A reader asks,
“I would like your guidance on getting the right St. Cyprian oil for myself. I have been working with the same . . . brand for years. . . . [but] I’m unfamiliar with him assisting in love work. What aspect of that does he help in? Or how does he help with that? Which type of oil should I get?”
Answer:
As to love work, what you’re missing is the entire Spanish grimoire tradition, which is the base off of which many of the folk magic practices of the Spanish-speaking world are built. And that’s not some gap in your education you should feel weird about if you don’t speak/read Spanish. There are lots of overlaps with American and Mexican folk magic, but they are definitely not simply interchangeable, and this is one of those areas where there’s a whole distinct field that hasn’t trickled over into the English-speaking world so much, where St. Cyprian is primarily known for being the patron of magicians.
And what you have in this tradition is a very longstanding practice of invoking St. Cyprian in the same way you might invoke St. Martha (often in her dominator aspect) and/or Santa Muerte (in her red aspect) in work designed to call or keep a lover – and if you’re familiar at all with that type of thing, you know it’s often got a lot of that binding/commanding/urgency stuff tied up in it that merges very quickly over into the Intranquility side of things: e.g. may he not sleep until he is by my side, may he be on fire for me, blah blah blah. That Intranquility stuff is *ancient* and has been an unbroken practice in the Spanish-speaking world for I don’t know how many centuries. Lots :)
You can see an example of the type of prayer/spell I’m talking about via The Coptic Magical Papyri: Vernacular Religion in Late Roman and Early Islamic Egypt site, in a manuscript that dates from between 1001 and 1100 CE. There’s a bit titled Love Spell of Cyprian that includes some of these elements.
There’s also an Intranquility-style prayer from Mexico at the main St. Cyprian resources page at Big Lucky Hoodoo.
Now that is not to say that you can only call on St. Cyprian for dominating/intranquility type love work. He’s just like any other saint – folks who form a relationship with him call on him for all kinds of things that may or may not have anything to do with the precise stuff he gets mentioned in books/on websites and on prayer cards for. That’s kinda how patronage works So if you’re not looking for Intanquility-flavored stuff but you want to work with St. Cyprian on love matters, you should feel free.
His popular hagiographical story has this whole business starting because he, as a pagan, tried to cast a love spell on St. Justina, who deflected it with the sign of the cross. Cyprian figured he’d just run into something more powerful than his magic – which he’d studied his whole life – so he needed to reassess which side his bread was buttered on. So that’s what he has to do with love magic.
So to some, he might seem like a weird choice to tap for love work, esp. considering no love spell ever worked on St. Justina and instead she and Cyprian both remained celibate and in the service of Christ for the rest of their lives, but nonetheless, he’s been called on for love work for ages and ages
The oil you have at home is probably most similar to my regular St. Cyprian oil, the not-seasonal one. It can be used in any kind of work with, or even as an offering for, St. Cyprian.
However, if you did want to get an oil that was made with an eye towards doing effective love work specifically, then version B of the seasonal oils would be your best bet. You can use any of the seasonal oils for any type of working, though – they’re all “keyed” to St. Cyprian beyond just one certain type of work.
Lots more info at Big Lucky Hoodoo.