This piece folklore was gathered at the San Fransisco trauma recovery center. I met with a group of social workers and over the course of one hour we all got came together in a meeting room and in one big group we decided to go around the table and each discuss folklore from their lives. At the beginning of the discussion I gave a brief description about what folklore could be. After that everyone shared pieces of folklore from their lives.

“A big thing in paganism is that anytime you move anywhere your supposed to put brick dust on the front of your door and in your back door and salt on your front door and your back door and what happens is you know that its there, and the people who visit your house know that it’s there but anything thats evil cant detect the smell of the brick or the smell of the salt so if someone goes to walk into your home and trips or stumbles or feels like they cant go in that is your indication that the person carries with them ill will to you or to your home and yo are not to let that person in your house.”

Background information about the performance from the informant: “In my family my mom was very, well my dads native and I’m religiously jewish but my mom was a practicing peahen for about 20 years and I was introduced to her coven and thats where I learned about this. I have seen this happen man times and it always feels coincidental or spot on.”

Final thoughts: These sorts of spells are unique examples of magical thinking. Unlike most modern rituals which do not have an express practical purpose this is a spell which is specifically designed to perform a task to help make your life safer. Replying on a spell to decide who you let in and out of your house means yo are using folklore to dictate practice everyday matters which is interesting compared to most modern folk rituals which tend to only pay lip service to the rituals intent.