HONEY JAR MAGIC SPELLS
TO SWEETEN PEOPLE
THE HISTORY OF HONEY JAR SPELLS IN THE HOODOO ROOTWORK TRADITION
The Honey Jar Spell is one of the oldest forms of bottle spell in the world. There are so many variations that i call it a "spell family." Most of them consist of a jar of sweetener into which you place the personal concerns of the person you want to influence, along with spiritually powerful magical herbs, wrapped in a name-paper or petition packet, and then burning a candle on top of the jar after dressing it with an appropriate conjure oil.
This form of hoodoo spell casting is employed when you want to set up a powerful sweetening spell in a small place and keep it working for as long as you wish. Honey jars are extremely convenient and one reason for their continued popularity is that although they can be worked on an altar like other forms of bottle spell, they can also be literally hidden in plain sight in a kitchen cabinet.
In the oldest version of the Honey Jar spell that i know, there is actually no "honey-jar," just a plain white tea cup saucer or coffee cup saucer in the center of which you burn a candle on the person's name, dressed with hoodoo oils and surrounded by a poured-out ring of pancake syrup or mollasses. This old-fashioned method has the disadvantage of eventually drawing flies, but it is extremely easy to work on a short-term basis, say for one to three days. Be careful, thugh, if the candle burns too hot, it may crack your saucer.
Another early version of the homey jar bottle spell employs a hollowed-out red apple or red onion to hold honey and the name-paper of the person on whom you are working. The apple or onion may be shut up in a tin and a candle burned on the tin's lid -- or it can be placed in the bottom of a flower pot, with a plant grown on top of it to hide the spell. The plant takes the place of candle, but it radiates the intent of the spell just the same. It can be given as a gift to the person on whom you are working, and can spread its sweetness throughout their home.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as packaged sugars, syrups, and sweeteners became available from grocery stores, another variant of this spell that developed employed a box of sugar instead of a jar of honey. By the mid 20th century, the honey-jar version of the spell gradually replaced the old cream-saucer, cored apple, hollowed onion, and sugar box versions. The two honey-jar spells given on this web page are probably the most common bottle spell variations of this spell-family that you will encounter these days.
A HONEY JAR AND CANDLE SPELL
TO SWEETEN SOMEONE TO YOU
This magic bottle spell can be worked on anyone's name you want to sweeten. Depending on what relationship the person has to you, what special items you put into the name-packet,the colour of the candle you choose, and the hoodoo oil you dress it with, this trick will cause the person you name to like you more, to love you more, to favour your petition, to want to help you, to be sympathetic to your cause, or to forgive any wrongs you have committed. It can be used to influence and sweeten a judge in a court case, a loan officer at the bank, a boss from whom you want a raise, a teacher in your school from whom you want a good grade, a lover with whom you want a reconciliation, an in-law who has been back-biting you, or friend who has cut you off because of a foolish quarrel.
You will need:
a jar of sweetener (see below)
a piece of paper (see below)
a pen or pencil
optional herbs, curios, and/or bodily concerns (see below)
a candle (choose the appropriate colour at the candle magic page)
a candle-dressing conjure oil such as Special Oil No. 20
Get a small jar of sweetener. This can be honey, Karo Syrup, Crystal Syrup, home-made brown sugar syrup, Log Cabin Syrup, Vermont maple syrup, Bre'r Rabbit Blackstrap Molasses or whatever you desire -- as long as it is in a container with a metal lid. You can buy the goods in a pint-size glass Mason jar or pour the sweetening of your choice into a jar of your own at home. All that matters is that it should be a short, squat jar with a metal lid, filled up to the shoulder of the jar.
In the old days, when skin colour was a lot more important to people than it is now, it was recommended that the colour of the sweetener match the skin of the person you wanted to sweeten. Thus, for a white judge, you might use Crystal Syrup, and for a Latino loan officer you might use light brown sugar syrup, and for a dark-skinned lover you might use Bre'r Rabbit Blackstrap Molasses. Frankly, these days specifying a person's skin colour is not as meaningful as it once was (for which we can all be thankful), and today many folks prefer to use honey for the spell, no matter what the target's skin colour is, because it is a natural sweetener and not man-made. I believe that if you just follow your own intuition and decide which sweetener you like the best, you can be confident that you have made the right choice.
Next, prepare your paper. Again, in the old days, we would be told to use white paper for a white person, tan paper for a high-brown, and rough old grocery-bag paper for a person of dark colour, but these days the type of paper you use can simply be a matter of personal style. Manu people prefer the kind of cream-coloured parchment paper that comes with theLucky Mojo hoodoo honey jar mini spell kit shown above. I ofen use a smooth, tan-coloured light-weight shopping bag paper because that is my choice, based on the way i was taught, which was that such paper is "pure paper." No matter which kind of paper i use, i prepare my paper by tearing it neatly on all four sides so there is no machine-cut edge. Of course some folks trim their paper square with scissors -- and the spell still works for them. So go ahead and prepare your paper just as you wish and that will suffice.
Once you have got your paper together, write the person's name three times on it, one name under the other like so
John Russell BrownThen rotate the paper 90 degrees clockwise and write your own name across the person's name, also three times:
John Russell Brown
John Russell Brown
Abigail Samantha LittleThe result will be that the two names are crossed over each other, like a cross or a tic-tac-toe grid, and the other person's name will be under yours. This is called crossing and covering their name. If the sweetening is being done for love, you can use a red ink pen. Otherwise, the colour of the ink does not matter, and you can just as easily use a pencil.
Abigail Samantha Little
Abigail Samantha Little
Now all around the crossed names, write your specific wish in a circle. If you need a guideline, lightly sketch the circle-shape with a pencil and then follow around it when writing with your ink pen. You must write your wish in one continuous run of script letters, with no spaces -- AND WITHOUT LIFTING YOUR PEN FROM THE PAPER. Do not cross your t's or dot your i's. Just write the words in one run and be sure to join up the end of the last word with the beginning of the first word so the circle is complete. Then you can go back and cross your t's and dot your i's. To make it easy to connect the word together at the end, i have found it best to make my petition in the form of short commands, such as "help me favour me help me favour me" or "love me love me love me" or "forgive me come back forgive me come back."
If you make a mistake -- for instance, if you lift your pen in the middle of writing your petition-circle -- throw away the paper and start it all over again. You want it to be perfect.
Other ingredients can be added to the name-paper if you wish -- a piece of court case root for a court case spell, two rose petals for a love spell, a lump of sugar for a family member, two clove buds for friendship, bayberry root or sassafras root for a money spell, a pair of Adam-and-Eve roots for love, two small Lodestones for sexuality, a pinch of deer's tongue leaves for a proposal of marriage, a square of camphor for cleaning out bad things of the past, and so forth.
If you are sweetening someone for love, then in addition to the name-paper and whatever optional herbs, roots, or minerals you choose, you must also get one of the person's hairs and one of your hairs. If the hairs are long enough, tie them together. Otherwise, just lay them crosswise to each other. In either case, place them on the name-paper. Don't ask me what to do if you can't get their hairs 'cause i can't help with that. Either work the spell without the hairs and expect a much lower rate of success or get the hairs! Don't load the paper up with lots of other stuff thinking that if you can't get the hairs that six different love-herbs and two lodestones will be as strong as two hairs. They won't be.
Fold the paper toward you to bring what you want your way and speak aloud your wish as you do so. Turn the paper and fold it again, and again, always folding toward you, to bring what you want your way. Speak aloud your wish each time you fold the paper toward you. Fold it until it will not fold any more.
Open the jar of honey or syrup. To make room for the folded paper packet, you will need to eat some of the contents. Take out a spoon's worth, and as you eat it, say, "As this honey [or syrup] is sweet to me, so will i become sweet to John Russell Brown [or the name of the person you are working this on]." You can do this three times -- taking out three small spoonsful of sweetener and speaking your wish aloud each time. Push the folded paper packet down into the jar and close up the lid.
Dress an offertory candle (a 50 cent, 6" long candle or a 25 cent 4" long one, nothing fancy) with an appropriate anointing oil or a combination of hoodoo or conjure oils, or useSpecial Oil No. 20, which is a ready-made combination specifically indicated in this type of bottle spell. Use a white candle for general blessing and healing, a red one for sexual love, a pink one for reconciliation, a brown one for a court case, and so forth. (For a longer list of colour symbolism, see the page on candle magic.)
Stand the candle on the lid of the closed-up jar and light it. You can melt the candle to the lid with hot wax if need be.
Let the candle burn all the way out. Do this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for as long as it takes. Add teach new candle on top of the remains of the last one. I have seen people's syrup-jar bottle spells like this done for court cases that were continued for so long and required so many candles that you could not see the jar under all the dripped-on wax!
A DOMINICAN HONEY JAR SPELL
FOUND IN ITALY
In December 2003, a person posting from Italy inquired in Usenet about a bottle spell that was found in a recently vacated apartment:
Hi,Andrea made no mention of finding candle wax on the honey jar, so it is likely that writing out the names and the petition and placing them in the honey jar constituted the entirety of this particular magical bottle spell. I replied to Andrea's questions as best i could, given that my Spanish is not too good:I'm ignorant concerning jinxes and other types of spells. So i describe you what happened to me. I found a leaflet conserved in a jar full of honey, in a flat previously occupied by a Dominican girl. The leaflet says:
"Ana Plenagua"I apologize for the untranslated Spanish (I don't understand Spanish) and for the probable errors of words (some words are not clear). I thank in advance everybody can give me the meaning of this leaflet and, in the case of jinx, the way to rid of this.(a list of names follows)
"que como son el nombre che cada uno de esta
persona se enfrien asi tenga que carma la ira
con migo y con mi copate"Thanks,
andrea. (andrea_gazze at yahoo.it)
I think some of the Spanish words may be spelled wrong, so i am a little unclear on what is intended, but it is a honey jar spell, a type of spell usually used to sweeten people -- that is, to make them ameliorate their hostility, or treat one better, or even to love one. Your name is not on the list of names, and no ill or jinx was intended for you. You may simply dispose of the materials as you wish and as you feel most comfortable. For numerous examples of how to dispose of ritual remains such as this honey jar in a variety of magically traditional manners, see my web page on Laying Tricks and Disposing of Ritual Remains in the Hoodoo Rootwork Tradition.Another poster, familiar with Dominican Spanish dialect, clarified the wording of this honey jar bottle spell in a subsequent Usenet post:
Good job, but let me add to it. The Spanish is phonetic and nearly illiterate. Note that some unlettered Dominicans aspirate their S or drop it, and interchange R and L, final R of infinitive dropped completely. Sloppy speech, like a Midwesterner "gonna" instead of "going to." Hence:I want to thank Andrea for bringing this Dominican variant of the honey jar bottle spell to my attention and Mephistopheles13 for making it understandable. What it demonstrates is that honey jar spells are adaptable to many magical desires, can be worked in a number of ways, and are widely popular around the world."que como son el nombre che cada uno de estashould read
persona se enfrien asi tenga que carma la ira
con migo y con mi copate""que como es el nombre, que cada uno de estasRegards,
personas se enfrie asi tenga que calmar la ira
conmigo y con mi compadre""that everybody named should chill
and have to calm down his/her anger
against me and my partner"--M (mephistopheles132002NOSPAM at yahoo.com)
A HONEY JAR SPELL TO GET CHILD SUPPORT
FROM A BABY'S DADDY
Many women who are faced with a situation where their baby's father will not pay child support try to hurt the man, or rule him, or control him, but there is a better way, and that is to cause him to WANT to pay what the law says he must pay -- and to love his baby while he pays, as well.
To work the sweet side of a case like this, you can make a honey jar bottle spell on the mama, the baby and the daddy -- all of them in one honey jar. Try to get something personal from each individual -- a hair, for instance. If the daddy is estranged or lives far away, his hair may be hard to capture, but do try to get it -- and if that won't be possible, then get his handwriting, or something he touched, like maybe a fiber from a stuffed animal that he gave to the child.
Put the personal items in a name paper with the mama and the daddy names written 9 times each, side by side in two columns (because they are no longer a couple) and the baby name crossed over both, holding them all together. Then, around and around the names write: "We are family, forever and in all ways, and let no one put this family asunder."
Next, in the corners of the paper, draw four eye-shapes, but just the outlines with no eye-lashes or iris and pupil in the centers. Now, inside each eye-shape, draw a heart (one heart in each eye-shape) and inside each heart, write a dollar sign. Then, using the eye-shapes as a guide, write, in very tiny letters, like the eye-lashes of the eyes, top and bottom, the words "PAY CHILD" (on the top line) and "SUPPORT" (on the bottom). If you do it neatly, it'll look like an eye is in each corner with a heart for the iris of each eye and a dollar sign for the pupil of each eyeball, and the words "PAY CHILD SUPPORT" as the eyelashes of each eye. The meaning of this symbol in each corner is GOD IS WATCHING YOU (the eye shape) -- SO LOVE THE CHILD (the heart) AND PAY THE MONEY (the dollar sign).
After you have prepared the paper, dress it with Pay Me Sachet Powder and put it in a honey jar as explained above. Use a green candle for money or a pink one for the father to care more for the child, and dress it with Pay Me Oil.
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