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To: alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic,alt.lucky.w,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan.magick From: catherine yronwodeSubject: Re: Graveyard Dirt Date: Sun, 06 May 2001 23:17:51 GMT Kevin Filan wrote: > > Connie Gilbert wrote: > > > > Merry meet all, > > I can't help replying. In old spells, usually ingrediants are in > > code and usually the ingrediants are really herbs. Graveyard dust > > can be powdered Mullien or Mugwort. Graveyard dust is not really > > dirt. Mullein is known as "graveyard torches" or "witch's candles" because it grows well-spaced in dry, waste ground and if dipped in oil or lard, the stalks will burn like torches. BUT MULLEIN IS NOT GRAVEYARD DIRT. That story was started in the 1940s by suppliers who wanted to make money but were afraid to violate the laws regarding tampering with corpses or graveyard desecration, especially in interstate commerce. The earliest catalogue in my cokllection that mentions mullein as graveyard dirt dates to World War Two. By the 1960s,, when i was coming up, you could still buy real graveyard dirt from any small occult store -- but ALL the mail order houses and the stores that stocked their mass-produced products -- sold you either talcum powder or powdered mullein leaves for graveyard dirt. The commercially-originated lie that "graveyard dirt" is somehow an old witchcraft code term for mullein was later picked up and carried as an urban myth extensively in the white Anglo-Saxon neo=pagan community. It actually forms part of the myth of the "burning times" in that it perpetuates the hostorically discredited notion that witches must speak in code or rish death. (But if you are trying to avoid being burned at the stake, why use something ILLEGAL like graveyard dirt as code for something innocuous like mullein leaf???) This myth of a witchy "code" is still perpetuated through the books of well-meaning but ignorant people and it is just ... well, not true. > Hmmm... I've heard mullein referred to as "graveyard dust" and have > gathered that it is used in workings with the dead. But I've also > seen recipes and spells where "graveyard dirt" meant exactly that > ... dirt from a graveyard. (If they were using "graveyard dirt" as > a code for herbs, why did they include instructions to leave coins > and rum at the churchyard gates, or at the headstone, as payment for > taking the dirt in question?) Right, on Kevin. If graveyard dirt were a secret code for mullein, would Harry M. Hyatt have interviewed HUNDREDS of people in the late 1930s who told him the proper ways they knew to collect and pay for graveyard dirt -- and NONE of them mentioned mullein? Take the dirt from the seventh grave from the gates, from the third grave on the left, from any grave; make sure you get it from the grave of a murderer, from the grave of a baby, from the grave of someone who loved you; collect it at the foot of the grave, the head of the grave, from the head and foot both, from over the corpse's heart; pay for it with a dime, with three pennies, with a measure of rum, with a measure of whiskey; dig it with a silver spoon, dig it by hand only and use no tools -- their instructions vary, but they ALL are speaking quite frankly of literal graveyard dirt -- some even calling it "that old yellow graveyard clay." > Check out Cat Yronwode's site (http://www.luckymojo.com) for more > information on graveyard dirt. The exact URL for the page on goofer dust and graveyard dirt is http://www.luckymojo.com/gooferdust.html Hyatt wrote six very large books on magic and herb lore as it existed in the early 20th century, before the onslaught of the mail-order houses and the neo-pagan fad for cutesy rewrites of traditional witchcraft as a form of goddess-worship. These books as a whole comprise a grand total of 5,500 pages on which are printed 23,000+ individual magical spells collected during interviews with about 2,300 actual practitioners of witchcraft and magic. Hyatt made up nothing. He simply recorded and transcribed the sp[eech of his informants. The spells are presented as 1 volume of Germanic, Irish, English, African-American magic ("Folk-Lore from Adams County Illinois") and 5 volumes of African-American magic ("Hoodoo - Conjure - Witchcraft - Rootwork"). For more information on Hyatt's work, see http://www.luckymojo.com/hyatt.html Harry Hyatt preserved the TRUE SPEECH of our elders -- and all the contemporary book authors in the Llewelyn stable with their mullein and mugwort cannot erase those words. Cordially, cat yronwode Hoodoo in Theory and Practice -- http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html Lucky W Amulet Archive --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html Lucky Mojo Spells Archive ------ http://www.luckymojo.com/spells.html No personal e-mail, please; just catch me in usenet; i read it daily. Lucky Mojo Curio Co. http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html Send e-mail with your street address to catalogue@luckymojo.com and receive our free 32 page catalogue of hoodoo supplies and amulets Copyright (c) 2001 catherine yronwode. All rights reserved.
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