E. A. Koetting and Baron DePrince - The Spider and The Green Butterfly

E.A. Koetting/Baron DePrince
The Spider and the Green Butterfly
combined, create an effect on reality that is beyond
disturbing.
The word gris-gris has been traced to many
different languages and regions across the globe, the most
likely origins of the word being either from the Congo,
where the word means, "spirit," or "life force," or from
western Africa as a whole.
In Haitian Vodoun, however, gris-gris and other
forms of Hoodoo enchantment, are discarded in favor of
wanga. While some of the same articles that are placed in
gris-gris bags may be used in wanga, wanga can also be
used as a general term for any type of spell or enchantment,
rather than the automatic affect of the combination of
physical materials to produce a spiritual or Magickal effect.
Again, it is by the hands and the power of the spirits alone
that this great Sorcery is Worked.
As a Grand Houngan or Mambo operating a
Temple, it is part of the general services of the Temple to
assist those who request it with divining unclear or
problematic situations and resolving or clarifying these
situations through Magick. As such, the Houngan and
Mambo are well trained, both by the Masters before them
as well as by the Loa, in the spiritual alteration of supposed
concrete reality, often through the composition of a wanga
specific to the concerns and the desired outcome of the
individual. The Houngan is armed with some traditional
elemental combinations that have been passed down for
centuries and have proven themselves in actual application,
but each Houngan also has his own components that he has
discovered on his own, or that come to him immediately in
order to assist the specific needs of the asker. This requires
not only a thorough knowledge of the spiritual properties of
various objects and elements, but also a deep and constant
connection with the Loa and with all of the ever-present,
invisible forces in order to divine and to intuit the exact
concoction which will resolve any conflict or concern
brought into the Temple.
There are two basic types of wanga, or Magickal
interventions that are used in Vodoun, the aret wanga,
which are employed in bringing a current influence, energy,
or situation to a close, and the lage wanga, which are
employed in releasing or brining into effect a new influence
or energy into the current situation. Anyone who has
worked professionally as a Tarot reader, clairvoyant,
Magician, or any other form of metaphysical consultant has
undoubtedly shared in the experience that people do not
commonly seek you out and pay for your services when life
is going well and they just want to give it an extra shove in
a good direction. Instead, you find yourself assailed by
people who have situations in their lives which are running
out of reasonable control, who have loved ones who are
being unfaithful, who have enemies moving against them,
who seem to have the whole of creation working towards
their downfall.
The aret wanga will stop the situation's obvious
escalation, but this is rarely enough satisfaction for the
standard client. If there is an enemy, an unfaithful spouse,
or any other person who has wronged the client, simply
bringing the harmful situation to an end is never the end.
The client will almost always ask that the harm be returned
to the giver tenfold. If business is failing, the client will
rarely ask that the motion of the current dive be brought to
a halt, but also that the opportunities lost will be restored,
and then some. These oft-occurring situations require that
the Houngan perform two separate rituals, one aret and one
lage, or that he combines the two into a single potent ritual.
The physical ingredients employed in a wanga
relate directly to the nature and the likeness of the Loa
under whose power the Operation will be affected. Many
of these herbs, stones, animal parts, and fluids are
discovered by the Houngan in working exhaustively and