What is a Voodoo Doll in Magical Terms?

Voodoo and voodoo dolls in particular have been portrayed in movies, books and television for a long time as a dark and mysterious type of magic. In actuality, Voodoo is a West African religion also known as Vodun, Vodoun, Vodou, Vudu and Voudou. The voodoo doll is just one part of the practice, but seems to be the one most people are familiar with. They can be a very useful tool for a wide spectrum of magical procedures.

What Is A Voodoo Doll Used For
The voodoo doll has the same use as what many magical practitioners refer to as a simulacrum. A simulacrum is an object that is a likeness of something. Simulacra can also include photographs, pictures, figurines, symbols, lists, and Tarot cards. They are objects used to capture the essence of that which you seek to affect. It is best not to use simulacra made of plastic or rubber as they do not "key" well. If your object is made of wood, make sure it is a dense wood or there may be problems "keying" it as well.

Using simulacra allows you to do magical procedures on people and things you are not in direct physical contact with. In fact the person you affect can be all the way on the other side of the world, or you can affect a global situation. By making a psychic connection, between the simulacrum or voodoo doll and the person or situation, you can perform the magical procedure on the doll or simulacrum and the person or thing it is connected to will get the benefits. By the Universal Law of Similarity, the more likeness between a simulacrum and that which it is keyed to, the greater the psychic connection. So the more your simulacrum looks like the person or the situation you want to affect the greater they will be affected.

How To Key A Voodoo Doll
As an example, take the case of using a voodoo doll to do a long distance healing with someone hundreds of miles away from you. Making the psychic connection or "keying" is done by holding the voodoo doll in your dominant or "output' hand and thinking of everything you know about the person. Continue this until it feels charged, warm, heavy or tingly or some describe it as a feeling that the doll is "alive" or they felt it wiggle. The voodoo doll is then keyed to that person. At this point you must be very careful with the voodoo doll. Anything you do to it will affect the person it is keyed to. So you don't want to go off for the weekend and leave it lying around for the cat to bounce around the room causing injury to the person. You need to do your magical procedure whether it be a healing technique, putting up an omnil for protection or whatever and then unkey the doll or simulacrum.

How To Unkey A Voodoo Doll
To "unkey" a simulacrum, you cut the psychic connection lines with a keyed athame (fire element tool) and throw a blast of electric blue energy at it from your athame. Some Wiccan practitioners also will bury the simulacrum in the earth for a moon cycle to complete the "unkeying" process.

Be sure that any magical operation you are attempting using a voodoo doll or simulacrum has been thought through thoroughly as always and that you are following the Rules of the Road (Universal Laws governing magical practice) to avoid any karmic backlash. Voodoo dolls and other types of simulacra can be extremely useful tools for a wide variety of magical healing, protection, and communication if used appropriately. They help expand the range of using your magical techniques to help others and are a great tool to add to your magical toolbox.

To learn more about how to do voodoo magic, check out our How To Do Voodoo ebook in the Esoteric School Store.


If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader. Or, visit our website for more great resources.