Question about poppets and masks

[Red Ember]

I have a interest in working with poppets and masks but know very little about this subject in relation to witchcraft. I do have a little experience of working with masks in a shamanic type way and I am wondering if witchcraft works with these tools in a similar way. But being new to witchcraft I'm not sure if that is the case or not. I would like to ask if anyone here who has experience of working with poppets could point me in the right direction or share with me any information and experience they have on this subject.

My line of thinking regarding working with poppets and masks would be using them as a tool for healing and maybe housing, not sure if that's the right word, a spirit/power animal/Goddess or God. Would this be correct, and are there other ways which they could be worked with?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Seraphin]

Hiya Red Ember!

Poppets are mainly used in sympathetic magick; what is done to the poppets is done to the people who were represented by the poppets.

A poppet as you may already know can be a cloth or a paper doll. It can be worked by embroidering, marking or decorating it with features such as facial characteristics of the person, astrological signs and other identifying symbols. Poppets are usually stuffed with herbs, bits of crystals, personal concerns such as hair, nails, etc. and other witchy ingredients (depends on what type of magick you're performing.)

Many witches use poppet in love magick, healing and execration magick. Witches do certain magickal procedures using the poppets in lieu of the actual person. Like the popular voodoo doll, once you've named, anointed and consecrated the poppet, anything you do to it, you do to that person.

Another thing that I do to my poppets (which you may also do) is making them as reminding tokens or talismans. All of my poppets and dolls have symbolic value. My fiancee and I consider our dolls as gris-gris that reflect the way that our souls find their expression in this world. They represent the channels of spiritual and magickal self-expression. I've copied an excerpt from what I wrote before to explain it further how this works:

Spiritual and Magickal Self-Expression

Our most basic longings for love, for wisdom, for peace, for health, for truth are aspects of our souls, not of our bodies. Without these forces, we suffer the frustration of living in a spiritual vacuum. These are the spiritual symbols of our dolls or poppets. My fiancee and I have dolls and poppets which represent us and our spiritual facets. We have a poppet called Seraphin's LOVE, Seraphin's JUSTICE, Loika's BEAUTY (my fiancee's name), Loika's HEALTH. What do we gain by giving them physical expression? And how does constructing them change us?

Our path tells us that the effect of our dolls (like some of our talismans and charms) is to materialize the things we wish for. We also believe that physical act of creating those affected spiritual and magickal changes.

How does a physical act accomplish a spiritual or magickal goal?

Effects of Poppet/Doll Magick

In our experience, doll magick undeniably have an effect. The focus of the effect of the magick isn't the outer world but the inner world. The magick affects profound changes in our identity as each dolls/poppets we make presents specific means of self-expression and self-change.

Poppet Magick channels the basic components of our personalities.
Poppet Magick keeps us in reality.
Poppet Magick commemorates events that happened in the past.
Poppet Magick alters and refines our relationship to the physical world.

While our dolls/poppets belong to more than one group, what they share in common is that they affect us (and other individuals) by using the real world as a medium. Feelings and thoughts are grounded and concertized.

In this way, the dolls/poppets have a metaphysical fringe benefit, in helping to safeguard us from some wrong doings or keep our focus toward our goals and our desires. The dolls/poppets remind us that our inner selves our watching, and our actions should reflect that realization.

Masks on the other hand, are commonly used when witches, shamans and other magickal folks specifically represents someone (like Deities, animal spirits, ascended masters, etc.) in certain magickal proceedings and rituals. In some Wiccan coven, high priest wears horned mask or horned helmet to repesent the Horned God while the highest priestess wear crowns to represent the Queen Goddess. Masks therefore is used for devotional purposes.

Some witches wear mask in their shape-shifting or transformation spells and rituals. Some wear consecrated/energized masks to let go of all their stress, their pain, their confusion. Some make masks in purpose of seeing through the illusions and turn the upside-down world right side up. Some masks attract peace and get rid off struggles, attract happiness and banishes sadness.

Yoruba people wear mask to revere their ancestors.



That's my altar I decorated during the Egun day. The green mask represent the anscestral collective force.

[mrsdavid1975]

Both are meant to make the intangible, tangible. They bring a physical quality to emotion and other things that are not able to be physically manifested.

[Naudia Threng]

I've never heard of a popper. Is it like a vodou poupe?

[corvidus]

I've never heard of a popper. Is it like a vodou poupe?

Oui, jeune lys. La poupée vaudou sans conditions materielles.

But the greatest mask of all is the one the Ego makes for us without our knowing.

[Red Ember]

Thank you for all the good information Seraphin. There is a lot to think about here.

I like the idea of using poppet's as a way of expressing part of your soul such as Love, Compassion or Well-being. I can see how the making and taking care of the doll would make for a good way of helping those aspects develop within oneself. It is something I had not thought about until you just pointed it out. In this way the poppet would become a sort of soul shrine.

I wonder, do any of you know if the same kind of idea could work safely for lessening an undesired aspect such as Anger, Depression or Jealousy? I'm not sure I would want to keep such a doll around, maybe it would not be a good idea to use dolls in such kind of work.

I do like the idea of creating a poppet for the purpose of watching over and protecting the home. I do have a little figure of a witch which I brought last Halloween with this purpose in mind. Although I feel I would like to offer 'Old Dotty' (as I call her) a new, pleasant and more long lasting a home.

Also, forgive my lack of knowledge, but what is execration magick?

[MsMollimizz]

Dorothy Morrison says one could also use the plastic dolls
cause you can cut them open and put stuff inside...idea !
When a poppet is used for say removing negativity one
doesn't leave it in the house, you bury it so Mother Earth
can re-charge that energy. Using cloth poppets for those
to be buried, I wouldn't want to bury a plastic doll/poppet;
I'd be putting poison in the ground.
Gentle Light
MsMollimizz

[Holdasown]

I have a mask. I use it in ritual not spells and not a lot. I am still trying to work with it. It's to connect with my dead and Holle.

[Naudia Threng]

I've never heard of a popper. Is it like a vodou poupe?

Oui, jeune lys. La poupée vaudou sans conditions materielles.

But the greatest mask of all is the one the Ego makes for us without our knowing.

Haha. It was a bit hard to read that because I'm horrid at french. I prefer Haitian Creole which I'm attempting to teach myself. It is a whole lot like french though. My Arabic teacher was also a french teacher, and I took french for a year in middle school. My knowledge of language is rather skimpy. But this year I'm doing Latin. I'm hoping to hit Spanish, mandarin, and French (again) within the next years. Which means either a year of double language, or rossetta stone.

[Seraphin]

Thank you for all the good information Seraphin. There is a lot to think about here.

I like the idea of using poppet's as a way of expressing part of your soul such as Love, Compassion or Well-being. I can see how the making and taking care of the doll would make for a good way of helping those aspects develop within oneself. It is something I had not thought about until you just pointed it out. In this way the poppet would become a sort of soul shrine.

You're welcome! Just make sure you stuff appropriate ingredients in the poppets to experience the desired result like if you want to have LOVE poppet then you may put some herbs such as rose, myrtle, marjoram, honeysuckle, meadowsweet, etc.

I wonder, do any of you know if the same kind of idea could work safely for lessening an undesired aspect such as Anger, Depression or Jealousy? I'm not sure I would want to keep such a doll around, maybe it would not be a good idea to use dolls in such kind of work.

I think so. The poppet works for the practitioner (which is you, of course); if your desire is to lessen a negative aspect of you or somebody else then it would definitely bring out the result you desire. The thing is the poppet is a way of focusing your emotion or intention (love or hatred, happiness or anger, curse or healing) on your target (yourself or anybody else). It would work on bettering oneself. You could use it to develop your character, be kind to others, be honest and faithful, reign in your drives, etc.

Also, forgive my lack of knowledge, but what is execration magick?

Execration magick is maleficant magick like hexing, cursing, etc. It's a complex business so let's not go there.

[Red Ember]

It's a good job I asked what execration magick was because I was thinking of something very different.

I do find that I enjoy working with masks. Although I have never used them yet for a ritual. I have found that when I have worked with masks in the past (theater student days) they have helped me a lot to be able to shift from my normal perception into an altered one, one which has allowed the 'character' to flow through me. I feel there may be some cross over between how the actor uses the mask and how a witch or shaman would.

I have come across lots of horror stories concerning working with masks, such as the mask has possessed a person and made them do something or act in a way they would not normally do. But my experience has always been an uplifting, creative and safe one. But people obviously have these type of experiences, so for me it is interesting to consider that the covering of ones own identity can allow for some other aspect of self to come forward, one which may very well scare us.

Anyway, I like the idea of working more with masks to explore power animals and mythical beings along with poppets.

[Seraphin]

I have come across lots of horror stories concerning working with masks, such as the mask has possessed a person and made them do something or act in a way they would not normally do. But my experience has always been an uplifting, creative and safe one. But people obviously have these type of experiences, so for me it is interesting to consider that the covering of ones own identity can allow for some other aspect of self to come forward, one which may very well scare us.

In Yoruba however this is just normal. During their annual Yoruba masquerades, people wear mask represents the collective spirits of the ancestors, the "Egungun". It is believed that this act is an invitation of masqueraders for the spirits of the dead to possess them as it promotes a feeling of oneness between the living and the dead.

Over the years I've developed a peculiar posture (before my ritual dancing) whenever I invite my ancestors to posses me during Egun day. I pray to the honored dead or "ara orun" prostrating myself, bowing and kneeling on the on the ground first while touching my forehead to the ground. I think this comes normally being that the underground is the archetypal realm of the dead -- just as people tend to look to the sky when praying to the Deities.



Here's my ancestor shrine, inspired by the colorful Egungun tradition of Yoruba and Lucumi religion. The nine masks represent the collective spirits of my ancestors. Nine is the number of Oya, Orisha lady guardian of the dead.

[Red Ember]

Beautiful shrine Seraphin Murmur. Its the kind of shrine I would love to make. Thank you for the inspiration.

[MsMollimizz]

Each time I look at this thread I get images
of making a paper mache masks ! Odd...
Gentle Light
MsMollimizz

[SpiritTalker]

I bought a wooden mask at World Market years ago, off a rack that had about 40 different carved faces. I liked this one because it's mouth was open, as if speaking or singing and it made me laugh. It seemed a happy face, so I brought home and keep it with a ouija board I made...a spirit's keyboard.