How to Make and Use a Business Success Gris Gris

It's the beginning of the year and a time for a reevaluation of things. Many folks continue to struggle and look to all sorts of ways to increase their chances of business success. One of the ways this can be done in the realm of New Orleans Hoodoo is by making a gris gris bag for your business or job. Before you do this you should perform a house, shop and office cleansing for the New Year. You can find an example in my blog post How to Perform a House Cleansing. In addition, you can try Marie Laveau's Floor Wash for Business Success shown in the image below from the Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook that appeared in Hoodoo and Conjure Quarterly #2.

Making Your Business Success Gris Gris

Gris gris is a system of magic brought over from Africa directly to New Orleans by Bambaran African slaves during the African diaspora. Jean Montenet, aka Dr. John, himself a Bambaran, utilized gris gris in his healing practice and was considered a master at his craft. Some speculate Marie Laveau was an apprentice of sorts to Dr. John for a while and learned the art of gris gris from him. It has also been suggested that her mother was from the Congo, and so she likely learned the art from her mother, as well. Wherever she learned it, and however it ended up in New Orleans is secondary to the influence it continues to have on New Orleans Voodoo today, thanks to Marie Laveau's business savvy. And all of us professional rootworkers owe a debt to the Mother and Father of New Orleans Voodoo - Dr. John Montenet and Madame Laveau -  for making a business out of Hoodoo in New Orleans and all along the Southern Bayous.

If you haven't seen my other blog Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook, you should take a look at the excerpt on gris gris there for a more in-depth background of the practice. You should also refer to the article How to Make a Gris Gris Bag for details on the process that I won't repeat here because I have already written about it in the other article.

So let's make a business gris gris in the Marie Laveau tradition for the New Year. You will need yellow or green flannel or a piece of leather and the following items:

• Solomon's Seal
• High John the Conqueror Root
• Devil's Shoestring
• Silver mercury dime
• Black-eyed pea
• Palm ashes
• Dragon's Blood
• Personal effect of your own such as fingernail clippings or hair
• Material effect from your business like a business card or receipt
• Lodestone
• Dried toadstool
• Small piece of pound cake offered to St. Expedite

Light a green, yellow or gold candle and hold your bag while focusing on the need or desire you have. Say Psalm 8 twenty-seven times while imagining yourself accomplishing your goal. Once you can say the prayer and have a clear vision of your goal in mind (this does take practice), your gris gris will begin to attract the changes you seek. Do this exercise daily, first thing in the morning or right before bedtime. Feed your gris gris every Friday evening by placing it on a dish of sugar and pouring a few drops of Crown of Success conjure oil onto the ingredients inside the bag. Leave it to sit overnight. It’s okay for the oil to leech into the sugar. In the morning, put the sugar in a bucket of soapy water and wash down the entrance of your business. Keep your gris gris with you if at all possible; women keep it on the left side while men keep them on the right. Anytime you need extra blessings, hold the gris gris in your hands and breathe into it while reciting the prayer.

Psalm 8(KJV)

God's Glory and Man's Honor

To the chief Musician upon Git'tith, A Psalm of David.

O LORD our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength
because of thine enemies,
that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

what is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honor.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet:

all sheep and oxen,
yea, and the beasts of the field;

the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,
and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

O LORD our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Find a complete selection of authentic New Orleans Gris Gris at Creole Moon.

___________________________________________________________

All text, images and graphics Copyright 2013 Denise Alvarado, All rights reserved worldwide. Do not copy without my express permission.

Arkansas Woman Killed During Voodoo Cleansing

I am frankly appalled at the apparent increase in fatal flaws of the world's supposed spiritual leaders. Recently, there was James Ray's disaster of a Native American sweat lodge ceremony, the "inipi", where 3 people died. A sweat lodge ceremony is a purification ceremony, a healing ceremony. For those of you who don't know, James Ray is one of the law of attraction gurus who appeared in the movie The Secret and who has made more than a mint authoring numerous books on the subject. I am personally sanctioned to conduct such ceremonies, and I can tell you that I have never heard of anyone ever dying as a result of participating in one. In fact, nothing bad is ever supposed to happen in a sweat lodge. Indeed, if there ever was a safe place on this earth, it would be in the sweat lodge. So what went wrong?

I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that there was a ridiculous number of people crammed into one lodge...69 to be exact. My lodge holds 8. The largest I have ever participated in was conducted by a Lakota elder and there were 20 women in there. No one died. Grandma knew what she was doing because there are centuries of tradition and protocol to follow and you can best believe that she followed them. Or maybe it was the fact that he charged nine thousand six hundred plus dollars for the retreat. Most Native American holy people are lucky to walk away with enough gas money to get them back home. Maybe they only receive an offering of tobacco, or a bag of oranges. Nine thousand dollars...are you kidding me?

Maybe it was the fact that whoever was running the lodge, simply didn't know what they were doing. Five gallons of water (only a bucket is needed) was poured over the rocks and the ceremony lasted for 8 rounds (there are only 4 rounds). Which brings me to my next question: Who was running the lodge? All indicators point to Ray himself. I wonder how many Sundances and hunblechas he participated in to earn him that privilege.

In the world of Spirit, there are consequences for every behavior, every decision, every conjure, and every intention. The Law of Attraction (LOA) is alive and well in magick and ritual. It causes one to wonder what  decisions and intentions were driving this event that would draw death and tragedy to something so sacred? Maybe the fact that Ray played "God" in a game during the retreat speaks to his state of mind and perhaps the lack of consideration for the well-being of others. It appears that Ray attracted some pretty nasty energy with him as he crawled into the lodge that day, and he neglected to effectively bless the lodge to keep the nasties out.

And earlier this summer, there was the Hougan Hector tragedy. As you see in the video above, a lave tet was apparently performed for a woman and she ended up dying. A lave tet is a Voodoo ritual that is a cleansing, similar in concept to a sweat lodge only it involves washing the head. According to Hougan Hector himself:

"The Lave Tet is the cleansing, fortifying and finally baptism of one's head. The head being the "seat of the soul" for an individual, which serves as a vessel for the all important Met Tet and the other spirits that walk with an individual. In some non-asson houses the Lave Tet is the initiation into the house and commits the person to that house." (http://www.ezilikonnen.com/services/lave-tet.html)

The lave tet is supposed to improve the life of the individual in all areas, not kill them! So what went wrong here?

I don't know the details. According to one source, it is believed that Hougan Hector may have forgotten to serve his main loa Ogun. In Santeria and in Vodou, Ogun is known to be an extremely dangerous Spirit who has the power to kill and destroy as he sees fit. It is not uncommon for battles of all sorts to ensue when his children do not serve him correctly. Ogun is the God of War, among other very useful things.

Now, I serve Ogun. He has been very helpful to me and my family and my friends. But you can best believe that I do not forget him. In fact, in my recent move, the first altar I set up (after Legba's of course) was Ogun's. He has his iron pot and tools and other favorite things right out my back door in the garden. And, he has a special spot on my cast iron wood stove.

Another theory is greed. There are reports of Hougan Hector's fees increasing with each phone call. I don't know...I have never sought services from him, nor do I keep tabs on his fees. I have, however, turned to his site for information about Haitian Vodou at times. I have always found his site to be very helpful.

I am certainly not one to judge others. I only have my opinions, which are based on scanty information at best. James Ray and Hougan Hector have their own karma to deal with, but I dare say I am confident and relieved I do not share it.

Here is a video with James Ray talking about "Energy flows where attention goes"...


To read more about these incidents see:

AP Newsbreak: 1st sweat lodge survivor speaks out

Survivor of Ariz. sweat lodge ceremony speaks out

Voodoo became a fatal obsession: ON A SEARCH FOR SPIRITUAL CLEANSING, SHE DIED IN A SOUTH JERSEY TOWNHOUSE

Much unanswered in death at ritual in N.J.; Ark. friends want accountability