1993
January 3:
Whether Scripture was read, or prayers were said,
Is more than the writer remembers;
But it runs in his head, ere the two went to bed,
They carefully covered the embers.
Yea, even much more —they locked every door
Upon horses, cows, heifers and stirks;
The house-doors were barred and the gateways tarred,
Thus, showing their faith in their works.
What more could be done? Smith loaded his gun
With powder and ball and with shot;
“Near the head of my bed I’ll have it,” he said,
“And for witches and thieves make it hot.”
Gun loaded and cocked and all the doors locked,
Let witches and thieves do their best,
Gates bolted and barred, and some even tarred,
Man and beast might slumber and rest.
Folk magic among Pennsylvania Dutch known as “pow-wow.”
“Trotter Head, I forbid thee my house and premises; I forbid thee my horse and cow-stable; I forbid thee my bedstead, that thou mayest not breathe upon me; breathe into some other house, until thou hast ascended every hill, until thou hast counted every fence-post, and until thou hast crossed every water. And thus dear day may come again into my house, in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Written charm against evil spirits:
I.
N. I. R.
I.
SANCTUS SPIRITUS
I.
N. I. R.
I.
All this be guarded here in time, and there in eternity.
Amen.
January 24:
Dean turns fourteen today. He took off to the movies with a girlfriend. I think her name is Katie. Quite the ladykiller, that kid. Like I was at his age. Hell-raising, foul-mouthed, full of piss and vinegar. Silas had it right: he’s like me. If I’m not careful with him, by the time he’s twenty he’ll have left a trail of kids and arrest warrants all over the country.
April 19:
Davidians. Koresh from David and Cyrus. Cyrus the only gentile given the designation “messiah” in the Tanakh. Thomas Jefferson consulted Xenophonis biography of Cyrus when drafting Declaration of Independence —April 19 also Lexington and Concord. Also birthday of Eliot Ness.
May 2:
Sammy is ten years old today. It was a lousy day, for him and me. He’s on a soccer team, and he’s pretty good, and today was a game. But it’s only a game, and on Saturdays we always do some kind of shooting now that they’re both big enough. Today it was bowhunting. Nothing’s in season, so we were just going target shooting, but it’s important. They need to know everything, every way to kill the enemy that’s out there. For Christ’s sake, there are demons after Sammy. He needs to know how to fight them, and Dean needs to know how to protect him. He’s even more stubborn than I am when he really decides to dig in his heels. But I’m their father, and we went out with the bows. I can’t blame him for wanting a normal life, but I wouldn’t be much of a dad if I didn’t prepare them for the world they’re living in. Doing what’s right for your kids doesn’t always mean doing what they want. Especially in my case.
May 15:
Tulpa created through intense ritual visualizations known as dubthab. Variation known as dragpoi dubthab is specifically aimed at creating a toughform with the idea of harming another person. Physical form of tulpa becomes apparent to the senses after the mind can begin to sense its spirit presence. Tulpa thus created, no matter the creator’s intent, will gradually turn on the creator.
Evans-Wentz wrote that enlightened magicians can destroy tulpa as easily as create them —also that those masters can incorporate their spiritual being into the body of another person. It’s all about the willpower.
Determined will is the beginning of all magical operations… It is because men do no perfectly imagine and believe the result that the arts (of magic) are uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain —Paracelsus
Related to atus in the Qliphoth?
All things are possible to him that believeth. —Mark 9:23
Tulpas the idea behind urban legends? We tell each other stories, and when enough people are concentrating on an idea, or start to believe it, it becomes real…
May 17:
This would have been our fifteenth anniversary. Crystal. Crystal balls, divination, prisms… I want to talk to her so bad. Mary, why don’t I dream about you anymore?
September 5:
Written charm carried by King Charles I, written by Pope Leo IX:
Who that beareth it upon him shall
not dread his enemies, to be overcome, nor with no manner of poison
be hurt, nor in no need misfortune, nor with no thunder he shall
not be smitten nor lightning, or in no fire be burnt soddainly, nor
in no water be drowned. Nor he shall not die without shrift, nor
with theeves to be taken. Also he shall have no wrong neuther of
Lord or Lady. This be in the names of God and Christ 
Messias Sother Emannell Saibaoth ✝
November 2:
Mary has been dead for ten years. Ten years. Been thinking about urban legends all year, and about how what happened at our house ten years ago might already be an urban legend in Lawrence, to go with Stull Church and the Eldridge Hotel. I’ve been a little crazy this past ten years, and on this day somehow it’s easier for me to take a step back and look at how crazy I am. Ten years later, I still wake up wanting revenge. But this year I’m thinking about the vision of Mary I saw at Jim’s, just a few weeks after she died. Whenever I think about that, I start wondering how I might see her again, talk to her. Truth is, I’m scared to try because of what happened at Jim’s —and also because everything I read about séances talks about how dangerous they are, how easy it is for the séance to be a gate for something evil to come along with the spirit you want to contact. So I hold myself back.
Here’s irony for you. Today I was reading some old urban legends, and meant to write this one down.
Bloody Mary: Chant “Bloody Mary” three times into a mirror in a dark room and her spirit will appear. Either it will kill you, gouge your eyes out, or mutilate your face. Why the hell would anyone do this? In a couple of variations she will prophesy for you. Other variations say to chant her name thirteen times. Historically, Bloody Mary was a nickname for Mary I of England, who suffered several miscarriages. More recent versions of the origin story say Mary was a witch who was either hanged or burned at the stake —or that she was mangled in a car crash— or that she killed her children, or had them taken from her, and committed suicide. Sometimes these variant stories come with different invocations: “Bloody Mary, I killed your baby” goes with the stories in which she is a grieving mother, “I believe in Mary Worth” with the version in which she was wrongfully accused of witchcraft or infanticide, and “Bloody Mary, I have your baby” those in which her children were taken from her.
Divination by mirror has been practiced in nearly all culture for as long as mirrors have been around. Before that, any reflective surface, especially still water, was used to prophesy or catch a glimpse of the future. Aztecs created tezcatlipoca, “smoking mirrors,” out of mercury poured into a bowl. Queen Elizabeth I’s court magician, John Dee, prophesied with mirrors. Folklore from various places holds that if you perform a certain ritual while looking in a mirror, you will see your future husband. Eating an apple, brushing your hair, conducting any one of a thousand “wise woman” domestic rituals. A variation on this is looking into a well at sunrise to watch what reflection emerges as the light starts to shine into the well. In many of these stories, the danger is that you might also see some aspect of Death, which means you will die before marrying.
Tradition also holds that at the moment of a death, all of the mirrors in a house should be covered so they don’t trap the departing spirit. Ancient Greeks and Indians believed that the reflection contained the soul, and could be captured by water spirits. Various South Pacific (Andaman, Motumotu) and African (Zulu, Basuto) traditions also hold that the souls is in the reflection, and is vulnerable when reflected. Basutos believe crocodiles try to take these souls.
It’s bad luck to break mirrors because they’re reflections of the soul, but also because they hold the future. That’s why the seven years of bad luck. You’ve broken your future.
November 28:
Variation on Bloody Mary. I heard a hunter from Alabama say that in Camp Hill on Loveladies Bridge, if you chant “Lovelady, Lovelady, I got your baby!” three times, you’ll see the ghost of a woman who died with her children in a car accident.
Hookman: Teenagers parked in some lovers’ lane somewhere, they’re about to get things going when a news bulletin on the radio warns of an escaped convict with a hook for a hand. The girl suddenly isn’t in the mood anymore, and the frustrated boy guns the car away. When they get home, there’s a hook, hanging from one of the door handles. An alternate version has the boy getting out to investigate, and the girl stays in the car all night, hearing strange noises, only to discover in the morning that her boyfriend has been murdered and is hanging in a tree above the car. Sometimes the strange noises are the sound of the dead boyfriend’s fingernail scraping on the car roof. There are plenty of real stories of lovers’ lane murders —son of Sam, case in Arkansas in 1946, others… Story may have originated in Maine as early as 1920s.
Vanishing hitchhiker: Outlines of this one are always the same. Late at night, someone picks up a young woman, sometimes a girl. Usually she’s wearing white. She asks to be taken home, and doesn’t say much else. Then, when the driver arrives at the address she’s given the backseat is empty. When the driver asks the people living at the address, he is told that the girl he describes died —or was buried— a few years ago near the same stretch of road where he picked her up. Lots of variations.
- The driver, wondering what happens to the coat he lent the girl, finds it draped over her tombstone
- Instead of hearing the story from the family, the driver sees a picture of the girl in the house and realizes what happened
- The hitchhiker tells the driver something about the future —often in these cases the hitchhiker is a nun
- The hitchhiker leaves something behind in the car, typically a scarf or purse
History of the vanishing hitchhiker goes back a long way. Joan Petri Klint wrote about a prophetic hitchhiker in Sweden in 1602. She changes beer to malt, acorns, and blood, then prophesies about harvests and war before disappearing. Other variations recorded since 18th century English ballad called “A Suffolk wonder,” Washington Irving’s story “The Lady with the Velvet Collar.” Songs by Country Joe McDonald, Dickie Lee, Blackmore’s Night, the Country Gentlemen. I remember the Dickie Lee song from the radio when I was a kid.
December 25:
Christmas in Joplin, Missouri. The boys got me a book that they must have stolen from a shop while I was rooting around in the esoteric shelves. Some other version of me, out there in a world where schoolteachers don’t turn into demons, might have been able to raise the boys without turning them into thieves. But for us, it’s a necessary evil. I try to discourage them from taking things we don’t need. Anyway, it’s an old book of theosophy. All the hunters I know are convinced that Blavatsky was a fraud, but I’ll take a look at it. You never know where you’re going to find a clue.
December 31:
Witch bottle: Small glass bottle or flask specially prepared to trap spells or evil spirits. Contents typically include urine, hair, nail clippings, red thread. Larger stoneware vessels popularly known as Bellarmines, after a Catholic inquisitor. These were made with bearded faces, à la church gargoyles, intended to scare away evil. Bottles might also contain special earth, sea water, nails or pins, menstrual blood, thorns. Generally buried under the floor in a difficult spot to access —bellow the hearth or fireplace, sometimes threshold.
Cats sometimes also hidden in walls, also horse skulls. Folklore of both is that they would ward away familiars or see things that humans can’t. Powerful wards. Sometimes shoes also used as spell traps, concealed within walls or floors.
Apotropaic: combating hostile magic, charms.