Detroit Hoodoo Month: A Conjure Lamp Enchantment.

A Conjure Lamp Enchantment

by Chas Bogan

Chas is an artist, writer, and craftsman, and spends much of his time producing a variety of artistic creations for Carnivalia, his online presence centered on the tools of spiritualism, the occult, Hoodoo, and the tradition of carnivale. His spiritual background is varied, including Charismatic Christian, Spiritualist, and Pagan. He currently works with a variety of different spiritual currents, most notably Conjure, Angelic, Ancestral, and Reiki healing. He is one of the founders of the Mystic Dream Academy and one of the owners of The Mystic Dream. Chas is currently teaching his best selling class, Modern Conjure and preparing for his summer tour.

Electric lighting all but killed the use of oil lamps, however the tradition of using them for magical purposes remains. While there are many forms and fuels that an oil lamp may take, we will focus on the most popular variety, the kerosene lamp (aka paraffin lamp). Let us embark on this subject with the definitions for the various parts that compose such a lamp. The part of the lamp which contains the liquid fuel is called a fount or font. The part that screws onto the font and holds the threaded wick is called a burner. The glass that surrounds the flaming wick is called the chimney.

For our font we will want something made of glass so that we may see the goodies we will be placing within it. This is perhaps why lamp magic is so popular, as with a mojo bag, we can fill the font of our lamp will all sorts of curios relevant to our work.

There are many commercial lamps available that will suit our needs. One popular variety of burner is sized to screw onto a common mason jar, which works great as the depth of the mason jar allows us plenty of room in which to place our curios. A trip to your local hardware store should give you some appropriate choices, and there is variety available online as well.

Glass fonts can be found in many of colors, so if you do not mind a dimmer view of the items stored within your font, you might choose a red one to serve as your lamp for love magic, or perhaps blue for happy home work. The same color correspondences used for choosing a candle can be applied to an oil lamp. Additionally, you can achieve color in other ways, such as with an oil based candy dye like the kind Wilton sells, or through natural dyes such as alkanet, which will turn your oil red. Pre-colored fuels are available if you do a bit of searching. When it comes to choosing an oil I prefer liquid paraffin. It generates little smoke and burns well. While some people like to use common oils such as canola, vegetable or olive oil, those oils are often thicker and not well suited to the flat wick that most burners are made for. These wicks use a capillary system to pull oil through their fibers, and thicker oils do not pull through as well. To my liquid paraffin I like to add some conjure oils just as I do with my 7-day candles. Most commercial conjure oils contain fragrance or essential oils that have been added to a carrier oil such as almond oil or jojoba. Adding conjure oils to fuel has always worked out fine for me, although I imagine that if it made the fuel too thick overall then the wick would struggle to absorb it.

As mentioned, the wicks for these lamps are flat, which makes them easy to write on. Here you can draw on your earlier lessons about sigils and name papers to help you decide what to write on your wick. I suggest using a Sharpie for this (available in varying colors).

Lamps are ideal for glamor work, which is all about letting yourself shine. The following instructions are for constructing a lamp of this kind.

Step One: Gather materials needed to construct your lamp, the fount, burner and chimney.

Step Two: Before threading your wick into the burner, draw on it with a Sharpie, symbols such as eyes, the sun, your name, or key words such as sexy, smart, jovial, or whatever characteristics you wish to be recognized for.

Step Three: Add to the font whatever things you feel are appropriate to this work (keeping in mind that it must not take up too much space, a ratio of no more than 1/4 curio to 3/4 fuel is preferred), the following are some suggestions…

• Conjure Oil: Look Me Over / Bewitching / Cleo May

• Stone Curio: Sunstone / Pyrite / Tiger’s Eye

• Animal Curio: Peacock Feather

• Herbal Curio: Rose / Jasmine / High John Root

• Assorted Curio: Eyebrow Pencil / Fancy Cufflink / False Eyelash

• Personal Concern: Hair from your head

• Solomonic Seal: Second & Fourth Pentacle of Jupiter / Fifth Pentacle of Mars / Third Pentacle of the Sun / First through Fifth Pentacles of Venus / Third Pentacle of Mercury

Step Four: Add your fuel and assemble your lamp.

Step Five: Light your lamp, and empower it utilizing the following elements...

• Envision: See yourself turning heads / Making others smile /                                      Strutting down the runway

• Emote: Sense pride in yourself / Imagine the joy of being well loved / Feel how jealous they will be of  you

• Speak: Let your words and breath serve as a bridge for divine power; say a spoken charm, or read a Psalm such as Psalm 5, 78 or 111. If you are not certain what Psalm to use, Psalm 119 is always acceptable as a default for lamp work.

• Believe: Have faith and go forth in confidence.