What is Reversing Oil?
We’ve all heard of Uncrossing oils. Just as the name implies, they break up crossed conditions and remove curses.
Reversing oil, on the other hand, takes things one step further in a more aggressive direction. Reversing oil is a type of spiritual condition oil that is employed in magickal work for breaking and sending back curses, hexes and other spiritual attacks to the person who sent them to you. You may have heard it called by another popular name; Return to Sender.
The ingredients that make up a typical reversing oil recipe include herbs, roots, and other natural materials that are valued in magickal workings for their ability to make things work in the opposite direction. This could include, but not limited to things like:
- Agrimony
- Eucalyptus
- Five Finger Grass
- Nettle
- Rue
- Powdered crab shell
Most of the more traditional formulas for this oil don’t account for the very real possibility that we can often cross ourselves up. So, if you are the source of the conditions and you return the conditions to their source… you get the picture!
Fixing a Reversing Candle
If you want something a bit more thorough, try this.
You will need the following:
- 1 reversible candle
- 1 small mirror
- Petition paper
- Powdered crab shell
- Reversing Oil
- A photo or name of the person who sent the curse (if you know who it was)
This reversing work takes a fairly simple and straightforward approach but packs one heck of a punch when it works!
To get started, you will first need a reversible candle. If you don’t know what this is, it is a candle that is composed of two colors. Usually, this consists of black and red but you can find them with black and another color to match the intent of various sorts of curses that need to be reversed.
Once you’ve got your reversible candle, cleanse it with whatever cleansing method you prefer or are most familiar with. Personally, when I cleanse my candles I like to keep it simple. I take some Florida Water and rub it in my palms, then I hold the candle upside down while I wipe it downward with my palms. I turn the candle counter-clockwise as I do this, after each pass of my hand. I like to pray as I do this or ask my spirits to work through my hands to cleanse and prepare it properly as I go about my work.
With your candle cleansed, it’s time to start fixing it up!
Now, how you do this next step will be entirely dependent upon whether you are using a glass-encased 7-day candle or a stick candle. If you are using a glass-encased candle, you will put a few drops of Reversing Oil on the top of the exposed wax. Place a few drops and then with your dominant hand spread the oil in a counter-clockwise motion around the wax. Do the same with the powdered crab shell.
If you are using a stick candle, you will put some Reversing Oil in the palms of your hands and then pick up the candle. Hold it in front of you horizontally so that the ends of the candle are not facing you. Grip the center of the candle (the middle of the candle) with both hands. Now, move your hands away from each other, pulling the oil out toward each end of the candle. Do this a few times to ensure the whole candle is dressed. Then you just roll the candle, away from from, through the powdered crab shell as the oil will pick it up, lightly coating the candle.
We are now ready to write the petition…
Grab a piece of parchment paper or rip a piece of a brown paper bag. Do not cut the piece of paper with scissors, rip it with your hands if needed. On this piece of paper write out Psalm 109:28-29 as follows:
Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice.
Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.
Under the Psalm, write the person’s name 3 times, if you happen to know who is attacking you. If you don’t know the person attacking you or if it is multiple people, you can simply write “All those attacking me spiritually, known and unknown, seen and unseen” once under the Psalm.
Place a dab of Reversing Oil on all four corners of the petition and a dab in the center.
Place the petition face down on the mirror (place the person’s picture, if you have it, face down under the petition). Place your candle on top of the petition and light it and pray the entirety of Psalm 35 over the candle. Let this candle burn itself out and repeat Psalm 35 over it again once everyday until the candle is completely burnt out. Burn the petition and the photograph, scatter the ashes in the wind.
Now, just let the work do its thing!
Let’s Break it Down
Understanding how to do something is quite different than knowing why you do it.
But the why is, in my opinion, far more important than the how. If you understand the reasons behind using this material over that material, saying this prayer over that prayer, moving your hands in this direction and not the other direction, etc., then you can get much more creative with how you put it all together and you will even be able to reverse engineer your spiritual work. But more than just adding more strength to and understanding of your own workings, you will be better equipped to stop spiritual attacks in the future, send them back quicker and have an overall better skill set for spiritual work.
So, let’s first look at the cleansing of the candle…
Any items you use should be cleansed before you employ it in any kind of magickal work and if it is an item that will not be disposed of after use, cleanse it again when it is done performing its role for the current work. Items picked up energies, both passively when just left to sit and actively through interaction with magickal work / spiritual work. But not all energies that it will pick up with be of a positive nature. In fact, most energy that it picks up will likely be of a stagnant nature, in addition to more negative energies. These build up over time and can begin to affect and infect your tools and materials. Those same tools and materials you then employ in a working will begin to discharge that same type of energy into your work, this time, affecting the outcome of the work itself. Mitigating this issue is as simple as cleansing your tools before and after use. And it should go without saying here but, as a spiritual worker, you should also be keeping up with a spiritual cleansing routine for yourself as well.
When I say that I turn the candle counter-clockwise as I do this, it is because energy is easily directed by movement. Our intent, alongside our interaction with the spiritual realm, works like communication in a way. We are demonstrating to our spirits, to God, to the powers with which we have chosen to work that we are asking for a specific result. For ages, people have placed directional associations toward the concept of clockwise and counter-clockwise, and have even employed it in all sorts of magickal work. In short, most people associate clockwise with forward movement, progression, etc. Likewise, most people associate counter-clockwise with moving backward, going in reverse, etc. These connotations are understood universally, not just amongst us living humans but also those who have passed as well as the natural energies of the world that have evolved alongside us.
So, if you want to increase or attract something, clockwise motion is appropriate. If you want to remove or reverse something, counter-clockwise is more appropriate. So, for the purpose of cleansing the candle, I recommend moving in a clockwise fashion. Similarly, I make directional associations with up and down. So, I hold the candle upside down and swipe downward as this signals that I want to draw any stagnant energy off the base of the candle, down and out through the head of the candle. If I were to hold it right side up and swipe downward, I would be signalling that I want to draw that energy deeper into the candle.
Now, let’s talk about why we dress the candle the way we do…
Relying on the same idea of directional associations, we dress our candle with reversing oil starting at the center and moving outwardly toward both ends of the candle because we are attempting to clean off the crossed conditions and move them away from us… away from the center, away from the bullseye that was set on us when we had those tricks thrown at us.
The same logic applies as we are rolling the candle through the powdered crab shell; we are rolling the mess away from us. If you are applying it to the top of a glass encased candle, you are doing it in a counter-clockwise direction for that same reason.
Let’s talk a bit about the powdered crab shell as this may seem more odd than usual for some folks reading this but powdered crab shell has been employed in magickal workings for a very long time now due to its usefulness in reversal work. But why? Well, the reason that we are using powdered crab shell for this reversing work is because crabs have the odd ability to walk sideways which gives them the appearance of what looks like backward walking. In fact, their legs are actually designed in such a way to naturally allow this ability. Again, we are utilizing the spiritual concept of directional association here. While the crab can walk forward and backward, it walks sideways as it is easier.
Fun fact: The reason that crabs walk sideways is because unlike the lobster, crabs have evolved with a much smaller tail (yes, crabs technically have a tail) which allows them to not only walk in all directions, but it means they can also get themselves out of the water faster.
All the rest…
When it comes to writing your petition, parchment is always preferred when you have it on hand. Parchment paper has long been associated with official document writing and has been in use for more than 2 millenia and it is what ultimately replaced papyrus.
If you don’t have parchment paper available, a piece of a brown paper bag that you have torn into a small square with your hands will work just as well. Notice I said that you should tear it with your hands? In Southern folk magick, scissors and other bladed items are generally reserved for when we are trying to sever ties with something so it is not something you want to do to the paper your are writing your petition on, regardless of the type of working. Those words that you write on that paper are not just words anymore… they are an extension of your energy and intent. My Godmother in Lucumi is notorious for banning any sort of digital devices for note taking as there is something sacred in the written word. The thought of the subject you are writing about spurs images of that thing in your mind, then the physical movement of your hands generates energy both scientifically and spiritually, and lastly that energy gets physically imprinted onto the page as you write. This concept is valuable across all spiritual traditions and it holds weight.
Now if you take that concept of the sacredness of the written word and apply it to your petition writing, you can see why we generally avoid using scissors on our petition paper. Even before you’ve imprinted the paper with that energy of writing, you’ve already begun to imprint your intent on it the moment you determine which piece of paper you think would be right for the job.
When you write Psalm 109:28-29 on the parchment paper, you are writing a prayer that calls on God to bless you and to punish your attackers. I suggest reading the full Psalm 109 sometime to get the full picture of what is being prayed for here. These two verses sum it up well, though. The name of your attacker gets written below the Psalm, three times.
After you’ve got the prayer written on your petition paper, you dress it with 5 dabs of oil. One dab in each corner and one in the center. This is what is known as a quincunx pattern. This pattern has a very long history consisting of use in everything from astrology, religion, scientifically to demonstrate probability, right down to just being used as simple terminology to describe the pattern. If you are looking for a fun rabbit hole to go down, just read articles on this pattern, you won’t be disappointed!
Lastly, the reason we are placing the petition and picture on the mirror the way we are is because we want the target to be surrounded by this reverb of energy. So, the petition goes face down so that it reflects back upward into the candle. And if you have a picture of the person face up under the petition, they become encapsulated or trapped between the petition and its reflection; forced to deal with the same energy they once sent to you.
We seal up the work by reciting the entirety of Psalm 35 which is helpful with this type of work. Give it a read through and you will see why.
Once you understand not only how to perform your spiritual work but also the inner-workings of all the pieces involved, your workings become much more efficacious.