Cloves Magical Properties: Protection, Money and Gossip

In folk magic, cloves are carried and burned for protection, for stopping gossip and unwanted talk, and for drawing money and goodwill. The money-and-expansion reading mostly traces to Jupiter in the planetary correspondence systems that assign cloves that planet, while the protective, gossip-stopping use comes specifically out of hoodoo tradition. Historically the spice traveled further and cost more than almost anything else in a European kitchen, which is part of why it also carries an old reputation for luxury and goodwill.

Cloves at a Glance: The Correspondence Table

The table below follows Scott Cunningham's system of magical correspondences, offered as one tradition rather than settled fact; the planet-and-day pairing itself comes from the older Renaissance system in Agrippa, where each weekday belongs to one of the seven classical planets. A later section covers where other lists disagree with Cunningham's specific placement of cloves.

From the Spice Islands to the Pomander: A Short History of Cloves

Cloves are the dried, unopened flower buds of a tree native to a handful of small volcanic islands in the Maluku archipelago of Indonesia — the Moluccas, once known simply as the Spice Islands — and to parts of the Southern Philippines. For most of history they grew nowhere else, which made them one of the most fought-over commodities in the world. Archaeologists have traced cloves reaching the Near East astonishingly early: a find at Terqa in Syria has been dated to around 1720 BC, centuries before cloves are known to have reached Rome in the first century AD, carried along the same trade networks that moved cinnamon and pepper. Grieve's Modern Herbal dates the spice's wider introduction into Europe to somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries AD.

European demand eventually turned clove-growing into a monopoly fight. The Dutch East India Company spent much of the 1600s and 1700s trying to restrict cloves to a few controlled plantations and destroying trees elsewhere to keep prices high. In 1770, French agents took cutting stock from a single ancient tree on Ternate — known locally as the Afo tree and already reckoned centuries old at the time — and smuggled it out to French-controlled islands including Mauritius and the Seychelles, breaking the Dutch hold on the trade. That act of eighteenth-century industrial espionage is a large part of why cloves grow across the tropics today rather than on a handful of Indonesian islands.

The clove-studded orange, or pomander, is the folk-magic use with the clearest paper trail. By the Victorian era, giving someone an orange bristling with whole cloves was a recognized gesture meaning warmth of feeling — a piece of household etiquette that modern folk practice has simply kept, now read as a small charm for friendship or a sweetened home.

Protection, Gossip, and the Hoodoo Clove

Cloves have a specific, well-documented role in hoodoo, the African American folk-magic tradition that grew out of the rural South: they are a standard ingredient for "stopping gossip," or quieting a person who is talking about you behind your back. A common form of the working seals a written name in a small jar together with whole cloves, on the reasoning that the sharp, biting taste of the spice matches the sharp tongue it is meant to blunt. That same sharpness is why cloves also appear in protection blends more generally, burned as incense or added to a sachet alongside other "hot," combative herbs.

Because this use comes from a specific, named folk tradition rather than a general one, it is worth crediting the source directly rather than presenting it as universal witchcraft practice — it belongs to hoodoo specifically, even where eclectic modern practitioners have since adopted it.

Cloves for Friendship, Attraction and Drawing Money

Alongside protection, cloves show up consistently in folk-magic lists for love, friendship and money — three intentions that look unrelated until you notice they all rest on drawing something toward you rather than pushing something away. A small dish of whole cloves, or a few tucked into a wallet or purse, is a common money-drawing charm; the reasoning given is usually Jupiter's general association with abundance rather than anything specific to the spice itself. For friendship and affection, cloves are more often combined with other warm spices — cinnamon in particular — in a sachet or a simmered stovetop blend, following the same spice-equals-warmth logic as the Victorian pomander.

If money is the specific goal, herbs for money and prosperity covers the wider field cloves sit inside, including herbs with a more consistent money attribution across sources.

How Cloves Are Used: Wallet, Sachet, Jar and Smoke

Every use below is external, and none of it describes eating or drinking cloves or a clove preparation.

In the wallet or purse. A small handful of whole cloves carried in a wallet, coin purse or cash box is the most common single piece of clove folklore, and the one behind most "cloves in your wallet" questions. The cloves are simply left in place and replaced every so often rather than used any further way.

Sachet. Whole or lightly crushed cloves combined with other protective or money herbs in a small cloth bag, carried or kept in a drawer, is the standard way cloves are blended with cinnamon or star anise for a stronger combined intention.

Jar spell. A small jar layering whole cloves with a written name or intention, sealed and kept somewhere undisturbed, is the usual form of the "stop gossip" working described above.

Smoke. Whole cloves on a charcoal disc, or ground clove added to another incense base, produce a heavy, warm smoke used for protection and for clearing a space before a working — used more sparingly than lighter herbs like thyme, since clove smoke is strong and can overwhelm a small room quickly.

Dressed candle. A few whole cloves pressed around the base of a candle, or a single drop of clove oil worked into the wax, is a common way to bring cloves into a candle ritual; the general method is covered in how to dress a candle. Clove oil is strong enough to irritate skin and should always be diluted before it touches skin directly.

Where the Sources Disagree: Jupiter or Mars

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs places cloves under Jupiter, with fire as the element — a reading that lines up neatly with cloves as a money-and-expansion herb. Other correspondence lists assign cloves to Mars instead, reasoning from the plant's heat and bite rather than its price: a spice sharp enough to numb the tongue and strong enough to dominate any blend it joins reads, to those authors, as a Mars herb regardless of what it has historically been worth.

The two readings are less a conflict than a difference in which part of the plant's character each author weighted more heavily. If the working concerns money or opportunity, Jupiter and Thursday are the traditional pairing; if it concerns protection or stopping a specific unwanted behavior like gossip, Mars and Tuesday fit the sharper, more combative reading just as well.

Safety Before You Start

Fire. Whole cloves and clove-heavy incense blends burn hot and produce a dense, oily smoke. Use a heatproof dish or a proper charcoal burner, never an open flame directly on the spice, and keep the burning dish well clear of curtains, papers and anything else flammable.

Animals. Clove oil is best kept away from cats and dogs altogether — it is a concentrated plant extract, and pets generally tolerate concentrated essential oils far less well than people do. Whole dried cloves left out in a dish are mainly a choking hazard for a curious pet, so keep a wallet or jar spell somewhere an animal cannot get into.

Allergy. Clove is a strong contact irritant even for people with no specific allergy — clove oil on bare skin can cause a burning sensation and redness — so treat any direct skin contact with clove oil the way you would a strong essential oil generally: diluted, and patch-tested first.

For a broader look at protection work beyond a single spice, see herbs for protection. For a warmer, sweeter-natured cousin in the same tradition, cinnamon's magical properties cover a spice with a more purely money-and-love reputation and far less of the protective edge.