What Platform Is this Again?

Hello, My dear occulties,

Sorry for not posting more this week… My internet connection has been shoddy at best… 😛

As several of you may have noticed, many of my spells on this blog are usually Hoodoo in nature. Simple Hoodoo spells can be the easiest to teach, and, since Hoodoo is a form and style of magic and not a religion, it is also one of the more secular venues that I can apply to teach all of you. Were I to start using more complex spellwork in this blog, I would have a hard time explaining it to all of you, as the easiest intermediate magic – in my opinion, – would be a Wicca-style spell, and then I would have to have you all call secular magic circles or just assume that you all felt comfortable giving thanks/praise to the Wicca Godheads – on top of believing you all to be Wicca or loosely Pagan at least….which would be an incredibly bigoted thought, indeed. Of course, there are some Wiccas reading this blog, so I must insist that all of you who fall in that catagory remember that there are correspondences in Hoodoo and Wicca that are different, and so fusing teachings from the two should only be done by someone who is competent at high levels with both platforms. I see several very confused people try to unsuccessfully blend the two all of the time on some free-bee sites on the net…they aren’t 100% interchangeable as certain people seem to think.

Of course, Hoodoo is secular, so all religions or lack thereof can use it. I know several stick-in-the-muds who would like to say it is Christian. No, it isn’t. Yes, there are traditional spells in it that use Judeo-Christian beliefs…if you lived in the woods or the bayou 150 years ago and had never heard of any Godforms outside of your Bible, you would probably use the only Godforms you knew about, now wouldn’t you? It is applicable to Christian beliefs…and to Pagan ones, and to just about any belief. When there are Psalms used in certain spells… Well, my Pagan children, let me tell you all a little story: Many years ago, God was referred to as “Them,” and “They,” instead of “Him” and “He” in the Bible, and this went on for several years until someone decided that God must have a penis to get Mary pregnant. God referred to Themselves as “I” but was still given the descriptor of Them and They. When people discuss the Judeo-Christian God or their God with me, I usually say God for the proper name and then say “Them” or “They.” You would be surprised how many “Pagan haters” find this perfectly acceptable, especially when I tell them it helps me keep in mind that God is neither male or female but both and neither at the same time…. Soooo, digressing back to the topic at hand… If you are willing to use old Egyptian spells, and old Norse spells, and old Celtic spells…then why not old Hebrew ones? All the Psalms are is old Hebrew spells. If you are such an anti-Judeo-Christian Pagan, then I guess you should stop using that dang magic altogether right now. Gerald Gardner (the founder of Wicca,) used a blend of folk magic, and Ceremonialism which utilizes a lot of Qabala, and Qabala is a Hebrew platform of magic – though it exists in some form or another in most magical platforms today. Now, my Judeo-Christian fans…if you are so intent on telling me that Hoodoo is a Christian form of magic… 😛 Try this on for size… Hoodoo is a blend of African, Dutch Pow-Wow, AmerInd, and…geez, some Ceremonial, …betcha I’m leaving something out here… In fact I’m certain of it. But the African aspect to Hoodoo is not borne of Christianity, but is more or less an off-shoot of the Yoruban religion…the very same religion that (through it is still alive today,) bore both Vodou and Santeria into being. I realize that these religions have many Christian aspects to them, but if you go back to the Yoruban roots or know someone who practices…oh, jeez, and I only got a B in this topic in college so… it’s Ife or Ifa, which is similar to Yoruba, you must know that several of the founding beliefs in Vodou and Santeria (and the African ones in Hoodoo) are not Christian. Vodou and Santeria do blend nicely with Hoodoo, however there is another misconception that Hoodoo is entirely African. Well my African friends…yes and no. It has evolved so that it is the melting pot of races that contributed to it. Hoodoo is AMERICAN! 😀 We do owe a good deal of lore in the platform of Hoodoo to the Africans brought over here as slaves, and I do not deny that at all, but we also have to at least give a nod to the other races that contributed. So Hoodoo, my occulties, is a big ol’ melting pot of spellwork, and that is why I teach the non-denominational aspects of it to you.

This is why the Karma Police and the Rule-of-Three-ers have no place here unless they wish to keep those religious beliefs to themselves, and then they may stay. This is why I don’t care if you are Catholic, Cherokee, Wicca, Roman Reconstructionalist, Jewish, Santerian, Agnostic, or anything else. This is my best attempt at a magical/occult blog, and not a discussion on religion. I want all of you to be able to use this information regardless of what you call the Godforce or how you do or do not pay hommage to the Divine.

If there are any questions, or it you think I’ve ranted on too long or foolishly here, please feel free to contact me by using the link in the side bar.

Now, we shall have a fresh post with some spells for the rest of you.

~Cat