Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil

The Windowsill

Grandma kept three monkey statues right there on the kitchen windowsill. You could not miss them if you tried — they sat where the morning light came in, where every dish got washed and every conversation happened, whether she meant for you to hear it or not.

She never sat me down and explained them outright. What she gave me instead, more than once, was the lesson underneath: those who talk easily to you about others behind their back will talk easily about you to others behind your back. I did not understand it as a child. I have watched it prove true more and more with every passing year since.

It took me most of my life to put those two things together — her words, and those stupid monkeys sitting there watching the kitchen. She was not just decorating a windowsill. She was teaching a whole philosophy in three small carved figures, and I was too young to know it.

The Three Wise Monkeys — and the Fourth

The figures Grandma kept are far older and more traveled than those hollers of southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia where she kept them close. They are known formally as the three wise monkeys, and the maxim they carry — see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil — is most famously tied to a carving above a door of the Toshogu shrine in Nikko, Japan, dating back to the seventeenth century. Grandmas set held only the three. There is a fourth worth knowing about, even so.

The Alum Working

Alum is the definitive, traditional ingredient used in Appalachian folk magic, Hoodoo, and Granny witchcraft to "pucker" a gossips mouth and dry up their lies. It is a natural astringent — it physically causes tissue to contract and dry. Mountain magic uses that property sympathetically, to shrink a troublemakers tongue so they can no longer speak your name. You can find alum powder in the spice aisle of most any grocery store. Grandma used to make her own from scratch, which is its own story for another day, one I plan to bring to the Empress chapter before too long.

What You Need

• Alum powder
• A small piece of paper — brown paper from a grocery bag works best
• A pen — black or red ink is traditional
• A sewing needle and black thread
• A hollowed-out hot pepper
• Optional: slippery elm (to stop rumors) or red pepper (so their own words burn their mouth if they persist)

The Working

1. Write the full name of the person gossiping in the center of the brown paper. If you do not know their name, write "All who speak falsely against me."
2. Place a heavy pinch of alum powder directly onto the name. "As this alum dries and puckers, so dries your tongue. You cannot speak my name, your lies are all done."
3. Fold the paper in half, always folding away from your body, to push their energy out of your life. Fold it tight so the powder stays trapped inside. Turn the paper counter-clockwise three times, repeating the line above with each turn.
4. Take your needle and black thread and stitch through the folded paper, or wrap the thread around it nine times, binding it shut. This symbolically binds their ability to speak.
5. Slice a hot pepper open from top to bottom and tuck the folded paper inside — it does not matter that it does not quite fit. Stitch the pepper closed and wrap the thread around it as tight as you can make it, repeating: "I shut you up, one, two, three, by the power of the trinity. Stop right now speaking ill of me. If you dont, your fate is sealed — by you, not me, the truth will be revealed."
6. Get rid of the pepper somewhere it cannot be undone — buried deep in the earth, sent off in moving water, or carried far from your home and thrown out. It should never be seen again.

This spell cannot be reversed. Mean what you say, and say what you mean.

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:26-27. It was never enough to just cover your mouth. Grandma lived it — hands busy helping somebody, tongue kept still. Three monkeys on a windowsill, and a woman who never once had to raise her voice to make her point.