This is my attempt at a monthly post to keep my blog a little more a live than it has been as of late. The idea is to write about some magic or spiritual work topic once a month. This month’s theme, as you can surmise is Pumpkin Spice.

WHAT IS PUMPKIN SPICE?

Pumpkin Spice is a blend of sweet and hot spices, typically used to season pumpkin pie. Pumpkins themselves have a rather bland flavor that easily allows it to become an easy background to any flavoring you want to add to it. The spices usually included in this mixture are cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. Some old recipes may not use all of these, as in the past, possessing any one of these spices was worth a potential fortune, and it really wasn’t until much more recently (relatively speaking) that there were rather inexpensive to acquire, and commonly available in the USA and other Western countries. If it were ever possible to travel back in time, take with you a single whole nutmeg, and you could potentially have a good sized piece of land and it’s serfs at your beck and call.
Personally I have included other spices in my own blends from time to time, to achieve an interesting touch. Black pepper gives it a touch more kick, cardamom adds and blends nicely with the other spices, and for something different (and not altogether desirable to a lot of people) adding star anise to it also gives a unique flavor that I enjoy. But the basics that are commonly used are listed above.

THE MAGIC OF PUMPKIN SPICE

Interestingly, the spices using in a pumpkin spice blend have a long history of being used for various spells and rituals, most of them to bring good fortune, wealth, luck with gambling, and also love.

Cinnamon and Nutmeg are probably the best-known spices for money. Cinnamon, the bark of certain trees native to Asia, as well as their essential oil, are used in numerous spells meant to attract wealth, bring love, bring luck, cleansing, and also, protection. This must be because of how popular cinnamon is as a spice. It appears in recipes around the world, and is still popular in many foods, sweets, and beverages. Depending upon cultural context, that will shape how cinnamon is used by people, but in this modern world, where the spiritual works of all cultures are available with a few clicks on a smartphone or computer, people are working with cinnamon more than ever.  While some insist on using true cinnamon (cinnamomum zeylanicum or C. verum) the most common cinnamon in the USA is actually cassia or Chinese cinnamon (cinnamomum cassia). Most powdered cinnamon in the supermarket, and whole cinnamon sticks are this type of cinnamon.  Its bark is thicker, and sturdier, and the flavor is strong compared to Ceylon Cinnamon, whose bark is more thing and paper like, and the flavor is lighter. Both are used for similar purposes, and you can work the same magics with either one.
Nutmeg (myristica fragans) is the seed of a fruit, specifically the inner part of the seed. The seed coat is also used as a spice known as Mace. They have similar flavors, but nutmeg is thought to be stronger and sweeter, while mace is milder. The most famous and infamous use of nutmeg is in a gambling charm where a hole is bored out and a drop of quicksilver (liquid mercury, a very toxic and dangerous metal) and sealed in with some beeswax that is said to be a powerful charm for gambling luck. Thus, in various forms, nutmeg is usually used for gambling luck, luck with gaining money in all it’s ways, and luck in life in general. If you consume enough raw nutmeg, it can have psychoactive effects, but in large quantities, allergic effects and skin irritation can result. Do be careful if you’re trying to use large amounts of nutmeg.  Honestly, my favorite use is to add a tiny pinch of nutmeg (either fresh ground or in a jar) and adding it to cooking green vegetables, like spinach, swiss chard, collards, etc… That small pinch offsets the natural bitterness of vegetables and allows their more pleasant subtle flavors to become more pronounced. If you can taste the nutmeg, you have added too much.

Clove buds (syzygium aromanticum) are the dried flower buds of an evergreen tree native to Indonesia. Clove is a spice you either love or hate. I don’t think I have ever met people more divided over a spice. At one time, people would use clove powder to numb their gums when attempting to pull teeth before modern dentistry.  If you consume too much clove spice, it does cause a numb feeling on the tongue, but not enough to cause any significant issues, although over consumption can have toxic effects, but you would seriously need to consume large amounts of clove buds, or a few drops of essential oil. Their odor is quite strong though, and they are very popular for their spicy scent, especially in creating pomanders, a apple or orange studded with cloves, wrapped in netting and ribbon and then placed in clothing drawers or chests. Over time, the cloves and fruit odor will permeate where it is stored, imparting the spicy scent to it.

Clove buds are also one of those incredibly popular spices which also feature into numerous spiritual workings for love, money, protection, gambling luck, general good luck, but interestingly enough is to protect and stop gossip and slander. I think this attribution comes from the claims of causing numbness in a person’s mouth, which of course correlates to shutting them up. It is also said to encourage friendship, which could also be possible reason for stopping gossip.

Allspice (pimenta dioica) is the unripe and dried fruit of a tree native to the New World. It is named allspice by English traders as they believed it combined the flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, thus it was a substitute of “all spices”. Interesting, it’s the only new world spice, whereas the others are all natives of Asia, and were known from the spice trade and Silk Road between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. If you are ever out of cinnamon, nutmeg or clove, just use allspice, and it will work quite well and be pleasant to most people.
Allspice for spiritual works is used mostly for luck and money. While the other spices may have uses associated with love, allspice seems to be the more specific.  In quite a few Money Drawing oils, it is not unusual to see whole small allspice fruits floating in the fragrant oil.

Ginger (zingiber officinale) is the root of a plant used as a sweet and hot spice in deserts. While my favorite form of ginger is as slices of candied ginger root, cookies, cakes, a sweet known as gingerbread are the most common forms in Western cuisine. Ginger is used in savory dishes in various Asian cuisines, and the fusion of the cuisines has created some interesting additions of ginger in various dishes. Ginger is related to galangal, a root also used in the spice trade and in food, but also cardamom, turmeric, and the guinea pepper/grains of paradise.
Ginger root is primarily used for its heat. The experience of heat has various identified spiritual uses, mainly to get things moving. The difference between the heat of ginger and say, the heat of a chili pepper, is that more people like ginger then they like chili pepper. Ginger is commonly used in general luck spells, but that heat is added to numerous other recipes, to help with gambling, to heat up love and lust, or to add that heat for protection.

This makes the combination of pumpkin spice a kind of magical luck generating powerhouse, which is also protective, and brings in love and money. I mean, can you blame people now for liking their pumpkin spice drinks and sweets now? Isn’t that the kind of boost almost everyone could use on their side?

HOW YOU CAN USE PUMPKIN SPICE!

You can pretty much use a pumpkin spice blend for any kind of good works. Since it also smells great, using it for a bath, tea, incense will add some of that spicy odor to your home. You can either buy blends in a store, or search the internet for any of the innumerable recipes for making the spice blend yourself.

• If you’re a worker on a budget, a simple way to make a spiritual oil would be to buy some pumpkin spice blend, add a teaspoon to a small bottle, and cover it with oil. Pray over it, and let it sit.  It may not take on the fragrance, (although it could over time, and expose to some heat to help infuse the odors), it could work as an all purpose good works oil to help attract luck, money, love, etc… into your life.
• Boil a teaspoon of the mix in a medium pot of water or steep some and use it to take a spiritual bath. You can use it for cleansing, but also to attract love, luck, and money.
• One simple recipe I have seen for a while is that mixture of powdered sugar and cinnamon can be used to make a simple sachet powder for drawing good things. Why not step it up and use pumpkin spice blend instead to kick it up a notch?
• Enchanting spices to use in food to offer to people is an easy way to work magic on others. Make pumpkin spice gingerbread men and feed them to co-workers or family to promote friendship and good fortune.
• Using any oil for money, love, luck, or protection, dressing a candle with the oil and dust it with pumpkin spice powdered mix in order to add further spiritual herbal power to your spell.
• Make a ring of pumpkin spice powder around any spell for love, money, luck, or protection in order to help the spiritual influence.
  There are numerous and endless uses to using Pumpkin Spice blends for spiritual work, so feel free to get creative with it.