​If you have someone meddling in your affairs, talking smack about you, if you find yourself the subject... of the rumor mill, if you have a court case coming up and you don’t need some witness getting on the stand talking bad about you, or if there are coworkers spreading malicious gossip about you or a back biting friend talking out of both sides of their mouth, then this curio is perfect for you!

What is it? Rarely seen anymore, but not forgotten by those of us old enough to remember, is authentic, dried, ritually prepared beef tongue. Combined with a Tapa Boca Candle and Stop Gossip Conjure Oil, you will be ready for your stop gossip and court case works!

Beef tongue is a commonly used ingredient for getting people to shut their meddlesome traps. But working with a raw beef tongue is not everyone’s cup of tea and our grandmothers knew this. Furthermore, using an entire beef tongue for one work was not something poor folks could afford to do, so instead, they used dried and cured tongue instead. In New Orleans and along the bayous of the Deep South, dried beef tongue was used in a multitude of ways – in gris gris, mojo hands, powdered and used as a sachet powder, or as a stand-alone ingredient. Instead of sewing up the actual split tongue, when you use dried tongue the law of similarity is at play drying up the gossiper’s tongue so it can no longer wag. Can you imagine trying to talk with a dried-out tongue? It would be impossible! That’s why this curio is so perfect for this kind of work.

Dried beef tongue may be unfamiliar to most people today, but it was something used by old timers in the Deep South with great success. Placed in a mojo bag along with slippery elm, licorice root, and chia seeds and anointed with Stop Gossip Conjure Oil will keep you protected from gossip and slander by silencing the perpetrators. A powerful Indian conjure hand uses dried beef tongue, adder’s tongue, deer’s tongue, bear root, slippery elm bark and okra along with an arrowhead. Anoint with Stop Gossip Conjure Oil and your gossiper will do just that – shut the hell up! For added punch, recite Psalm 37 while preparing your work.

Combine with a Tapa Boca Candle and Stop Gossip Conjure Oil and you have a powerful stop gossip hoodoo tool!

You can find Tapa Boca Candles and Stop Gossip Conjure Oil at Creole Moon.

​Happy conjuring!

Labels: conjure, beef tongue, stop gossip, dried beef tongue, stop rumors, shut the hell up

Spiritual bathing is an ancient and restorative practice that promotes health and wellbeing by combining the healing power of water with various herbs and minerals to shift spiritual energy in your favor. It is found in many cultures all over the world. In the African-derived traditions such as Santería and Hoodoo, spiritual baths are often prescribed for specific purposes such as drawing love and money, facilitating healing, cultivating wisdom, removing negative conditions, uncrossing and reversing spiritual attacks, providing protection, increasing personal influence and domination and creating success. Sometimes used bathwater is saved and utilized in future works. Often, a portion of the bath water is used in a floor wash following the personal bath and the leftover water is thrown in the direction of the east at dawn or at a crossroads. 

By its very definition, a cleansing cleanses. It purifies energy states that have become convoluted, polluted and unnatural. Cleansings are designed to expel negativity in order to make room for positive energy. Good things will come when they have somewhere to reside. Positive things cannot stay if they are pushed away by something else. Therefore, the function and purpose of cleansings should not be underestimated in your spiritual work. Next to developing a strong relationship with your ancestors, spiritual cleansings are the most important thing you can do for yourself and for your clients.

There are many ways to perform cleansings besides baths. Smoke from special herbs and plants, cigar smoke, alcohol, and fire are but a few cleansing methods. Many times multiple types of cleansings are employed, depending on the type and severity of the condition. 

When­ever you expect to encounter negativity, fatigue, depression, anxiety, or fear of any kind, or whenever you feel stuck and unable to move forward in life, a cleansing of some sort is recommended. It can also be performed to fortify the spirit following a negative expe­rience. Often, spiritual baths and cleansings take place before other works, and they can be taken every season to refortify and rebalance your spirit. Many times the cleansing is the work itself. It may be performed once or a series of times depending on the condition.

Spiritual baths are very prevalent in New Orleans Voodoo and Hoodoo. It is not uncommon for a worker to make up a gallon jug of a specially prepared wash with instructions for a client to take home with them.

It is important to make regular spiritual cleansing a part of your life so as to achieve and maintain a natural state of balance and positivity. Particularly if you are a practitioner working with other people, you have to be spiritually fit in order to perform cleansings effectively. If you are not sound spiritually, you run the risk of passing off some of your negative energy onto your client.

Spiritual baths and cleansings can be extremely powerful and cathartic. Sometimes people are surprised by the effect that it produces and the results it achieves. I have had clients on numerous occasions cry and feel a profound sense of sadness afterwards and as a result thought it didn’t work because they felt bad. In reality they were actually having feelings they had suppressed for a long time! This is a good sign and it is important to recognize it when it happens. It is indicative of release, and often uncovers an emotional component to the root of the problem. Feelings are transitory; they always change, so even if it feels “bad” you or your client will likely feel much better after the fact.

Note that you should always seek supportive mental health therapy if you experience emotions that are too difficult to manage on your own and that are interfering with your life. You should always recommend therapy to your clients if you have any doubt at all about their emotional state. If you are working with clients as a professional, you will encounter people that you will not be able to “fix”. In reality, you can’t fix anyone except yourself. But, work roots for your community long enough and you will come face to face with people with delusions and inexplicable persistent health conditions. You must refer these people to the appropriate medical professional. In fact, if you are a professional practitioner or plan to become one, you should make a list of the various social services available in your area so you can make an appropriate referral. Making note of mental health services, health services, domestic violence shelters and things of that nature are important resources to have on hand. It’s much better to be able to tell your client that you recommend an evaluation from a professional and hand them a number to get started than to just say “go get some help somewhere.” When people are in crisis, the simplest of things become seemingly insurmountable so anything you can do to help them connect to the correct adjunctive treatment in a timely fashion is essential. In the meantime, cleansings may help alleviate symptoms and provide spiritual relief.




For more information, check out the class Spiritual Baths and Cleansings offered by Crossroads University.

For example, he’s not even mentioned on the website for the Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel where his statue is housed. This denial does not diminish his influence among supplicants, though. In fact, it lends itself to his mystical appeal. 

The use of wordplay and puns associated with St. Expedite’s name is found in virtually all discussions about him. Referred to by informants in Harry Middleton Hyatt’s Hoodoo-Rootwork-Witchcraft-Conjuration as the Minute Saint, St. Expedite is known by many other names as well, including Expedite, Expedit, Expeditus, Expedito, Spedito, Espidee, and Speedy. Never has there been a saint whose name describes so obviously and perfectly his patronage. Those invoking his intercession seek instant gratification and according to his devotees, that is the saint’s main attraction. 

But, who exactly is this saint of rapidity? According to legend, Saint Expeditus was a Roman Centurion in Armenia who decided to convert to Christianity. Before he did so, it is said the Devil appeared to him as either a crow or a snake and told him to put off following through with his decision until the next day (hence, his association with procrastination). Instead, Expeditus stomped on the animal and killed it, proclaiming, "I'll be a Christian today!" Unfortunately, St. Expeditus met with the same fate as many Christian converts preceding him and was one of several other Armenian Christians—Saints Hermogenes, Gaius, Aristonicus, Rufus and Galata—beheaded in Melitene (modern day Malatya, Turkey) on April 19th, during the Diocletian Persecution in 303. As a result, he became known as Sant-Espedito di Melitene, or Saint Expedite of Melitene. 

*Excerpt from The Conjurer's Guide to St. Expedite, Copyright 2014 Denise Alvarado, All rights reserved worldwide.