Working with High John the Conqueror

High John the Conqueror is known as a African-American folk hero who allegedly lived during the time of American slavery.  Whether he actually lived on earth in the mundane world at all is a mystery.  You can find out a lot of information about him on the Lucky Mojo website here.

In conjure, and in traditional witchcraft, the roots that are named after High John include: High John the Conqueror root, Little John to Chew root, and Low John root.  These are all used for various purposes, but for this blog entry I will only document my experiences with the High John the Conqueror root and the spirit of High John himself.

Many practitioners, previously including myself, had no idea that High John is a powerful spirit that can be petitioned and worked with.  I was made aware of this possibility by a blog entry over at Crossroads of Sorcery, so I decided to see how I could petition High John's work for myself.

First, I found a recipe for High John oil in the classic book by Judika Iles entitled "The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells" which is seriously a must-have for any practitioner.  In the recipe, you take some chips of High John root and place them in a dish and then pour almond oil or jojoba oil over them.  Then you expose the dish to sunlight for 7 days. 

I took it a step further (as usual), and set up a simple ritual to call down the spirit of High John and asked him to empower the oil personally in exchange for an offering.  This was done before I set the dish of oil in the sunlight.  I'm glad I did it that way because I could sense many positive changes in my personal life while the oil was "brewing" in the sun, so I figured it was probably High John's influences at work already.

A couple of days before the oil was ready, I got a call from a client that I'd recently signed a contract with who expressed an interest in cancelling that contract.  The deal we signed would net me a very nice commission, so obviously I wasn't interested in him cancelling.  But I was able to hold him off to the last day before his 3-day right of rescission had expired.  However, my High John oil would be ready the night before I was scheduled to meet with this client to cancel the deal.

I bottled up the High John oil and the root chips from the dish, and with the last bit of oil left in the dish I dressed a green candle and inscribed an appropriate Nordic rune on the candle.  Feeling High John to be a Mercurial spirit (some would say Jupiterian, but that wasn't my impression), I used some sandalwood incense to attract his presence - some people use sandalwood for either Jupiter or Mercury depending on who you ask.  Then I prayed to High John and asked him to save my deal.  I didn't use any sigils or any long-drawn out rituals or anything, just a simple prayer.

Then I went to bed, and the next morning before I met with the client I applied some HJ oil on my hands as I knew I'd shake the client's hand when I met with him.  My intention was to extend High John's influences to the client through the handshake. 

After about 10 minutes of meeting with the client and his wife, I was pretty sure that I would be able to keep the deal.  It turned out that a competitor had badmouthed our company to this client in an attempt to steal my deal, and it made the client apprehensive about working with us.  Once I provided about 6 satisfied customer references to this client and his wife (the wife was onboard the whole time), he decided to go ahead and use our company.

Some takeaways from the whole situation:  

1) Magickal actions must always be followed up by mundane actions to increase the chances for success.  Had I not provided my hastily typed-up references list for this client, I doubt I would have kept this deal. 
2) Trust is key in sales.  If you can't make people trust your word, then you shouldn't ever be in sales.
3) Wives overrule husbands 3.5 times out of every 4 when it comes to purchasing or remodeling a home.  In this case, the couple had been married for over 40 years and were in their 80s.  If you can sell the wife, the husband will usually fall in line.
4) High John oil rocks!

My thanks and honor to High John the Conqueror for his help in this situation.  I look forward to working with him again.