Honey Jar

I have always found it pretty amazing how people claim to not believe in magick, but then freak out when they run into anything that looks like it. Many years ago now, our house in St. Paul was broken into. The thieves clearly started going through stuff on the first floor, but took one look at my temple and promptly left. I don't know if they ran out screaming or anything like that, but it's fun to imagine that they did.

At any rate, here's a story of some folks who were out digging in their back yard and came across a mysterious buried item. It was a sealed coffee jar filled with some sort of sweet-smelling goo and an old picture of their landlord. It had clearly been in the ground for a long time. They immediately decided that the jar must be some sort of witchcraft curse.

Someone had clearly placed the jar in the garden deliberately. And they wanted to make sure whatever was inside would stay there undisturbed. And naturally, curiosity got the better of him. Really, though, you can’t blame him. Of course, there is something to be said about not opening up mysterious containers. This one was full of a strange, gooey substance that he describes as smelling “sickly sweet” and looking like “runny marmalade.” And that’s not even the weird part.

Also inside the jar, in the goo, was a photo. It was a couple, and on closer inspection, ValjeanLucPicard realized that he knew the people in the photo. The woman was his landlord, but it looked like this photo was taken well over a decade ago. At this point, ValjeanLucPicard’s wife went to get the landlord. “She knew right away it was some brujeria.” Brujeria is Spanish for “witchcraft.” Also in the jar was some kind of fabric shred, which they think came from a dress. There was also a slip of paper that had writing on it that was now illegible. They think it was probably a curse.

So what do you do when you find a jar full of witchcraft in your backyard? You strike back with some of your own! The landlord, who thinks this “project” was the work of the woman who lived in the building some 15 years ago, insisted the whole thing be burned immediately to “lift the curse.” After the fire burned out, the landlord tossed some holy water over the ashes and into the hole where the jar was dug up. And that’s how what started out as simply beautifying the garden turned into cleansing it of bad juju.

One of the big problems with having so few occultists in the world is that most people don't know one to ask when they run into something like this. The jar wasn't a curse. It was a "honey jar" spell, and there was nothing at all dangerous about it. Also, just as a point, the minute the photo came out of the jar the spell would have broken. That's the whole point of sealing it up - if the items get separated, the spell quits working.


But anyway, this is what a honey jar spell actually does. There are some variations across different traditions, but they all tend to be versions of the same thing. This one is Wiccan, but it should give you the general idea. The honey jar spell is intended to make a person or members of an organization think well of you - "sweet thoughts," so to speak.

This honey jar spell is intended to "sweeten" someone's disposition toward you. It works well for individuals but is particularly helpful for organizations, such as banks, juries, legal entities, companies you wish to work for or hope will give you a good deal, etc.

And it's a completely reasonable thing to cast if you're living someplace and want the landlord to treat you well. That's basically all the spell does. It's not evil, it doesn't require cleansing with holy water, and it doesn't require burning. It wouldn't surprise me if the landlord is some sort of Christian extremist, which would make any magical practitioner concerned about being treated well while living in one of their buildings.

So here's the lesson. If you come across a spell, ask a practitioner what it is. Or maybe do a Google search. Freaking out on the grounds that any magical spell has to be a curse is just plain stupid. Or at the very least, ignorant. And today, in the information age, there really is no excuse for that besides flat-out laziness.