Notes from the bunker from Prof. Crow:

Fact #1: All self-made men have got what they wanted by using voodoo power

Ya know that dumb fuck down the street who owns his own thrivin’ autoshop? He gotta nice house and an even nicer wife. An expensive watch on his wrist and all ‘em foreign holidays. He hardly goes into work an’ pulls what you earn in a month in a week. Ya wanna know how this lazy, talentless son-of-a-bitch got where he is an’ why you going nowhere on minimum wage?

He used Voodoo power. That’s what he did.

Now he ain’t gonna say, “Hey Bobby, I’m a useless dickweed, and I made a packet, and got the house, an’ girl of my dreams, by usin’ voodoo power.” You can bet yo’ bottom dollar he ain’t gonna tell the world his dirty little secret.

Why don’t you do the same? Use that voodoo power. What the hell, he is! But he wants to look the big important man to you. Like he done it all his-self.

Fact #2: Voodoo power is the only way to get material blessings. If ya want spiritual blessings go an’ see a goddamn priest

All this new age horse shit is just that – horse shit. Feelin’ good is great if ya belly is full and the bills are paid. Just think how much happier you’d feel if ya had a fat old wallet, and a thin wife, an’ not the other way round.

Fact #3: That big break don’t come by luck it comes by using voodoo power

All these business programs can’t tell ya how to be in the right place at the right time. All self-made men will tell you that they had a lucky break. Crap. That bit of luck was made to happen by voodoo power.

If ya want things in this world voodoo power will get them for ya. Ya can bust a fucking gut for the rest of ya life, and chase dreams, but if ya want to get shit done you need voodoo power. That is why some people are successful in what they do and you are not.

Now I can’t say it any plainer that can I?

Prof Crow

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She just couldn’t pretend they’d never met. She couldn’t forget what they’d had together. He said, give it time, she’d get over it. “But Doc,” she said to me, “time just makes the flame burn even stronger for him.”

Her ex then insisted that she would find somebody else and the love would be just as intense.

She told me: “I tried going out with someone new, but I just kept thinking of my ex. I just can’t shake him. I fall to pieces every single day. I just want him back…. I want things the way they used to be. Please help, Doc… I need a voodoo spell to put things right.”

There was only one remedy for this situation and that was a Conjure Box, one of my ultimate voodoo lover back spells…

Wesley Shepardson, aged 49, and his friend, a youth called Norman West, went to the cops to make a complaint. Wesley told them he was being “hoodooed” by a conjure woman from the east side of the city, who apparently was trying to separate him from his wife.

Wesley told Police Captain Evans that the hoodoo woman visited his home the evening before and threw “conjure powders” on the floor. He said he was asleep upstairs at the time and the moment the powder hit the floor he woke up with a start.

He cautiously made his way downstairs and found the hoodoo woman sitting on the sofa between his wife and daughter. Wesley saw the conjure powder on the floor and became very scared.

Rushing out onto the street he ran into the arms of Patrolman Purcell, who he’d had dealings with earlier in the week.

“Lord, I’se sure glad to meet you,” he said. “You done saved my life by arresting me once this week, and now you got to do it again fo’ sure.”

Wesley’s arrest earlier that week worked out this way: He worked at a sand pit where an African-American man was killed. Had Patrolman Purcell not arrested Wesley on a charge of breach of peace, he would likely have met the same fate as the unfortunate guy – who died when a bank at the sandpit collapsed. As it was, he was safe and sound in a police cell.

“De Lord is with me sure enough,” Wesley told Patrolman Purcell. “And you done saved my life. [The Lord] done sent you.”

Purcell duly took Wesley to the police station.

When questioned about the powder the conjure woman had allegedly thrown on the floor of his house, Wesley said: “Well, it was red, white and blue stuff and had something else in it.”

“Did it smell bad?” he was asked.

“Smell! Well, man, you never did smell anything so bad in all your life before! I done opened every door and winder in de house and still de smell stayed there.”

Wesley then invited the officers to go to his house to smell it for themselves, but they declined.

At that point, Norman West, the youth who had accompanied Wesley to the police station, weighed in with his thoughts on the matter.

He told of his experience with conjure women. All you had to do, he said, was go into the woods and get some snake root and catch some flies. Then take both items to an African-American woman called Black Snake, who lived beyond a bridge in the city. She would fix it so that you could use it to good effect against your enemies.

Captain Evans said he would investigate the terrible state of affairs. And with that Shepardson left saying that they might never see him alive again.

“I just felt good when I come home this afternoon,” added Wesley, “but since dat powder was thrown at de floor I’se no good and have been acting kind of crazy ever since.”

As you might expect, a perigee full moon is likely to bring higher tides. But some say the perigee full moon causes strange behavior in people, even natural disasters. Others suggest it is a catalyst for lycanthropy – that it can bring out the latent werewolf in people.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t see this as a bad thing. I’m a friend of werewolves, as I am of all the beasts and creatures of this spinning earth. I even advocate silencing the constant “soap opera” chatter of of the conscious mind and allowing the feral – the beast inside – to come out. Allowing our wild spirits to roam the cool night air.

For those who fear the werewolf let me say this:

Ask yourself which is most evil – the beasts or the humans?

The answer is always 100% the humans. You see, the beasts of this planet are always true to themselves and their natures. Humans aren’t…or at least, very rarely. Humans are mostly cruel, greedy, controlling, devious, exploitative, compulsive liars, murderous (sometimes on a grand scale)…plus they are insane enough to cavalierly wreck and damage (potentially destroy) their own habitats.

No beast would do any of that. So on this perigee full moon, do the following:

Try and visit a wolf today. Say hello. If you can’t visit a wolf, say hello to all the cats, dogs, birds, or insects you see today. Crouch down and really say “hello.” Believe me, they’ll know something good is going down this day.

…But if you do fear werewolves, the most important thing to remember is werewolves can’t climb trees – this might save your life someday…

Marrinda Jane Singleton. Former slave from Norfolk, Virginia, born in 1840 and interviewed for the U.S. government’s Virginia Negro Studies Project around 1937.

It instructs the magician to go to a mountain top (or crossroads near a river or ruin) with various talismans and to draw a magic circle on the ground, from which Lucifer is invoked three times. The first invocation makes no bones about the materialistic nature of the deal:

“Emperor Lucifer, owner and lord of all the rebellious spirits, I beg you to favor my request… Appear to me tonight in human form, without any awful smell, and grant me, by means of the pact which I am going to present to you, all the riches and gifts that I need.”

At this point, according to the book, a demon appears demanding to know why his rest has been disturbed. Then Lucifer enters the fray, refusing the magician’s request for riches, by saying:

“I can’t accede to your demand, except on the condition that you give yourself to me for twenty years, to do with your body and soul what I want.”

Following long negotiations, a pact is signed in blood, and Lucifer leads the magician to the nearest treasure.

The Book of Saint Cyprian, it isn’t exactly sophisticated. Most readers in the West would see it as very tacky – magic ritual presented in almost caricature form – and very hard to take seriously.

Yet a report from a teacher in Portugal, Ray Vogensen, shows that, even in the West, the book has a sinister reputation. People take it seriously enough to be scared by it.

“I first heard of it when students of mine told of a girl who had committed suicide in Vila Real by throwing herself off the iron bridge that crosses the Corgo River. According to stories, but believed by my students, the Book of Saint Cyprian was found near her body. Students had a genuine fear of the book and advised not to open it.”

As far as Vogensen’s students were concerned it was an accursed grimoire.

Various versions of the book exist, each claiming to offer the “true” knowledge of Saint Cyprian. The editors of the various versions of The Book of Saint Cyprian include Joaquim Sabugosa, N.A. Molina and Pierre Dumont. All claim their edition provides the “true” wisdom of Saint Cyprian.

The book is very popular in Portugal and Spain, as well as in South America. In Brazil, it is even available from the well-known department store, Lojas Americans – which is on a par with London’s Harrod’s department store stocking it.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part tells the life story of Saint Cyprian; gives prayers for midday, the afternoon, and midnight; offers ways to predict the future; lists the 148 places where enchantments can be found and ends with ways to deal cards. The second part reveals the “true treasure” of black and white magic, offers the secrets of witchcraft for good and evil and provides magical recipes to gain a marriage partner or lover. While the third part lists all the treasures that can be found, mainly in the region of Galicia, in north west Spain.

But who was Saint Cyprian?

According to The Catholic Encyclopedia (Volume IV), he was one of the Christians of Antioch, ancient Syria, who were executed (the day of Saint Cyprian’s martyrdom, September 26, became his feast day.) on 26 September, AD 304:

“Christians of Antioch who suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Diocletian at Nicomedia, 26 September, 304, the date in September being afterwards made the day of their feast. Cyprian was a heathen magician of Antioch who had dealings with demons. By their aid he sought to bring St. Justina, a Christian virgin, to ruin; but she foiled the threefold attacks of the devils by the sign of the cross. Brought to despair Cyprian made the sign of the cross himself and in this way was freed from the toils of Satan. He was received into the Church, was made pre-eminent by miraculous gifts, and became in succession deacon, priest, and finally bishop…

During the Diocletian persecution [he was] seized and taken to Damascus where [he was] shockingly tortured. As [his] faith never wavered [he was] brought before Roman emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia, where at his command [he was] beheaded on the bank of the river Gallus. After [the body of the saint] had lain unburied for six days [he was] taken by Christian sailors to Rome where [he was] interred on the estate of a noble lady named Rufina and later [was] entombed in Constantine’s basilica…

The story… must have arisen as early as the fourth century, for it is mentioned both by St. Gregory Nazianzen and Prudentius; both, nevertheless, have confounded our Cyprian with St. Cyprian of Carthage, a mistake often repeated. It is certain that no Bishop of Antioch bore the name of Cyprian. The attempt has been made to find in Cyprian a mystical prototype of the Faust legend: [Spanish dramatist Pedro] Calderon took the story as the basis of a drama: ‘El magico prodigioso’.” *

*(El Mágico Prodigioso, The Wonder-Working Magician, was written by acclaimed Spanish dramatist, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, in 1637).

Most books relating the lives of the saints have two entries for Saint Cyprian: Saint Cyprian of Antioch and Saint Cyprian of Carthage. Both lived in the 3rd century, both were bishops and both were beheaded. To make it even more difficult to distinguish who was who, their festival days are both celebrated in September. But the consensus seems to be that Cyprian of Antioch is the reputed author of the famous grimoire. Of course, there is no record that he himself wrote it; and when the book was first written is still a mystery.

But as teacher, Ray Vogensen, who looked extensively into the subject, says: “The facts are meaningless because those who use the book or who believe in Saint Cyprian do not worry about such discrepancies.”

He rented a small cottage not far from where New Orleans voodoo queen Marie Laveau had lived during the 19th century. And soon afterwards opened up his voodoo business, offering to help people in matters of love, money, luck and healing.

The local media were not impressed by his claim that he had supernatural powers. But Dr Koku wasn’t put off. He marched down to one newspaper office to protest. He said he would not be in the city for very long and that he was en route to visit the Grand Lama of Tibet.

He finished by saying he had $42,000,000 in cash…

By all accounts Dr Koku’s practices had a pseudo-Oriental flavor, but were pretty much the same as the other voodoo and hoodoo practitioners in the city.

Not long after his arrival, Dr Koku vanished without further ado.

During my time with Earl, we used many cemeteries in and around London. And when we were playin’ music dates and busking in the USA, mostly in da South, we had a number of favored cemeteries we used for graveyard work, most off the beaten track and kinda desolate.

I remember sitting close to a country crossroads in Mississippi with Earl and him giving the lowdown on graveyard work. This is part of what he said:

“It’s all about negotiatin’ with da spirits. You go da graveyard at midnight – when dat ole hoot owl cry and dat black cat moan. Ya gotta find right grave too. You doin’ good work you want da grave o’ a good Christian or an innocent child. But you doin’ dark work, you need da grave o’ a sinner or an evil person. A drunkard, a pimp, gambler or a murderer. A bad ass.

But when you do that graveyard work DO NOT forget to take a spoonful o’ salt to protect you from them spirits. You don’ know what’s lurkin’ in that ole cemetery.

When midnight come, you gonna call the name o’ the person buried in that grave. You gotta wake ‘em up from dat deathly slumber. But I advise you never to take a hot girl down there wid you, otherwise all the dead men in that graveyard – an’ a few womens too – gonna wake up and take her for their pleasure. You ain’t gon’ to want that.

Once you got that dead person awake, you ask for their assistance in solvin’ da problem. You gotta petition them. Tell ‘em what it’s all about and why you need the help o’ da spirituals.

When you done, you take something from that grave. Some cases you can get a bone or tooth from the dead person. Mostly yo’ can’t. So you wanna get a handful o’ graveyard dirt – dat known as the goofer dust.”

[NOTE: Dem intelligencers at dem universities says word "goofer" come from Kongo word "Kufwa" meanin' to die].

Earl continued:

“You gotta remember to pay dem dead. Never forget that otherwise the spirit come after you and take payment, and it be a terrible price to pay. So you remember to pay the spirit with some pennies or silver coins. If you short o’ cash use rice.

Bury yo’ offerings or put ‘em on top o’ da grave. Nobody gonna dare remove ‘em.

Lotta things you can get done with graveyard work. You can bring peace to an unhappy home. Reunite with a woman or man you lost. Fix a court. Detect criminals. Force an enemy outta town…or kill if you has to.

Nother thing you can do is leave yo’ charms or mojo hands in a grave to absorb da power o’ da dead. Leave ‘em from full moon to full moon, or from the waste o’ da moon to da next waste.”