The Element Encyclopedia of 1000 Spells: A Concise Reference Book for the Magical Arts. Judika Illes
is another person’s appropriation. The Egyptians, for example, were appalled when they learned that Greeks had discovered aphrodisiac properties in their sacred temple incense, kyphi.)
Alexandria presaged the modern city, filled with immigrants from Earth’s different corners. Previously, opportunities to meet other practitioners were limited. Nearby practitioners probably came from your own family; everyone shared the same knowledge and repertoire of tools and materials. Sure, there was the occasional wandering stranger, but nothing like the vast landscape of Alexandria, where practitioners from so many traditions could sit and share secrets. Magic, back then as it does today, transcends and defies boundaries of language, ethnicity, race, gender, or religion to form its own community.
When I first read the Magical Papyri my immediate reaction was recognition: all those mixed-up, boundary-jumping spells resembled, in nature if not in specific detail, the culturally diverse magic that I learned in my own hometown, that crossroads of the modern world, New York City. New York, like Alexandria, has had its moments of tense ethnic division, but you wouldn’t know it from the metaphysical community. Fearing the law, fearing ridicule, people may hold themselves aloof, at least until genuine magical credentials, knowledge, respect, and curiosity are demonstrated, but then the walls come down.
One thing magical practitioners have in common all around the world is curiosity, the quest for knowledge. We are the original enquiring minds who wish to know. Obstacles to knowledge are bitterly resented and are persistently undermined. Magicians always wish to expand their power, and increase their knowledge and repertoire. There is a reason that so many of the earliest books printed were grimoires, or books of magic—the same reason that Lord Thoth is patron both of scribes and magicians. Providing that a society is at all literate, magical practitioners, on the whole, are great readers, from ancient Egypt’s Houses of Life to the Voodoo queens of New Orleans.
There is only one thing better than learning from a book and that’s learning from each other. Magical practitioners are, in general, an open-minded bunch. Put a few in a room together and fairly quickly tools will be compared, secrets shared, and demands for knowledge made.
Spells are constantly evolving to suit changing needs. This is particularly true where cultures live closely alongside each other. Nothing crosses borders faster than a magic spell. For instance it can be almost impossible to separate totally the intermingled strands of various European magical traditions. Because certain methods, materials, and styles are more popular and prevalent in one area than another doesn’t necessarily mean that they originated there or, at least, not in isolation. Even the most sedentary, isolated communities received periodic magical cross-pollination from Jews, Romany, tinkers, and assorted wanderers.
These entwined traditions become even more complex in the magical and spiritual traditions of America and the Western Hemisphere.
During the height of the African slave trade, people were kidnapped from all over Africa. What were originally distinct cultures, each with specific spiritual and magical traditions, found themselves thrown together in dire circumstances, the type of circumstances in which many reach for magic. In Haiti, the traditions of the Fon people of Dahomey were dominant and evolved into Vodoun, although not in isolation. These traditions evolved, adding components of indigenous Taino magic, diverse other African traditions, French, and Spanish magic, thus also transmitting Basque, Jewish, Moorish, and Romany influences and, last but not least, Freemasonry. You think this is beginning to make Alexandria look simple? Just wait.
Following later political turbulence, many Haitian refugees fled to New Orleans, where Vodoun evolved once more, retaining its frame but picking up new influences, this time from the local black population, whose own magic derived from Congolese sources rather than Fon, and also British, Italian, and Native American magical traditions. New Orleans, the Crescent City, became known as the capital of American magic. Its traditions would soon be incorporated into what might be called mainstream magic, that magic most accessible to the population at large. This magic would eventually be transmitted to Europe where, who knows? Maybe it’s now been picked up by African emigrants to evolve and transform once more.
After extended contact, New Orleans Voodoo can be hard to distinguish from Hoodoo. Hoodoo’s basic framework also derives from Africa, mainly from Congolese traditions, but again not in isolation. Deprived of the botanicals with which they had been familiar in Africa, their materia magica, enslaved African magical practitioners consulted with Native Americans and acquired a whole new botanical tradition, sharing magical and spiritual secrets as well. These Hoodoo doctors typify the proverbial questing, intellectually curious magician. In addition to Native American, West and Central African roots, their tradition soon incorporated European folk magic, the Egyptian mysteries, Freemasonry, and Kabbalah. The great grimoires became available to all. Transmission was cross-cultural. With the exception of a very few isolated mountain pockets, American magic in general demonstrates tremendous African influence.
Further north, Pow-Wow is the magic of German immigrants to Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Dutch (a corruption of Deutsch). The basic framework is, of course, the German magic the migrants carried with them, both high ritual and folk magic, which incorporated a healthy dose of Jewish and Romany influences as well as those of neighboring European people. In America, strong further influence (and the tradition’s name) came from Native Americans, especially the Iroquois, and from the Chikkeners, the so-called Black Dutch: Romany (Zigeuners) forcibly deported from Europe who, separated from clan and family, found discreet safety among the Pow-Wow artists.
In 1819 or 1820, dates vary, Pow-Wow artist and hexenmeister John George Hohman compiled a canon of Pow-Wow wisdom and published it under the title The Book of Pow-Wows: The Long Lost Friend. This book, still in print, traveled to the cities of the South, carried largely by Jewish merchants, who sold it to Voodoo and Hoodoo practitioners, who incorporated it into their already multi-cultural blend of magic and, no doubt, sent some equally valuable information up North with the returning merchants, who were learning from everybody and spreading the news.
There is an important exception to this magic melting pot, of course. Very isolated areas, places where people have historically had little or no contact with others, maintain extremely pristine, ancient magical traditions. Like the unique creatures of the Galapagos Islands, their traditions developed in isolation and thus may have very unique, easily identifiable characteristics. It’s much easier to clearly identify a spell from Papua New Guinea, for instance, than it is to distinguish between French, German, or Swiss spells. Because these traditions are so unique and because one can identify the spell’s origins, it’s very tempting to constantly point out which spell came from which isolated culture. The danger is that this creates a lopsided effect, akin to those old-school anthropologists who were so quick to note the curious habits of the “Natives” while failing to remark on similar practices, parallels, and traditions back home.
I can’t emphasize more that every distinct people, every culture, every nation, every religion and spiritual tradition has, at one time or another, incorporated, developed, and created magic spells. Each one of us has a magical history somewhere along the line. Loss and abandonment of these traditions tends to accompany loss of cultural or religious autonomy. These spells, therefore, are our shared human heritage, not isolated odd things engaged in only by strange other people, very different from us.
In some cases, in this book, I have pointed out where spells come from and which traditions they represent, especially if there’s some interesting factoid associated with it or if that knowledge may help you cast the spell, or sometimes just to give credit where credit is due for a particularly beautiful spell. However, I have not done so in every case. Sometimes I did not wish to keep emphasizing one culture, as if they were Earth’s only magical ones, especially those cultures whose vast magical repertoire has stimulated others to vilify, stereotype, and persecute them. In other cases, the roots were too tangled to identify their origins honestly.
Although many of the spells in this book are meant for use, others are included purely for historic value and perspective, so that we may remember and learn from them.
Magic Today
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