden Dawn derived magical practices going back for twenty years. I had the
same "banish, banish, banish" mentality that many of those practitioners develop due to the lack
of understanding of the original GD instructions on the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. I was
immersed in that style of magick. It hinders my development in the Monastery of 7 Rays to this
day as I break down that style of thought.

But why do I call it a pollution?

Aleister Crowley is probably the most influential magician of the 20th century, almost closely by
Austin Osman Spare, with his influence on Chaos Magick as well as Kenneth Grant & his
followers and then a distant third being Franz Bardon. Crowley was steeped in the Golden
Dawn and his work became the stone upon which all magical traditions developed from his time
until the modern era. Reading the rituals of Gardnerian Witchcraft you see corrupted quotes
from Liber XV The Gnostic Mass forming the corpus of the body. Crowley's influence on post
1920s magick is thick, reaching into Chaos Magic, Wicca, Ogdoadic traditions and even the
rewrites of ancient grimoires for modern users.

On top of that was the Golden Dawn attitude that the grimoires were filled with blinds, didn't
work or were the blackest of black magick. Many modern magicians don't look into them as
anything more than collections of spirits to choose for their own "low magick" operations to get
new girlfriends, riches and other mundane concerns that I dare not criticize.

While some modern traditions are more embracing of the grimoires, very few try to operate them
as written, writing their own "code" in order to run those "operating systems". Read that
sentence again and you'll see another pollution of the Golden Dawn.

"Wait, what do you mean?"

AHA! What I mean is the unintentional influence that underscores the Golden Dawn: Israel
Regardie. Regardie latched onto Crowley's introductory essay in his edition of the Goetia, "An
Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic". Regardie underscored the idea of magick as a
sort of therapeutic practice and used psychological models to explain the processes of magick.
This extended to every form of magick that one can operate rather than just the
initiatic/alchemical processes that the psyche of the magician undergoes. Spirits became fully
aspects of the shadow or unconscious mind etc. tearing the heart of Spirit out of magick. While
this isn't a true Golden Dawnism, Regardie was the single biggest source for Golden Dawn
revival orders into the 00s when other authors, not taught by Regardie began to write and
restore elements to the tradition more true to the source.

But the damage was done. I want to note, as I have said on this blog in the past, that I don't
think Regardie is the devil. Right now his work is going underground but I feel in a decade or so
there will be a revival of interest in his work as the barnacles of his former influence are shaken
off and his work is reappraised as Regardie as opposed to sourcework for the Golden Dawn
tradition.

What Regardie's influence led to though, in the overall sense, was extrapolation of his models
into all aspects of magick. Rituals and spirits became "programs" etc, But I have digressed.

The Golden Dawn derived traditions have become so pervasive that in the modern magician,
most of us raised up on Kraig's Modern Magick (an excellent manual by the way), that when we
see something so foreign to that style of magick, it is rejected outright. This goes for people who
learned magick in Wicca, Thelema and similar schools such as BOTA, FLO, & SOL. Lucky
Hoodoo bares no resemblance to these systems. But it does bare resemblance to something
and I will reveal that when I get to the end of this post, and that will reveal a key.

2. Traditional Voodoo

Traditional Voodoo is a modern concept, an attempt to homogenize the practices of Voodoo into
a practice that can be packaged and sold. It has certain formulae & ways to do things and in
that attempt to homogenize they have tried to present voodoo in such a way that any ritual you
go to called Voodoo will look the same. Like a Big Mac. Yum.

Lots of people in the last twenty years, especially since Louis Martinie published the beautiful
artwork of Sallie Ann Glassman in his New Orleans Voodoo Tarot, people have sought out
voodoo training, travelling to New Orleans and Haiti looking for teachers and a lot of these
teachers have seen a chance to make some money. People have been going to Haiti, spending
a week or so there and returned as fully initiated "houngans & mambos"! They learn a ritual
structure and then return to the states and write these wonderfully compatible books on Voodoo
Love Magic and Voodoo Money Spells and when they see the Voudon Gnostic Workbook they
cry foul.

"That ain't Voodoo!"

I'll have a post on how the line of thinking that all it takes is a ritual in order to be a priest soon
enough!
One thing Lou says in his wonderful book is that Voodoo is inclusive, not exclusive. Voodoo
absorbs what is around it, it adapts but these homogenizers want to package and sell voodoo
and the soul of Voodoo cries for release from this enslavement. I can get into why so many
people are travelling to Haiti in a different post but there is something going on there and it
reveals some issues with elements of the modern western mystery tradition.

The VGW bares little resemblance to this "traditional voodoo" either.

3. Southern Rootwork/Conjure/Traditional Hoodoo practices.

Hoodoo is an almost entirely American tradition. A mix of Native American, African and grimoire
magick, hoodoo came into being in the South. While some will want you to think is it the
provenance of the African American, belonging to their culture and damn you white people for
stealing it, Hoodoo was as much a white man's magick as it was a black man's.

Hoodoo is a broad term. It covers folk magick in various locations and no set structure. Much of
it is superstition and herbal or root medicines. Some elements can be traced to Ireland, some to
African practices and some to Native American practices. Like America, Hoodoo is a melting pot
of folk practices finding a fusion in a new world.

The practices of hoodoo are loose and broad. People swapped practices and ideas between
each other for decades, creating a uniquely American lore. From Europe came the grimoires
and in particular the Sixth & Seventh Books of Moses. Talismans were popular, drawing them on
paper and anointing them with oils consecrated to different ideas was a rule. Catalogues of oils,
candles and herbal concoctions were a norm in Southern culture, creating a rich tradition.

From place to place though you'd not find the same practices because Hoodoo wasn't ritual
forms like we find in the grimoires or Golden Dawn traditions. This is where the Sixth & Seventh
Books come in. Grimoires like that famous one would often contain practices in Psalmery, or the
uses of Psalms as spells and using them in conjunction to charge their talismans.

Nowadays we have this wonderful movement to collate the hoodoo traditions for a modern
audience. Occult authors are integrating elements of hoodoo and African Tribal Religions into
their practices with the grimoires to some beautiful effect. I think that these authors & the
traditional grimoirists, have fallen into a key to the grimoires and how to use them. That's
another post.

But in relation to the VGW, again, Hoodoo bares little resemblance to the system or teachings
presented in there in spite of the How to Become a Lucky Hoodoo portion of the book. Hoodoo
practitioners have been more "forgiving" than the Golden Dawn derivatives and "Traditional"
Voodoo practitioners. Some have even adopted Bertiaux's Lucky Hoodoo techniques or pirated
them to sell as their own! But to the cursory examiner & hoodoo "purists"... "THIS ISN'T
HOODOO!". I can hear the screeching old bitch now, like a deadite in an Evil Dead film!
So what is the Lucky Hoodoo Grimoire (my term for the system) really like? What is going on
here? Why are all these people screeching like gulls over a garbage trawl??

The LHG is most similar to the source work of not just the Golden Dawn but also Hoodoo. It's
right there in the title I give to that section as a short hand reference. LUcky Hoodoo is most like
the classic grimoires of the pre-Golden Dawn period of magical lore. Contained in these pages
is a grimoire as complete as the now popular "The Art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals" by the
Abbot Johannis Trithemius of Spannheim, tutor of Cornelius Agrippa and whose little grimoire
has been popularized by Rufus Opus and Frater Ashan Chassan F:.NF:.

The LHG is a simple little book that teaches us how to contact and communicate with spirits.
These spirits, as I said in my preamble, are the spirits of the dead as well as, when we get into
the "basic request ritual" the elements. The book contains a complete cosmology and system of
spiritual development like the best of the grimoires. If one were to step outside of the idea of the
modern traditions of the GD and Voodoo one would see that plain as day.

The LHG offers us a complete system of Sorcery to effect the same results, often in a more
direct way than the European grimoires. With the practices contained therein we open up the
channels to these spirits of the dead, as Bertiaux identifies two schools of spirits, the dead
sorcerors of Atlantis, as being the power behind the grimoire. This is no more absurd than the
grimoires claiming to be the "keys used/written by Solomon" or some similar mythological figure.

As a system of working with the spirits of the dead the LHG also harkens back to the Goes of
southern Europe, who worked with the dead and the origin of the word "goetia". For more detail
on this check out Jake Stratton Kent's Geosophia from Scarlet Imprint. As a system of magick it
aslo harkens to grimoires like the Goetia, Key of Solomon, etc. and this is a key to
understanding and seeing what the system really packs in it.

Mastering Lucky Hoodoo Part 1: The Core Elements

So now that I have established what the LHG is and it's place in occult lore as a stand alone
element of the larger Voudon Gnostic Workbook I want to get into the actual use of the LHG as
a system of spiritual development and I will refer to the practices of the grimoires in a very broad
manner. This part will address Lessons 1-3, & 6 as the easier to digest elements of the LHG
with part 2 covering the missing lessons that prove more difficult to many readers interested or
who have read this particular work.

As I established in the prelude to this series, the LHG is very much a grimoire in the classical
tradition as opposed the modern tradition. That said it is also thoroughly modern in how it
approaches magick and isn't a rehash of previously published material. At first glance it is a
course in candle magick at its most basic level. This is very, very far from the truth.
Each lesson is about 3 pages long and a total of 10 lessons in this practice. While a part of the
VGW it is completely standalone. The chapters appear to cover very small areas but actually
have a broad application and myriad uses when one has developed a strong foundation in these
practices and supplemented it with other materials such as an understanding of astrology and
color magick or if you are lucky enough, the Monstery of Seven Rays coursework. It is the
foundation of what can be a very rich system of magick even without the M7R materials. It can
also be supplemented wonderfully with the works of Kat Yronwode or Orion Foxwood's
wonderful The Candle & The Crossroads as well as the classic grimoires.

I want to emphasize something though. The LHG does not initiate one into the Voudon Gnostic
Continuum of which Michael Bertiaux is the Hierophant. It uses the broad term of hoodoo and
not Voudon, Gnostic Voudon or Esoteric Voudon. You aren't forging a link with the families of
spirits that were handed down to Dr. Bertiaux through the Jean-maine family, but with a very
broad category of spirits that he calls the Hoo and the Doo spirits, the spirit of the Dead and the
Seas. When one gets to lesson 3, the basic request ritual of LHG, we come into a contact with
the Elemental spirits of Earth (yellow), Water (Blue), Air (Green) and Fire (Red). They're never
identified as such in the little book themselves but it is very clear to students of the M7R and
readers of David Beth's Voudon Gnosis.

So as we can see we have contacted the spirits of the dead and the four elements. In traditional
grimoire magick and the Renaissance sourebooks like Agrippa, are necessary to earth &
manifest our requests. The spirits of the dead and the elemental spirits are the easiest to
contact. In Qabalah the spirits of the dead are the Nepheshim, the lowest aspect of the
Qabalistic Soul of Man and the survival instinct. People who have attended my lecture on
Psychic Attack & Defense will note that I refer to the Nephesh as the Psychic Censor, the piece
of ourselves that most fears initiation and change, the part being disciplined and the Princess of
the YHVH formulae. This is the part of us that is initiated through the four worlds and set upon
the Throne of the Mother. This relates directly to the LHG.

The spirits of the dead linger as Nepheshim, always around us. These are our ancestors, our
family as well as people who were important to us that are no longer here. They are also the
spirits of our chain initiation in whatever tradition we are initiated! At least those no longer with
us. The dedication ritual itself is a feeding of these ancestor spirits because we take the time to
speak to them, to acknowledge them and interact with them as time goes by and we become
more adept at Lucky Hoodoo. These are also the local spirits, the Genii Loci of where ever we
live. This ritual forms the foundation of Lucky Hoodoo practices, it is the most basic ritual.

In this dedication ritual we offer them water, placed on our altar is a nice, clean glass and
charged through the prayers of the ritual with strong intent. The more we do the ritual and learn
the words, the deeper they go into our hearts and the more sincere the words become and the
more potent the water becomes, drawing more spirits to us and charging the water. After the
prayers to the spirits we drink the water, taking their essence into us. This practice continues in
the basic request ritual when we bring the four elemental powers into the practice.
The request ritual described in lesson 2 is where we see the grimoire opening up a bit. We find
that while we had a black and a blue candle on the altar before, representing the Dead and the
Sea, we now add the other 3 elements. The black candle operates as the intermediary to the
four elements. While the candle is lit last in the ritual itself, it is its presence that ties the altar
space together by virtue of its presence in the center and the veve that rests beneath it. Black is
a very special color in the Voudon Gnostic Continuum and it does, here, tie into that larger work
but still exists outside of the VGC. These lessons were written from Bertiaux's system and to
exist independent of it at the same time. Black is spirit and space. See why it ties to the dead?

So far I have been going from lesson 1 to lesson 2 and this won't always go in direct order
because it is with lesson 3 that we find the next key to the system as a whole.

Lesson 3 covers 4 methods of Mind-Power development. Dream Power, Spiritual Prayer, Holy
Houses and Shadow Stuff. These four methods are the actual foundation upon which the whole
system hinges. Using them in conjunction with the ritual forms and each other as presented in
this book we open up & clear our channels to these other dimensional beings.

With the dream method the spirits come to us in our dreams and teach us. Admittedly many of
us do not remember our dreams so as deceptively simple this practice is, it is difficult for many
people I Have discussed this topic with. The answer is as simple as the practice itself. Keep a
dream journal and write in it every day, whether you remember or NOT! Just write something.
Eventually you will remember your dreams every day and can note important elements.

Spiritual prayer, as described in the book, is silent, as in with thought, talking to the spirits about
what ails ya. Here we get into a very key part of the system and of all grimoire systems! Wait...
what?!?

Grab your Abramelin. Read the process. One of the key elements of Abramelin is to confess
your sins. With the Silent prayer, you are talking to the spirits in a very honest manner, in the
same way as opening up to your HGA in the Abramelin you are again, clearing channels. The
spirits learn your inner heart and it is a purifying process. It helps in inducing a cathartic state
where you get things off your chest and learn about yourself, similar to therapy. One day you will
find the spirits talk back and not in the "oh fuck, I had a schizophrenic break" sense.

You confess so much, and I don't mean confess as in "oh my god, I am a horrible fucking
person" confession, that when it all comes out it opens a channel and the mind becomes
attuned to the spirits.

Also, while this isn't grimoire style stuff, remember how all those cheesy 80s and 90s how to
books all advised us to "build an astral temple brick by brick"? Yeah you know, you did it for
MONTHS and I guaran-damn-tee you have no idea why you did that do you? Well the Holy
House method is similar but not the same thing. The Holy House method is astral projection to
the spirits plane in order to learn from them. With the prayer technique we get into a more
involved conversation. We see the spirits we are talking to and see them you will! Development
of the imagination will be key to this system as we see a glimpse of in lesson 2 but will come in
play very soon. The first method, prayer, leads to the second method which if fed by the Dream
method.

The fourth method not yet discussed about this lesson is probably, in my opinion, the most
important, especially once you start using this grimoire in conjunction with the M7R materials.
Students of the M7R will see, fairly early, what this method can really do. I am talking about the
Shadow method, or shadow bath. With the shadow bath, after washing, you light a single candle
or a black/blue light and while naked you begin to run the hands around the body without
touching the body, washing over the body with the shadow, or the forces represented by the
black candle in the center of the altar, spirit, space & mind! See what I was saying about that
black candle? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

So in one lesson we cover a large part of any magical work. The astral temple, cleansing the
aura, and clearing channels to the other side.

Now I am going to jump to lesson 6 and will get back to lesson 4 & 5 in my next post.

Lesson 6 is about Possession, good versus bad possession. This isn't about full blown
horseman possession either. It is about good luck versus bad luck and gets into, in a very deep
way, the animist world view and the Goes element of the practice.

Remember how I said we are always surrounded by the spirits? That's good and bad spirits.
They cling to us and feed on us. The shadow bath helps with this but this lesson does a lot
more. This lesson is... a banishing ritual. No, not an Elburp. The Elburp school of thought
renders a space, a circular space, inert, neither positive, nor negative. Lesson 6 though is a
different critter.

Lesson 6 talks about the positive and negative influences and how to remove the negative
spirits that cling to us like barnacles while we go about our daily lives without realizing. In bad
possession we have more negative spirits than positive spirits because we have allowed them
to possess us by dwelling on our problems, our bad luck in work and love, and they become an
obsession. They feed on that shit. These are the murderers and thieves of the spiritual world,
nepheshim that need negative emotions to feed and stay around. Nepheshim can, without
feeding, linger for about 6 months or so, getting weaker as time goes by without "food". They
latch onto us and enforce those negative emotions, allowing us to obsess over them and giving
them more to feed on.

Well here is your chance to say "get tha fuck outta here!". The short prayer that MB gives here
is a pushing away of the Negative forces and an invitation to the positive ones, that they can
come and partake of our successes in our lives and also enforces the position of the Lucky
Hoodoo that as long as you serve me, I will serve you because with disciplined practice, the
Lucky Hoodoo keeps the lesson going not just to himself but the spirits around him! As he works
with the spirits he develops a relationship with these "possessing" spirits as well. There is a
reason that this lesson comes later in the LHG though, because first we had to become aware
of the spirits in the first place and develop a relationship as we had started doing in lesson 1-3.

Now let's put these lessons together to develop a daily spiritual practice.

First, we shower or bathe in our chosen manner. While in the shower or bath, speak to the
spirits in the best way you know how. Tell them in silent prayer that you are about to do a ritual
for them to feed them and to help you & your work which in turn helps them.

Take a candle in the bathroom with you if it has no windows because when you do the shadow
bath you want as much darkness as possible. If you have windows in the bathroom or your
bedroom that's ok. I suggest the bathroom because most do not have windows and that allows
for a lot of darkness. I've digressed. Perform the shadow bath after drying yourself. Just glide
your fingers through your aura and mentally reach out to the spirits and try to feel their mind
power travelling between the tips of your fingers and the skin of your body. I feel a tingly
sensation when I do this and feel even cleaner. Now put on your robes, clothes, etc. and go to
where you do ritual work and sit down and take a moment to enter into a deeper relaxed state,
reaching out with the mind, opening the channels and say the prayers taught in lesson 6. You
open your mind so that the negative spirits definitely know you mean business and run away.

Do you see what this is? It is the opening of any Solomonic style ceremony. It is the purification
of the Priest/Operator/Magician/Master before he begins the operation proper. Students of the
M7R can add to this full thing in interesting ways that further deepens the whole process on an
ascending/descending lattice.

Now we begin the ritual "proper". I suggest, highly suggest, that if you are working with the LHG,
that the dedication ritual become a daily ritual when you aren't making requests or some of the
other operations presented in the LHG. Light the candles, opening the pathways for the spirits of
the Dead and Seas and say the prayers. You get to the meditation portion and then open up
with the Holy House Method and talk to them, telling them about your life, visit with them, learn
from them and what they have to offer to you. In this way you develop a deeper & deeper
connection to the spirits which is tantamount to success in any operation you will do not just in
the LHG but later work in other areas. I'm working on the notes for a post about that soon
enough, don't worry. This focused work also further charges our water offering as they partake
of it through the conversation, infusing it with their power so that when we consume it to close
out the ritual we have both gotten more out of the whole experience. Also when done,
immediately note what the spirit told you. Always thank them as well.

You won't always get a lesson from the spirits, but the idea is to develop a relationship with them
because the whole of Voudon and Hoodoo is a work of mutual service. You serve them and they
serve you in a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship.

While cultivating this relationship we are able to then more effectively use the other lessons of
the LHG.
This is also the key being discovered by the modern grimoire revival, that working with the
spirits, developing a relationship, giving them offerings, helps to strengthen the magick that is
being worked. All of this serves to not only purify us, but also to purify them with purify here
meaning to energize. When using the basic request ritual follow the same formula as the
dedication ritual using lessons 3 & 6.

Next post I will discuss the practical elements of the LHG, the Contraite, Controlling Minds, Ojic
bath houses and Atuas abound! But not tonight, I got to keep some juice for other projects.

Mastering Lucky Hoodoo Part 2: Let's get Ethical!

So now that we've examined what makes the core ritual of the LHG as laid out in chapters 1-3 &
6 let's get into the more practical elements of this little book. In these parts we get into exactly all
the things, in most ways, that the older grimoires promise. There aren't any promises that you
will fly or treasure instantaneously appearing in front of you out of nowhere, but the LHG
promises that we will *deep scratchy voice* learn to control the minds of others, win the lottery
and various dark and sundry things.

After we have worked with the techniques laid out in the previous part of this series, which,
while skipping around in the little book, form a core set of practices and strengthen our contact
with the spirits, we can more effectively work these other lessons in a more effective and
cohesive manner. Alas we run into what is in modern magical circles, a question of ethics very
early on and I want to address this here...

uh oh, I am going to say something controversial!

The fourth lesson in Lucky Hoodoo covers "how to control the minds of other people". Sounds
spooky or unethical don't it? In fact, maybe we should just skip this chapter right? Who needs to
control the minds of other people after all?

You do.

"Woah this guy is an evil manipulator who uses magick to try to get in the pants of every little
hot blonde he meets innit he?"

"Right you are Gino, he's a right dodgy lil ponce"

Yes, yes, I know it sounds really questionable but this is a complete grimoire and reading
through the grimoires of the past we find all kinds of spirits with the intent of doing this very
thing. We see spirits who will make naked ladies dance in your doorway or make kings love you
etc. ad nauseam.

Well get your knickers out a bunch and forget what my Bill Clinton's are or are not doing.
This lesson can be used in ways that can improve your life and those around you in positive
ways.

We all work jobs, we all want to exceed and we all see people less qualified than us get the
position we wanted at some point in our lives yes? It's frustrating! Well now you have a key to
unlock that and what it really does is increase not just our awareness of qualities that will help
us get what we want from people around us, it also amplifies those qualities in the target's
perception. It isn't really controlling minds per se.

Actually, it is. I'll explain that. All social interactions are attempts at influencing people around us,
demonstrating value in an exchange that ever escalates and jockeying for position in the social
order. Immediately, on an unconscious level, we establish a pecking order when we approach
people or groups. We use our words and actions to communicate with people in relationship to
one another, exerting perceived influence to establish that pecking order. Some people are
more naturally skilled at this than others, thus putting them higher in the pecking order. Some of
us learn the skills through seminars, classes and books and elevate ourselves higher in the
pecking order through our understanding of these matters. This little ritual does the latter. We
learn how to influence events through our actions to get the desired outcome.

Now sometimes yes, we can literally bend people to our Will and sometimes it can be
necessary, but most times isn't. Using this ritual to make someone fall in love with you isn't a
matter of taking control of her mind in the sense of she becomes your slave. This can happen
and you will quickly learn it is the wrong approach. What the ritual, in this example, does is give
us opportunities to demonstrate to our target who we really are and why they should give us a
shot, to invest in us emotionally and we exhibit those qualities. To get our boss to promote us
over the less qualified person, it gives us the opportunity to exhibit why we should get the
position over anyone else.

And yes, there are times when we need to use it as literal mind control. We need to eliminate
someone who is making our lives hell etc. and this is a moral question, not an ethical one. How
much do we push back? Through all of hoodoo we find powders to influence judges, to get
people out of our lives, break up couples. Oh that latter one sounds horrible doesn't it?

Well what if it is a case of the reason a father isn't paying his child support is the new woman in
the picture. Because of her he has disappeared and stopped payment that he had previously
been very timely and forthcoming with? Then why the hell not break them up? This is your
child's father and this new woman is obviously the part of the equation that is causing the
congestion in this man's brain about his moral and ethical responsibilities!

In summary, this lesson is a big key to opening blocked channels, eliminating obstacles in your
life to self improvement in love, sex, money and employment.
But there is a key here and a very important one. You have to get to a point where you want to
fuck this person. Wait... if I hate the woman in the above example how why would I want to do
such a thing???

Yeah it isn't easy. Sometimes you have to transcend your own gender or orientation and this is
why things like love spells are easier to pull off than promotions and that ilk. But there is a
reason for you to make this deep spiritual contact.

Everything has a spirit, from the trees outside my window, to the printer just inside, to the
computer screen and my cereal bowl by my left hand. The idea behind the "fucking" this person
is actually the idea of becoming enthused by their spirit and communicating with it. This is
something that is gone into very deeply in the first few months of the Monastery of 7 Rays first
year course and extrapolated on in later lessons as well. Through this spirito-erotic contact with
their spirit, and this is exactly what you are doing in this exercise, you are telling this deep inner
aspect of the person what you want to happen by the energy you are giving off from the flavored
brandies you use to the magical square you have made of their name, firing that square into the
pleroma.

This spirit aspect of them transcends the ego, or Ruach, of the target and in the communication
the information is passed up to the ruach in subtle cues from the subconscious that the person
picks up. Attitudes change, actions alter according to the attitude changes and the result
manifests.

In order to understand this concept of "enthusing" check out this lecture by David Beth:
Sorcerous Gnosis of the Living All. In this lecture David goes very deep into concept that will
help you to make these rituals work even more effectively. This is a brilliant lecture and his
example of the tree is beautiful and humorous.

Crowley called this enthusing "enflame yourself with prayer" and Eliphas Levi "the astral light".
Here we are making the magical link.

So ethically speaking we aren't "controlling the minds of others" but using our powers developed
in the previously discussed lessons to make contact with the purest part of our target and
convincing that part of them of our desire. As a culture we tend to define people on their egos
and sense of personal identity, or I. This "I" is an ever evolving and changing aspect of self. The
"I" of me when I started this article is not the "I" that currently exists. While writing this piece of
MLH I have developed a deeper "subjective synthesis" of the material and formulated my ideas
on what this lesson is expressing! This is a very different "I" from the "I" then. It is an integration
of what were previously fractured thoughts on the topic and seemingly unrelated concepts
congealing into a cohesive statement on the "truth" of this concept. I am going to digress here
for a minute to discuss this "I" in relation to all of this work.

The I, I am ditching the quotation mark for this little bit in this short discussion, is a falsehood
because it is something we think of as "us" and who "we are". It is something very difficult to
transcend and is in fact the concept that makes magick so damn hard to pull off. When Aleister
Crowley talked about the destruction of the Ego in coming through the Ordeal of the Abyss, this
is what he was discussing. Not the Ego in the sense of the personality complex through which
we create our view of the world, but the notion of self as separate from the rest of the universe,
or the I. This I prevents us from seeing the interconnectedness of everything. It prevents us from
accessing the substrata of our subconscious in a useful manner and from working magick.
Austin Osman Spare and the Chaos magick movement puts a huge emphasis on eliminating
the I in order to launch sigils and similar magical concepts into that ethereal aspect of ourselves.

This whole notion is derived from the Golden Dawn fear and restrictions on hypnotic techniques.
Yes, I am saying that "gnostic trance states" are a requirement created from that fear. The need
to use hypnotic induction techniques to bypass the I came about because of this fear. The
definition of "gnosis" has become synonymous with altered consciousness. For the true gnostic
this is unnecessary, and I am sure many long standing magician who have overcome this fear of
hypnotic trances will agree. Gnosis is a living, deepening connection to the dreamlands
represented in the subconscious. It isn't something we have to rig, but something we are living
now. It is the difference between day & night consciousness.

This isn't to say that using trance induction techniques is bad, or unnecessary, in fact it is
essential but as one learns to go deeper and deeper and make these connections the trance
just comes. This is the secret to clairvoyance and psychic phenomenon. The key is to turn it on
and learn to turn it off as opposed to learning to turn it on and then it just clicks off when we are
done.

When the I begins to see itself in the quantum entanglement with everything else it falls away
and we have to reassert the I, or come back across the abyss, in order to understand what we
are experiencing. The I changes from a concept of self to a concept of true perception filtered
through the ego. I is no longer related to the Ego. We aren't becoming space cadets but seeing
the world as it really is and concepts like "models of magick" fade away as the falsehoods that
they are. All is consciousness and all is connected to this consciousness.

The "left hand path" initiates assert the I as essential and invoke it as God, exalting their
personalities as the most important. The quotation marks are there for a reason. That isn't the
left hand path as indicated in the works of the people who created the term. I have digressed
too much and may extract this bit to make another post in the coming weeks.

Now, back to our Lucky Hoodoo lessons.

Lucky Hoodoo Part 3: Contraite

Well the latter out of the way let's get into a few more lessons. This post will cover the Contraite
at the special request of Steve "Snake" Plisken, also known to my readers as Sack of Ships.
First of all... forget everything you know about astrology because while valid, it has been my
experience that astrologers have a hell of a time grasping the contraite. It uses a lot of
astrological terms in ways that seem foreign to them. To really understand how the terms in the
contraite are being used you really need to understand Bertiaux's approach to astrology in the
Monastery of Seven Rays lessons but that doesn't mean everyone needs to run out and try to
join the Monastery to use this knowledge. What it does is lay out an example of how to use
astrology in this type of talisman! That's right, this is just an example of how one can make a
contract with the spirits and it just so happens to focus on material matters using Bertiaux's
personal system of astrology. Everything you need to know about Bertiaux's astrological
teachings for this lesson is right there.

This talisman is a 16 chamber magical square drawing on the power of certain conjunctions to
energize the talisman. Used in conjunction with visualization techniques learned in lesson 3, we
use the suggestions to craft a sort of fantasy ritual while we draw the talisman in order to charge
it with those energies. Bertiaux presents 16 stages to the visual exercise and we use those by
entering the Holy Houses of the Hoodoo spirits and working through this ritual there, in the
dream space while we craft the talisman. This is very similar to when using the classic
grimoires, we start crafting the talismans during the day and hour of the spirit in question,
placing the pieces, engraving, drawing, and consecrating until finished and in their presence
and under their guidance.

Well here we are doing the same thing. When we enter the Holy House we transcend the
strictures if normal space time. We aren't limited to crafting a talisman of the Sun on Sunday at
sunrise and are able to, as in the example, draw on the Sun in Capricorn, Virgo and Taurus and
the Moon in Scorpio, Pisces and Cancer. Then through the attributions of each numbered cell
on the talisman, visualize the ritual drawing on those energies.

Admittedly this can be very awkward and difficult to collate the various elements of the
instructions in a visualization. My first few attempts were very stilted as visualizations so my
suggestion is to read the instructions a lot. To reach into yourself and then connect the elements
in a meaningful way and build a loose outline of how these images manifest into a cohesive
narrative.

So what is this lesson really doing? On the surface it looks like a simple wealth talisman and
very *deep voice* low magic. I feel dirty. Now what it is doing is teaching you controlled
daydreaming techniques or what they like to call in the GD tradition, guided visualizations or
pathworkings. In your visualization you are creating & employing a set of symbols to imprint
something in your mind, drawing connections to these sets of symbols as reservoirs of power
that can be drawn on to the intended end. Using the Contraite format we can use our own
understanding of astrology or symbolic power systems to build similar talismans, or machines as
Bertiaux calls them, to suit other purposes. So what it is doing is teaching you how to use the
Holy Houses for magical purposes. Utilizing the
Holy House as a magical engine. We've learned to go there and learn from the spirits and this is
the other half of that. It is another use of the Holy House and there are many other holy houses
out there that in time you can find and access and make contacts with. From these spirits you
can learn other magical machines that they can operate. I encourage you to do this when you
get to the point that you are proficient and understand the symbol sets you end up using. Tell
me about them in the comments section! With proper guidance you can start accessing star
houses, planetary houses and zodiacal houses and interact with those spirits and learn from
them and use their holy houses to craft magical machines powered by their engines as well!

Now some of you may have disturbing thoughts about making contracts with spirits.

"No, you demand from the spirit and torment it over fire, threaten it with chains and bind it to
your will! You don't make deals with the pikey bastards, that will just get you burnt in the arse
end! These are demons! What are you trying to sell me? Black Magick???"

To those who rant and rave about how this is how you do it, go fuck yourself. Yep, that's my
opinion on that one. These aren't demons and most of those "demons" you're so high and
mighty about aren't "demons" either. Oh sure, some are, but some are not.

These spirits are working with you. This is an employee/employer situation and just like a
human being, you should be paying these guys for their services and the contract is ensuring
that the relationship is formalized. This isn't making a pact with a demon. It is a mutual set of
assurances and payment for the work being done. They feed on life energy, not in the "oh my
god they're going to drain me" sense but in the sense that they take the excess and use it. It is
also a throwback to pre-Christian magical practices like most of this grimoire, inspired by the
Voodoo practices of Haiti. Besides, these aren't demons. They're elemental spirits of the earth,
water, air, fire and our ancestors. You break the contract and well... they will go on strike!

Mastering Lucky Hoodoo part 4: scandalous!

Now that we've explored some of the less umm... Scandalous... Parts of How to Be Big Lucky
Hoodoo, we need to look at what is for some reason the most controversial lesson in the ten
part course: how the hoodoo man keeps his nature high.

First I got to ask a serious question. Rather raise a serious point. This lesson gets drug out by
people as some sort of example of there being something wrong with Dr. B more often than any
other lesson in the book! At least in my experience.

Ya know, I have read it several times and I don't get what is so scandalous about this lesson.
People talk about the description of vampiric gay bath house cock suckers like it is just the most
controversial thing! And you Thelemites criticizing? For shame! I've seen some of your pictures,
been to your parties and for shame judging Dr. B on this lesson because really? You're going to
judge the guy and call him icky over this lesson???

Also, I've read Leah Sublime, so I know!

Oh but we missed the rest of the lesson when we read about the magicians of light and the
magic "cream". Didn't read this lesson very close at all didja ya dirty hypocrit?

So this lesson about "cream" and wands and cocks, what is it about? It certainly is over the top
isn't it? I read it and see Prince with a white leather mask and a velvety purple Victorian
gentleman's coat voguing to his song Cream and humping random people and objects.

"Cream, get on top"

It is very catchy innit?

*stops to listen to "Cream"*

Oh where was I? Oh yeah, magic cream and vampire bath houses.

What we have here is no more scandalous or ridiculous than any other sex magic teaching
organization. Bertiaux frames it in an extremely absurd manner and you'll discover in reading
the rest of the VGW that Dr. B loves absurdity as a teaching tool. It presents a challenge to the
student... And a puzzle!

Let's be plain here though, I assume you're all idiots so to be clear Bertiaux is talking about
spooge.

And something much deeper and also something less apparent that you're missing because
you're all a bunch of prudish Puritans that wear chastity belts and would never spill spooge on
your blue dresses after playing with a man's Bill Clinton's!

I'll address why spooge first. It is the spooge, but it isn't the spooge. Do you get it? Do ya? No?
Didn't think so... Man I have to hold your hand and lead you everywhere Alice!

He's talking about OJAS! Energy.

Ok, you know that, I know, really deep down I know, you all aren't idiots. You're just easily
shocked and I'll bet, for sure, some people are pissed at me for the tone in this part of Mastering
Lucky Hoodoo. Shock value is a beautiful thing. Why shock value? Because for some people,
some small minded hypocritical people, this lesson is used to show Bertiaux is just all that is
wrong, bad ritual magic.

Except... It's not. It really does establish two things. First yeah, it is talking about offerings to the
spirits through the raising and release of sexual energy. It is unclear whether the brandy he
mentions at the end of the lesson is commingled with the spooge or not. Oh you missed the part
about peach brandy being consumed at the altar with the lit candles didja?
The rousing of sexual energy is a core element of Bertiaux's system, though not always via
sexual means. Remember my discussion of enthusing and link to +David Beth's video
"Sorcerous Gnosis of the Living All"? No? Go back and read it and listen to the lecture... Again.
Then come back.

This enthusing property is what separates the voudoisant from the muggles. Being able to be
enthused, to want to erotically meld with the daemonic element of all that lives & lived, is a
central aspect of success in working the LHG. This lesson I have been drawing on and pointing
to in all of these posts ever so subtly. I've also saved a part of this lesson for this post.

This lesson is all about love. Love for others and love for self. Love for the spirits you are
working with. Love for your lover, love for your world. Love for your clients.

Love makes us all happier, to feel love, be loved and most importantly, the love that is self
acceptance. Whether we are straight or gay. Whether we have peculiar tastes or mundane
tastes in our love and we should share that love. We need to exude that love and have it radiate
from us like a beacon of light outward into the world from within. By expressing that love we
express confidence and our nature becomes higher, we develop confidence and it draws people
to us as lovers and clients that we will help. That's the heart of this lesson and what you critics
have missed with your prudish judgements while getting spanked and tied up in some dingy
hole.

And you know what, you shouldn't be ashamed of that. I still love you. Straight, gay or bi,
transgender, non gender, asexual or ubersexual, you're still beautiful, wonderful human beings.

Be yourself, give your love to the spirits and to yourselves.

*and if you want to mingle your spooge with the brandy after building the ojas with your wand,
I'm not here to judge.

Mastering Lucky Hoodoo Part 5: Houses of the Holy

Finally we get to the last part of the online version of Mastering Lucky Hoodoo, which focuses
on the final lesson of the course as included in The Voudon Gnostic Workbook. This post will
also summarize the work and have an epilogue to the series and address what has been left out
of the web version of the text.

The final lesson is on how the Lucky Hoodoo has life long success as a reader and advisor as
well as a lesson on the Atua *ah too ah*, or what amounts to a spirit box and home for the
spirits that work with you.

Throughout the lessons we have been given snippets of information and basic guidelines on
doing ritual and spell work with the Hoo and the Doo spirits and the first part of this lesson
illustrates my point through all 5 parts of Mastering Lucky Hoodoo, which is that not only is this a
course on spell work but it is also a lesson on initiation and of a sorcerous type at that. I've read
a few forums where people have posted saying that in using the LHG that they feel it is very
Qlippothic and dark magick but that's all just ignorant poppycock. This is a primordial gnosis, or
as David Beth like to say Hyperborean magick. I tend to agree with him and the initiations
discussed in the first part of this lesson are very much along the lines of "pact work" discussed
in some of Jake Stratton-Kent's work where the spirits that one works with provide lessons and
instruction in what direction the sorcerer needs to take in their studies for the most positive
impact on their lives.

Through the daily work outlined in Lesson 3 and steady practice of the rest of the lessons of the
LHG we enter deeper and deeper into our symbiotic relationship with these spirits and honestly,
anyone who thinks this grimoire is Qlippothic has just bit the apple of the modern Left Hand
Path movement hook, line and sinker and that's a damn shame. Oh yeah, I said it. The modern
LHP movement is a damn joke. It's spooky for spooky's sake and rebellious and undisciplined.
LHP now means "I like this person so I am going to say they are LHP" and schmucks buy it
because they want to rebel against "The Man" or "The Order" or whatever other thing they have
replaced their parental figures with. LHP means to dress something up and throw in some
Qlippothic sounding names and wear some make-up for my author's picture and be all gothic
and vampiric rather than indulging in the scholarship and actual works on the LHP that would
show just how incorrect these idiots are in their interpretation of the LHP. Just grab Cave of the
Numinous by Craig Williams or Voudon Gnosis by David Beth and you'll get more LHP than you
will find in the average "spooky dark" occult manual claiming to be the secrets of "the dark,
sinister, left hand path".

Oh my, I have digressed. Gonna have to edit that out of the Monograph... heh heh heh.

But what I am getting at is that this grimoire is no more Qlippothic than the Goetia or any other
grimoire aside from being more primordial, which we are shown by the last words of the Lesson
itself. This grimoire is a complete system of self-initiation and empowerment and in the closing
paragraphs Bertiaux discusses more advanced lessons that to the casual reader would seem to
be the rest of the VGW itself. Well, no. Sprinkled throughout the lessons are core elements of
the Monastery of the Seven Rays lessons, from the astrological aspects of the Contraite to the
8th lesson on Sex & Attraction. The whole course is founded on the materials in the M7R
lessons and yet completely accessible within itself because it maintains a consistent, simple
system of magical work that doesn't require physical initiation from a Guru or Master. The crafty
sorcerer, with the help of the Hoo & Doo spirits can build on the material presented here by just
following the simple core laid out in these ten lessons and then develop a system working much
of the VGW lessons that could of benefit to the Sorceror if not actual Esoteric Voudon work from
the M7R foundations.

A little more on the supposed Qlippothic nature of the LHG: read the myths of not just the deities
of Africa but all pantheons and you will most definitely see a very dark undercurrent weaving
itself. Stories of death and sex, revenge, descents into hell pepper the myths of all pantheons
and in the modern LHP movement it seems almost as if they want to lay exclusive claim to
these things. Almost like because Vama Marg is the Left Hand Path and involves Kali and Sex
and primordial Gnosticism that sex, death, revenge and descents into hell just gotta be LHP. I'd
like to see some of these people take initiation in the O.T.O., Golden Dawn or A:.A:.. I'm just
sayin'.

But what is going on in initiation in the LHG? Well the writing is on the wall in Lesson 3 and
Lesson 6. Possession and mental power being given and developed in the magician. Lessons
and empowerments granted by the Spirits themselves. The contact with the spirits can become
extremely deep and Lesson 6 helps us to keep the bad spirits away. So... how is that
Qlippothic?

What is happening is you are becoming a house for the spirits but in a very general sense. If
you read further into the book you read about the Points-Chaud, or Hot Points on the Body.
These are power zones in the subtle body similar to the classical chakra system and are places
wherein spirits dwell for you to work with. You are becoming a living Atua for the spirits, a
vessel, consecrated and blessed by the spirits for them to work through and for you to work with
them. As your "possession" by the helpful spirits increases and the "possession" by the negative
spirits decreases, your life changes in positive ways. You smile more, you have a greater
confidence, a primal aura that is magnetic and draws people to it and many of these people
need help that you can give them and like the spirits with the offerings you give them, these
people give you offerings because not only are you a sorcerer but you are also a Lucky Hoodoo
spirit now.

Unlike working with the M7R and receiving those empowerments and blessings though, the
power zones aren't as precise as they would be working with the M7R courses and you know
what? That's great because not everyone will be truly called to the work of the M7R or the
O.T.O.A.-LCN but this powerful system of magick is right there for you to use and develop on
your own, to help yourself and others. The lessons give you an amazing foundation to build a
wonderful, beautiful system of sorcery and magick to make your life wonderful & beautiful and
full of wonder.

That's why I am writing this series, because I want everyone to put this little grimoire to use!!
And I am not done talking about Houses of the Holy in this post but man, I just had to say that
last paragraph. It's just fucking beautiful!

The second part of the lesson is about the Atua itself, not your body, but a box with a lid that
goes on your altar as a place for the spirits to indwell in your home. This post was hard for me to
write to be honest and I am going to tell you why because man, getting a box and painting it and
putting things the spirits like into it, how hard can that be??

Well for me, damn hard and here is why: Almost my whole life I have been a vagabond. I've
never really had a permanent home for more than a couple years and the longest I stayed in
one place since I turned 18 was in Logan, Ohio for 7 years and four different homes. So yeah, I
don't tend to have a permanent place or altar and because of that I unconsciously put off this
very, very important lesson. If I didn't have a home per se, how can I provide a permanent home
for the spirits?

I started looking around me, at my paraphernalia of the occult and I have this little box where I
have been keeping my Goetic seals etc. so those little buggers don't get out and cause havoc. I
gave those little buggers an Atua and insult to injury, the box came from the Dominican
Republic, just outside Haiti!!! Orobas, Bune and others had this nice little comfy box they sit in
and wait for me to need them while my HooDoo spirits get shoved in my back pack when I go
on a trip or sit on a table haphazardly, or on the fridge, or in a cardboard box and well, man,
that's just fucked.

The Atua is a special thing though. It's a container where we can put our candles in, incenses,
Lucky Hoodoo Spirit Windows (but why would you want to? get those bad boys on the wall!!)
and other LHG materials for storage and further empowerment as this thing, that's the home of
the spirits man! How bad ass is that? You have a talisman to have blessed or to keep it's charge
from a previous Hoodoo working? Put that shit in the box for a few days and boom, it's got some
mojo. Want a coin blessed for your coin magick you've picked up from Kyle Fite? In the box for
the spirits to work their mojo man! You use Jason Miller's Cash Box from Sorceror's Secrets and
Financial Sorcery? Well write out a request to ask the spirits to do the same thing as that cash
box when you put money in it and put it in there and let the spirits juice the cash like the Cash
Box does. Hell put your Contraite in there for added mojo.

You see where I am going? Use the Atua, like your body, in the work you are doing with the
HooDoo spirits. Keep the spirits working because that is what they want to do. They want to
work, that's why they're called, ya know, work spirits. With a permanent place in your home they
will be able to do more work with you even if you aren't getting the candles out every day or
even week.

Take care of the box, keep it clean, perfume it, put things in it that the spirits want. I have a coin
talisman from Kyle Fite that wanted an Atua for itself and it really wanted to be kept in a
Wintergreen Altoids tin! I kid you not. I am taking it that that spirit in that talisman like the smell
of Wintergreen.

So listen to the spirits and they will tell you what they like and what they want and the box will
take on a life of it's own and become a living entity that seems to move and breathe and will be
a key part of your household.

Epilogue

So this series has been really popular and I am very grateful to everyone who has shared the
posts and told me in private or in public how much they enjoy it. While this last part has taken a
while to get out there, and hopefully it is as well received as the last several, astute readers may
notice I have left some elements of the LHG out of the article. Well there is a reason and that is
some things you just have to figure out for yourself through practice. I don't want people just
repeating what I do, how I see things. The whole point of these articles is to get people excited
about the LHG and start doing the work. I have had more success using this grimoire and
system than any other system I have found and that is because it is so remarkably easy to use.
I think Bertiaux may have invented the greatest of all magical formulas with this grimoire, Keep It
Simple Stupid, K.I.S.S.. What a wonderful word of power!

I also wanted to show how Bertiaux's work ain't so fucking crazy or out there by showing how it
has a firm foundation in Western Magick and also ATR practices even if it doesn't really
resemble ATR all that much, but c'mon he went to Haiti, was initiated there, studied Theosophy,
Shinto, WMT and created a syncretic, primal form of magick that owes a huge amount to Haitian
Voodoo and the pre-Victorian grimoires, to the French occult Masters like Papus, Levi and
others. He created a brilliant system that when you look at it through modern occultist eyes, it
isn't at all familiar because we are drunk on the Golden Dawn tradition and the GD has colored
everything in Western magick from Wicca to Thelema and Chaos Magick. Of course it doesn't
resemble GD based magical practices because it calls back to two things that are much older
and authors who weren't steeped in the GD practices even if they were aware of them. LHG and
Esoteric Voudon have more in common with Agrippa, Rudd and Martinez than Mathers and
Crowley and going down the rabbit hole of pre-Victorian traditions unlocks an appreciation for
Bertiaux accomplished and the man's influence today? I honestly feel he is the most influential
occultist since Crowley and most have only heard legends about the man or how crazy his
system is.

One criticism I have seen online is that Gnostic Voudon doesn't have an order of service like in
Haitian and New Orleans Voodoo but when one learns who those 5 candles represent, we see
there is indeed an order of service it's just adapted to a solo practitioner and city life where the
elaborate Voodoo ritual isn't always practical.

He's given us a system that mixes East, West and African traditions into a coherent whole that
is hung on a simple core that can easily be built upon. The LHG is just an inkling of what there
really is because the M7R lessons are really an encyclopedia in themselves, throw in the VGW
and other, unpublished materials and the depth of what he has brought forth is staggering,
especially in comparison to modern prolific authors who seem to just rewrite the same things
over and over in each book with little new content and the depth of a mud puddle. He isn't giving
us cook books of spirits with spooky art and ominous words. OK, yeah he is giving us some
ominous and outrageous words but you get the point.

Most of all, like Agrippa, he has given us the keys to making our own system of practice by
providing us with knowledge rather than those cook books of rituals I mentioned. The LHG gives
us a foundation to develop our own rituals and practices, to elaborate and even rewrite in new
ways and for new uses. It's a small foundation with infinite potential and not yet more variants
on the Pentagram ritual or rapes of GD rituals. It isn't complicated, requiring learning various
gestures and ritual movements and in this way it does harken back to the pre-Victorian
grimoires in beautiful, subtle ways.

Man, I sound like a fanboy but ok, what I want to get across here is this system encourages you
to develop your own way of doing things, your own way of being. When you link up to the M7R it
becomes all the more richer, and you will for it but even if your don't join the M7R, you will find
yourself inspired by the spirits to add to the base established in unique ways and your own
ways. No two practitioners of LHG or Esoteric Voudon are the same and man, that's a living
breathing system and damn, don't you want to be a part of that Laboratory?

So what's next with Mastering Lucky Hoodoo? Well many of you know I am going to do a limited
edition monograph that expands on these articles and adds new material and revises these
articles into a unified unit. I am hoping to crank that out for Spring release, if not a little sooner.
I'm working on some nice extras to throw in for the small print run that I will be doing of the
Monograph. 16 plus 4 special editions that are already claimed and family editions for those
closest to me, like 3 copies!

After I've sold through those I may make the monograph available as an E-book for a relatively
cheap price with no extras, just the revised and expanded essay and appendices. The
Monograph will integrate more of the first year M7R materials and go into the Lwa represented
by the candles and how to work with them with specific offerings and also how to work the
system without the use of alcohol for those of us who are recovering alcoholics or just plain
don't drink.

I won't be churning out a cookbook of rituals though, but advice on how to use the system as is
and also to expand on the foundation. I also be discussing using the Lucky Hoodoo Spirit
Windows produced by Kyle Fite because man, these things are brilliant! I've used them a couple
times and tonight I hung them in my bed room and can feel the energy in the room just open up
and flow between them! Beautiful pieces of work that just breathe.

I hope you enjoyed the full series of articles on Mastering Lucky Hoodoo, it's been a hoot
reading comments and chatting with some of you. I do it for you guys, god's honest truth but not
just you guys, the spirits and myself as well. We are all one, a team, and don't you forget it!