Hoodoo, Religion, and Religious Magic: Voodoo Wicca Santeria Witchcraft Christianity Atheism

[catherineyronwode]

the multi-day vigil lights are popular with observant Jews because you do not need to light the candle on the Sabbath -- it's already lit!

Just a thought!

[MissMichaele]

the multi-day vigil lights are popular with observant Jews because you do not need to light the candle on the Sabbath -- it's already lit!

Just a thought!

<facepalm> I don't know why I didn't think of that!

Yes, you could even adapt honey jar spells -- a flat, sturdy sugar box with a vigil light on top. I found a lovely stainless-steel heart-shaped box in the thrift store a few months back which I used for that purpose. It was quite inexpensive, so of course I snapped it up.

Good luck and good magic,

Miss Michaele

[Yoseph]

In Closing, with this age, there is Obersvers & non Obrservers, ( Not everybody is obligated to Observe & everybody is not obligate to not Obeserve ( That is our free will ) alike. If you Observe either from a Orthodox or through the Messianic Prespective well do it. & When life requires you to respond to its many diffent distractions or necessities, well, go and take care of business. But came back and comtinue observing. Here's and example,I hold a Public Position and I also manage a team,& on call 24/7.
Many a times, I've had to do some act of work from somewhere or cover a shift, or make a call to make ends meet, gas up the car, do groceries and even drive back to town. But when I can, I get back to Observing where I left off. I learned a lesson one time,I had a chance to schedule myself off a schedule, and I did, and went back to resting and relaxing on the Saturday Sabbath. & when I did, I caught the light of a verse of Bible Scripture Christ said to his disciples " Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. " Thy will be done on Earth As it is in Heaven Hmmm! Well, ( Eureka ) I really, really,really understood that!I once did something, I will go back and keep doing it like I did before, Observe what I observe and rest like I was resting. I was making sure the Will got done on Earth as its being done in Heaven. Once i realized that everything else was easy! So on that note, whatever you do, keep on doing it, and what others are doing, they can keep on doing that to, as long as it doesn't violate the Laws of man and the rights of others we should fare well. ( Ha Shem Shalom. )

[catherineyronwode]

Another thought of note in this regard: as Jews, we are told that no Talmudic instruction, and not even a Commandment should be strictly observed if doing so at that time and place will cause harm. This is explained because we, as God's creations, are here to fulfill God's plans for us, and if we recklessly endanger ourselves though the stubborn practice of a custom or a Commandment in a place and / or time that might cause harm, we are substituting our own pride in strict observance for God's more compassionate request that we live on this Earth.

So, for instance, as my mother once explained to me, "The way it works is that if lighting a Sabbath candle would create a visible glow that would, God forbid, lead the Gestapo to find you, then you can say, 'I would light a Sabbath candle now, but i cannot for fear of harm or death, so God forgive me and allow me to live to the next Sabbath, when. God willing, i can light a Sabbath candle in a place of safety"

By the way, this thread is now being merged into the long, long, long thread on RELIGIONS.

[Tristan]

Another suggestion for continuing long-term work, such as lighting candles, while observing the Sabbath would be to have a shabbos goy (a non-Jew who performs acts on behalf of an observant Jew which would be forbidden on the Sabbath) do them.

This could mean having a light set for you by a member of AIRR or by MISC, enlisting them to aid you in proxy work on the Sabbath, or simply having a non-Jew light your spiritual candles if you were comfortable with that.

For example, if you were doing an uncrossing on yourself, you might hire a rootworker to make a doll baby of you. On the Sabbath, you could perform the spiritual bathing yourself and your worker could light the candles and fumigate your doll baby with incense. In this way, the work is continued without breaking any Sabbath prohibitions.

Just an idea!

[Yoseph]

Very interesting Tristan,I shall remember this.

Y.

[redcase1]

hi, i do not know whether this is the right place to post this, but i hope someone can help me!

i intend to buy Lucky Mojo spell kits, in fact I've already purchased oils, candles, and a mojo bag, am just waiting for it to arrive.

i was reading up on Wicca before i came to this site on root work, and now i really really would like to know the difference between Wicca and root work.

my basic understanding is that Wicca is a religion, whereas root work is just a practice.and that Wicca requires charging of items whereas root work already assumes that objects have a natural power.

So can Wicca practices (casting circles, thanking deities etc) be merged with Lucky Mojo spells?

Will it have any negative effect?

I'm a little confused. Are they very different?

[MissMichaele]

Hoodoo is historically an African-American Christian magical practice, mostly Protestant. Casting circles isn't part of it -- which only means you can do without it. Conjure workers generally appeal to Jesus, to God, to their ancestors, and/or to the spirits of the plants and minerals they work with.

But Wiccans and people of many other religions can and do use Lucky Mojo spell kits to good effect.

Don't forget to read Miss Cat's wonderful online book:

• Hoodoo in Theory and Practice: An Introduction to African-American Rootwork by Catherine Yronwode
  http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html

Hope this helps,

Miss Michaele

[catherineyronwode]

Wicca is a religion that was developed in the mid 20th century, primarily in England, at the outset, although it soon spread to the United States, Canada, and other English-speaking nations, and by the 1960s was found in other European countries, at which point it began to schism, leading to many "denominations" (usually called lineages or traditions), such as Gardnerian Wicca, Alexandrian Wicca, Dianic Wicca, and so forth.

The original premise of Wicca was that it was a revival of ancient pre-Christian religious practices of the native peoples of England, Scotlad, Ireland, and other parts of Europe.

Wicca is considered to be one of the Neo-Pagan religions -- that is a religion that revives or re-invents a religion that went extinct when Christianity became the dominant state-supported religion in many nations of Europe.

Other Neo-Pagan religions include Druidry, Asatru, British Traditional Witchcraft, Kemetic Orthodoxy, and Heathenism -- and there are more.

The magic of the original pagans who lived in the region where Wicca was invented was called witchcraft. Witchcraft was not originally a religion per se; it was the magic of the people of that area. Because witchcraft was not a religion, its name is generally not capitalized, by the way, unless it is a part of the name of a religious group.

As a religion, Wicca in its early days tended to shun the practice of witchcraft or Anglo-Saxon folk-magic. In fact, many Wiccans will tell you that it is wrong to cast spells at all -- especially if you do not have the concent of the one upon whom you are casting the spell. However, in more recent years, some branches of Wicca have decided to include witchcraft and spell-casting in their teachings.

Now it is important to understand that while not every religion includes a form of magic, some religions do include magic as part of what they do. I call these "magic-friendly"religions. For example, Hinduism is magic-friendly, and so is Chinese Taoism. Jewish folk magic has survived alongside Judaism for centuries.

Wicca, however, had spent so long a time claiming that magic was not part of the religion, that when Wiccans decided to practice magic, they had little continuous, unbroken traditions of practice to study or learn from. Therefore a number of Wiccans, such as Lady Sheba and Charmaine Dey, who were Anglo (White) Americans, turned to the nearest folk magic they could find, which was African (Black) American hoodoo. And they adopted it as "their" magic, so that the magic that many young Wiccans practice, unlike the magic of other European-derived Neo-Pagan religions, often carries elements of hoodoo within it -- and in fact, it is becoming quite common for young Wiccans with no knowledge of history to believe that African American conjure is something that their own tradition has always endorsed or taught, despite the long history of racial division that has separated their families from those of Black people.

Meanwhile, hoodoo is the folk magic of Black Christians, most of whom are Protestant Christians. Many Africans who were brought to America as slaves came from magic-friendly religious cultures, and when they converted to Christianity in America, they retained their approving interest in magic and continued to practice it. This was true of Christians in other nations where magic survived when Pagans received Christian religious conversions.

Hoodoo is not a religion in itself, but it is almost always practiced in a religious context -- and that context is African American Protestantism. There are Black Spiritualists, Black Catholics, Black Muslims, and Black Jews in America -- and even a number of Black Wiccans -- but the hoodoo tradition is part and parcel of American Black culture, and that culture is primarily Baptist.

So, to answer your question: Sure, Wiccans can practice hoodoo if they want to -- no one is stopping them -- but they are guests at the feast, because hoodoo is primarily the folk magic of Black American Christians. If a Wiccan feels the need to warp hoodoo in such a way as to make it accord with Wiccan beliefs and religious practices, there are no "hoodoo police" to give them a ticket.

One last thing, you mention "thanking deities" as a particularly Wiccan practice. Most root doctors also pray and also thank deities -- namely, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, otherwise known as Jehovah the Lord, Jesus the Saviour, and the Holy Spirit.

Will switching deities out while practicing hoodoo "have any negative effect?" Probably not. Some Wiccans may shun you and some hoodoo practitioners will think that you are not a very polite guest in their culture.

Are Wicca and hoodoo very different? Yes. One is a fairly newly developed Neo-Pagan religion that worships a God and Goddess (or, in some lineages, only a Goddess) that was developed by the modern White descendents of Christian Europeans in an attempt to revive their ancestors' pre-Christian religion. The other is a retention of African folk magic combined and blended with Northern European folk magic, Native American folk magic, and Jewish folk magic and practiced by members of the Christian religion that worships an originally Jewish (Middle Eastern) God.

It's a wide, wild, and wonderful world, isn't it?

Here -- let's have some gospel music after all of that:

Elder Burch and Congregation - My Heart Keeps Singing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNbNldA0W_s

(And this will now be merged into the long thread on religion.)

[ConjureMan]

Sometimes I wish there was a "like" button on the forum--i'd like cat's post above.

[Joseph Magnuson]

Funny you should post that, Conjureman Ali, as I was just looking for the "Like" button on the last thread I was in...great that there are so many good posts on here, bad that I have been so well trained by the devil Facebook.

[MrZipZipZip]

Please pardon me if this post is in the wrong place, or if the answer is right under my nose and I have not found it.

On Mondays I usually leave a little something at a crossroads for Papa Legba.

This week I've set up a temporary altar and placed an offering of some cornmeal, candies, and coins, as well as a candle and glass of water for the spirits of my ancestors.

I know, it is better to be more generous, but that is what I could gather, and the altar has to be dismantled soon (it is not my house).

Where should I take the offering; A crossroads? Backyard? The trash?

Please advise.

[catherineyronwode]

MrZipZIpZip,

Your post has been moved to the catch-all thread on RELIGIONS.

You apparently are practicing some form of Voodoo or Vodoun, without being initiated -- because if you had a mambo or houngan to guide you, you would not come to a product forum for hoodoo supplies to ask about your religion.

I suggest that if you want to know the authentic ways to serve Papa Legba, you connect with or contact actual adherents of the religion you are attempting to practice and enter into the religion fully. I think that among our moderators, Mary Bee is initiated in Voodoo and she may help you privately, if you approach her sincerely.

This is not a religion forum, and there is no way that you will get a valid response about the religion of Vodou from a bunch of folk-magic practitioners -- especially hoodoo practitioners, because hoodoo is a form of folk-magic mostly practiced by African American Christians.

Although there are concepts about the crossroads in hoodoo, as there are in dozens of magical, spiritual, and religious systems of thought and practice all around the world, we conjure doctors are no more authorized to speak on the customary forms of veneration of a Vodoun deity than we are to speak on the traditional forms of worship of Allah, Hecate, Kwan Yin, or the Tiki gods of Polynesia.

In conclusion, i suggest that you take a half hour or so to read this thread from the very beginning to the end, because the topic of Voodoo and its varied pantheon of deities has come up several times in the past few years.

Looking back over the thread myself, preparatory to writing this reply to you, i realized that the Forum moderators and myself have already written a great deal on the subject of the various world religions which people wish to practice while incorporating some small elements of Christian hoodooism into their lives -- and how well they can cobble the two together (or not). I sincerely hope you will go back and read it all, because there is knowledge and wisdom to be had in this thread that is worth the time it will take you to work your way through it.

Good luck in your spiritual journey, wherever it may lead.

Oh, and if you want to learn more about the true role of Haitian people in the development of African American culture, this video may help:

Black History Month
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... OHnYDseZvE
Black History Month - Story of the ONLY black king who fought in the American Revolutionary War

[hrabia]

Hell!

I can't found suitable section on forum...
I wanna ask you... about sense of life. Why people live here? Some people belive "We get experience on earth" But for what we need any experience?

[Apollo Dark]

Hell!

I can't found suitable section on forum...
I wanna ask you... about sense of life. Why people live here? Some people belive "We get experience on earth" But for what we need any experience?

This is a philosophical question left for Religions to answer. Hoodoo is a Folk Magic tradition, and not a religion.

All different kinds of answer canbe givin, but a true answer is something you must discover for yourself.


Best of Luck to You!

[hrabia]

Thank you my friend!

I know what you mean with Hoodoo... But i wanna know what thinking "Hoodooists" about sense of life, that's all

[Doctor Hob]

Like Apollo said, your questions gets into depths that don't really have anything to do with us, as hoodoo practitioners. Though hoodoo has a strong connection to Christianity, there are a lot of religious, and philosophical, positions represented by the people who post here. As interesting as the discussion could be, this isn't really the place for it.

Good luck, with your search.

[Apollo Dark]

Perhaps having a reading or consultation with a Professional Practitioner will give you some insight.

Find one here: http://www.rootworkers.com

Best of Luck to You!

[MissMichaele]

Different hoodoo practitioners will have different views of The Meaning Of Life, depending on their upbringing, beliefs and experience.

A reading, though, might help you discover the purpose of your life.

God has some plan for you -- it may be a big one that will change the world, or a little one that will bring joy to you and those around you, yet never leave a trace in the history books. But we all wish you God's blessing and good luck.

Miss Michaele

[sacredspiritualguide]

I have worked with spirits and entities since I can remember. I can't tell you the number of times I have asked this question and gotten a different responses. However, what I can tell you is that there is more to having a soul than living and dying. We are truly infinite. Each of has our own place in the cosmic order of things. The spiritual word is more 'real' than the reality we are experiencing now. I will also tell you that each moment we are alive is precious and a gift. As long as you listen to your heart, you will be ok.

[Apollo Dark]

A reading, though, might help you discover the purpose of your life.

And this is why sometimes it is good to reach out. Sometimes the big answer of the world your in, come from the answers inside yourself.

[katklawz]

Ive currently soul searched and came to terms that this is my calling. It is the air that I breathe and it TRUELY MAKES ME HAPPY. Its more then spells its LIFE!

Anyway ive just started studing some. I just wanted to know the thughts of my fellow hoodoo family (everyone and anyone who practices) What should my next step be in terms of studying? What is the next best reading material to follow before I start my hands on progress?

hoodoo for me is the Root of magic and as eager as i am to perform my first spell what matters to me most is the history and doing EVERYTHING THE RIGHT WAY. Protecting myself when casting and etc...

(This post was edited by the writer, katzklawz, after two moderators had replied, in order to remove the words Wicca, Wiccan, and magick (with a k). You would not think to see it now, that this was once a post about "Wicca is my calling" and "ive just started studing some Wiccan" and "Wicca for me is the Root of magick" -- but it was. We both replied very politely and offered the querent help locating his or her fellow co-religionists, only to come back and find the post stripped of all references to Wicca, as if they had never been there at all, making our replies look foolish and off-topic. Playing games with the forum mods is not nice. Read on to see what happened next.--cat)

[Mama Micki]

This Forum is about Lucky Mojo products and traditional hoodoo, which originated with African-American Christians. If you have questions about hoodoo or LM products, feel free to ask; otherwise you may be better off posting in a Wiccan or Pagan forum.

[catherineyronwode]

Dear katklawz,

As Mama Micki explained, this is not a forum about Wicca at all.

This is a forum for primarily Christian hoodoo folk magicians who purchase and work with Lucky Mojo spiritual supplies.

Sorry we can't help you. Do a google search for a Wicca forum and i am sure you will find what you seek.

And, yes, i noticed that you have just edited your post after two people took the time to reply to you about Wicca, and your response to us was to go back and take the words Wicca and Wiccan out of your post and replace them with the word hoodoo or with no word at all. That is gaming your moderators, and that just got you banned.

[new2hoodoo]

I'm originally from Eunice, Louisiana (near Lafayette) and grew up with a strong current of Hoodoo in my family. My grandmother was a practitioner as was my mother.

Im living in eunice louisiana and i am now just getting my hands wet with hoodoo. I would like some one to help me on my journey.

[catherineyronwode]

Dear new2hoodoo,

Hoodoo is not a religion, so i am unclear why you posted in this thread, but...

The best way to learn hoodoo is to hang around with older folks who are practitioners.

You are located in an area where the African American hoodoo tradition and French Creole traiteur tradition combine and overlap, and if you stay with this path, you will find yourself becoming the culture bearer of a vibrant and vital current of folk magic.

I myself learned a lot from Mr. Matthew Murray in Lafayette, Louisiana, but he passed away several years ago. He certainly left behind some younger associates, so if you want to learn face-to-face, not on the internet, then it is up to you to find those folks and make friends. If they are older people, your help in lifting and carrying, taking them shopping, and fetching things for them will win you a way into their hearts and they will very likely teach you a lot.

This article may be of interest to you:

http://www.southern-spirits.com/blancha ... ghway.html

Good luck, and stay in touch if i can be of any assistance as a teacher.

And now, let us return this thread to its ACTUAL topic, which is religion.

[mWn_2]

Life is so enormous, that it has no meaning. If there was a meaning, the moment you found the meaning, it would be over. But you can't finish off life like that. You write a million books about it. Still, it is ever-expanding. So there is no meaning to life. Meaning very rudimentary meas-- minds in the world are always trying to explain life off as this or that. You can't explain it off. Because it contains you, it is you. Everything that you discover is just a small aspect of it. Whatever meanings you give it to, whatever definitions you give it to, are just your notions about it. Life is far beyond meaning. Life is beyond meaning. And that's why it's so beautiful.

[new2hoodoo]

Yes i know hoodoo isnt a religion. But i was looking for help on how to do spells. Right now i am doing a honey jar spell that i got from bloody mary from new orleans. But i was looking for something else that could go with it to help sweeten my target to me. But i will be doing the menses spell.

[Joseph Magnuson]

new2hoodoo: I believe Miss Cat was just pointing out that you are posting in the specific section of our forums that is for the discussion of Hoodoo and Religion, specifically, as the thread title denotes.

[new2hoodoo]

Ok thanks.

[JayDee]

I have a question that has pondered in my mind for sometime, iv seeked the answer but have not found it and thought I would ask on here. I appologise if im posting in a unrelevant spot. My question is why do we do spell work, or hoodoo, working with oils, candles, insence etc when asking God for something, when we simply can go to him in prayer and ask? This has been a hang up for me when doing work. I was raised Baptist. I know God answeres prayers and have seen it, iv also seen work be done and be answered as well. Trying to bridge that gap of understanding in my mind. thank you!

[Mama Micki]

It is certainly possible for prayer to be answered without "equipment" like oils, candles, etc. These tools are to help us focus on our goals and desires, so we can be clear as to what we are praying for. Please read this:

http://www.luckymojo.com/spells/real.html

[JayDee]

Thank you Mama Micki for the response, I have read that. I have read most of Cats work and been on the site for a few years. This is a question that always pops in my head when thinking about work and religion and I thought Id ask the professionals as they prolly know better then me and can help me find the answer im looking for. Thanks!

[catherineyronwode]

j82,

Christianity is a religion that was overlaid atop many earlier religios, most particularly Judaism.Now, Judaism, like many Middle Eastern religions, does have a role for an acceptance of magic -- and so did Christianity, for almost 2,000 years. Meanwhile, Christianity was also overlaid on top of other religions, like European regional pagan religions, and those practitioners retained some of their magic (and religion, too, which is why the practice of Christianity varies from one area to another). Anti-magical sentiment was found among Christians, especially during the Inquisition, but interest in magic has never faded, and so, depending on what sub-set of Christianity one belongs to, one will find varying amounts of acceptance of magic and practice of magic. African Americans brought their own magical practices to the Americas, and melded these with Native American, European, and Jewish magic, creating hoodoo.

Like many other forms of folk magic, hoodoo has as one of its premises that certain roots, herbs, and other natural curios were put on Earth by God for the use of the wise, both in medicine nd in magical"doctoring. The usual proof-text is:

Ezekiel 47:12:
"And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine."

Revelation 22:2:
"In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."

[Jimmy]

Hello to all.

My apology if this topic is not posted in the appropriate forum. I understand the origins of hoodoo, that is not religion, and should not be confused or mixed with the practices of other religions. My question is how do hoodoo practitioners who are not Christian reconcile hoodoo practice with their identified religion (e.g. Wicca, Santeria, etc.)?

Hope you are well.

~Jimmy

[catherineyronwode]

Jimmy,

Welcome to the forum -- and i have merged your post into the long, long thread on religion.

The answer to your question going to vary by the individual.

1. Some people leave hoodoo when they finally realize that its base is seriously, unmutably African American Christian and that they cannot change Black culture to suit themselves, or call what they do hoodoo and expect to be understand by Black Americans.

2. Some people "translate" into their own religion and feel quite comfortable doing so.

3. Some people try to bullshit their way into claiming that they practice some super-special form of hoodoo that is actually Haitian Voodoo (and then they get into a fix when actual Haitians ask WTF they are doing pretending to be Voodoo initiates).

4. Some people try to bullshit their way into claiming that they practice some super-special form of hoodoo that is actually White Anglo-British folk-magic (and then they get into a fix when actual Black Americans ask WTF they are doing pretending that hoodoo is "Appalachian Granny Magic").

In my experience, #2 is the most commonly chosen option.

For those choosing option #1, here is a song:

Steve Adams - Jesus Is My Friend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFMBQY45uTE

ENjoy!

[Euoi]

Hello all. I have several questions regarding black arts, hoodoo, and demons.

I am a demonolater, so I with frequently demonic entities. I'm also getting into hoodoo as well. I love its simplicity and ease.

I see that hoodoo uses a lot of Christian symbolism and prayers. I don't have much problem with this, but I would like to work with demons more. Is it okay" to substitute the Christian parts with demons?

Also, are black arts products used for any workingwith dark spirits? I'm thinking of using the incense mixed with some herbs and copal resin for a manifestation incense in evocation.

[Joseph Magnuson]

Hello Euoi,

I suggest you start here:

Hello and welcome to the Lucky Mojo Forum.

If you are interested in hoodoo, here are some links for you. Read these web pages from cat yronwode's "Hoodoo in Theory and Practice" for more preliminary information:

Hoodoo History:
http://luckymojo.com/hoodoohistory.html

Oils:
http://luckymojo.com/oils.html

Baths:
http://luckymojo.com/baths.html

Powders:
http://luckymojo.com/powders.html

Incense:
http://luckymojo.com/incense.html

Candles:
http://luckymojo.com/candlemagic.html

Herbs:
http://herb-magic.com

Conditions and how we can address them:
http://luckymojo.com/hoodooataglance.html

Now that you are here in our forum, please take a moment to notice that the board is divided into four parts:

1) News and Announcements about the Lucky Mojo Curio Company and this site.

2) Lucky Mojo Spiritual Supplies and how to use them, listed in threads by product type and product title.

3) Life Conditions and Situations, with recommended Lucky Mojo products, spells, and advice.

4) The Online Hoodoo Community, including sites, events, and outreach sponsored by Lucky Mojo.

When you post, it helps your moderators, who are recompensed volunteers, if you post in the area of the board that is best suited to the archival of your question or comment. That way moderators will not have to move your post or merge it into ongoing threads.

If you can't find a post you made, it may have been moved or merged. Go to your profile by clicking on your name and "search recent posts" -- you will find it.

Within each board section there are STICKY threads -- ones that always stay "stuck" to the top. These are popular discussion-threads that you can read and add to if your questions or comments fall into one of these oft-broached topics. If you don't see a "sticky" that relates to your question, feel free to start a new thread in the relevant section.

We do have a few "thou shalt not" rules here, and they can be found in the Forum Rules link at the top of each page. Most important for newbies are these four common errors to avoid:

1) Please do not come here asking for our formulas for conjure oils or for instructions on how to use spiritual supplies that you bought at a grocery store or at a competitor of ours; this is the Lucky Mojo Forum and is financially supported by the Lucky Mojo Curio Co.

2) Please do not spam the moderators by sending multiple duplicated private messages asking for personal help outside the board; many of our moderators do perform readings and rootwork spell-casting for clients, but they are professionals and you should approach them as you would any other professional.

3) Please do not post illegal copies of material from other web sites or from books.

4) Please do not post put-downs of any group of people based on their religion, race, or national origin, including derogatory comments about religions to which you may have previously been an adherent or comments in which you seek to falsely conflate any religion with the practice of evil sorcery.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

[Turnsteel]

Hello Euoi. Welcome to the forum.

I see that hoodoo uses a lot of Christian symbolism and prayers. I don't have much problem with this, but I would like to work with demons more. Is it okay" to substitute the Christian parts with demons?

No. It wouldn't be hoodoo anymore, you can not just swap out the psalms to invocations/prayers to Asmodi or whoever and think it will be the same. That's not to say you can not work with both Christian symbolism and prayers and demons, look at the Goetia. Heavy duty demon magic, worked thro the spiritual authority of God and the Exorcist's relationship to God.

Also, are black arts products used for any workingwith dark spirits? I'm thinking of using the incense mixed with some herbs and copal resin for a manifestation incense in evocation.

Black Arts supply's are great for working with chthonic and demonic spirits. It can be used to help call them up, make offerings to them, dedicate tools or amulets to them, its a great multitask-er.

[catherineyronwode]

Euoi --

When you write that, "hoodoo uses a lot of Christian symbolism and prayers," you are not seeing the forest for the trees. Hoodoo is African-American folk magic. It is not a "system" into which you can "substitute" various "entities."

There have always been African-Americans who have worked in the European grimoire tradition (including working with the Solomonic, Goetic, and Mosaic seals), and you can familiarize yourself with the history of those people and their ways of working, if you wish -- but please be aware that the culture in which hoodoo originated and in which it is practiced today is Black American culture.

There are practitioners of hoodoo from a number of religions, and hoodoo itself has a mixed-race core of African magic overlaid with Native American, Scots-Irish, and Jewish practices, and, since the 20th century, it has also played into the "exoticism" of other cultures (especially Asian cultures), but the core of it is African American Protestant Christian.

If you are a guest in African American Protestant Christian culture (as i am, by the way), you ought to learn to be a good and welcome guest and don't start in by rearranging the furniture, using the pots and pans in the kitchen, and changing the channel on the TV set. Dig?

And this goes for everyone -- not just Demonolators. I tell the same thing to Wiccans, Heathens, Muslims, Zoroastrians, and members of African Traditional Religions.

I have merged your query into the long, ongoing religion thread, and, as always, i take your question as an opportunity to post another glimpse into African American religious culture. This time we will visit with the New Thought Movement, specifically the Religious Science denomination, which, on the West Coast, at least, has a high percentage of African American adherents.

Read about the New Thought Movement here, on this page sponsored by AIRR, the Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers:

Category:Working Within the New Thought Tradition
http://readersandrootworkers.org/wiki/C ... _Tradition

And then watch this video from the East Bay Church of Religious Science in Oakland, California.

East Bay Church of Religious Science Men's Choir - Reggie, Paris and Rev. E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBUNVbeE9vE

Toward the middle of clip the congregation begins to sing the old Black Protestant gospel song "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Set on Jesus)" -- but in this New Thought church the lyrics are always rendered as "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Set on Spirit)." This is followed by a Religious Science responsive reading led by Reverend Eloise Oliver.

Reverend Oliver is a dynamic singer in her own right, as this next clip demonstrates:

East Bay Church of Religious Science_Something Woke Me Up This Morning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWzRKevbX04
"25 years anniversary of Rev. Eloise Oliver (Rev.E) at EBCRS, Oakland, California, USA - October/2010."

[Jimmy]

Hello, everyone.

Cat, thank you for the welcome and response to my question. Your post made sense to me. I've appreciated reading through the volumes of posts, old and current, on this subject. Most especially, I appreciated reading the repeated message of what hoodoo is and is not and, further, not to make it something it is not. With that being said, is it fair to conceptualize hoodoo as a "technology"?

~Jimmy

[catherineyronwode]

Jimmy,

I have read many definitions of the word "technology," but "folk-magic" is not a term found among those definitions.

From dictionary.com:

tech·nol·o·gy [tek-nol-uh-jee]
noun
1. the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science.
2. the terminology of an art, science, etc.; technical nomenclature.
3. a scientific or industrial process, invention, method, or the like.
4. the sum of the ways in which social groups provide themselves with the material objects of their civilization.

I have read many definitions of "folk-magic," but "technology" is not a word found among those definitions.

From dictionary.com:

folk magic
noun
any attempt to practice charms, spells, etc., to control events or people.

[JayDee]

Interesting thought, when you call it technology do you mean as a tool that does a job like an ipad does a job? meaning its stripped of its religious conditions? then no its not, it has its own rules and traditions that should be followed.

Lets ask this question, if Cat wanted to practice your belief system and wanted to do so in the classic hoodoo tradition using her Lord Jesus Christ rather then a demon in all the working that are in your books, would any one have a problem in your group with that? would they accept it and change? would it even work ? I think you know the answer is no. thus no difference in hoodoo.

now is hoodoo a tool in a sense yes candle do work, oils do work, herbs do work as God signed them with a signature to work and do things. elements are in harmony and at their best when allowed to do what they were created to do. So can you use some or many of LM products in your work yes.

can you say you practice hoodoo and leave out God, Jesus and the Bible and ignore those important aspects, the answer is no.

Hope that helps!

[Jimmy]

Thank you, Cat and j82, for your thoughts.

Cat, I gave my question more thought after reading the definitions of technology and think I was working within the third definition. More so, I was trying to understand if hoodoo is a means to an end, which I now better understand it is not.

j82, you wrote, "...if Cat wanted to practice my belief system and substitute the Lord Jesus Christ rather then a demon in all the working that are in your books." I've not disclosed my belief system in this forum or that I work with demons, which I do not. Maybe my post was confused with another? Please know that I would not ever strip a practice or religion of what is intrinsic to it. I'm a firm believer in following practices, traditions, etc. as intended. To make changes to something makes it something it is not or ever intended to be.

Again, thank you both for your responses. I look forward to getting better acquainted with people on this forum and their thoughts, opinions, and beliefs.

Hope you are all well.

[Mama Micki]

j82, it was Euoi, not Jimmy.

[JayDee]

thanks for correcting

[AonieD]

Hi there, I'm glad to find a community where I can learn and help others. Thanks for this opportunity.

I've recently finished a dedication period to honor my ancestors. Hoodoo is a thing that has been around me all of my life, but I've never before given it the look it deserves. I've been truly amazed and humbled to learn that this is good work to honor those who walked before me.

Does anyone have any advice from how to transition from dedication work to a practice? I am building the foundation for my work and I would welcome the input.

[catherineyronwode]

Hoodoo is the folk magic of African Americans, most of whom are Christians -- and most of whom are Protestant Christians -- and most of whom are Baptists.

The daily practice of Baptists is not liturgically specified, but most will pray at least a "Thank you, Lord for waking me up this morning," or an "Our Father."

Here are two you tube videos showing typical Black Baptist practices:

Old school Baptist Praying
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Wn4nj0R_A
Deacon praying during Devotion

Deacon Marshall Wheeler & Deacon Robert Wheeler Mt Pleasan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3WO4j5ZaHk
visiting at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, Moultrie, GA.
(Mt Pleasant church Is In Green Oaks, GA)

If you read further back in this thread, you will see many more examples.

[Asecerack]

Hey there,

A few burning questions on my mind.

I recently picked up a copy of "Candle at the Crossroads" and in it the author spoke of three main spirits that are commonly petitioned;
1) The Dark Rider,
2) Papa La-Bas, and
3) Daddy Death.
4) Aside from these three, are there any other spirits aside from those that are part of the Conjure tradition that are worked with, such as
5) The spirits of the First Nations such as Black Hawk,
6) The Ancestors,
7) The Dead,
8) Plant (root) spirits, and
9) The Haints.

10) Is there a formal hierarchy or reglemen, so to speak, as is in Quimbanda or Haitian Vodou?
11) Do the spirits from Voodoo cross over into Conjure as well?
12) Are the Haints the Saints or are they both different?
13) Does Conjure include other types of spirits as well such as Demons or the Fey?
14) Is working with other spirits outside of Conjure considered taboo?

Thanks a bunch

[catherineyronwode]

Asecerack,

The Candle and the Crossroads is not a book abut African American hoodoo folk-magic. It is a book written by a well known Neo-Pagan author, the deviser of Fairy Seership, and is based on his on personal world view. It is interesting, but it will provide you with a Neo-Pagan's look at life.

1) The Dark Rider: This is a European term, rarely found in hoodoo, for a being sometimes called the Ol' Funny Boy and most often called The Devil.

Here is an African American song about the Devil:

Me and the Devil Blues by Robert Johnson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-hSbpai7vg

2) Papa La-Bas: This is French. We are not speaking French around here. They hardly even teach it in High School nowadays. This is nothing in hoodoo, nothing at all.

3) Daddy Death: Death, as a personified spirit, entered hoodoo primarily through European American folklore and song, and was evident British and German art in earlier centuries. To call Death a "Daddy" is grotesque and i have not found it among Anglo-Irish Americans (who use the term "Daddy" rather than "Papa") so this seems to be really idiosyncratic. It certainly does not reflect the African American hoodoo that i grew up around, and, frankly, it strikes me as frickin' weird.

Here is a typical Anglo-Irish paean to personified Death:

Ralph Stanley O Death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xmRWj7gJEU

I know of one African American preacher's recording of a similar piece, with the "spare me over just another year" lyrics, but it is not a common song in African American church music. Here it is:

Rev. Anderson Johnson - Death in the Morning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53g6QC3CIKY

More widespread in African American folklore are the NON-personified descriptions of death like this one by the famous musician Nehemiah Skip James:

'Cypress Grove Blues' SKIP JAMES, Delta Blues Guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfdNUbE9w7g
SKIP JAMES (1902-1969) " Cypress Grove Blues " (1931)

4) Are there any other spirits aside from those that are part of the Conjure tradition that are worked with?: Ummmm yes. God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Kinda totally odd that the Neo-Pagan author you cite left them out of conjure. I mean, really? Cause rootwork, conjure, and hoodoo is the folk magic of African American CHRISTIANS and, like, it would be very difficult to overlook the Lord God, Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit if you were really describing actual hoodoo beliefs.

5) The spirits of the First Nations such as Black Hawk: No one venerates "spirits of the First Nations." The term is Canadian. This is the USA. Black Hawk is venerated by Spiritual Church adherents of the lineage of Leafy Anderson, an African American Spiritualist of the 20th century. If you are not a Spiritualist within an African American Spiritual Church, you probably never heard of the spirit of Black Hawk or else you are reading too much internet.

6) The Ancestors: Ancestors are not venerated as such (that is, as a class of beings) in hoodoo, but many people do have a mediumistic connection to their own family members who have passed, to departed friends, or to their own ancestors.

7) The Dead: See above under Ancestors.

8) Plant (root) spirits: Plants are embued with life and spirit, but they are not part of a cosmological hierarchy.

9) The Haints: Haints (haunts) are European style locational ghosts. They are not petitioned or venerated, either in European or European-American folk magic, and thus, not in African American folk-magic either.

10) Is there a formal hierarchy or reglemen, so to speak, as is in Quimbanda or Haitian Vodou? This one could go two ways.

I could say: There is no "formal hierarchy" of spirits in hoodoo because, unlike Voodoo, which is a religion, hoodoo is the folk-magic of Christians.

Or i could say: Yes indeed! Hoodoo does have a formal hierarchy of spirits, according to the Christian beliefs of most hoodoo practitioners. Let me explain it to you:

A) Above all is God the Father, also known as Lord God, Our Father, the Creator, Lord of Lords, the Almighty, Lord of Hosts, Jehovah, the Great Architect of the Universe, and other such names.

B) Next comes God's only begotten Son, whose mother was Mary. His name is Jesus, and He is also known as God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, The Lamb, the Redeemer, and the Saviour.

C) Third is The Holy Spirit, sometimes represented as a White Dove, also called The Comforter.

D) Then come the Archangels, highest messengers of God. There are many of them, but the best known are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. They make announcements concerning God's will and plans.

E) The regular Angels come next, and they are messengers as well. They convey thoughts from God to people. Among them will be found each person's Guardian Angel(s), personal spirits to whom God has assigned the task of keeping us safe and directed on a good path to salvation from sin.

Of these entities, by far the most often appealed to and petitioned is Jesus Christ.

Here are two songs about this important entity in the hierarchy of hoodoo. Open another browser window and let them play while you read on.

I Have a Friend Above All Others, Be with Me Jesus - The Soul Stirrers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NvpIF5i1-A
Sam Cooke, Paul Foster, and the Soul Stirrers, live at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, 1955.

Steve Adams - Jesus Is My Friend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFMBQY45uTE
Steve Adams, live at at the Southside Church of Christ in Los Angeles, 2013.

In these songs, the "Friend" is Jesus. His friendship is mentioned in other songs as well, such as "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," "The Best Friend to Have Is Jesus," and "Jesus, Friend of Sinners."

11) Do the spirits from Voodoo cross over into Conjure as well? Nope. Nobody round here speaks French. And why would folks in Moultrie, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; or Jackson, Mississippi, want to chase after French books about some other religion that has no churches where they live and that they'd have to learn French to understand, when they already have a religion of their own and churches and gospel music and a whole lot of magical and spiritual information that they can learn from their own English-speaking grandmothers? It just doesn't make any sense!

12) Are the Haints the Saints or are they both different? For haints, see above. They are locational ghosts. Saints are either (A) holy people whose holiness has been attested to and certified by a religious clergy or B) members of a Chrstian conregation otherwse known as "the church" or "the body of Christ" or "the Saints." Many religions have saints in the sense of (A), and in the USA, the most prominent religion that has saints of type (A) is the Roman Catholic Church. However, not too many adherents of hoodoo are members of that religion. On the other hand, many of the Pentecostal and Sanctified churches in the Black Protestant denominations consider all floor members of the church to be saints, as in type (B). This was discussed at length earlier in this forum thread.

13) Does Conjure include other types of spirits as well such as Demons or the Fey? Well, the Devil has his Imps (courtesy of Celtic-Germanic folklore), but Demons and the Fey never made much of a splash in hoodoo. In fact, they are pretty much unknown. I'll tell you what, though, you are more likely to find folks working with "The Lucky Buddha" and "The Lucky Trunk Up Elephant" than with The Fey.

14) Is working with other spirits outside of Conjure considered taboo? "Taboo" means something like practices or customs or foods or activities forbidden by religious or cultural decree. There are no "Hoodoo Police" running around and marking things off-limits or out of bounds or forbidden or "taboo" -- but i will say this: Very few conjure doctors work with Pagan or Catholic spiritual entities. And why should they? They already have good religion and good churches. No need to go running after foreign gods and learning new languages like Spanish and French and Gaelic and cutting the heads off of chickens and goats.

My advice: If you actually want to learn hoodoo, make friends with African American practitioners. If you cannot do that because you live in another nation or on another continent, then read some academic books on the anthropology and ethnography of African American people, not Neo-Pagan books that make use of the terminology of conjure but never describe the real, actual people and their ways of being in this world.

Seriously, this whole "Voodoo-Hoodoo-Neo-Pagan" thing is getting waaaaay out of control and needs to be checked now.

Read back through this thread from the beginning (14 pages long) and click every link. Read or listen to what those links have to offer. It may take you several hours. IT WILL BE WORTH IT.

Here's another song for you, before i take my leave.

"Jesus on the Mainline"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns8bum4civI
Recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959.
Performed by James Shorty, Viola James, and a church congregation.

Jesus on the mainline, tell Him what you want!
Jesus is on the mainline, tell Him what you want!
Jesus on the mainline, tell Him what you want!
Oh, call Him up and tell Him what you want!

If you want religion, just tell Him what you want!

The line ain't never busy, tell Him what you want!

Jesus on the mainline, tell Him what you want!

The line ain't never busy, tell Him what you want!

If you sick and can't get well, tell Him what you want!

He will come in a hurry, tell Him what you want!

Jesus is on the mainline, tell Him what you want!

[Miss Tammie Lee]

Thank you Miss Cat!!!

I hope that the lovely couple I met today will read this thread.

Thank you for the knowledge that you continue to share.

All the Best Always!

Miss Tammie Lee

[catherineyronwode]

You are most welcome, Miss Tammie Lee.

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[Papa Newt]

Well said, Miss Cat. Thank you for your knowledge and wisdom.

[DocMurphy]

Indeed! This is really helpful. That said, their are a lot of folks thinking "Candle and the Crossroads" is genuine conjure around here; the author actually was a speaker at an event here in MN recently (he didn't speak specifically on conjure, more general Pagan philosophical topics). Nice enough fella. Yes, I've read his book. He does infer in the book that his Southern Christian upbringing and what he learned form his momma -- which he calls conjure, accurately or not -- is magic that folks of any religion can benefit from, and does state that using the Bible, its African-American roots, working with the dead, and the living spirit inherent in all things are what Pagans have to accept if they do... but I'd be interested in why his presentation is problematic.

If conjure has regional differences, and cultural admixtures are part of hoodoo's history (and future), and is practiced by folks of differing religions (as is demonstrated here on the forum) what else about this book should be called into question for the benefit of non-Christians who are indeed serious about learning hoodoo?

Please take this in the spirit not of challenge, but of one honestly engaging in discourse with experts, and of good scholarship and accuracy...Yes, I'm in nerdy academicky mode, but a reflection/response to this would be very, very helpful for folks who really do want to do right by conjure. Much obliged if you, ms. cat, and any of you, would be willing.

Murphy
St. Paul, MN

[catherineyronwode]

Murphy, the very fact that this Neo-Pagan writer is teaching that conjure practices involve calling upon, venerating, or petitioning "Papa La-Bas" and "Daddy Death" is all the answer you need. I am not gonna say that his mother did or did not teach him to work that way, but i am gonna say that nobody outside of him has recorded such conjure beliefs from Virginia (his home state) and we do have good, long, strong records of conjure practices in Virginia.

We know that folks in Virginia do not speak French. One can't prove a negative ("nobody there venerated an entity called Papa La-Bas") but we can certainly say, "In Virginia, conjure (often spelled 'cunjure') is a regional name for African American folk-magic, and it looks different than what he is describing."

The only place in the USA where the name "Papa La-Bas" is recorded is in Francophone New Orleans. In 1946, Robert Tallant, a former writer for the WPA, put out a book that sought to prove that Haitian Voodoo survived in New Orleans almost 150 years after the last Black Haitian slaves came to Louisiana. He did this despite the fact that others before him had found little evidence of such survivals. Specifically, Tallant wrote of an offering: "The food was for Papa LaBas, who was the devil. Oldtime Voodoos always talked about Papa La Bas." Note clearly that Tallant's description of "oldtime Voodoos" safely relates to the indefinite past; they "talked," they do not "talk" in 1946. His book has remained in print and has been sold in New Orleans tourist shops since that time.

From there we jump several decades to the world of fiction. Tallant became one of the sources used by the African American author Ishmael Reed, in his 1972 novel "Mumbo Jumbo," which cleverly mingled Haitian and American folkways in a fantasy of New York City in the 1920s that was actually built upon elements from the life of the Jamaican Marcus Garvey and the American originators of the Black Muslim movement, such as Nobel Drew Ali. One of the major characters was named Papa LaBas and he was said to perform "hoodoo," although all the details of his work, including "feeding the loas" derived from anthropological and popular descriptions of Haitian Voodoo. Reed was lionized as the new voice of Black poetic fiction and his books -- eventually stretching to several novels -- were taught in universities. His fictional account of Haitian Voodoo-hoodoo in New York City of the 1920s was injected into academic discussions as the "authentic" voice of 1920s Black America -- and this in turn was used to prove that Tallant had been right.

Enter the academic voice of Henry Louis Gates and his repetitiously, endlessly requoted statement about an African deity: "His New World figurations include Exii in Brazil, Echu-Elegua in Cuba, Papa Legba (pronounced La-Bas) in the pantheon of the loa of Vaudou of Haiti, and Papa La Bas in the loa of Hoodoo in the United States." Yes, he was quoting a novel, Ishmael Reed's "Mumbo Jumbo," as his source!

Gates had jumped, via Reed's novels, from Tallant's unsupported and unsourced statement about an "oldtime Voodoo" in which Papa La Bas was a local Haitian-derived name for "the Devil" to "the loa of hoodoo." But hoodoo is not a religion that has loa (lwa) in it! And yet, somehow, this bizarre relationship, in which fiction by a Black author inspired academic "facts" taught by a Black professor, remained largely unnoticed by academics for years. When the voice of "Black Authenticity" spoke, people listened.

This house of cards should have come tumbling down in the mid-1970s, when the 1936-1940 interviews of rootworkers by the folklorist Harry M. Hyatt were belatedly published. Hyatt had interviewed, by his own account, 1,605 African Americans -- including in New Orleans -- and no one had mentioned Haitian loa or Papa La-Bas to him. But no one noticed, primarily because Hyatt was not academically connected, and he was White, and thus his work went into obscurity at that time.

I feel it quite safe to say that had Hyatt's books been published in 1936-1940, before Tallant and Reed and Gates, then Tallant's fantasy, and the strange riff that Reed and Gates built upon it, would have NEVER taken off as truth. However, by the time Hyatt self-published his work in a limited edition, spurned by academia, the fantasy was entrenched in academia. I myself heard it often growing up -- the whole Exu-Eshu-Legba-Papa-La-Bas riff. It seemed so real, so right, despite the fact that i had never found any evidence of it among the hoodoo practitioners i met or the hundreds of old blues songs i collected.

When the great Cuban immigration began to bring Santeria to the East Coast in the late 1970s, the academics took it in stride -- and even though Santeros themselves claimed that the first Santeria initiation in the USA took place in the 1950s, the first move the academics made was to conflate their previous Voodooesque "loa of hoodoo" fantasy with a new Santeria fantasy. Now hoodoo practitioners were secretly worshiping orishas. It was all about the Nigerian deity Eleggua!

Sure, i had read all the anthropological Voodoo stuff. It didn't jibe with what i was seeing in Mississippi, or Oakland, or Chicago, but i toed the party line -- until 1976 when Hyatt 's interviews became available and at the same time i was supposed to suddenly add this whole new Spanish tinge to everything. It wasn't enough to believe that the old Baptist ladies were worshipping loas, i was now supposed to go along with the new academic viewpoint that botanicas were just another form of candle shop. That's when i decided to get off the bus.

Quitting the Tallant-Reed-Gates program was difficult for me -- but when i decided to trust Harry Hyatt's 1,605 interviews instead of Tallant's one sentence, Reed's poetic novels, and Gates' embroidery on them, i joined the outcasts of academia. As recently as the mid 1990s i actually got into a heated argument with a professor from UCLA who claimed that hoodoo was a form of West African Santeria. They really, truly believed this stuff.

It was only in 1999 that cracks began to appear in the academic fortress of "hoodoo loa" nonsense. Gates was by that time a celebrated interpreter of African American culture and had been unquestioned (and often parroted) for decades, but finally Pierre Damien Mvuyekure challenged him, in an essay printed in "The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities," published by the University of Indiana Press.

Mvuyekure was subtle and did not go head-to-head with Gates. Rather, he began by describing Reed's novels and then side-stepped for a paragraph to describe "Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s theory of the Signifying Monkey, a theory partially inspired by Reed's Mumbo Jumbo."

Having established the true flow of influence -- from fiction to academia -- he went on to discretely speak of how "what Gates calls figuration is actually a reconfiguration" and he concluded that what Gates called "an unbroken arc" of spiritual descendency from Africa to Haitian Voodoo to American hoodoo is actually [an] "arc [that] has been broken, refashioned, and then welded."

That's how people call one another out in academia. Quietly but decisively. With politeness.

Do you understand now why the idea that a Neo-Pagan author adapted his ideas from the writings of Tallant, Reed, and Gates (or their derivatives) seems less far-fetched to me than that this Neo-Pagan somehow knows first-hand some secret truth that proves that the Black American hoodoo practitioners of Virginia worship Papa La-Bas?

Of course, the Neo-Pagans have not been following the recent subtle sea change in academic attention. They are still riding on the Tallant-Reed-Gates "hoodoo loas" bus.

And that's why, even now, you will find me talking back to modern White interpreters of Southern conjure, and not only to those who are still parroting the "hoodoo-loa" line, but also to their companions who are telling readers that Hyatt and all his informants were either wrong or not telling the truth.

Now, let's look at that for a minute. Sure, it makes sense that Neo-Pagans who were in lock-step with a discredited academic theory based on a surrealistic novel would keep supporting that theory, because that's all they know, but why would White Neo-Pagans also seek to discredit the work of Harry Hyatt and/or his 1,605 Black informants of 1936-1940?

Well, you see, now that Hyatt's massive work is no longer shrouded in obscurity and anyone can compare the words of his informants to the Tallant-Reed-Gates line, folks who want to support that line MUST claim that Harry Hyatt and those 1,605 Black Americans are somehow wrong. Because if Hyatt and his 1,605 interview subjects were NOT wrong or lying or stupid, and it becomes obvious that all of this Papa-La-Bas-hoodoo loa drivel rests on sand, then modern Neo-Pagans cannot promote the authenticity of their fabulous Voodoo-hoodoo and Santeria-hoodoo pantheons and they will be forced to cede the territory of African American hoodoo back to (gasp) the Christians.

This ... is ... what ... they ... don't ... want ... you ... to ... know ... about:

"We'll Understand It Better By And By " - By The Davis Sisters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwhgR-yvNI4

LOL!

[DocMurphy]

I LOVE IT! Excellent excellent. Thanks SO much for this, ms cat, this just helped clear up a lot for me and fill in a lot of holes. (And it's gotten me ALL EXCITED!)

Frankly, the same holes that were present in Wicca's history until I read Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon". Finally, an academic paper trail and the real origins of the movement... and another book many American Pagans either can't read or won't believe. It's irritating.

This sort of patchy-patchy pseudo-academic approach to presenting created "histories" and "traditions" in Neo-Paganism has been endemic in the movement since Gardner published his first book (in which he did the clever trick of interviewing himself as an informant. Seriously.) I'm part of an academic Pagan Studies/Magical Religion/Esotericism group that has been working hard within the discipline of New Religions to critically engage with NeoPagan trads, only to find that we're at best ignored and in some cases pushed away for these mythical imagined histories that still seduce people new to the movement. (The old hats know better.) The fact that this approach still occurs - of cutting-and-pasting a "tradition" together and presenting it as ancient - is really puzzling to many of us.

I've analyzed it in my research, and you're correct -- there's still an unwillingness to cede any influence on Modern Paganism to Christian Culture. The truth is, all the magic and ritual work NeoPagans do is pilfered from Christian esotericisms, folk magic, and fraternal orders. The ones who know and are honest about this work with it. The ones that don't know, or aren't, well... there are too many of them, and they promulgate these invented "indigenous European trads" to folks genuinely hungry for an ancestral religion, book publishers make big bucks from them, and it just continues to be a big mess.

What you've confirmed for me -- which I've been looking into for quite a while now -- is that NeoPaganism's Eurocentricity is also promulgating -- intentionally or not -- a covert racism. It's that "gee, we're all open minded here, why don't more people of color hang out with us? I just don't understand; they have Pagan roots too, right?" GGGAAAAHHH!!! I have to cut many some slack for simply being a product of the enculturated white privilege this country raises them in, and acquiring the ignorance that comes with it, but it's just been too in-my-face of late to be patient with. The information you have given here is just the sort of trail I need to really launch into a proper critique of race/ethnicity/culture issues in the movement. Thanks so much. And YOU BET you're getting credit.

It's pitiful, really; there was a time when NeoPagans were happy to be creative innovators -- now they've swung to flailing around for ancestral ties. (At least, here in MN.) Most NeoPagans are just people who are looking for roots and to celebrate their own cultural heritage. They just don't know how to research it, and take the word of self-styled "experts" too easily, especially when they present whitewashed histories..... there is also a cohort fantisizing about somehow being an indigenous person somewhere because of the romantic identity politics that come with that notion. (That's a whole other can of live things.) It doesn't help that many of these folks are being presented false traditions and excuses to sidestep the genuine issues around being an American; that much of our identity is colored by our history of genocide, slavery, and apartheid in this country -- and these mythical ancestral tales are simply more comforting than really looking critically at who we are and what we are now accountable for.

For those of us that are actually serious about American folk magic and religion, and its REAL roots, Wicca and other NeoPagan trads alone just don't satisfy anymore; they're too easy to pull apart. interestingly, folks are adding in things that have some historical and cultural weight. It's part of the reason why I'm here and learning more about hoodoo. It's both spiritual and academic for me. And it's the right thing to do.

Anyway... none of this is news to you, I'm sure. Again, thanks for the academic trail, and I will definitely be looking up these sources. Like now. I hope we can correspond on this in the future.

Best,
Murphy
St. Paul, MN

[catherineyronwode]

Murphy,

I will be quite happy to continue this discussion here in the forum. Feel free to quote me, with credit, at any juncture you wish in your research and publications.

You may not be aware of it, but the topic of the recent "shading" of collections of African American hoodoo as variously
(a) Afro-Caribbean and/or
(b) identical to Anglo-American folklore and/or
(c) worthless in comparison to Anglo-American folklore
is under discussion in the internet community at present. People are taking sides. The more heated writers (in some cases bolstered by the dishonest bravado of internet anonymity) are calling names. Those with cooler heads (who use their own real names, generally) are more likely to describe the current spate of Neo-Pagan incursions into hoodoo as a matter of "cultural appropriation."

For my part, i am firmly of the opinion that Southern White folk-magic teachers have chosen the wrong whipping boy when they seek to convince their readers that Harry Hyatt's African American informants "just made things up so they could have the money" (direct quote) and that the folk-magic spells they related to Hyatt were worthless, ignorant, and "plain laughable" (direct quote). For one thing, they're outnumbered. For another, they are going to face stiff opposition from African American and neutral folklorists, as well as from the general African American population.

It would be easy and low to point to Neo-Pagan covetousness of personal attention as an obvious commercial factor that may affect their making of such accusations against Black hoodoo practitioners. It would also be easy to note the cloudy feelings that may arise when one sees White Southern Neo-Pagans claiming that the Hyatt interviews are valueless, while Jewish and Yankee Neo-Pagans do not make such claims. In other words, i am specifically NOT going to discuss the charges of "racism" that have already arisen on the internet.

So, leaving all that aside and speaking from a frame of mind that eschews condemnation while embracing compassion, i have chosen to interpret the unfolding of these claims as a manifestation of White-privileged BLINDNESS to Black America.

I also think i can demonstrate the source of this blindness, not in the wider cultural context of the South and its tangled history, but in the specific cultural context of how folklore studies and their academic publications intersect with the celebration of actual family traditions in the age of internet accessibility.

If you go back to Harry Hyatt's Volume One of Hoodoo-Conjuration-Witchcraft-Rootwork (HCWR) and read his introduction, you will find that he discoursed at great length about the differences between HCWR and his earlier book "Folk-Lore from Adams County, Illinois" (FACI). As he explained, FACI was a geographical survey of folklore and folk magic beliefs, while HCWR was a look at the folklore and folk magic beliefs of one then-segregated population, no matter where geographically located.

In describing why he chose this new tactic for the compilation of HCWR, Hyatt went on to explain that although he was ONLY collecting from African American informants for HCWR, he was well aware that Anglo-Americans also have folk-magic practices and that the two cultures interacted, despite the segregation laws that were in place during the time of of his work.

He then quoted many paragraphs by his professional root doctor informants (as distinguished from his "person on the street" informants) in which they replied to his questions about demography. What percentage of Negroes believe in hoodoo? What percentage of Whites? Do you serve Negro clients? Do you serve White clients?

Some of his professional informants told him that they specialized in serving a White clientele (and Hyatt noted that, during the Great Depression, this would have been more profitable to Black spiritual workers than limiting themselves to serving poor Black clients). He also compiled accounts in which Black clients described the race of their personal root doctors -- Black or White. Some did patronize White root doctors, but Hyatt did not follow through and interview those White rootworkers, for reasons explained below.

From his demographic data, Hyatt drew the conclusion that most Black root doctors averred that about 90% of Negroes "believed in" hoodoo at the time he was collecting, and that these same Black professionals figured that 40% - 60% of White people also "believed in" hoodoo or SOME FORM of folk magic. He then applied a cost-benefit ratio analysis to his proposed folklore collecting project and decided that the percentage of respondents would be higher per mile travelled and week spent on the road if he limited his work to Blacks. In other words, he CHOSE not to interview Southern Whites and to collect a core-sampling of Black folk-magic only. He said this, and explained why, precisely and clearly.

That decision on Hyatt's part -- to ignore Southern White folklore -- leaves a lot of White newcomers to hoodoo confused and feeling disenfranchised. "My momma did some of this too and WE weren't Black" is the burden of their refrain of complaint when they encounter the Hyatt interviews.

So, how can these White Southern Neo-Pagan authors reconcile the differences between the White Southern folklore of their ethnic heritage and the Black Southern folklore so massively displayed by Harry Hyatt? And how can they feel "included" in the current online interest in African American hoodoo?

The obvious answer would be for them to start on the solid basis of understanding their own culture first, before looking into hoodoo. We could help them out by telling them to ask their own families, their White neighbors, and their White friends, about folk-magic. We could suggest that they read the Foxfire books of the 1970s and consult the works of Vance Randolph, B. A. Botkin, and Wayland Hand.

But ... no ... that's not enough for them. Hoodoo suddenly got popular on the internet and they want THEIR share of the fame and interest NOW. So they resort to explaining the differences between their family customs and beliefs -- WHITE Southern folklore -- and Hyatt's collected interviews -- BLACK Southern folklore -- by attempting to discredit both Hyatt AND his Black informants! If all of the differences are discounted as "useless junk" (a direct quote) and are made to go away, then what remains will be only the similarities, the folklore that THEY know, namely WHITE Southern folk magic, which they believe to be the only right, proper, and authentic form of folk magic.

In other words, they are displaying a fundamental ignorance of, and disrespect for, Black culture by trying to claim hoodoo as their own through the avenue of discrediting Hyatt's interview subjects.

Some of them go a step farther, attempting to remove Black folk-magic even farther from their own Southern White communities as, paraphrasing Mvuyekure, they "break, reconfigure, refashion, and weld" it into a fabulous and fantastic construct of Haitian Voodoo and Cuban Santeria with Catholic overtones.

In short, they are re-exoticizing hoodoo as the magic of the "Other" so that they can claim the re-enchantment of their own culture under the popular names of hoodoo and conjure.

[DocMurphy]

Ah, this is very very helpful. Thanks, ms. cat.

This particular Southern pattern was one I wasn't aware of -- issues around race, culture, religion, and magic take a different form up here in MN. (Worthless? Ignorant? Seriously?)

I just wrapped up a chapter critically engaging with NeoPagans' use of what reseracher Paul Johnson calls "secretism"in his work on Candomble houses in Brazil (2002); the pattern is the same. NeoPagan initiatory "secrets" aren't anymore, so in order to pull rank and status as an authority figure in these communities, the promotion of the reputation of having secret ancestral or family knowledge is what's used to compete with other houses for the precious resource of apprentices now that the religion itself and its traditions are a matter of public knowledge. Houses are in heavy competition with each other, and have to convince dedicants that they have something that the others don't. The fact is, they don't.

This sort of thing is still prevalent in some NeoPagan regional communities, with authors and purported lineage heads claiming secret indigenous European traditions, when much of what they present is a)fabricated or b) pasted onto similarly bricolaged work by the old English authors. The ironic thing is if folks in the NeoPagan community were still critically reading Gardner, Cochrane, Leland and the other older works, they'd be able to spot this. But they keep falling for it. Chas Clifton called this the "Grandmother" pattern (2006). Collect a bunch of random occult philosophies, appropriate some folk magic, invent a story about being initiated by your gramma or some other old lady and... bam. Traditional European witchcraft tradition. He does a fine job of skewering this old habit, depsite this, it still happens -- the ethnicity of said tradition is just what changes. (The whole "Celtic" fad in the 1990's gave way to "Norse" trads, then "Tuscan"... lots of busy old world grammas, if you were to believe any of it.) And,of course, the authors or teachers can claim all the expertise they wish in their invented gramma's tradition. How convenient.

So now they've exhausted European histories and are picking at hoodoo. Hm. I guess I shouldn't be surprised this sort of thing is happening re: hoodoo and NeoPagan appropriation, but it seems particularly brash. You're right, it's yet another example of eschewing historical and anthropological documentation for the perceived status being the head of a mythic history/lineage promises. And the uncritical use of the Internet. It actually sounds like it's gotten worse since I began collecting data. Man.

(FWIW, attitudes up hear in the icy north toward African and African-American culture and religion is one of respectful distance to outright nervousness. It's all under the umbrella of , "well that's not my culture, so I'll leave it be". I'm trying to remind folks that if you are an American, African-American culture is part of your culture. They just don't discern how much of our culture is African-American, especially in religion, the arts, literature... on and on... I know too many Pagans who are intimidated by it; a bottle of uncrossing oil makes them uncomfortable. If they know anything about hoodoo -- as hoodoo, not as hoodoo repackaged as gramma's witchcraft -- it's a system of magic you don't mess with... and they mistakenly associate it with Ifa Diaspora religions and orishas and not Baptist Christianity. Again, not good information, and no real desire to find it. Anyway...)

This pattern of taking hoodoo away from its documented history in African-American culture and reworking it into another invented lineage is easy to unravel, and, you're right, won't last long. We in anthropology began discerning between "appropriation" and "misappropriation" when it came to these issues; Magliocco (2004) stuck it to anthros by reminding them that cultural diffusion and admixture has always occurred; "appropriation" only came in to use when cultural tradition became "cultural property" and a commodity to be given, taken, stolen, and cashed in on. "Possessing" cultural property gives someone power and status and often economic gain when its bestowed on an eager audience who believes they can possess it too. She accused anthros of creating this concept and making themselves guilt-ridden about it as an academic crutch. And she's right.

I am interested in these more kooky arguments, though... is there a place you can direct me to where this arguing in the Southern NeoPagan context are occurring, especially these really appropriative ones? I'd like to analyze them. If you can, thanks.
And thanks for being willing to chat about this.

And yeah, I'll be in the practical parts of the forum too -- having an anthro degree sure doesn't make my honey jars work faster.

Much obliged, ms cat.

Best,
Murphy
St. Paul, MN

[catherineyronwode]

As a side-note, it may be valuable to theorize as to why these Neo-Pagans and White Southern interpreters of folk-magic are tilting at the windmill of Hyatt, publishing statements like, "I think most of the stuff Harry M Hyatt wrote is bullshit. That doesn’t make me a racist it makes me a person who knows HER heritage.''

Why single him out for ridicule?

I believe that this has occurred because, as they themselves make apparent, these White authors are not very familiar with earlier collections of Black folklore, either academic or anecdotal; they are not engaged in primary exploration of present day Black culture; and they are unfamiliar with alternative, non-academically-mediated sources of historical Black folk-magic information, such as the WPA Slave Narratives and the texts of 1920s-1930s blues lyrics.

To them, it may have seemed that Hyatt was publishing Southern folklore, but identifying it as "Negro" and including within it things unfamiliar to them, not of "[THEIR] heritage," which, therefore seemed untenable to them. They believe Hyatt to be the ultimate African American hoodoo folklore collector, since they know no others. By discrediting his work and impugning the veracity of his interviewees, they may think they can stop up the free flow of information about African American culture and make themselves the gatekeeper-interpreters of all Southern folk-magic. Furthermore, by denying their reliance on written texts that describe specifically BLACK folklore, they can become the inheritors of their own WHITE "grandmother stories," to quote Chas Clifton's term. (For those following this discussion in later years, see Clifton's 2006 book "Her Hidden Children," especially Chapter 5, on "self-invention.")

Of course Hyatt's work is the largest collection of African American folk-magic ever assembled, but academics function in the world of scientific method. They do not calculate a source's value by its size alone, but also ask, "Can this data be independently confirmed?" And in Hyatt's case, it can be. The same material can be found in the earlier works of Leonora Herron, Alice Bacon, Mary Alicia Owen, and Newbell Niles Puckett and in the songs of Arnold Wiley, Jim Towel, and the Memphis Jug Band. To discredit Hyatt's 1,605 African American informants as "a dangerous crock" (direct quote) accomplishes nothing in the end, because researchers can read the exact same spells in a transcription of the lyrics to Sara Martin's 1925 recording of the blues song "I'm Gonna Hoodoo You."

Ultimately, given the number of independent data points collected by Hyatt in so many cities for so many years, the attempt to categorize the material as "foolishness" (direct quote) takes on the tone of a conspiracy theory:

One thousand six hundred and five Black people, from Macon, Georgia, to Memphis, Tennessee, told Hyatt the same things -- and if they were all telling the same lies to fool a White man, then they must have been in secret communication with one another. But what about Sara Martin, back in 1925? Surely she had no idea that Hyatt 's informants were planning this massive bamboozlement in 1936 -- or did she?

You see where this logic leads?

[nagasiva]

hi Doc Murphy,

...This sort of patchy-patchy pseudo-academic approach to presenting created "histories" and "traditions" in Neo-Paganism has been endemic in the movement since Gardner published his first book (in which he did the clever trick of interviewing himself as an informant. Seriously.)

to be fair, Doreen Valiente, the Ferrars, and later Margot Adler did a service to rational scrutiny of Neopagan standards. factions have developed and publishing of break-out, do-it-yourself tradition-making hasn't made things easier. I do think it is somewhat unfair to hold religious to a very high standard in respect of history or sociology. the track record shows us a very spotty result from most religious through the course of time. it isn't completely fair to expect enthusiastic devotees to refrain from romance, or to divorce themselves from emotionally reporting what inspires them. I think that as long as we can find sites such as Ceisiwr Serith's analysis of the Charge of the Goddess, then things are headed in the right direction.

I'm part of an academic Pagan Studies/Magical Religion/Esotericism group that has been working hard within the discipline of New Religions to critically engage with NeoPagan trads, only to find that we're at best ignored and in some cases pushed away for these mythical imagined histories that still seduce people new to the movement. (The old hats know better.) The fact that this approach still occurs - of cutting-and-pasting a "tradition" together and presenting it as ancient - is really puzzling to many of us.

I think the dynamic you have to become familiar with is religious devotion on a 'bhakti' mode. heavy skepticism and rational scrutiny simply aren't necessary for engaging this, and the aim isn't to come to intellectual positions of defensible fact. the aims are at odds in some cases and this is fine.

...there's still an unwillingness to cede any influence on Modern Paganism to Christian Culture. The truth is, all the magic and ritual work NeoPagans do is pilfered from Christian esotericisms, folk magic, and fraternal orders. The ones who know and are honest about this work with it. The ones that don't know, or aren't, well... there are too many of them, and they promulgate these invented "indigenous European trads" to folks genuinely hungry for an ancestral religion, book publishers make big bucks from them, and it just continues to be a big mess.

and of course there is more than one faction of these; I am witness to a number of heated religious conflicts about lineage, history, and authority within specific trad-Wicca and similar contexts. those who follow out the self-initiation model as from within books such as those by an author whose work is popular here (Scott Cunningham) often come directly into conflict with those who are line-bearers from the actual initiatic authorities downstream from Gardner. thus, the argument isn't even always whether we're talking about ancient survivals or revivals, but why Wicca is authentic in certain forms and how. religion diversifies based on differences of opinion such as these, and Neopaganism is not alone in sporting these types of disputes.

What you've confirmed for me -- which I've been looking into for quite a while now -- is that NeoPaganism's Eurocentricity is also promulgating -- intentionally or not -- a covert racism. It's that "gee, we're all open minded here, why don't more people of color hang out with us? I just don't understand; they have Pagan roots too, right?" GGGAAAAHHH!!!...

I have seen less of that and more simple understanding that one is more likely to find people of the same ethnicity congregating amongst those whose focus is something cleaving to what claims to be a survival from a largely ethnic region (Celtic, British, Irish, etc.). I've noticed a sizable subset talking about Kemetic religion, but just as much there was a dearth of Asian, Arabic, and Indian participant, and i think it would have been unfair to have characterized them as promulgating covert racism just because of this absence. yes, those who spread their 'pagan' term (newly revivified as 'Pagan') to all non-Jews, non-Christians, and non-Muslims can be understood as only slowly emergent from a Christian encrustation. their notions haven't been challenged sufficiently to understand the severe limitations of awkward and culturally myopic views.

...just the sort of trail I need to really launch into a proper critique of race/ethnicity/culture issues in the movement....

make sure you ask them some of the same questions that i did about Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism all of which i was studying. they had little to no interest in these, even though the I Ching and Tao Te Ching got STRONG support in Western publishing such as in coalition with Wilhelm/Baynes/Jung or in the wake of James Legge, Dover, etc.

...there was a time when NeoPagans were happy to be creative innovators -- now they've swung to flailing around for ancestral ties. (At least, here in MN.) Most NeoPagans are just people who are looking for roots and to celebrate their own cultural heritage. They just don't know how to research it, and take the word of self-styled "experts" too easily, especially when they present whitewashed histories.....

I chat with Neopagans and other odd religious quite often, and i think it may be helpful to identify the socioeconomic class, ethnic background, educational level, and general geographic area of those whom you are describing. I met quite a few Neopagans happy to explore and innovate in the San Francisco Bay Area, a good number of them from families emphasizing solid education and/or quite used to serious scrutiny sufficient to give them heavy doubts about all this ancientness. different lines of Gardnerianism, for example, provide different notions of what the liturgies and ethics mean, liberal in 'California Line' and conservative in 'Kentucky Line' factions. without having, oneself, a large view of the religion and its composition these kinds of streams of myopia and broad-mindedness might be overlooked. is MN by any chance a bit more conservative than CA?

...For those of us that are actually serious about American folk magic and religion, and its REAL roots, Wicca and other NeoPagan trads alone just don't satisfy anymore; they're too easy to pull apart. interestingly, folks are adding in things that have some historical and cultural weight. ...

this time period and the rising global communications technology is a factorial multiplier contributing to a phenomenon that hit 'folk music' in the mid-20th century: at what point will it become impossible to identify 'folk culture' due to the 'contamination' by computers, mini-web-browsers, television, radio, and easily delivered books? when shall we rule that folk music can no longer be found by virtue of a suffusion of radios and discs? what shall signal the death of folk art in the mechanisms social and technical required to complete sales and persist as a supplier? what is the likely lifespan of folk magic in a determination of its folk quality, likewise? if you determined that all religions will pull apart like this, and that it is just easier with more recently constructed groups and their curriculum vitae becoming better documented and transparent to researchers, would this change your attitude about religious witches and pagans?

much as we had our disagreements about so many things, one of those that Carroll Poke Runyon and i always seemed to find solid overlap of perspective on was the importance of what he called (dubbed?) charter mythos. I accepted this as a facet of beginning religious. sort of like a starter yeast batch, or a seed syllable from which a complex religious composition might be based, the charter mythos need not be founded on anything real, and yet it may have the desired effect long-term. such functionality is plain within extremely novel groups such as Satanists who purport anything from ancient connections to Zoroastrian, Egyptian, or even Sumerian gods to serious estimations identifying emerging Satanism from the Illuminati, transdimensional or extraterrestrial races. is this really more unbelievable than the tremendous diversity to be found amongst their elder religious? I don't think so, it just gets spiffed up with science fiction, fantasy, and the latest popular narrative. it is reasonable to expect that religious and scientific social motivations will for the foreseeable future promote and derive different types and calibres of knowledge.

thanks for posting here. excellent conversation.