Artificial Emotion

Ophiel, that great holy fool of 20th century occultism, stated that emotions are harder to control than thought.

Though I agree with most of what Ophiel says, and wish to God I had been around to edit his work when it was first published, I am going to disagree with him on this one.

Thoughts are harder to control than emotions, at least for me.

I came to hoodoo through an offhand reference by John Michael Greer in one of his articles or books, perhaps a tome on natural magic, in which he praised it and gave some suggestions for baths and floor washes.  The first time I did a quasi-hoodoo floor wash, an amazing thing happened.  It became impossible not to control my thoughts.  I lay in bed waiting for my demons to assault, and nothing happened.  I just lay there, happy as a clam, while my impervious-to-demons husband snoozed at my side.

I was hooked!

I began making up tinctures according to European natural magic correspondences, and consecrated them with Cabalistic ritual.  This worked well--and still does, especially for elemental and astrological condition products.  But I had a vague sense of dissatisfaction with the European herbology for general spell work, and began looking into hoodoo.

American herbology.  I think my deep bodies wanted an American witchcraft.  I am only half European.  Those European witchy vibes don't entirely suit me.  As I began getting into hoodoo, I found that the "vibe" just worked.

I discovered that any product is like a mini-spell that lasts for about a day, or as long as the product is on the body.  So I began dousing myself with mini-spells to get myself to do and create and be what I wanted.

I have a special oil made up for love, to support the energetic health of my relationship.  It contains a number of ingredients: rose and lavender for love; ginger for passion; coriander for fidelity; rosemary for female spirituality; and a lodestone named "marriage" to draw.  The other night I put some of the oil on my body and lay in bed reading.  My husband was downstairs on the sofa with the dog and iPad.  The oil began to work very powerfully on ME.  I felt almost like I was being pulled down through the bed, through the floor, through the ceiling, through the world, down to him where he lay.  I recognized it as an artificial emotion, one created by the oil, and wondered.

Do I really want this artificial emotion?

I already love my husband.  Do I need to love THAT much more?  I remember thinking that I loved him so much, so terribly much, that I couldn't imagine life without him.

I can't imagine life without him, but if he were to be hit by a falling piano, I'd have to be able to go on.

I can see calling on artificial emotion when things get "off" just to tide us over, or to create long-lasting change, but--wow!--it has to be done judiciously.