Wiccan potion recipes are a popular and fascinating aspect of Wiccan practice. They involve combining various herbs, oils, and other ingredients to create magical concoctions with specific intentions and purposes. These potions are thought to harness the energies of nature and enhance specific aspects of life, such as love, healing, protection, and prosperity. One common type of Wiccan potion is a love potion. These potions are designed to attract love, enhance romantic relationships, or increase self-love and self-confidence. Ingredients commonly used in love potions include rose petals, lavender buds, cinnamon, vanilla, and various essential oils like rose, jasmine, or ylang-ylang.
"Once you see it, it’s too late."
La Llorona and The Curse of La Llorona are two films ostensibly about the same figure in Latin American folklore but each film plays to an entirely different audience. La Llorona and The Curse of La Llorona are two films ostensibly about the same figure in Latin American folklore but each film plays to an entirely different audience.
Ingredients commonly used in love potions include rose petals, lavender buds, cinnamon, vanilla, and various essential oils like rose, jasmine, or ylang-ylang. These ingredients are believed to possess properties that promote love, attraction, and sensuality. Healing potions are another popular type in Wiccan practice.
The Curse of La Llorona (2019)
In 2019’s The Curse of La Llorona, recently widowed caseworker Anna Tate-Garcia (Linda Cardellini) is struggling to balance her grief against the caregiving needs of her children. When she is assigned the case of a mother who has locked her children in a closet in a bid to save them from the murderous spirit, La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez), events are set in motion that ultimately culminate in a showdown between mothers.
In our first scream, La Llorona has managed to breach the entry of the Tate-Garcia household where she has absconded with Anna’s daughter, Sam (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen). Knowing that La Llorona intends to kill her child, a frantic Anna follows the two into the water where a battle ensues.
On the surface, the screams informing this scene register as a guttural reaction of a mother attempting to save her child from a dangerous situation. But they also stem from an intersection of anger and grief. As the audience, we know that Anna is struggling in her role as a single parent, and part of the emotion fueling this scream is a hybrid of sadness and anger that she alone is responsible for protecting her family. It is an obligation that weighs heavily on her and that prompts frequent doubts as to whether she alone is enough for her children. Interestingly, the complexity of the scene suggests that perhaps she is correct to be worried.
Although Anna and La Llorona have encountered one another previously, this moment marks their first physical interaction. This should be a moment that assuages Anna’s concern over whether her abilities alone as a mother are enough to protect her children. After all, her instinct to race into the water to save her daughter ties into our cultural expectation that good mothers are self-sacrificing. But complicating this scene is the arrival of Olvera (Raymond Cruz), a former priest Anna has enlisted to help her protect her family against La Llorona. As Anna battles underwater to free Sam, Olvera engages in a hybrid of ritual and prayer above the water that culminates in his placing his hand in the water and breaking La Llorona’s control of the situation. In this moment, Olvera reads as the paternal presence to Anna’s maternal one. Previously, Anna noted that her husband was the religious one and Olvera’s status as a former priest makes him the ideal husband surrogate. Anna is only able to save Sam with Olvera’s help and that reality suggests Anna’s worries that she alone is not enough is based on some truth. Her screams are an awareness that she was right all along; she really can’t protect her children alone.
The idea that children fare better in two-parent households is an inherently patriarchal one. But is it an idea that might resonate with horror film fans? Research indicates that in 2014, among young adults ages 18-25, 55% of young men disagreed with traditional gender roles that cast fathers as the breadwinners and mothers as the homemakers, a substantial difference from the 83% of young men who disagreed in 1994. If we consider that this demographic is also the core demographic to which horror films are traditionally marketed, Anna’s enlistment of a husband surrogate potentially reads as approval of traditional gender role norms. It is a curious position for a genre build upon norm violation.
This quasi-nuclear family dynamic also comes into play in our next scream. Alone in the attic, Anna’s two children are stunned when La Llorona appears to them in her human form. Thinking she has finally found one of her lost children, La Llorona quickly resumes her spirit form when Anna and Olvera appear.
What is especially interesting about the female screams heard here is how they frame two entirely different experiences of maternal grief. The initial scream comes from La Llorona as she charges toward Anna. Having just mistakenly believed reunification with her deceased children was imminent, La Llorona’s scream is a powerful intersection of grief and anger-fueled in no small part by a desire to lash out at mothers who still have their children. La Llorona’s grief is complicated for the audience because while we see her sadness and yearning as she caresses the face of Anna’s son, we also know that her children died as a result of matricide. There is an implication that she deserves her grief in a way that Anna simply does not. For her part, Anna’s scream is a renunciation of La Llorona’s pain. As the mother for whom the audience is positioned to align, Anna’s grief is acceptable because she did nothing to deserve it, unlike La Llorona.
This issue of which mother deserves our sympathy is then complicated by the film’s explicit privileging of white motherhood. We know that in her human form, La Llorona is a Mexican woman. And we know that the only other mother the film introduces us to is Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velásquez) who is also a Latina. Like La Llorona, Patricia’s arc is one of a mother who seeks to be reunited with her deceased sons. But unlike La Llorona, responsibility for their deaths, which occur after Anna dismisses Patricia’s fears of La Llorona as a silly folktale and removes the children from her home, does not reside with Patricia. Rather, her monstrosity is connected to her willingness to sacrifice Anna’s children to La Llorona in return for her children. No space of empathy is granted to the character until she reverses her decision and allows Anna the opportunity to save her children, an opportunity previously denied to Patricia by Anna. That the film depicts its two Latina mothers as menacing while casting its white mother as an innocent reflects a significant and deep bias in how North American motherhood is framed in popular culture largely by whiteness.
Coontz, Stephanie, and Virgina Rutter. Council on Contemporary Gender and Millennials Symposium, 31 Mar. 2017, contemporaryfamilies.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FINAL-CCF-Gender-Millennial.pdf.
Doyle, Nora. Maternal Bodies: Redefining Motherhood in Early America. University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
The Curse of La Llorona. Directed by Michael Chaves, performances by Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, and Patricia Velásquez, Warner Bros. Pictures, 2019.
These potions are crafted to aid in physical, emotional, or spiritual healing. Common ingredients used in healing potions include chamomile, peppermint, rosemary, eucalyptus, and lavender. These herbs are believed to possess medicinal and soothing properties that can help facilitate the healing process. Protection potions are formulated to provide spiritual protection against negative energies, psychic attacks, or harmful influences. Ingredients commonly used in protection potions include sage, basil, rosemary, frankincense, and myrrh. These herbs are thought to possess purification and protective properties that can safeguard an individual or their space from harm. Prosperity or abundance potions are designed to attract wealth, success, and abundance into one's life. Ingredients commonly used in prosperity potions include basil, cinnamon, mint, bay leaves, and bergamot. These herbs are believed to possess properties that attract good fortune, financial success, and opportunities for growth. It is important to note that Wiccan potion recipes are not solely about the physical ingredients. Intent, focus, and personal energy play a significant role in the effectiveness of these potions. Wiccans often incorporate rituals, visualization techniques, and empowerment exercises while creating and using these potions. In conclusion, Wiccan potion recipes are a fascinating aspect of Wiccan practice. They involve combining various herbs, oils, and other ingredients to create magical concoctions with specific intentions and purposes. Love potions, healing potions, protection potions, and prosperity potions are just a few examples of the types of potions that Wiccans create. The use of these potions is accompanied by specific rituals, visualization techniques, and personal energy to enhance their effectiveness..
Reviews for "Beyond the Physical: Wiccan Potion Recipes for Psychic Abilities and Intuition"
1. Sarah - 2/5 - I was really excited to try the "Wiccan potion recipes" book, as I am always on the lookout for new and unique recipes. However, I was quite disappointed with this book. Firstly, the recipes were extremely vague and lacked clear instructions. I found myself searching online for additional guidance, which defeats the purpose of having a recipe book. Secondly, the ingredients were quite hard to find, and some of them were quite expensive. It would have been helpful if the author had suggested substitutions or provided alternative choices. Overall, I found this book to be more frustrating than useful.
2. Michael - 1/5 - As someone interested in Wiccan practices, I was excited to get my hands on "Wiccan potion recipes." Unfortunately, this book was a major letdown. The recipes presented were nothing more than a collection of random ingredients without any meaningful explanations or context. As a novice in potion-making, I was hoping for detailed instructions on the purpose of each potion and the proper techniques to use. Instead, I was left confused and frustrated. Additionally, I found multiple typos and grammatical errors throughout the book, which made it even harder to follow the already poorly written recipes. I cannot recommend this book to anyone serious about Wicca or potion-making.
3. Emily - 2/5 - I have been practicing witchcraft for several years and have tried my hand at potion-making on multiple occasions. When I saw "Wiccan potion recipes" advertised as a comprehensive guide, I was excited to expand my knowledge. However, this book fell short of my expectations. While it did provide some interesting recipes, they were overly simplistic and lacked depth. I was hoping for more advanced techniques and insight into the magical properties of each ingredient. Additionally, I found the book to be repetitive, with multiple recipes using the same ingredients but with minor variations. Overall, I found this book to be more suitable for beginners looking for basic recipes rather than experienced practitioners seeking something more substantial.