Writing Someone's Name Under Your Foot

When I told my mom I was casting love spells for my job, she said, "Those things don't work." A second later, she added, "But don't do any black magic." That is basically how I feel about witchcraft/ghosts/astrology/Katy Perry's live vocals: It may or may not be real, but the world is more fun if it is. Watch out, men of New York. More specifically, non-assholes of New York. More specifically, non-assholes of New York who like cats and cheese.

But if The Craft taught me anything, it's that I would need a fellow woman to help me call the corners and cast hexes to make Ben Stiller's wife's hair fall out. I knew my best friend would be by my side.

So I began this magical journey on my own. Because I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.

1. The Dominican Stomp

During an interview, my subject mentioned that her Dominican friend's grandma taught her a folksy ritual to emotionally dominate a man: Write his name on a piece of paper, fold it five times, stick it in your shoe, and stomp on it five times while saying, "I dominate you," (you guessed it) five times. I did this alone in my apartment, using my ex's name. It did feel kind of cathartic, but there was no bolt of lightning that struck his house, and my eyes didn't turn red like they would if life was like Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Mostly I just scared my cat. Then I went out and bought batteries, watched seven episodes of Nashville, and went to sleep. Magic!

2. The Honey Jar Spell

Next, I discovered Catland, a metaphysical boutique (is there a better description for a store? No) in Brooklyn whose employees were kind enough to point me in the direction of the kind of spell I needed. Damon Stang, one of the diviners, nicely pointed out to me that he personally disagreed with "coercive" spells, the kind that force feelings on people. (In other words, the kind that 90 percent of people interested in love spells want, probably.) Instead, he preferred "sweetening spells," which have positive energy and only enhance the attractive qualities you already have — "Just like makeup," he explained — thus drawing more people to you without using dark magic. After he shared a few options, I chose an easy-sounding one. Here is what you will need:

Sugar cubes

Brandy

A large-ish jar of honey

A piece of brown paper

A red ribbon

Someone you want to like you

You write your name and the person's name on the brown paper and surround it with a "statement of intention," like "I want to feel pretty and confident around X and also figure out how to shave my knees without bleeding." Take a spoonful of the honey and eat it, then stick the paper into the jar of honey until it is submerged. You should say, "Love me, love me, love me," repeatedly, but I said it once, alone in my apartment, and then felt dumb. Then take your sugar cubes, soak them in brandy, drink the rest of the brandy (just kidding), set the cubes up so they surround the honey jar, and light them on fire. Make sure you are not using a flammable surface, obviously. Tie the red ribbon around the jar.

Admittedly, I was slightly tipsy at this time (on white wine, not the brandy), because you kind of have to be to do something like this un-self-consciously. The good (bad?) news is that my smoke detector is broken (is that illegal), so it didn't start beeping and wake the whole building up. I should get it fixed, I know.

I waited for a text from a guy, which I did not get until the next day. But my apartment smelled like crème brûlée for awhile afterwards, so that was nice.

3. The Big Guns, a.k.a. Personalized Candles

Back at Catland, Stang mentioned that he does customized spell candles, for when you really need the fast-acting shit. When you have one-on-one access to a person who knows witchcraft, it's hard to stop at DIY Gristedes-bought spells. Because I had not gone on a good date in ages, and because I am a journalist who needs to go all the way for the story, and because I had not gone on a good date in ages, I got two of them.

Liquid, Fluid, Drink, Drinkware, Glass, Highball glass, Nail, Produce, Non-alcoholic beverage, Bay breeze,

The red one is to sever any emotional ties with any old flames (see what I did there? Because I am a wordsmith, NBD) and the pink one is to attract whatever form of new romance you want, whether it's a relationship with a specific kind of person, a few flings, more sex, or anything. Like the honey jar spell, you write a letter of intention for each one and keep it near the candles.

These are 7-Day Burning candles, which you are supposed to let burn straight through until they're melted all the way down. But I have an office job, and a cat, and had to blow them out when I wasn't home. Stang said that was okay. Magic understands that people have to go to work and not come home to find their apartment on fire.

I suppose this was not technically me casting the spell, since the good folks at Catland are the ones who made these incredible candles (plus there are herbs and oils and things on the bottom), but can we count lighting a match as a spell? Yes, we can. I kind of felt nothing while burning these, except anxious that I'd forget to blow them out, have to go back and be late to work, which wound up happening one time.

3.5. Oh, And This Candle

Finger, Purple, Nail, Jacket, Violet, Costume accessory, Thumb, Plastic, Fur, Shipping box,

There were black, white, and red genital candles for all different purposes.

"What would you get if you wanted to intimidate men with your power?" I asked Stang.

"I would recommend the black vagina," he said, a phrase that will undoubtedly appear on my wedding cake once I marry whoever I have magically convinced to fall in love with me.

I got the black vagina. I also got some sage to "smudge" my apartment, because I hooked up with an ex in this apartment over the summer, and that's how you get rid of the energy, or so they tell me. It also seems like something Gwyneth Paltrow would do, and is under $10, an intersection that I don't think has ever occurred before.

In Summation: Okay, so I kind of think all the spells actually worked. I am not going into detail about this, but trust me, things are going better than usual. Who knows whether it's because of ~*~*magic~*~* or coincidence? Nobody. But hey, it is pretty weird. Pretty, prettty pretttttttty weird.

Follow Anna on Twitter.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io