Cotton and Cane

Mississippi is known for two major crops, to many they’re called “the two Kings”. I’m speaking of course, of Cotton and Sugarcane. From the delta, to the central Hills, and down into the swamps, these two Lords have delivered many a person their fortune, and today I want to show you a working that uses them both, as well as several other tricks you can put down with cotton and sugar. 

Sugar is an attracting agent, on top of being an obvious sweetening agent. It moves freely and swiftly from hand to hand, and because of this it also generates speed. Sugar can be used to ease the sting of heartache, to draw in new love, for money, as an offering to spirit, to soften the edges of bad news, to “sweet talk” people in positions of authority, to command and compel, and lest we forget that everything has a shadow, it’s also used in curses as bait to draw your target into an ambush.  

Cotton can be used for cleansing and healing, like sugar it can “soften a blow”, it represents sacredness and holiness, as well as the concept of “coolness”. In Mississippi we burn cotton to summon rain, and in the old days if there was a drought a young woman would let her hair down and brush her hair as she walked through a cotton field or while she burned cotton, to make it rain.  Because of its softness, it can also make people’s minds and hearts “soft”, and that aspect allows it to be used both for cursing and positive workings. 

To bring and keep good luck, line a sugar bowl or other small container  with white cotton and then cover with sugar. Place on top of this a small magnet, and an open safety pin. Keep this sugar bowl in your home to keep the house prosperous. The open safety pin opens the roads to success and prosperity, it keeps good roads open to you, and the magnet is for drawing in the things you’re trying to attract   

To calm down someone who is angry or upset, place cotton in a small jar, a spoon of sugar, a spoon of salt, top with cool water and keep in the refrigerator (NOT the freezer) pray your intentions into the each item, the cotton to soften their hardened heart and mind, to soften their anger, and to return them to a cool and white state. Sugar to remove their bitterness and to sweeten their disposition and their actions. Salt to further remove any negative energy. (Salt and sugar is also a good combination for ANY command and compelling work). Add a piece of paper with their name and birthday on it, or either a picture of them or something belonging to them. 

To cleanse the self (especially when you need a clear head), take a whole raw egg, still in the shell, and rub it all over your head, praying for all negativity, clouded thinking, depression, stress, uncertainty etc to be removed. Make sure to get the back of the neck. Rub the egg down with Vick’s Vap-o-Rub (yes you can use vaporub for spiritual work) and then place in a small bowl that’s lined with cotton. Place this under your bed while you sleep and dispose of it the next morning.  

To confuse an enemy, or someone who has done you wrong- fill a jar with vinegar, cotton balls, and poppy seeds, put in a paper with the persons name and info, and shake that bastard up every day. This is a befuddlement charm, and is used to destroy the brain/mental stability. The cotton balls will soften the targets mind, the vinegar sours their thoughts so they can no longer plot against you, and the poppyseeds are also for causing confusion. 

To make someone love you or follow after you, chew sugarcane and spit the liquid into some of the persons food. 

Similarly, “sweet talking” can be done by placing sugar in your mouth while you speak to a picture of a person or to a poppet/doll made to represent them. This is done in order to get someone on your side, for instance a Judge overseeing your court case, authorities, bosses, or lovers. Tell them what you want them to do for you while you have the sugar on your tongue.  

Adding a magnet to sugar will attract just about anything to you. 

Sugar mixed with dirt from a bank will draw money. 

Adding cotton to a love spell with make someone mildly obsessed with you.

Burn the stems of a cotton plant while speaking your enemies name to curse them. 

Using several branches of cotton as a “broom”, it can be used to cleanse the energy of a person or a room, several branches can be tied together with string and then swung in circles in a room to cleanse it of negativity. 

More on these two items will be added over time, but I hope these few simple ideas will get you on your way! 

Red strings and Pea mush dolls.

Before becoming a pagan I was raised in the Pentecostal churches, now before y’all run away let me assure you that if witchcraft exists anywhere in Mississippi it’ll be the Pentecostal churches. Pentecost is, after all, heavily influenced by the same African practices and worship that we see in systems such as Voudou, and indeed the church houses serve as the first meeting places for most native Mississippi practitioners. Suffice it to say, a lot of magick and mystery happens in these places... one bit of magick is the hairstyles, for those who don’t know, Pentecostal women never cut their hair and usually keep it in large and elaborate styles, some of which defy gravity and the laws of nature itself. I would sometimes make a small amount of extra money by doing people’s hair for church, and a few of these people were also my clients in another sense, meaning I would give them readings, do healing, or help provide them with simple charms or workings to help with whatever they were dealing with. 

This one Saturday night I was fixing a woman’s hair named Ruth, a mother of two, grandmother of 6, and baker of the best goddamned poundcake you’ve ever had. Ruth’s grandfather was a conjuring man and was known for removing fire from burns, stopping the flow of blood, and removing warts, a common set of skills amongst workers down here. As I’m teasing this woman’s calf length hair and rolling it into large barrel rolls, I ask her about the red string she’s wearing around her neck. “Is that to charm swelling or something?” 

Ruth- “you can use em for that but this one is to tie up my daughter, she don’t know when to be quiet” 

Me-“if it’s to tie her up, why are you the one wearing it? I’ve never heard of that before” 

She goes on to tell me that she’s basically using herself as a voodoo doll (that is NOT the words she used, let me be very clear. That’s just the terminology I’m using in order to relate an idea that most are vaguely familiar with). She goes on to teach me one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned, which is that the work can be greatly changed based on how you say the prayers you pray. It’s a simple fact but one that has served me greatly. She told me she soaked the string in vinegar and salt, then talked to it while it was drying,

“Red is the string and red is the blood of Jesus, red is the blood that frees all sinners and red is the blood that binds up devils, the blood opens my mouth and I will praise him, but the devils they will not speak” 

Then she says she prayed specifically for her daughters mouth to be shut, but she wears the string around her own neck. “It’ll help me, but it’ll stop her. That’s how the prayer works. You just change up the words a little depending on what you’re trying to do, you can tie it around your hands or ankles to stop em from walking or meddling, or around the waist to stop em rutting with each other” (in a very gay voice I exclaimed “miss Ruth!” To which she didn’t even bat an eye). 

I tell her “well I’m glad I know that, I may have to try that some time. Thank you for telling me” and we go on to talk more about what all her daughter was doing (as an aside, her daughter is crazier than cat shit, just an FYI)  

I figure maybe I can share something too, and ask her has she ever made a pea mush doll, to which she says “no”. To save on the unending dialogue between an old southern woman and a young gay man, ill just get to the point- a pea mush doll is just that, a doll made from pea mush and a few other ingredients, made to stand in for a person that you’re working on. For Ruth, I told her to make one as follows- boil a cup of dried peas to mush, then mash with a fork and mix with flour, and mud from the banks of standing water, with black pepper, and either sassafras leaves or moss or hay, to make a paste, and then form into a vaguely human shape. After it dries you keep it under your back porch to keep the person bound, either in a box for a longer lasting working or buried (buried, the spell along with the persons bad actions will dissolve as the doll disintegrates). We talked a bit more and thought it might be worth trying to wrap the dolly with her red string trick. I don’t know if she ever made the doll or not, but I do know her red string worked. Her daughter is still crazy as cat shit but she’s not as wild with it, and she did shut her mouth on that specific matter. I have used Ruthies red string trick many times over the years and can attest that it definitely is does its job.  Moral of the story, when Pentecostal women pay you in poundcake, listen to what they tell you. You may learn something.