Finally we get to the last part of the online version of Mastering Lucky Hoodoo, which focuses on the final lesson of the course as included in The Voudon Gnostic Workbook. This post will also summarize the work and have an epilogue to the series and address what has been left out of the web version of the text.
The final lesson is on how the Lucky Hoodoo has life long success as a reader and advisor as well as a lesson on the Atua *ah too ah*, or what amounts to a spirit box and home for the spirits that work with you.
Throughout the lessons we have been given snippets of information and basic guidelines on doing ritual and spell work with the Hoo and the Doo spirits and the first part of this lesson illustrates my point through all 5 parts of Mastering Lucky Hoodoo, which is that not only is this a course on spell work but it is also a lesson on initiation and of a sorcerous type at that. I've read a few forums where people have posted saying that in using the LHG that they feel it is very Qlippothic and dark magick but that's all just ignorant poppycock. This is a primordial gnosis, or as David Beth like to say Hyperborean magick. I tend to agree with him and the initiations discussed in the first part of this lesson are very much along the lines of "pact work" discussed in some of Jake Stratton-Kent's work where the spirits that one works with provide lessons and instruction in what direction the sorcerer needs to take in their studies for the most positive impact on their lives.
Through the daily work outlined in Lesson 3 and steady practice of the rest of the lessons of the LHG we enter deeper and deeper into our symbiotic relationship with these spirits and honestly, anyone who thinks this grimoire is Qlippothic has just bit the apple of the modern Left Hand Path movement hook, line and sinker and that's a damn shame. Oh yeah, I said it. The modern LHP movement is a damn joke. It's spooky for spooky's sake and rebellious and undisciplined. LHP now means "I like this person so I am going to say they are LHP" and schmucks buy it because they want to rebel against "The Man" or "The Order" or whatever other thing they have replaced their parental figures with. LHP means to dress something up and throw in some Qlippothic sounding names and wear some make-up for my author's picture and be all gothic and vampiric rather than indulging in the scholarship and actual works on the LHP that would show just how incorrect these idiots are in their interpretation of the LHP. Just grab Cave of the Numinous by Craig Williams or Voudon Gnosis by David Beth and you'll get more LHP than you will find in the average "spooky dark" occult manual claiming to be the secrets of "the dark, sinister, left hand path".
Oh my, I have digressed. Gonna have to edit that out of the Monograph... heh heh heh.
But what I am getting at is that this grimoire is no more Qlippothic than the Goetia or any other grimoire aside from being more primordial, which we are shown by the last words of the Lesson itself. This grimoire is a complete system of self-initiation and empowerment and in the closing paragraphs Bertiaux discusses more advanced lessons that to the casual reader would seem to be the rest of the VGW itself. Well, no. Sprinkled throughout the lessons are core elements of the Monastery of the Seven Rays lessons, from the astrological aspects of the Contraite to the 8th lesson on Sex & Attraction. The whole course is founded on the materials in the M7R lessons and yet completely accessible within itself because it maintains a consistent, simple system of magical work that doesn't require physical initiation from a Guru or Master. The crafty sorcerer, with the help of the Hoo & Doo spirits can build on the material presented here by just following the simple core laid out in these ten lessons and then develop a system working much of the VGW lessons that could of benefit to the Sorceror if not actual Esoteric Voudon work from the M7R foundations.
A little more on the supposed Qlippothic nature of the LHG: read the myths of not just the deities of Africa but all pantheons and you will most definitely see a very dark undercurrent weaving itself. Stories of death and sex, revenge, descents into hell pepper the myths of all pantheons and in the modern LHP movement it seems almost as if they want to lay exclusive claim to these things. Almost like because Vama Marg is the Left Hand Path and involves Kali and Sex and primordial Gnosticism that sex, death, revenge and descents into hell just gotta be LHP. I'd like to see some of these people take initiation in the O.T.O., Golden Dawn or A:.A:.. I'm just sayin'.
But what is going on in initiation in the LHG? Well the writing is on the wall in Lesson 3 and Lesson 6. Possession and mental power being given and developed in the magician. Lessons and empowerments granted by the Spirits themselves. The contact with the spirits can become extremely deep and Lesson 6 helps us to keep the bad spirits away. So... how is that Qlippothic?
What is happening is you are becoming a house for the spirits but in a very general sense. If you read further into the book you read about the Points-Chaud, or Hot Points on the Body. These are power zones in the subtle body similar to the classical chakra system and are places wherein spirits dwell for you to work with. You are becoming a living Atua for the spirits, a vessel, consecrated and blessed by the spirits for them to work through and for you to work with them. As your "possession" by the helpful spirits increases and the "possession" by the negative spirits decreases, your life changes in positive ways. You smile more, you have a greater confidence, a primal aura that is magnetic and draws people to it and many of these people need help that you can give them and like the spirits with the offerings you give them, these people give you offerings because not only are you a sorcerer but you are also a Lucky Hoodoo spirit now.
Unlike working with the M7R and receiving those empowerments and blessings though, the power zones aren't as precise as they would be working with the M7R courses and you know what? That's great because not everyone will be truly called to the work of the M7R or the O.T.O.A.-LCN but this powerful system of magick is right there for you to use and develop on your own, to help yourself and others. The lessons give you an amazing foundation to build a wonderful, beautiful system of sorcery and magick to make your life wonderful & beautiful and full of wonder.
That's why I am writing this series, because I want everyone to put this little grimoire to use!! And I am not done talking about Houses of the Holy in this post but man, I just had to say that last paragraph. It's just fucking beautiful!
The second part of the lesson is about the Atua itself, not your body, but a box with a lid that goes on your altar as a place for the spirits to indwell in your home. This post was hard for me to write to be honest and I am going to tell you why because man, getting a box and painting it and putting things the spirits like into it, how hard can that be??
Well for me, damn hard and here is why: Almost my whole life I have been a vagabond. I've never really had a permanent home for more than a couple years and the longest I stayed in one place since I turned 18 was in Logan, Ohio for 7 years and four different homes. So yeah, I don't tend to have a permanent place or altar and because of that I unconsciously put off this very, very important lesson. If I didn't have a home per se, how can I provide a permanent home for the spirits?
I started looking around me, at my paraphernalia of the occult and I have this little box where I have been keeping my Goetic seals etc. so those little buggers don't get out and cause havoc. I gave those little buggers an Atua and insult to injury, the box came from the Dominican Republic, just outside Haiti!!! Orobas, Bune and others had this nice little comfy box they sit in and wait for me to need them while my HooDoo spirits get shoved in my back pack when I go on a trip or sit on a table haphazardly, or on the fridge, or in a cardboard box and well, man, that's just fucked.
The Atua is a special thing though. It's a container where we can put our candles in, incenses, Lucky Hoodoo Spirit Windows (but why would you want to? get those bad boys on the wall!!) and other LHG materials for storage and further empowerment as this thing, that's the home of the spirits man! How bad ass is that? You have a talisman to have blessed or to keep it's charge from a previous Hoodoo working? Put that shit in the box for a few days and boom, it's got some mojo. Want a coin blessed for your coin magick you've picked up from Kyle Fite? In the box for the spirits to work their mojo man! You use Jason Miller's Cash Box from Sorceror's Secrets and Financial Sorcery? Well write out a request to ask the spirits to do the same thing as that cash box when you put money in it and put it in there and let the spirits juice the cash like the Cash Box does. Hell put your Contraite in there for added mojo.
You see where I am going? Use the Atua, like your body, in the work you are doing with the HooDoo spirits. Keep the spirits working because that is what they want to do. They want to work, that's why they're called, ya know, work spirits. With a permanent place in your home they will be able to do more work with you even if you aren't getting the candles out every day or even week.
Take care of the box, keep it clean, perfume it, put things in it that the spirits want. I have a coin talisman from Kyle Fite that wanted an Atua for itself and it really wanted to be kept in a Wintergreen Altoids tin! I kid you not. I am taking it that that spirit in that talisman like the smell of Wintergreen.
So listen to the spirits and they will tell you what they like and what they want and the box will take on a life of it's own and become a living entity that seems to move and breathe and will be a key part of your household.
Epilogue
So this series has been really popular and I am very grateful to everyone who has shared the posts and told me in private or in public how much they enjoy it. While this last part has taken a while to get out there, and hopefully it is as well received as the last several, astute readers may notice I have left some elements of the LHG out of the article. Well there is a reason and that is some things you just have to figure out for yourself through practice. I don't want people just repeating what I do, how I see things. The whole point of these articles is to get people excited about the LHG and start doing the work. I have had more success using this grimoire and system than any other system I have found and that is because it is so remarkably easy to use. I think Bertiaux may have invented the greatest of all magical formulas with this grimoire, Keep It Simple Stupid, K.I.S.S.. What a wonderful word of power!
I also wanted to show how Bertiaux's work ain't so fucking crazy or out there by showing how it has a firm foundation in Western Magick and also ATR practices even if it doesn't really resemble ATR all that much, but c'mon he went to Haiti, was initiated there, studied Theosophy, Shinto, WMT and created a syncretic, primal form of magick that owes a huge amount to Haitian Voodoo and the pre-Victorian grimoires, to the French occult Masters like Papus, Levi and others. He created a brilliant system that when you look at it through modern occultist eyes, it isn't at all familiar because we are drunk on the Golden Dawn tradition and the GD has colored everything in Western magick from Wicca to Thelema and Chaos Magick. Of course it doesn't resemble GD based magical practices because it calls back to two things that are much older and authors who weren't steeped in the GD practices even if they were aware of them. LHG and Esoteric Voudon have more in common with Agrippa, Rudd and Martinez than Mathers and Crowley and going down the rabbit hole of pre-Victorian traditions unlocks an appreciation for Bertiaux accomplished and the man's influence today? I honestly feel he is the most influential occultist since Crowley and most have only heard legends about the man or how crazy his system is.
One criticism I have seen online is that Gnostic Voudon doesn't have an order of service like in Haitian and New Orleans Voodoo but when one learns who those 5 candles represent, we see there is indeed an order of service it's just adapted to a solo practitioner and city life where the elaborate Voodoo ritual isn't always practical.
He's given us a system that mixes East, West and African traditions into a coherent whole that is hung on a simple core that can easily be built upon. The LHG is just an inkling of what there really is because the M7R lessons are really an encyclopedia in themselves, throw in the VGW and other, unpublished materials and the depth of what he has brought forth is staggering, especially in comparison to modern prolific authors who seem to just rewrite the same things over and over in each book with little new content and the depth of a mud puddle. He isn't giving us cook books of spirits with spooky art and ominous words. OK, yeah he is giving us some ominous and outrageous words but you get the point.
Most of all, like Agrippa, he has given us the keys to making our own system of practice by providing us with knowledge rather than those cook books of rituals I mentioned. The LHG gives us a foundation to develop our own rituals and practices, to elaborate and even rewrite in new ways and for new uses. It's a small foundation with infinite potential and not yet more variants on the Pentagram ritual or rapes of GD rituals. It isn't complicated, requiring learning various gestures and ritual movements and in this way it does harken back to the pre-Victorian grimoires in beautiful, subtle ways.
Man, I sound like a fanboy but ok, what I want to get across here is this system encourages you to develop your own way of doing things, your own way of being. When you link up to the M7R it becomes all the more richer, and you will for it but even if your don't join the M7R, you will find yourself inspired by the spirits to add to the base established in unique ways and your own ways. No two practitioners of LHG or Esoteric Voudon are the same and man, that's a living breathing system and damn, don't you want to be a part of that Laboratory?
So what's next with Mastering Lucky Hoodoo? Well many of you know I am going to do a limited edition monograph that expands on these articles and adds new material and revises these articles into a unified unit. I am hoping to crank that out for Spring release, if not a little sooner. I'm working on some nice extras to throw in for the small print run that I will be doing of the Monograph. 16 plus 4 special editions that are already claimed and family editions for those closest to me, like 3 copies!
After I've sold through those I may make the monograph available as an E-book for a relatively cheap price with no extras, just the revised and expanded essay and appendices. The Monograph will integrate more of the first year M7R materials and go into the Lwa represented by the candles and how to work with them with specific offerings and also how to work the system without the use of alcohol for those of us who are recovering alcoholics or just plain don't drink.
I won't be churning out a cookbook of rituals though, but advice on how to use the system as is and also to expand on the foundation. I also be discussing using the Lucky Hoodoo Spirit Windows produced by Kyle Fite because man, these things are brilliant! I've used them a couple times and tonight I hung them in my bed room and can feel the energy in the room just open up and flow between them! Beautiful pieces of work that just breathe.
I hope you enjoyed the full series of articles on Mastering Lucky Hoodoo, it's been a hoot reading comments and chatting with some of you. I do it for you guys, god's honest truth but not just you guys, the spirits and myself as well. We are all one, a team, and don't you forget it!
