In a study conducted by the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies in
Princeton University, students conducted interviews with mercury users to
examine the methods and rationale of use. They recruited their subjects through
newspaper advertisements and on the internet and provided a ten dollar
compensation for the twenty minute interviews. After finding response to be
relatively low, the students in the center instituted more ethnographic
approaches to reach their small target, mainly Latin American and Caribbean
mercury users.
Subject 1
The first interviewee reported having played with mercury when he was very
young. He went to Cuba thirty years later in 1997 converted his religion to
Santeria and began using mercury in religious and magical ways. The man made a
distinction between elemental mercury and precipitado rojo,( literally
red precipitation), mercury oxide and said he used either of the mercury forms
about once a week.
"Mercury is used as a mgical and religious thing. What
it does is it speeds up magical spells. And it allows spirits to travel over
water."
Asked if he would reccommend mercury usage to others, he admitted having a
knowledge of mercury's toxicity.
"Mercury is extremely poisonous and extremely toxic. Bad for people and
bad for the environment."
However, this particular user feels he is "immune" to mercury's effects by
nature of his usage.
"I don't deal much with mercury. I don't touch the powder and I don't
touch mercury itself with my hands. I don't taste it. So that's the precaution I
guess I take now because I know mercury's toxic."
Subject 2
The second interviewee was a fifty-eight year old Caucasian male who reported
currently using mercury in magic and playing with it as a child. He said he used
mercury once every two to three months as an "expiditer" of magic spells.
"Basically, it's a good expiditer in speeding up the action of a
spell.
He said he learned magic in a school in 1970 in New York and began describing
mercury.
"Mercury is a symbolism of the planet Mercury which is the messenger... in
Greco-Roman tradition it relates to Mercury or Hermes. OK. But basically its's a
speeder of communications, case of communications or communication spells, to
make them pass into the subconscious mind of the person you're doing the spell
on faster.
Subject two also admitted a knowledge of the toxicological effects of
mercury.
"Well, mercury's toxic. And there's a problem withtaking anything like
that internally. The other thing is when you have a toxic thing internally,
mercury is a cumulative toxin that causes cavitation in the brain. And so as a
result, people get a little stupid when they take mercury."
He said that practically every magician he knows takes mercury. When asked
about mercury's role in his life, he said he used mercury for two magic spells.
One was to ward off theivery and the other was to promote talking. Both spells
required him to put one drop of mercury, about one-eighth of an inch in diameter
and .25g in a bottle with a narrow neck. He then covered it iwth holy water and
other ingredients such as feathers and ashes. The bottle was then sealed and
placed in a corner of his room. According to him, spells "wear off" in about two
weeks, so he reuses the mercury.
"I use the same mercury over and over agan. That's why I still have most
of what I bought."
He too believes he is immune to mercury's toxicity.
"I don't eat it, so I don't think it would be so bd, you know I wouldn' be
too concerned about it. You know it rots your brain if you get too much of it
in."
When asked if he takes any precautionary measures in handling mercury, he
explained that:
I use a medicine dropper to move it around. Sometimes I use a spoon if I'm
going to give somebody some and I have a plastic impermeable spoon for that that
I do that with."
