How to get rid of a voodoo doll safely
How to get rid of a voodoo doll safely – even the one you brought from a tourist shop and never got round to smearing with your ex lover’s hair…
So what if you bought it from the French Market in New Orleans during a drunken weekend? So what if it is mass produced (in China) and doesn’t contain a strand of Spanish Moss? So what if it has a fridge magnet on the back? You suspect this voodoo doll has some bad Ju-Ju going on and no one will convince you otherwise.
It has a nasty habit of rotating on the fridge so that it hangs upside down, antichrist style. The white pin has somehow gone missing (yes, yes it should really have seven pins of assorted colours but this was a tourist purchase) leaving only the black pin to glint mischievously. You can feel it watching you from the fridge-door, judging every time you eat another chocolate mousse and causing general paranoia to develop, resulting in pesky myoclonic jerks between your waking and sleeping states.
The offending item obviously needs to go. But disposing of a bad voodoo doll is not a matter of simply binning and walking. For the safety and peace of mind, of you and anyone else who could come into contact with the doll, caution and responsibility are advised.
A cursory search on the web reveals all manner of methods for the ethical disposal of this controversial toy (unless you’re the embodiment of voodoo queen Marie Laveau, in which case, you go, girl. Controversial toy = deadly weapon). Ethical disposal can involve spending time on consecrated ground which carries the accompanying risk of causing offense to anyone popping in to visit a beloved relative.
Some methods also seem to involve a lot of Roman Catholic standbys such as Holy water and Rosary beads. Perhaps this is to combat like with like but since the powers that determine bad or good luck in voodoo are not those that determine powers in other religions, it may be sensible to consider an Earth-bound approach.
When I was unlucky enough to be faced with this predicament some years ago, I made a list of the common features of disposal methods and concocted a fail-safe dolly-disposal master plan. It might not work for everyone (what have you been doing?) but the method that has worked well for this particular vengeance enthusiast is as follows:
How to dispose of your voodoo doll
1) Place the doll into a white cloth or bag made of linen or cotton. Sprinkle the doll with sea salt. Place it in a drawer or at the back of your wardrobe until a suitable time for disposal.
2) The prevailing opinion judges Saturday to be the best day for disposal (handy, that).
3) It is generally agreed that you should take the doll to a place very far from your home. I find the Scottish Highlands keep a lot of secrets. But if you live in the Highlands, Cornwall will do.
4) The best areas for disposal are woods near running water. Waterfalls are definitely encouraged. And they’re so pretty.
5) Place the doll under a pile of rocks beneath the running water, along with an offering of fruit and some coins (if you’ve travelled to Switzerland once and been disappointed, you’re probably not going back, so getting rid of those leftover Franks here is a win-win deal). Be careful to weight the doll and keep it hidden from sight.
6) Ask the spirits of the trees and the water to transform the bad energy through the powers of the earth.
7) Walk away without looking back.
8) Do not upload any photos or video footage of this to Facebook etc.
9) Some experts say you should bathe in holy water afterwards, some say you should light a protection candle for seven days. I say go home, forget about it and don’t play with dangerous dollies again!
