Hexing Donald Trump

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump remains the frontrunner for the nomination despite his complete disregard for what are generally considered common-sense rules of campaigning. Trump has issued offensive statement after offensive statement, but somehow his supporters seem to love him all the more for doing so. It's almost as if the guy is using magick - or, I suppose, his skill at manipulating the media.

A group of Brooklyn spellcasters recently became fed up with Trump's continued success, and set out to send a volley of curses his way. They compiled snippets from their various rituals into an entertaining video called "Brujas Hex Trump," which they then shared widely via social media. According the standard rules of campaigning no candidate would ever address something of this sort, but we are talking about Donald Trump here, so you never know.

Yeni Sleidi gathered her fellow brujas, asked them to perform a series of curses on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and recorded footage of the rituals. The end result is an energetic video titled, “Brujas Hex Trump.” Yeni, a writer and activist from Brooklyn, was inspired to make the video after chatting with her Santeria-practicing mother.

Yeni asked if there was anything she could do, spell-wise, to thwart Trump’s electoral efforts. “We’re both Cuban immigrants and his misguided attack on Mexican immigrants hit close to home, so she was happy to help.” Her mom gave instructions on a traditional “name-in-the-freezer” hex, and the video shows Yeni invoking the “Ice Queen” to freeze Trump’s idiotic cabeza.

As the saying goes, there’s always strength in numbers, so Yeni’s friends contributed an array of spells for ol’ Trump. The magical menu included a hex to silence him, another to protect people of color from his evil and one that would make him mourn the loss of his infamous comb-over. That’s right—a hair loss curse.

This video is much more fun than, say, the one that the Salem folks made of cursing Charlie Sheen, in part because it comes off as mostly tongue-in-cheek and in part because it's much better produced. Still, even though some of the rituals depicted look silly, others appear to be legitimate examples of folk magick techniques. So starting today, I'll be watching the Trump campaign for any bad fortune that seems weird enough to possibly be paranormal.

And if Trump's hair falls out, I'll consider that a definitive sign right there.

Voodoo Paranormal

This probably won't end well. Years ago, I brought up the concept of a reality television show based on genuine practicing occultists. I noted at the time that main problem such a show would run into is that from the outside most of our practices either look pretty boring or downright laughable. If we're doing contemplative work, much of what we do is meditation. The internal landscape of what's happening during that practice might be profound, but to a camera it just looks like somebody sitting there. Even if we're engaged in more active magical work, most of what we do is put on odd clothing like robes and then wave funny-looking tools around while vibrating various names and words that have no significance to regular television viewers.

Apparently, though, somebody has now come up with the idea of adding magical elements to a regular paranormal investigation show. In the era before Ghost Hunters became a big hit a lot of those shows employed psychics, but the fact is that most of the material such individuals produced was vague and even the most detailed observations generally proved impossible to verify. The twist to this new show, Voodoo Paranormal, is that the producers are looking to integrate real Voodoo, Hoodoo, and Santeria practices into the show.

The production team is casting for its new unscripted paranormal reality show, Voodoo Paranormal.

"Voodoo Paranormal follows paranormal investigators as they investigate haunted locations in search of ghosts, ghouls, and goblins using sophisticated technology paired with vintage Voodoo spells."

The production team is looking for passionate people that are practitioners of Voodoo, Hoodoo, and Santeria.

Miami Animal Sacrifices?

It's generally well-known that Miami, Florida is home to a substantial population that practices Afro-Caribbean religions such as Santeria and Voudon. One of the issues involved when living in such an area is that occasionally the remains of animal sacrifices are discovered. This last weekend, the remains of a goat and several chickens were found in a bag floating near a South Beach luxury condominium complex. Investigators suspect that the animals were sacrificed as part of a religious ritual.

"I was looking in the water, and I see this blue bag and it looked like a leg of a goat coming out and some feathers," Floridian condo security guard Karim Mora, who made the grisly discovery, told NBC6. “So right there, I knew what it was."

The Miami Beach Police department declined to investigate because the apparent sacrifice didn't appear to target an individual, spokesman Bobby Hernandez told the Miami Herald. "Unfortunately, this kind of thing does happen around here with all of the different cultures," he said.

CBS Miami reports that after examining the carcasses, animal abuse activist Richard Couto of the Animal Recovery Mission suggested the animals may have been been killed in a rite for Santeria or Palo Mayombe, an even more obscure religion with Cuban origins. Police officer Nelson Reyes, who teaches a law enforcement course in Afro-Caribbean religious practices, suggested it might have been related to Haitian Voodoo.

Florida Animal Sacrifices

My "magick using dead things" file just keeps getting bigger. Authorities in Florida are concerned over a growing number of animals that are turning up dead, apparently sacrificed in some sort of ritual context, over the course of the last year. The animals involved include goats and chickens, many of which have been found decapitated.

Just days ago, people in Port Saint Richie awoke to chicken feet tied with ribbons around their door knobs. Residents there speculated, "They're supposedly into Santeria or voo-doo."

Last Halloween, headless goats and chickens covered a Miami street, prompting neighbors to tell reporters, "It looks like witchcraft, some type of Santeria."

In Tampa several months back, a string of headless animals turned-up along the Bay at the eastern end of the Courtney Campbell Causeway. Coastal clean-up volunteers gasped at the discovery, calling it "gruesome."

June 23rd, a security guard found a cow's tongue in a box with 100 nails driven into it just outside the Hillsborough County Courthouse.

July 3rd, Sheriff's deputies found another box outside the Falkenburg Road Jail. This one held a white goat, two baby chicks, a rooster, and a dove -- all headless.

Back in July I covered those last two incidents here.

Another Spell to Identify

So here's another round of "is it a spell or isn't it?" Involving, appropriately enough, more dead things. Whether this is some sort of sacrifice or flat-out necromancy, though, I'm not really sure. Last week several headless animals were found outside a jail in Tampa, Florida. Authorities believe that the killing may have been part of some sort of magical ritual, perhaps connected in some way with Santeria.

A white cardboard box was left outside the entrance that contained two roosters, a dove, a goat, and two baby chicks: each of the animals were dead and headless. The beheaded animals have left some in Tampa to question whether they were part of a ritualistic witchcraft killing. It wouldn’t be the first for the Tampa Bay area that seems to have an annual sprout of headless animals leaving many to wonder if the perpetrators are connected to Santeria.

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Officer Detective Larry McKinnon spoke with ABC Action News and spoke about the ritualistic nature of the find, “It was a disturbing discovery, and we feel like it’s some sort of ritualistic killing. Someone was clearly sending a message to someone inside the jail.” Detective McKinnon also commented on another gruesome discovery made by the Tampa Police department just one week prior to the box of beheaded animals: A cows tongue pierced with approximately 100 nails.

Detective McKinnon stated, “A cows tongue with nails in it has been identified as a message sent to somebody to ‘Keep your mouth shut.”

So the big question is whether this is simply intended as some sort of warning issued to some individual currently incarcerated, or if it's part of a real magical ritual intended to produce some practical result. As in many of these cases, both/and is probably also a reasonable answer.

Is this something that anyone recognizes, or for that matter might have performed in the past? I haven't read up on Santeria in a number of years and I don't think any of the rituals I studied were all that similar to this one. My understanding is that animals killed in Santeria rituals serve as offerings rather than some sort of magical link to a target. Of course, since I'm not intiated into that tradition and have only read a couple of books there's a lot that I don't know about it. There's also some overlap between Santeria, Voudon, and Hoodoo in terms of ritual technology, so I'm thinking a practitioner from one of those traditions could be the caster as well.

And just as a point to whoever wrote the news article, Santeria is not "witchcraft." Just sayin'!