Historical and Contemporary Hoodoo Root Doctors, Practitioners, Fortune Tellers, and Shop Owners

[BroderickG]

You don't think this was written by a local source and sold to the british paper? I thought that's how these things are done usually.

[rev.jordan]

Wanted to share a more recent article I stumbled upon: http://www.southmag.com/Dec-Jan-2017/Lo ... t-Doctors/

I'm heading back to NC for the weekend and plan to visit Ms. Sara Murphy's grave again.

[catherineyronwode]

Thanks for sharing that link. That's an interesting overview.

[MissMichaele]

Brother Elijah Mose, thank you for that link. I'm looking forward to reading some of the books quoted therein. Thank you, Jesus, for Interlibrary Loan

[MemphisRoots]

Me and a few friends visited Aunt Caroline Dye in Newport a couple weeks ago. It's about an hour drive from home. If anyone could appreciate current pics I figured it would be someone on this forum lol. I've been lurking here for a while and thought I'd make a profile so I could share.
I added six new photos here, on 4/28/18:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/454 ... -tracy-dye
Blessings to y'all.

[MemphisRoots]

Not all of them have completely disappeared -- Lucky Heart still exists in Memphis.

[catherineyronwode]

Hi, MemphisRoots -- and welcome to our forum!

Yes, Lucky Heart still exists. They distributed herbs and they did manufacture spiritual supplies, especially before 1950.

Lucky Heart is a notable company, with an admirable history, and was the chief funder of the purchase of Lorraine Motel and its conversion to a civil rights museum. However, it is important to note that Lucky Heart primarily sells cosmetics now -- which was always part of the company's mix -- and has moved away from outright occult, metaphysical, and spiritual supplies. You can read a great write-up on the history of the Lucky Heart company in Carolyn Morrow Long's book "Spiritual Merchants."

For those with a further interest in old-time hoodoo herb and hoodoo product suppliers and vintage advertising art, my new book, "The Art of Making Mojos," contains four pages of vintage illustrations of ads for mojo hands from the Oracle Products Co, King Novelty Co., Famous Products, J. C. Strong, and Sovereign Products. Artists include Charles C. Dawson, Charles M. Quinlan, J. C. Strong, and a couple of Unknown Artists.

[catherineyronwode]

MemphisRoots --

Thank you very much. That is a nice addition to the FindAGrave site.

[ain sophist]

There is an update on Dawn J. Bennett. the fraudster with the freezer spell. She was convicted.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryla ... story.html

Not really worth posting except I was heartened that her personal beliefs were not dragged into the trial, considering the recent divisory political climate.

[hboston23]

As an African American woman, witch, and root worker from Texas, I found this article very interesting. I am not, and have never been, one to adhere to any type of exclusionary groups, whether they be covens, churches, or anything else. I am always willing to take in knowledge whether it be from the European traditions, Native American, or Eastern. However, there have been many moments during my spiritual journey that I longed to see more people who "looked like me" or were raised in similar backgrounds and hearing about their own journeys and practices.

While I know there is some debate amongst Hoodoo practitioners about whether or not the origins stem from the Orisha centered traditions of West Africa, or are more closely associated with the deities and practices of the Congo, this is still an interesting article for me, mostly because it acknowledges the dual partnership and integration of Christianity with the African Spiritual traditions for today's young witches or color.

Disclaimer: I am not promoting any particular group with this post

Check it out!

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... SEpqcnu6mQ

[Nytalia]

Can't really access the link anymore

[RevJames]

Here is a cached page link of the original page:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

& here is the UPDATED Archive link:
https://chesnuttarchive.org/Works/Essay ... tions.html

[Nytalia]

Thanks!

[ain sophist]

Canada overturned a law prohibiting "anyone who pretends to exercise witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, conjuration or fortune telling, or claims to have the ability to find lost or stolen objects". Problematic workers now fall under general fraud laws.

The Washington Post: Canada decriminalized fake witchcraft. But it was too late for the ‘white witch of the north’.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... tch-north/

[nagasiva]

Dianne Reber Hart wrote an article for the Press Democrat in Sonoma County for which Christopher Chung took a bunch of really cool photos. You can find it here:

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9644 ... lucky-mojo

[Miss Athena]

How wonderful! The photos are very cool indeed, and the article is respectfully written (although I love how he calls the shop "THE Lucky Mojo"). Very nice bit of press!

[catherineyronwode]

Athena, we loved that article and those photos!

Maybe that "the" is a rural thing? We buy groceries at The Safeway, get gas at The Circle K, pick up fast food at The Burger King ... and purchase our candles and oils at The Lucky Mojo. When i lived in Missouri, we shopped at The MFA, got gas at The Texaco Station, bought fast food from The Dairy Princess, and watched movies at The State Theater.

[Miss Athena]

Wow, I never thought about a geographical bias or sociological syntax. When I lived in San Francisco, I got into a weird habit of calling it The Safeway (and only that one store), but I thought I was just having a brain freeze. Perhaps I picked it up by overhearing it. Very interesting.

[catherineyronwode]

I just completed the coding and uploading for a new page at my Southern-Spirits site, documenting 19th, 20th, and 21st century hoodoo through old newspapers and periodicals.

This story concerns a rootworker named Dr. Rabo of Palm Beach, Florida, in 1942, and it comes with the unlikely title --

"Diamond Brooch is Sold for 75 Cents in Negro District."
http://www.southern-spirits.com/anon-ro ... orida.html

[catherineyronwode]

I just coded and uploaded a new page at my Southern Spirits archive, documenting 19th, 20th, and 21st century hoodoo through old newspapers and periodicals. This is the second interview about hoodoo given by the famed New Orleans jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton. The first part, concerning hoodoo in New Orleans around 1910, has been online at the site for a while, so they make a nice pair now.

Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton:
Hoodoo in New York, 1935: Jealous Rival, Cursing Powders, and Madame Elise,
Interview conducted by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress, 1938.
http://www.southern-spirits.com/morton- ... -york.html

This brings the number of articles at the site to 37 as of today. See the index here:

Introduction to the Southern-Spirits archive
http://www.southern-spirits.html

Enjoy!

[ain sophist]

Atlas Obscura sent me this one today: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/w ... d-africans
what haint blue means to descendants enslaved africans?
As it says on the tin - Indigo, along with some brief discussion of root workers.

[catherineyronwode]

A Witch Bottle from the Civil War era found in Virginia:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/ ... -virginia/

[catherineyronwode]

Tech Team Report 01/28/20 The Paschal Beverly Randolph Page is LIVE!

The AIRR Tech Team met today for a fun and productive session. In attendance were Jeremy, Miss Michaele, nagasiva, Lady Muse, and catherine.

Thanks to text pre-written by cat, we were able to edit and illustrate the Paschal Beverly Randolph page in 3 hours. The result is a new page filled with historical and magical information on one of the great African-American Spiritualists, sex magicians, psychic readers, and root doctors of the 19th century.

The Paschal Beverly Randolph page is here:

http://www.readersandrootworkers.org/wi ... y_Randolph



And, if you would be so kind, please hop on over to the AIRR Facebook page and share the news!

https://www.facebook.com/ReadersandRootwork

[catherineyronwode]

Tech Team Report 02/04/20 The Aunt Caroline Dye Page is LIVE!

The AIRR Tech Team met today for a fun and productive session. In attendance were Jeremy, Miss Michaele, nagasiva, Papa Newt, and catherine.

Thanks to text pre-written by Miss Michaele, we were able to edit and illustrate the Aunt Caroline Dye page in 2 1/2 hours. The result is a new page filled with historical and magical information about one of the greatest African-American Spiritualists, psychic readers, and root doctors of the 19th and 20th centuries. .

The Aunt Caroline Dye page is here:

http://www.readersandrootworkers.org/wi ... roline_Dye

[catherineyronwode]

Tech Team Report 03/31/2020 The Dr. Jim Jordan Page is LIVE!

Our weekly AIRR Tech Team meeting featured some fantastic work that you will be very interested to hear about. In attendance were Miss Michaele, Dr. Jeremy Weiss, nagasiva yronwode, catherine yronwode, and Papa Newt stopped by!

Thanks to Miss Michaele, who created this great page and to Miss cat who contributed some additional content and editing on this brand new page about the fabled Dr. Jim Jordan, the well-known African-American psychic root doctor and healer of Como, North Carolina. Dr. Jeremy and Nagasiva provided technical support.

The Dr. Jim Jordan page is here:

http://readersandrootworkers.org/wiki/Dr._Jim_Jordan

[catherineyronwode]

Tech Team Report 06/01/2020 The Dr. E. P. Read Page is LIVE!

Our weekly AIRR Tech Team meeting was dedicated to the great Black root worker, Dr. E, P. Read. In attendance were Miss Michaele, Lady Muse, Dr. Jeremy Weiss, Mama Vergi, Papa Newt, nagasiva yronwode, and catherine yronwode. While Miss Michaele worked on her "Soul" project, Dr. Jeremy updated his booking page, and Mama Vergi added herself to the page on Spiritual Suppliers, Miss cat got right to work on the creation of the brand new Dr. E., P. Read page, celebrating the life of a beloved African American conjure worker, herbalist, astrologer, entrepreneur, and political activist of the first half of the 20th century. Nagasiva scanned a photo from cat's ephemera collection to illustrate the page, then proofread the page, and provided technical support. Dr. E. P. Read is a man you will want to know about!

The Dr. E. P. Read Page is here:

http://readersandrootworkers.org/wiki/Dr._E._P._Read



We shall now move to social media, to share Dr. E. P. Read at the AIRR page on Facebook, here:

https://www.facebook.com/ReadersandRootworkers

[nyalisa_13]

Interestingly, I see the idea that the spiritual baths in Hoodoo go closely with Jewish tradition, but specifically, Kaballah tradition is certain way.

[catherineyronwode]

nyalisa_13 --

After Emancipation, as Black Americans with an interest in world-wide magical studies gained educatioal opportunities, many of them did indeed study the Kabbalah. The most popular of these books in the hoodoo community has long been "The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses." The members of AIRR wrote a page about it here:

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses Kabbalah Grimoire in Hoodoo
the-sixth-and-seventh-books-of-moses-ka ... 93548.html

And in time, that gave rise to a more modern book combining Jewish Kabbalah with late classical magic and political pan-Africanism:

The Mystery of the Long Lost 8th, 9th, and 10th Books of Moses Hoodoo Grimoire
the-mystery-of-the-long-lost-8th-9th-an ... ml#p408445

Recently the AIRR Tech Team has been adding new illustrated pages on the Kabbalah (as well as on Native American visionaries, and African-American Root Doctors). For a list of that is new on the topic, just head on over to this section of the Lucky Mojo Forum and scroll through the page:

Free AIRR pages on Magic, Divination, and Spirituality
forum232.html

[nyalisa_13]

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, Catherine! I had a feeling it somehow connected, history always works miracles in explanation!)

[ain sophist]

https://globalnews.ca/news/7180307/lemo ... coquitlam/
I saw a follow up with someone trying to cover...‘it’s a love spell’ lol!

[catherineyronwode]

ain sophist --

The Lemons story made me laugh! Guess the intended victim is a hiker who uses that trail!

[OnyxRose]

I’m late posting here, but I found out recently on YouTube (like, several months ago) that Geetchies actually came from Sierra Leone. I’m not sure if it were all or most of them. But there was even one video that seemed to show the President of Sierra Leone visiting them on the Islands off the Carolina coastline...apparently to acknowledge them.

It was a surprise to me, because my mom told me as a kid that we were part Geetchie. She said it only once, but the name was strange enough for me to remember. Later when I grew up, I discovered only a couple of women who claimed Geetchie heritage, one in person and one on a video online. Those were even bigger surprises, since I thought we were the only ones. (I live on the Left Coast.) So I knew about Creoles, but not Geetchies.
Since I thought maybe Geetchie was an African tribe, I asked someone at where I worked at the time who happened to be from Africa if she heard of them. She said “no,” of course. I thought that was strange. However, later I asked a Native American, and she enthusiastically told me she absolutely had heard of them. I was totally confused then. Like thinking, “Were Geetchies actually Native American? I saw grandma had skin as dark as India ink when mom and I once visited her and grandpa in Valdosta, Georgia for Christmas vacation, but....” It didn’t make sense.

Me, being clueless.

At the risk of saying too much about myself, great grandma Darkas...the woman whom The Federal Writers’ Project called Aunt Darkas...was on my mom’s side of the family. And she just might have been Geetchie, since mom had only one African line in her family, and that was female...her, her mom, her grandma...all the way back to when a woman and her son were bought from an African chief for what I would consider as some worthless trinkets. (That certainly wasn’t money as we would recognize it.) The name “Darkas” was peculiar enough for me to think there probably weren’t that many people in the US with such a name, let alone women. (I even mispronounced it in my head as a kid. “Darkas? Is it Darkas...or Darkness? She must have really meant “Darkness.” [insert total red-faced embarrassment here]) Anyway, there was probably only one “Darkas,” and I’m almost willing to bet she was my great grandma, and that she was Geetchie.

Okay, that was weird to type. I’m just an ordinary person. Mentioning notable people in the family makes me nervous.

[Rapacia]

You can find all five Middleton volumes on archive.org. At least as of now. I mention this to report possible copyright infringement, not to suggest its existence on archive.org as a legitimate way to obtain the material.

Also, a site called Memphis Conjure claims to sell the volumes as downloads, $10.00 each.

Who owns the copyright to Middleton's books?

[whitestar]

In reading the articles, I got to "Ancient Beliefs Still Alive In Georgia" ( http://www.southern-spirits.com/schanch ... twork.html) and noticed that you hadn't managed to find the original Macon Telegraph article.

Well, I spent some time spent picking at the puzzle and it's resulted in success. I thought I should let you know, so you can have the original article and correct attribution rather than a second-hand source. The 'real name' of the article in the Macon Telegraph is "Voodoo Roots" from August 20, 2000, printed on page 1-A. There do appear to be some small differences between the Telegraph article and the second-hand one.

Additionally, there appears that the article was one of a pair of articles. The other one is "Seeking the Root of Knowledge" from August 21, 2000 on page 1-A.

How would you like me to share these with you? Just paste them into a post?

[catherineyronwode]

Thank you so much for the research -- and paste them in, please!

[whitestar]

Macon Telegraph, The (GA)
August 20, 2000
Section: A
Edition: HOME
Page: 1

VOODOO ROOTS
Don Schanche Jr., The Macon Telegraph

When drug agents kicked in the door of Minnie Pearl Thomas' trailer at 5 a.m. March 12, 1999, in the tiny community of Allentown, they walked into an eerie scene.

On the dresser in her dimly lit bedroom they found an altar. On the altar burned several candles. And on the candles were fastened written notes, asking for the spirits' help with love, money and protection from the law.

The agents were not surprised. They knew that Thomas had been to a root doctor.

It was root work. Since the earliest days of settlers and slaves in this country, the practice, which is akin to voodoo, has flourished in the South. Even in the year 2000, when modern technology has superseded the old ways and Southern culture is becoming more homogenized, root work still thrives out of view from mainstream society.

The candles were not the only root work in Thomas' house.

Peppers were scattered in space above the ceiling.

Powder was sprinkled around the door.

As they rousted the sleepy Thomas and arrested her for trafficking in crack cocaine, they learned about the powder.

"She said it was Law Stay Away powder," said Wilkinson County Sheriff Richard Chatman.

But even that was not the end of the root work.

From wiretaps and other investigative techniques, the agents knew that Thomas had buried a dead chicken on her property to protect her from harm.

"Minnie Pearl believed in it so much, she hid her dope outside where everyone could see it," Chatman said. "The people (nearby) believed in it, too. They wouldn't mess with her stuff."

The Ocmulgee Drug Task Force agents in Operation Four Corners had had cause to wonder whether Thomas' root work might have some hidden potency.

"Some of the things we tried to do didn't work. The mojo was on us," said Jeff Duncan, a Milledgeville police officer attached to the task force.

Wilkinson County sheriff's investigator Heath Bache explained that mysterious glitches nearly derailed the investigation. Batteries died in two-way radios. Videocameras quit working. While doing surveillance one day on a drug deal across usually deserted train tracks, the agents got a surprise.

"A train came through right in the middle of a deal," Bache said. "Working that case, it had me wondering. Because everything that could go wrong did go wrong. She was a strange bird."

But apparently her roots weren't strong enough to head off trouble.

Thomas, 44, also known as The Queen Pin, was a longtime drug dealer, responsible for moving four or five ounces of crack each week through the little town where Wilkinson, Twiggs, Bleckley and Laurens counties come together, said Wesley Nunn, a GBI agent who coordinates the task force. Thomas was convicted last month in U.S. District Court in Macon and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Among the others sentenced in the case was a 35-year-old ex-preacher named Sam Rozier from Dublin. After pleading guilty in May to assisting Thomas in her drug trade, Rozier is now serving an 18-month sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta.

Rozier had met Thomas in 1998 and moved in with her not long afterward. He told drug agents she must have put roots on him to make him join her drug scheme.

"If he'd had his way, the roots would have been his defense," Bache said. "He really, really believed that's what happened to him."

Rozier told the agents her spell entered him through the food she fed him.

Full of remorse and shame, he told Bache: "I should-a left those biscuits alone."

THE ROOTS OF ROOTWORK

The agents never identified Thomas' root doctor, but suspected it was someone operating in Toomsboro or Hawkinsville.

It could have been one of many root doctors. Experts say practitioners of the ancient tradition are still scattered throughout the South.

The root doctors offer to help their clients in supernatural ways --- often at steep prices.

Root work is a blend of West African religion, herbal folklore and Christian beliefs mingled together to make a uniquely Southern stew. In its most sincere form, root work taps into an ancient belief that everything in creation --- every rock and every blade of grass --- is filled with with spiritual significance. A practitioner with knowledge of the spirit world can tap into its power.

It's like voodoo, but different, too.

"What is commonly called voodoo is a blend of traditional West African religion with Christianity," said professor Richard Persico, a social anthropologist at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. Persico specializes in rural Georgia and has interviewed several root doctors in his field work.

Voodoo, he said, is a corruption of an African word, Voudun, the word for "spirit." The voodoo practice came to America in chains, as slaves from different tribes were forced together, mixing their own beliefs with those of the slave masters. Those who came through the Caribbean developed a cosmology in which Yoruba gods took on the identities of Catholic saints.

That strain of voodoo, as well as others with a Catholic flavor, are more prevalent along the Caribbean coasts and as far south as Brazil, Persico said.

But on the Georgia-Carolina coast, where Protestant European settlers took control, the religion took a slightly different flavor. It became known as root work, a reference perhaps to the importance of herbal medicine in folklore.

"There's a lot of blend of Native American and African religion and herbalism, as Indians and Africans were enslaved together," Persico said. "Religion, magic and healing were all part of the same package.
"What they all have in common is the notion that supernatural power can be invested in things."
In Georgia and South Carolina, Persico said, root work is still strongest in the coastal islands where the isolated Gullah people maintained closer ties to African tradition than did most African-Americans further inland.

But all over the South, where whites and blacks shared a common culture and developed a kind of intimacy even through the days of slavery and segregation, traces of root tradition spread. Even today, many native Georgians, white and black, can recall having warts "conjured" off their skin when they were children.

Persico said the tradition waned in white society as prosperity paid for better access to modern health care. But in many black communities, where prosperity was a long time coming, the only doctor to be found was the root doctor.

"It remained a much livelier tradition in the African-American community, and especially on the Georgia coast, but it's pretty much wherever African-Americans are," Persico said.

ROOT MEDICINE'S POWER

Persico has seen for himself the power of root medicine.

"I had a student interning in a public health facility around here," Persico said. "Three patients were brought in with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. They said they had roots on them."

When the third patient came in with the same story, the intern suggested that the doctors call Persico for advice.

"I told them, 'If she says she has roots on her, that doesn't mean she's crazy. It's an African-American religious system. Whether or not you or I believe in it, she believes in it. If she thinks it's a problem, it's going to affect her."

Persico suggested they bring in someone to lift the roots.

"They took her to a root doctor and got him to take the roots off her," he said. "She got better. At that point, she believed the medicine was going to work."

It was root work for a benevolent purpose. And that benevolence, Persico suggested, gets lost in the sinister aura that usually surrounds the mention of voodoo or root work.

"That's a little bit of Hollywood, and probably a good dose of racism," he said. "I'd say it's no more sinister than anything else."

Persico said the root tradition has two sides.

"The same person who can help you can also attack you," he said. But he noted that the same can be said of modern Western medicine.

"The same opium product that will ease your pain will also make you a drug addict," he said. "There's a parallel with roots. They can help and hurt."

Some historians believe that the evil connotation attached to voodoo originated in white slave owners' fear of an alien religion that seemed to imbue the slaves with power, dignity and confidence.
"The last thing that slave owners wanted was slaves that had any self-respect, any self-reliance," he said.

As a university professor, Persico maintains a scholarly distance from his subject, discussing it dispassionately. But he admitted that he had a gut-level response to root work, too.

"I believe I would have enough subconscious doubts that, if a root doctor put a curse on me, I would worry a bit," he said. Persico suspects he might have a psychosomatic reaction triggered by the mind's ability to influence the body.

"We all have strange things in the back of our minds at a subconscious level," he said.

A DOLL AND A CURSE

Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills has had such a curse put on him.

In 1994, while investigating the murder of 28-year-old Adletic Glenn, Sills searched the home of her ex-husband.

"When we did a search warrant on his house, back in the bedroom he was staying in, behind the curtain, was hanging a black doll."

It was a voodoo doll. Strips of cotton cloth, dyed black, were hand-wrapped around some kind of stuffing. It was punctured by more than four dozen pins. Pinned to the doll were several names, including Sills'.

The list of names, written on a scrap of brown grocery sack paper, also contained a note: "To whom it may concern is holding him. Hang. Cut him a-loose. Or have all kind of trouble, worries yourself to death until you turn him loose."

Sills believes it was a "death root."

"We clearly knew that someone in his family had gone and paid the root doctor to get a root," Sills said. "They were not able to put a successful death root on me, 'cause here I am."

However, the suspect in the case, 30-year-old Lumpkin Glenn III, was acquitted at trial.

"Maybe it did work," Sills mused.

During that trial, the judge let Sills testify as an expert witness on root work, based on his encounters with the tradition throughout his life. Raised on his grandparents' farm, Sills recalls seeing old people with root bags and having warts conjured off his leg by an old woman. In his work as a law officer throughout Georgia, he used to see more signs of root work than he does today. It could be something as simple as three sticks set on the floor in a deliberate pattern of alignment, or a trail of powder scattered on the ground.

"We're not seeing much of it anymore," Sills said. "And the average police officer seldom recognizes it when he sees it."
In Sills' opinion, "the root doctors are pure con men. What goes into it is whatever the 'right' ingredients are at that time. There is no consistency.... It's whatever the 'physician' prescribes at the moment for the person he's getting ready to take the money from. There is not a Merck manual you can go to look up 'Getting your husband to do right and not go see other women' and fill the prescription."

Because the term "doctor" comes up in root work, some might ask whether root doctors ever run afoul of state medical licensing authorities.

Under state law, anyone who "holds himself out to the public as being engaged in the diagnosis or treatment of disease or injuries of human beings" without a license is committing a felony and can be subject to a $1,000 fine and two to five years in prison.

But it appears that Georgia's root doctors are operating beneath the radar screen of the medical establishment.
Gary Cox, planning director for Georgia's Composite Board of Medical Examiners, said, "To our knowledge, no one is really aware of the medical board going after a traditional root doctor."

Nor are authorities aware of root doctors being prosecuted for fraud.

The secrecy in which they operate may be one reason why.

"Most root doctors won't talk about it because it is a con," Sills said. "Is it a con that someone willingly goes into? Obviously. The stock in trade is mystery and persuasion....

"While I don't believe in voodoo, the mind is a powerful thing," Sills said. "If you believe in it, whether or not it's real, it has an effect."

He recalled a striking encounter with root work that demonstrated its ineffectiveness ... but also left a shred of doubt.
More than a dozen years ago, when he was a police detective in DeKalb County, Sills said he participated in a mass raid on the old numbers racket called "the bug." He and another officer went to serve a warrant on a woman at an East Atlanta apartment.

After knocking unsuccessfully, "finally I rared back and kicked that door," he said.

Inside the apartment, they found their suspect sitting on the bed. Two or three candles were burning. A trail of white powder encircled the bed.

Confronting the officers, the woman warned, "Stop! You can come no further. I am protected."

Apparently she was not protected quite well enough.

"She went to jail," Sills said. But he added another detail suggesting the woman's protectors might have been able to harass if not completely thwart the law:

"I cut my leg real bad, kicking through the door."

VOODOO AT THE COURTHOUSE

Although Sills isn't seeing much root work in Putnam County, it's popping up in other communities not far away.
In June, the McDuffie County Commission took official action to ban root work from the courthouse.

"The courthouse had been voodooed several times," said County Clerk Annette Findley. The problem started about two years ago. Just as each new term of court was about to begin, Findley said, someone would leave a peculiar calling card at the courthouse door.

"They would always use some kind of brown substance," she said. "To me it looked like coffee grounds. People said it was some kind of spice. The people would break three eggs on top of it. It was gooey, messy."

Along with the glop, the visitor or visitors left a trail that looked like sparkling glitter up to the courtroom.

"Once they even put it on the judge's bench," Findley said. "It got to the point where employees started getting nervous, and one even threatened to quit. Something had to be done."

A County Commission's ordinance, passed June 7, makes no mention of root work, only vandalism. And the commission's minutes refer only to "the recent incidents at the courthouse." But everyone knew the commission, in its proper, procedural manner, was attempting to perform a kind of exorcism.

ADVISERS TAKE TO THE AIR

Perhaps coincidentally, McDuffie County is home to a "spiritual adviser" named the Rev. Sister Joyce.

Her radio advertisements on WVKX, Love 103.7 in Irwinton, consist of a personal testimonial delivered in urgent tones by a woman named Teresa.

"I was sick and suffering," Teresa says in the radio spot. She says she visited doctors who could not cure her.

"People who I thought were my friends were my enemies," she says. "Devil worshippers, they were working evil voodoo curses and spells, trying to destroy me and my family." They were trying, she says, to force her into an "insane asylum."

Then she went to see the Rev. Sister Joyce.

"When I did, I was healed that very hour."

The Rev. Sister Joyce is one of at least three spiritual advisers whose ads air on WVKX. Its morning gospel programming and afternoon hip-hop target a primarily black audience in east central Georgia.

In a telephone interview, the Rev. Sister Joyce said her full name is Joyce Adams. And she hastened to correct any misimpression her ads might have left.

"I'm not a psychic. I'm a spiritualist," she said. "I do counseling, mostly on drugs, alcohol and money, kind of like a psychiatrist."

She said she doesn't put "roots" on people, nor does she take them off.

"A lot of people believe they have roots on them," she said. "I do counseling to help them believe there's no such thing."

She repeated, "There's no such thing."

Adams said she knows of some spiritual advisers who charge exorbitant fees up front, but she is not one of them. She said she charges a flat fee of $25 per hour.

"Most sessions go into two hours," she said.

Adams said she is a licensed marriage and family therapist.

As for the claims in her ad, she said, "It's just my advertisement. It's spiritual counseling. I am a full-blooded Christian. Everything I do is strictly through Jesus Christ."

The Secretary of State's Office of Examining Boards has a record of three Joyce Adamses in Georgia. Two are registered nurses; one is a cosmetologist. None of the three is a marriage and family therapist or is listed as operating in Thomson.

Others who advertise spiritual advice on WVKX include Sister Nina in Milledgeville and Sister Maria in Sandersville. They were not as forthcoming.

Sister Maria, contacted by phone in Sandersville, said she would have to check with her husband before granting an interview.

"I can't do anything without my husband," she said.

A day later, when she called back, her husband, Freddie, came on the line. He declined an interview.

"I don't think we'd be interested in something like that," he said. He explained that spiritual advisers formed a kind of union in the past five or six years and agreed not to advertise in each other's territory. An interview with The Telegraph would infringe on spiritualists in the Macon area, he said. But he saw no conflict in advertising on a radio station that reaches well into Macon.

Efforts to reach Sister Nina were unsuccessful. A man who answered her phone said she would not be available for several days.

Reggie Smith, station manager at WVKX, said the sisters are good customers.

"They pay cash up front and they monitor their commercials religiously," he said.

But business aside, Smith takes a dim view of their work.

"They're targeting the unfortunates of society who are looking for some sort of brass ring, some sort of hope," he said. "They target their wares to the disadvantaged."

He said he heard of one spiritual advisor who bilked an elderly, senile man for thousands of dollars. His family didn't find out until after he died, and they discovered the checks he had written to her.

Smith doesn't discount the spiritual advisers entirely.

"It's like car dealers," he said. "You've got some good and some bad. You've got some in it for faith and some in it for profits."

And he noted that even mainstream religion has its hucksters and charlatans who swindle their followers.

"Personally, I believe God will work for you if you accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior," he said. "That's hard to discuss with someone if they're going to someone who says, 'For $5,000 I will raise the dead.'"

BUYING A MOJO

The commercial end of supernatural practices isn't hard to find in the Macon area.

In the middle of downtown, Colors on Cherry sells a variety of candles and other paraphernalia associated with magic. So does a sister store, A Touch of Magic in Warner Robins.

Kacy Baughier, co-owner of both stores, said her clientele comes from several different traditions: The New Age practitioners, into crystals and the like; older people following the European tradition of Wicca; and root work followers, who are mostly African American.

"I think rather than going away, it's getting more prevalent," she said. Concerning root doctors, she said, "I'd say there are quite a few out there. Mostly what you're going to find is an elder who has lived in a community and built up a reputation."

She added, "On the voodoo thing, we stock a lot of 'Come to Me Oil' or 'Money Oil.'" She also sells John the Conqueror oil and roots, plus a few herbs. And she is not above selling some graveyard dirt or coffin nails.

Her customers, she said, "may be superstitious enough that they won't go get it. I will."

"All of it," she said, "is dressing to focus your energy. If you believe it works, it works for you."

But to find the mother lode of root work supplies in Macon, one must visit The Candle Store in the Cherokee Shopping Center on Pio Nono.

Behind an ordinary-looking exterior in a tiny strip of shops, a customer finds a cascade of candles, oils, powders, incense, mojos, kits and literature centered in the arcane world of roots and voodoo.

All manner of candles are lined up like a wax army, displayed in unsophisticated style in cardboard boxes labeled with photocopied block letters: Cross of Calvary, Orunla, Black Cat, Peaceful Home, Come To Me, Go Away Evil, Guardian Angel, Make A Wish and Road Opener, just to name a few.

Cardboard tubes of powdered incense are lined up, row after row: John the Conqueror, Witchcraft Killer, Victory Over Evil and Grandma's French Love Incense."

And then there are the bottles of oil: Keep Away Enemies, Do As I Say, Domination, Seven Holy Spirits and Stay At Home.

Plus there are do-it-yourself kits. The Go To Court Kit sells for $15. The Break-Up Kit ("Very Powerful --- Everything You Need") goes for $16.99.

The kit for "The Lady Who Cannot Keep Men Friends," also $16.99, has these ingredients:

1 Special Oil No. 20
1 Swallow's Heart
1 John the Conqueror Incense
1 French Love Powder
1 pink candle
1 incense burner.

On a recent afternoon, The Candle Store was doing a brisk business. Two clerks were on duty waiting on three customers. While one man examined the green candles --- green to draw fast luck and money --- another looked over the selection of oils. An older woman was shopping for dream books --- the keys from Professor E.Z. Hitts, Rajah Rabo and Aunt Sally that predict what number to play in the lottery, based on a person's dreams.

"I just work here --- I don't believe in the stuff," one clerk said in reply to a request for an interview.

A customer was likewise skittish about being interviewed for an article on root work.

"No, I couldn't help you with that," he said, explaining that he had come to the shop only to pick up some olive oil for his church. A few minutes earlier he had been discussing the finer points of dream books with one of the clerks, and bought nearly $50 worth of miscellaneous merchandise.

He added, with an innocent tone, "You reckon they got a roots thing going on in there?"

'I COULD BE A MILLIONAIRE'

But quite willing to be interviewed was store owner Don Haywood.

The Griffin businessman is the face behind products such as the "Rev. Dr. Zachariah's Special Herbal Powder," and other brand-name oils and incense mixes like Grandma's, St. Michael's and King Solomon's. He mixes them up in the back room of his shop in Griffin.

Haywood, a 66-year-old, white Southern Baptist, looks more like a conventional church deacon than some kind of voodoo man, in his pleated pants, white jogging shoes and semi-pompadour mane of gray hair.

And indeed, his own beliefs are about as far from his clients' as east from west.

"I don't embrace this stuff myself. I sell it," he said. "It's a legitimate business."

Until 15 years ago, he had a few general retail outlets on the same corner in Griffin where his store now stands. From time to time, customers would ask for the special candles they needed for ceremonies.

He had no idea what they were talking about.

Then, by a stroke of good fortune, he happened to read a newspaper article about a drugstore in Jackson, Miss., that specialized in the candles and oils used in Southern backwoods mysticism.

"I called the druggist in Jackson. He directed me to one of the suppliers."

It was the beginning of a new calling for Haywood.

At first, he bought a little at a time.

"I didn't know what I was buying," he said.

Gradually he built up his stock, and it kept selling.

About 12 years ago, through another serendipitous contact, he met a man who manufactured the stuff. As it happened, the man's personal life was in chaos, and his business was running into the ground. But he didn't mind if Haywood looked around to see how things were done.

"I was able to ramble in the back room and learn formulas and supplies and secrets that you can't buy," Haywood said. The knowledge enabled him to begin mixing his own oils and powders.

"Once you understand the basics of it, you can improvise and mix up and use your imagination," he said.
But you have to know a few things.

For instance, the color black is used to cast off evil and remove jinxes. Blue brings peace in the home. Gold is to hold money, luck, and success. Red is for love, magnetic power, sex, strength and energy.

"If you mixed the wrong color oil, it would just sit on the shelf for months," Haywood said.

Haywood credits the power of positive thinking with the results his clients say they get from the products he sells.

"You wouldn't believe the number of times people come in and say, 'You know that so-and-so you sold me? It worked.'

"If you believe something strongly enough, you're gonna make it happen. That's what happens with a lot of these people."

While Haywood does not put his faith in candles, oils and incense, he does not belittle his customers who do.
"People have a right to believe what they want," he said.

But he added, "We don't pretend to be some kind of reader or soothsayer or prophet or anything. We're in the business of selling products."

He has only two stores, the one in Griffin and the one in Macon.

But he said the market has vast potential.

"We're not even tapping the surface. I could take you to just about any major city and put up a candle store and be a success from Day 1. The potential to expand is unlimited. If I was 20 years younger, I'd be a millionaire from this thing. That's one of the beauties of this business. There is no competition. They're not going to Wal-Mart or Kmart to buy this stuff."

He added, "It's the most fascinating thing I've ever done, and by far the most lucrative."

As it stands, he has his hands full just keeping track of the two stores.

Haywood said he has been trying to sell the Macon store, but when people see its seedy appearance, they can't believe it's making money.

Haywood said the appearance is deliberate.

"You get too upscale, it runs 'em away," he said.

Haywood said most of his clientele is black, although there are a few whites and a growing number of Hispanics.

Most, he said, have one thing in common: "The majority of people who believe this are undereducated people."

While he has no qualms selling the items in his store, he hates to see his clients defrauded in bigger ways.

"There are a lot of scoundrels that come in here and buy this stuff and call themselves prophets or seers or whatever. They just rip these people off like you wouldn't believe. They don't care anything about telling these people, 'Bring me $1,000 and I'll take your case. I'll get your boyfriend out of prison or help you win the lottery or get your girlfriend back.' It's sad that people fall for that."

He draws the line at selling medical goods.

"I don't sell nothing for ailments," he said. "I tell 'em, 'You need to go see a doctor.'"

Haywood said he's on the verge of setting up a mail-order catalog, which will further add to the profits and workload. Other mail-order suppliers, he said, sell the candles and oils at double what he charges.

"I'm cheaper than anyone in the Southeast," he said.

Haywood said his family isn't thrilled about his line of work.

"I'm strictly a Southern Baptist and very involved in it. My wife is very uncomfortable with me doing this, and has been for a long time."

But he harbors no fears about fooling with products that may represent spiritual forces.

"I know what's in most of it," he said. "There's nothing that can hurt you. This is kind of like a kid walking through a graveyard. If you let your mind run away, you can hurt yourself. But there's nothing in walking through a graveyard that will hurt you."

RESPECT FOR OLD BELIEFS

If businessman Don Haywood sees the root work tradition strictly as a business opportunity, Macon physician Harold Katner sees something deeper.

Katner, nationally known for his work treating AIDS patients in Middle Georgia, said he has great respect for the cultural belief system that underlies traditional herbal and spiritual practices bound up in root work.
"I've even incorporated it in my practice with people who believe that sort of thing," he said.

Katner, whose background is in anthropology, studied a mixture of European folk medicine and West African beliefs while at school in New Orleans.

He has seen some memorable encounters connected with root work.

One was an honest root doctor.

His name was Dallas Moore. Now deceased, Moore once operated out of Donalsonville in Seminole County, close to the Georgia-Florida line.

By many accounts, Moore was one of the most famous Georgia root doctors in recent times. He reportedly drew a national following to see him.

Katner said Moore once referred a patient to him.

"The patient had lupus," Katner said. "She had been to several root doctors. They had charged her an arm and a leg. (Moore) recognized that she was severely ill. He said, 'You've got something that I can't fix.' Apparently, he was quite honest."

Katner's most touching experience with root work, he said, came through a Georgia woman who had AIDS. Although she would come to the hospital, she wouldn't come to him for treatment.

A nurse explained, "Somebody put roots on her, and she's afraid."

Compounding her tragic circumstances, she was being beaten regularly by her husband, who believed she had infected him.

"I hear you got roots on you," he said. "I can take 'em off."

Katner said he performed a ceremony with her and gave her a blessed candle to burn if anyone messed with her.

Her husband called Katner later and asked, "What did you do to my wife?"

Katner recalls telling him, "Somebody put roots on her, and I took 'em off. And I told her to call me back if anybody hurt her."

When the woman lay dying of AIDS, Katner went to pay a house call as he customarily does. The family treated him with overflowing, exuberant gratitude. He found it puzzling --- after all, despite his best efforts, she was dying.

A relative explained, "Ever since you took the roots off her, her husband never beat her up again."

Katner was stunned.

"The son of a gun was so afraid of me, he wouldn't touch her," he recalled.

It also gave him a deeper appreciation of the root tradition.

"The beauty of this social system is that it gave women a lot of power," he said. "A woman could go to the root doctor and be protected. There's a reason why these belief systems existed."

He said there is a simple chant that sometimes goes with a Louisiana ceremony to conjure away warts. The petitioner asks the moon, "As you get big in the sky, make my wart go away."

Katner said it taps into an ancient sense of the universe's order, a primordial impulse to pay tribute to the moon and stars.

"What you're listening to is something so ancient and awesome and the belief is so strong," he said. "It's a truly awesome belief system."

To contact Don Schanche Jr., call 912-986-7414 or e-mail Schanche@accucomm.net.

Illustration:Photo (3) by Karen Sparacio/The Macon Telegraph

–Betty Borders checks and restocks the shelves at The Candle Store, which specializes in products used in the practice of root medicine.
--Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills holds a voodoo doll that he thinks was a 'death root' directed at him.
--Voodoo dolls, bundles of yellow roots and Tarot cards are among the items for sale at The Candle Store in the Cherokee Shopping Center in Macon, owned by a Southern Baptist.

Copyright (c) 2000 The Macon Telegraph

[whitestar]

Macon Telegraph, The (GA)
August 21, 2000
Section: A
Edition: HOME
Page: 1

SEEKING THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE
Don Schanche Jr., The Macon Telegraph

It is 6:15 on a hot August evening.

In a small patch of woods not far from Shurling Drive in northeast Macon, a slender man is making his way among the trees, shrubs and weeds.

Dressed in green work pants, a red-and-white-plaid cotton shirt and bright, multi-colored beret, he carries a light mattock and scans the ground.

He is a root doctor.

Monroe Jackson, sometimes known as Dr. I. Root, is searching for the plants whose names and uses he learned some 60 years ago.

Maneuvering his wiry frame easily among the undergrowth, he casts his gaze back and forth quickly and with a purpose.

"Now let's see can we find some Devil's Shoestring, some John the Conqueror Root and some sarsaparilla," he mutters.

Before an hour has elapsed --- and just before a rumbling thunderstorm unleashes a torrent on the neighborhood --- he finds two of the three, plus a half dozen other plants he uses in his work.

He works as a healer, a diviner of knowledge and a remover of evil influences.

In that work, he makes use of plants both for their herbal and spiritual properties.

In the world of Dr. I. Root, there is no distinction between the two.

All things are imbued with spirit.

In fact, he pauses from time to time to say he is aware of a spirit's presence.

"You don't see no spirits, you feel 'em," he said. "I feel 'em now. It can help you or hinder you. It can stop you from finding whatever you're looking for or help you."

At age 69, Jackson possesses knowledge almost forgotten today. In his memory is a lore of native plants handed down by tradition. He buys no store-bought mojo. He makes his own with ingredients he pulls from the ground.

Harriett Whipple, a biology professor at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, has gone through the woods with Jackson and confirmed he has extensive, if somewhat unorthodox, field knowledge.

"He calls them by different names, but he knows them, and he has used them," she said.

Jackson learned much of what he knows from his Aunt Azalene --- a woman, he said, who "was 90 percent Indian." She raised him from the age of 9.

It was 1940, the year his father died, and his mother was unable to care for all four of her children.

"Back then, a wife loses her husband, raising four children was hard. My auntie had to come and raise me and my brother."

They lived, he said, "on the far back side of Unionville." In those days it was all woods and fields. The boy and his root-wise aunt would ramble the woods west of Macon. She taught him all she knew.

"She would carry me and show me all these herbs and things," he recalled. "She would say, 'Sonny, go get me three or four of those leaves back there.' " Then she would mash them up and make a poultice for whatever ailment needed treating.

He knew his calling from an early age.

The first sign came when Aunt Azalene took him to see an old woman up near Forsyth.

"Back then, they didn't call 'em root workers. They called 'em conjures," Jackson said. "She put her hand on my head and said, 'This is a blessed child.'"

He believes it was a laying on of hands, a kind of apostolic recognition of the gift within him.

"I've been at this since a child," he said. "I've felt this is something I must honor."

SHARING THE TRUTH

Monroe Jackson is a friendly man with a striking appearance.

His long, gray hair is gathered into a shock of dreads that he ties behind his head. Two long braids extend from his temples. Wisps of moustache grace his upper lip. Beneath his chin cling a few tufts of beard.
In some ways, he is a very conventional man.

He is a Korean War veteran and worked for years repairing gun turrets on B-52s at Robins Air Force Base. He likes to play golf in his spare time. (He does not claim to be particularly good at it.)

When his wife, Alice, works in the Vacation Bible School at her Baptist church, he helps out by teaching arts and crafts.

He likes to build wood models and make African-style masks out of leather.

But he is significantly unconventional, as well.

He said he can look at a gambler's hands and gauge his luck. Or tell a person how to burn a green candle to bring prosperity. Or aid in determining what number to play in the lottery.

His clients, he said, "have been doing pretty well getting their numbers from me."

He wears a necklace of beads, holding a carved pendant in the shape of a head. "Everything on my necklace would relate to something on earth," he said. The colors red and black on his necklace are for Ellegua, a spirit that opens and closes doors. "If he opens a door, no one can close it," he said.

Yellow and green are for Orunla, a spirit of peace, happiness and long life.

Jackson is an open man with a serious demeanor and a warm smile. His openness comes as a surprise in a field where the masters are reputed to be closed-mouthed.

"It's no longer a secret if I know it," he said. "Once you begin to get the knowledge, you can share it. If a person comes seeking the truth, I'll share it."

For instance, he said, "If you want to get something from an oak tree, bring something yellow." Always, to receive, one must give.

He mentions that hog foot is for treating a cold, fatback draws out poison, garlic keeps away evil spirits and an egg isn't fresh if it comes from the grocery store --- it must be fresh out from under the hen.

And this: "Some things must be done after dark or at a crossroads."

But here he deliberately becomes a bit vague. His openness has its limits.

The specifics, he said, "are something you don't give out. It's like a trade secret."

By way of example, he noted that, "You take a nail and drive it into the ground on a rainy night, it's like a seed. But a man must have knowledge. That same nail can be put in the ground for many different reasons. It's all about knowing the right ingredients and when to use the ingredients and how to use the ingredients."

On one point he was unequivocal: "Voodoo is real. Ain't no ifs, ands or buts about it."

He acknowledges that many people regard it as superstition.

"That don't make it not true," he said. "They got a right to their opinion. I'm not saying I'm right 100 percent, but I believe I'm right 98 percent, and I know 101 percent that the Almighty controls it all. We know that something is going on that is more powerful than human men."

And, he said, belief in root work is widespread. He said his clientele includes people of all races.

"I'd say it's much more (prevalent) than peoples think," he said. "A lot of 'em are in it unknown to others. The women in church have some kind of root bag in their pocketbooks. The men have twisted cords. A lot of people don't want their friends to know.

"People are kind of funny about this. They like to keep it a secret. That's the power of it. If people say 'root man,' they think you're doing something crooked. ..."

He acknowledged that in many instances, people have good reason to think so.

Jackson does not associate with other root doctors.

"The world is so crooked, people will draw you up in something and make you responsible," he said.
Nor does he have any regard for the "spiritual advisers" whose signs pop up along two-lane Georgia country roadsides.

"They're just out there trying to make money," he said with a grimace. "If you ain't got that money, they ain't gonna take your case." He said frauds are the reason that so many people don't believe.

Jackson also said people who mess with roots must understand there is a good and an evil side to them.
"When you boil it all down, it comes down to good and evil," he said. "It's just which one you want to control you. You can be the good person or you can be the evil person.

"Wicked, low-down things can be did," he added. "A person can put worms in you. You can take an egg and destroy a person's life with it ... I know how to do that dirty, low-down stuff, but you get no reward."
For himself, he said, "I believe in walking down the paths of righteousness. You're gonna be protected. I believe that good follows good and bad follows bad."

His own work often involves removing evil influences from others. "People that somebody put something on, that's when I really go to work," he said.

Jackson's daughter, Yolanda Lattimore, a 26-year-old poet with several years of college education, is following in his footsteps, having learned from him the lore of plants and spirits.

"His fundamental principles are what I take with me out in the world," she said. "It doesn't leave you." It's a legacy from her father. People have begun to consult with her, as they do with her father.

Jackson said he is widely known, but he makes no effort to drum up business.

"I don't advertise no kind of way," he said. "I don't pass out no cards."

Nor, he said, does he charge money up front for his services.

"Most people comes to see me," he said. "They find a path that leads to my door. I feel if they're not meant to find it, they won't find it no way."

To contact Don Schanche Jr., call 912-453-8308 or e-mail schanche@accucomm.net

Illustration: Photo(2) by Nick Oza/The Macon Telegraph

–Monroe Jackson, also known as Dr. I. Root, searches for plants such as Devil's Shoestring and John the Conqueror Root in the woods near Shurling Drive in East Macon.
--Monroe Jackson displays an herb that he says can purify blood.

[youaretheone]

Do anyone knows any good root doctors in Charlotte NC?

[coastwitch]

Hello,

Nowadays most root doctors work long-distance as well as in person. Some will even set you up with Zoom or Skype calls, during this time of the pandemic.

I picked the following text up from another thread and I am reposting it here, in the hope that it will be useful to you:

The Association of Independent Readers and Rootworers (AIRR) and Hoodoo Psychics (HP) are both directories for locating excellent and ethical workers. You can get an instant phone reading at HP or you can set up a somewhat less expensive pre-scheduled reading through AIRR. Then, if rootwork is prescribed, your reader will either contract with you to do the work or will recommend someone who can do it, and some root doctors will actually teach you how to do the work yourself, like a DIY cooking class.

Start with these two sites and look them over:

The Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers (AIRR)
http://readersandrootworkers.org/wiki/A ... ootworkers


Hoodoo Psychics at 1-888-4-HOODOO (HP)
http://hoodoopsychics.com


There are two pages at the AIRR site that are also very helpful if you are looking for a reputable root doctor:

Suggestions For Clients
http://www.readersandrootworkers.org/wi ... or_Clients

Questions to Ask Your Reader, Rootworker, or Conjure Doctor
http://www.readersandrootworkers.org/wi ... ure_Doctor

[catherineyronwode]

Tier 1 FEBRUARY 7th, 2021

Hello everyone, and thank you for supporting "It's All Ephemera"!

SIX URLS (of which 4 are regular stand-bys) go out on February 7th, 2021 for Tier 1 Patrons and above as a reward for your ongoing support of my Patreon project,

1) "Dr. E. P. Read" by cat yronwode

[SECRET URL]

This is what you are here for, folks! Here we have the first of what will prove to be several or many pages on the life, lore, legend, and literary legacy of Dr. Edward Parker Read, a pioneering Black pharmacist, herb doctor, astrologer, conjure doctor, and business entrepreneur. Heavily illustrated and meticulously researched. Good for what ails you!

2) Southern Spirits Gets Its Own Wiki:

[SECRET URL]

Rather than try to fit my private Patreon pages for Southern Spirits into the html format at my public site, i asked my dear hsband nagasive to create a wiki at the domain, and he did so. This means that Patrons now have a new way to find the Southern Spirits site.

Of course there is not much on this page, because i do not link to pages for with people have not subscribed, but here it is, anyway, waiting for the day in 2022 that it will be unveiled to the waiting world.

3) The Public Southern Spirits web site:

http://southernspirits.org

Southern Spirits one of my nicest, but least-known web sites. Online since 1994, Southern Spirits brings the ghost-voices of our magical past into the modern age. These are our spiritual ancestors speaking -- both as others heard them and as they told the world about themselves. Listen!

The material at Southern Spirits was gathered from a variety of sources, including old books, magazine articles, newspapers, and even fragments extracted from novels and short stories. It is heavily annotated with interpretive and comparative notes, especially distinguishing between narratives told *by* practitioners and narratives *about* them, particularly when the latter are recounted by derogatory or "amused" white observers.

4) "Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog" Private Forum:

private-patreon-forum-f237.html

As a Patron, you have access to our exclusive threads at the Lucky Mojo Forum! Signing up takes a few seconds, and each thread allows you to participate in discussions with me about the ongoing Patreon page publications. To comment on this week's new pages, or any of the previous posts, please go to my private Patreon forum at the web address above.

5) And remember, if you have any difficulty reaching any of my PRIVATE Patreon forums, you can post a notice and request for help at the PUBLIC Patreon Forum page here:

support-cat-yronwode-on-patreon-t93993.html

6) Please follow me on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/catyronwode

Cordially,

cat yronwode

[Biscaine]

Whitestar wrote: "You take a nail and drive it into the ground on a rainy night, it's like a seed. But a man must have knowledge. That same nail can be put in the ground for many different reasons. It's all about knowing the right ingredients and when to use the ingredients and how to use the ingredients."

I was digging in the ground and cutting roots to make room for a bush on my property last week. While digging into the earth and cutting the roots of a tree with an axe, I found a very large nail buried. It seemed totally out of place. It also reminded me of a similar type nail I found buried on another one of my properties years ago. Maybe these nails were once used for a hoodoo purpose. I put the nail back into the ground.

Biscaine

[catherineyronwode]

Biscaine --

See our Lucky Mojo Forum thread on nails here:

railroad-spikes-and-nails-questions-and ... t5144.html

[Waxworker]

I am curious to know the admins' thoughts on whether or not white people can practice Hoodoo. I have heard different views but all seem to range from strong discouragement to prohibition. I appreciate your wisdom on this. Blessings.

[JayDee]

Waxworker,

There is a long history of many people working Hoodoo, it is not a religion, it does not hav an initiation. It is a blend of African, Jewish, European, Native American, protestant Christian traditions. I know many multi-ethnic individuals who practice hoodoo. You can learn a lot from Miss Cats information on Hoodoo. It is important to honor and respect the history of conjure and learning from those before us, who taught, wrote about it, shared their experiences. Lucky Mojo has a vast amount of knowledge you can learn from.

Hoodoo theory and practice: https://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html

JayDee

[catherineyronwode]

Waxworker,

JayDee is correct. Hoodoo, conjure, rootwork, and other practices identified as African American folk magic have always included some beliefs and methods adapted from Middle Eastern, Native American, and European sources, and along with those sources have come people of Middle Eastern, Native American, and European genetic ethnicity. Even Asian popular folk magic has played a role in forming hoodoo, at least on the West Coast and East Coast.

Can white people practice hoodoo?

Well, let's phrase that another way:

What are the earliest recorded and documented instances of white people practicing hoodoo?

Trick question! You see, the answer depends on who you choose to identify as "white" and how people of the past chose to identify themselves.

Paschal Beverly Randolph. born in 1825, was a mixed-race man who often "passed for white" and hung out in white social circles. His first wife was black, and his second wife was a white woman of Irish descent with whom he had a child. He practiced and wrote about hoodoo well into the 1870s. He never did call himself a "black" man, an "African" man, a "Negro" man, or a "coloured" man, which were terms of respect during his lifetime, although he is proudly claimed as such now, long after his death. The question is -- did his white clients see him as "white"? Apparently they did. He called himself a "sang melee" ("mixed blood").

Let's move forward now, to the 1930s. Before the folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt embarked on his monumental journey through 13 Southern states, where he collected tens of thousands of hoodoo spells from more than 1,600 black root workers, he took a survey of hoodoo practitioners and believers. He reported that 40% of white people believed in or practiced some form of hoodoo and 60% of black people did so. He stated outright that for this reason -- economy of miles to be travelled and a better percentage of useful information per person interviewed -- he would only interview black people. Yet even those black informants told him of visiting white hoodoo doctors and conjure workers, and this was in the 1930s, during the height of Jim Crow segregation. For instance, Hyatt was told repeatedly that the original Doctor Buzzard of Beaufort, South Carolina, had been a white man, and that after his death, several black root doctors named themselves Doctor Buzzard in order to pick up clients.

Since Emancipation (and probably even earlier) white readers and rootworkers have served both white and black clients -- and black readers and rootworkers have served both white and black clients. Spiritualists, occultists, metaphysically-minded seekers, and folk practitioners often meet on common ground, abjuring segregation and racism.

The current attempt to enforce a sort of racial gate-keeping of hoodoo -- the spread of the false and anti-historical idea that it is confined to black people and must not be allowed to white people -- started only after hoodoo hit the internet. It did not exist during my young years in the 1960s. In fact during that time (and even earlier, before i was born) there were quite a few special spells and spiritual supplies recommended to those who wanted to mingle freely as friends and lovers, clients and conjure workers, regardless of skin colour.

Imagine if you were suddenly told via the internet that only black people could play jazz, only black people could cook Southern food, only Asian people could wear Asian-hair wigs, only Swiss people could yodel, only Jews could read the Bible, and only Germans could brew beer.

Would you believe it?

I'll tell you what: I am 74 years old and i have tasted some damned good Mexican beer in my time, and i have heard some damned good Mississippi yodelers, too.

I am not in any way trying to downplay or subtract from the horrors of racism and bigotry that have been used to take economic and social advantages away from people of colour and give them to white people. That is not my purpose or intention here.

Rather, i want to stand for historical truth and to help co-create a better tomorrow.

This old photo was taken in 1937, as you can see by the car headed toward the camera. The photographer was a white socialist named Louise Boyle (1910 - 2005) who was born in North Dakota and raised in upstate New York. She took this image for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, probably while she was documenting their work in Arkansas. The original is housed in the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives at Cornell University.



Was Madam Stonar white ... or black? Why did she make a point of telling the world that she served ALL people, especially during a time when lynchings, voter suppression, and school segregation were the norm?

Why? Because this is our world, and as magicians, we can change it. Let us always respect, honour, and uphold the names and life stories of the culture-bearers who have preserved for us the magical and spiritual treasures that we love so well, and let us always meet on the level, in friendship and with open hearts. Amen.

[catherineyronwode]

At long last, Juneteenth became a Federal holiday this year, June 19th, 2021.

Podcast:
Ramona Speaks the Other Truth -- "Juneteenth Celebration!" with Catherine Yronwode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt5JY36R20g
Ramona and Catherine discuss Juneteenth's meaning; its importance in history,
and its relevance to them and to all the people of the world.

[deaconmillett]

What a wonderful post to wake up to, Miss Cat. Thank you.

[Waxworker]

Thank you catherine and JayDee for your responses to my inquiry. I appreciate the historical background, information, and wisdom you have shared. Much appreciated. Blessings be!

[PastorKirk]

Are there any references that might target Upstate SC? Growing up there, I ran into several folks that I would consider a root doctor but printed info is scarce.

[catherineyronwode]

This page lists some information. When you get to it, use your browser's "find" sunction to search for "South Carolina.

http://luckymojo.com/hyattinformants.html

I am unfamiliar with South Carolina geography, but Doctor Samuel Nelson and Doctor Maguin were well known in their time, as was Doctor Buzzard (and his successors). Samuel Nelson also points us toward Dr. Harris the white man who taught him. Hyatt found any good workers in South Carolina -- but he lost their names, alas. Two of the best were those he tagged as "Cautious Healer" and "Courtroom Specialist."

[catherineyronwode]

Your Wate and Fate: IN THE REALM OF THE READERS



AUGUST 7th, 2021

Hello, everyone, and thank you for supporting "It's All Ephemera"!

This week in "Your Wate and Fate," i open the door to the almost forgotten world of the psychic readers, numerologists, clairvoyants, and cartomancers of the 19th and 20th centuries, as manifested in the ephemera they have left us -- their business cards, advertisements, and photographs.

Two weeks ago my Patreon web page on "Having Your Fortune Read At a Tea Room" surveyed the territory of psychics who served their clients in tea shops. Now the gates swing wide on Scientific Palmists in downtown offices, Clairvoyants in big blue trailers travelling the American South, and touring stage entertainers who gave private readings to clients between the matinee and the evening show.

1) "In the Realm of the Readers"

[PATRONS GET THE SECRET URL IN EMAIL ONE YEAR BEFORE IT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC]

This lavishly illustrated page introduces us to the material traces left by the the metaphysical practitioners of yesteryear and introduces a veritable encyclopedia devoted to their lives.

2) Madam Stonar

[PATRONS GET THE SECRET URL IN EMAIL ONE YEAR BEFORE IT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC]

An Alabama psychic reader of the 1930s.

Thanks to my wonderfully supportive Patrons -- you have made these web pages possible.

3) "Your Wate and Fate" Web Site

http://yourwateandfate.com/Your_Wate_and_Fate

"In the Realm of the Readers" and "Madam Stonar" are part of the Your Wate and Fate web site, which is dedicated to the mechanical and personally-conducted fortune telling. If you are not yet familiar with the public portion of the site, check it out!

4) "Your Wate and Fate" Private Forum:

[THE SECRET URL IS SENT TO PATRONS VIA EMAIL]

As a Patron, you have access to our exclusive threads at the Lucky Mojo Forum! Signing up takes a few seconds, and each thread allows you to participate in discussions with me about the ongoing Patreon page publications. To comment on this week's new pages, or any of the previous posts, please go to my private Patreon forum at the web address above.

4) And remember, if you have any difficulty reaching any of my PRIVATE Patreon forums, you can post a notice and request for help at the PUBLIC Patreon Forum page here:

http://forum.luckymojo.com/support-cat- ... 93993.html

5) If you want to support me on Patreon, please go to "It's All Ephemera," where you can read my update posts and sign on as Patrons:

http://patreon.com/catherineyronwode

6) Please follow me on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/catyronwode

Patrons at Tiers 4, 5, and 6 can expect their packages of books and ephemera to go out on September 1st, 2021.

Cordially,

cat yronwode

[catherineyronwode]

For those in search of the really old classics of hoodoo, books with texts that date back to the 1930s and 1940s -- the books that folks like me and my elders learned from -- this is a money-saving discount special for you:

Lucky Mojo Library of Occult Classics (7 Books)

Use in Magic:
"The Lucky Mojo Library of Occult Classics" collects the foundational knowledge of early 20th century conjure as taught via the African American herb, candle, and incense shops and Spiritual Churches of past generations.

Spell Methods:
Lucky Mojo Books are filled with authentic and easy to follow instructions for practical spells of magic and fortune-telling. Enhance your success in spells of love, luck, happiness, and wealth by learning time-tested folkloric traditions of hoodoo, rootwork, psychic reading, spiritual sorcery, and herbalism.

Product Details:
In this seven-volume set -- a total of 672 pages! -- you'll discover old-style rootwork and candle-magic spells for every condition; divination instructions for numerology, playing cards, crystal balls, and astrology; the uses of herbs and roots in folk magic and medicine; the secrets of the talismanic Seals of Moses; and ancient methods for applying Silent Influence upon people to bend them to your will. These seven books regularly sell for $12.00 each (a total of $84.00). Pay only $10.50 each when you buy all seven as a package deal -- a total of only $73.50 (a savings of $10.50). Order "The Lucky Mojo Library of Occult Classics" and you will receive one copy each of these 96-page books:

• Legends of Incense, Herb, and Oil Magic by Lewis de Claremont, edited by Cat Yronwode
• This Amazing Book by Sunrae Products Company, edited by catherine yronwode
• Genuine Black and White Magic of Marie Laveau, by Zora Neale Hurston et al, edited by Cat Yronwode
• The Guiding Light to Power and Success, by Mikhail Strabo, restored, revised, and edited by Catherine Yronwode
• The Secret of Numbers Revealed by catherine yronwode, Dr. Roy Page Walton, Lewis de Claremont, Godfrey Spencer, and Frank Householder
• Secrets of the Crystal Silence League by Claude Alexander Conlin, edited, annotated, restored, and revised by catherine yronwode and Deacon Millett
• Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed by Henri Gamache, edited by Cat Yronwode and Dr. Jeremy Weiss

Format: Seven 96-page books (692 pages), trade paperbacks, illustrated
Publisher: Various
Publication dates: 2013-2021
ISBNs: Various
Tagged: Spells and Magic, Spirituality, Herbalism, Divination, Special

BOO-SPE-LOOC
Lucky Mojo Library of Occult Classics (7 Books)
$73.50





You can order right here in the Forum by clicking on the blue Add To Cart button.

For more information, see:
https://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojopublishing.html

[ychirea1]

I would love a copy of the Hurston Marie LaVeau book please, but I don't know whether that will be included in our monthly goodie box

It is worth every penny though, I am sure!

[catherineyronwode]

Your Wate and Fate: THE DIVINERS OF DAYTON



AUGUST 14th, 2021

Hello everyone, and thank you for supporting "It's All Ephemera"!

When one thinks of psychics, one doesn't think of Dayton, Ohio, as a hotbed of spiritual activity, but my research shows that a large number of card readers, crystal gazers, spiritual mediums, and even a blind phrenologist provided fortune telling services there from 1933-1944. Come take a trip through history and meet Josephine De Elgar and the Diviners of Dayton!

ONE NEW URL (and our regular stand-bys) go out on August 14th, 2021 for Tier 2 Patrons and above as a reward for your ongoing support of my writing projects:

1) Your Wate and Fate -- Josephine De Elgar and the Diviners of Dayton

[PATRONS GET THE SECRET URL IN EMAIL ONE YEAR BEFORE IT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC]

2) "Your Wate and Fate" Web site:

http://yourwateandfate.com

3) "Your Wate and Fate" Private Patreon Discussion Forum:

http://forum.luckymojo.com/private-patr ... -f237.html

As a Patron, you have access to our exclusive threads at the Lucky Mojo Forum! Signing up takes a few seconds, and each thread allows you to participate in discussions with me about the ongoing Patreon page publications. To comment on this week's new pages, or any of the previous posts, please go to my private Patreon forum at the web address above.

4) And remember, if you have any difficulty reaching any of my PRIVATE Patreon forums, you can post a notice and request for help at the PUBLIC Patreon Forum page here:

http://forum.luckymojo.com/support-cat- ... 93993.html

5) If your friends ask you how to support me on Patreon, please send them to "It's All Ephemera," where they can read my update posts and sign on as Patrons:

http://patreon.com/catherineyronwode

6) Please follow me on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/catyronwode

Cordially,

cat yronwode

[catherineyronwode]

ychirea1,

I have you signed up for electronic Patreon files only, not the monthly Patreon goody box. Did you change tiers? I would be glad to send you one if you do sign up for the boxes.

Meanwhile, both last week's and this week's electronic Patreon web pages deal with historical root doctors and psychic readers. More to come!

The single Hurston et al compilation (when sold as not as part of the above set) is just $12.00

At last! it's a book! A most remarkable resurrection --

BOO-GRI-BAWM
Genuine Black and White Magic of Marie Laveau ed. by cat yronwode
$12.00





You can order right here in the Forum by clicking on the blue Add To Cart button.

For more information, see:
http://www.luckymojo.com/genuineblackan ... aveau.html

Genuine BLACK and WHITE MAGIC of MARIE LAVEAU:
Hoodoo’s Earliest Grimoire and Spell-Book

--
Burning of Candles
Use of Roots and Oils, Powders, and Incenses
Significance of Cards
Horoscopes with Lucky Days and Lucky Numbers
Guide to Spiritualists, Mediums, and Readers
--

Restored, Revised, and Edited by
CATHERINE YRONWODE

From the Original Writings of

Zora Neale Hurston
Anne Fleitman
Larry B. Wright
Dorothy Spencer
Cyril Arthur Pearson
Helen Pitkin Schertz
The Allan Company
Franz Hartmann
Abe Plough
H. F.

Lucky Mojo Library of Occult Classics
Lucky Mojo Curio Company
Forestville, California
2018

Yes, folks, it's the book you didn't even know existed -- and it is on its way to the printer NOW! We are taking pre-orders. We will ship by January 1st.

Too good to be forgotten! Too important to be left to languish as an unreadable, cut-up, meaningless pile of garbage-typography.

NINE DOLLARS, 96 Pages. Our promise to you: IT'S BACK!



CONTENTS:

Dedication and Acknowledgements 4
Introduction 5
Preliminaries 14
Preparing for the Work 18
1. Advice to Spiritualists and Mediums 18
2. How to Dress Homes and Churches 19
Attracting Luck 20
3. Help for One Who Never Had Spiritual Help 20
4. A Hand for the Man or Woman in Bad Luck 21
5. The Man Whose Gambling Luck Was Crossed 22
6. The Lucky Hand 23
7. The Gambling Hand of the Goddess of Chance 24
8. The Best Gambling Hand (Called the Toby) 25
9. The Man Who Wants to Find Buried Treasure 26
10. The Hard-Working Man Who Wants Luck 27
Attracting Success 28
11. The Man Who Wishes to Get a Job 28
12. The Man Who Wants to Hold His Job 29
13. The Man Who Wishes to Obtain a Promotion 30
14. The Man Who Wants the Secret of Prosperity 31
15. The Man Who Wishes to Attract Attention 32
16. The Man Who Wishes to Influence People 33
Overcoming Financial Troubles 34
17. The Man Who Cannot Face His Debts 34
18. The Lady Who Cannot Face Her Landlord 35
19. The Man Who Has Difficulties on the Job 36
20. The Lady Who Has an Empty Boarding House 37
21. The Man Whose Business Is Poor 38
22. The Lady Who Lost Her Business 39
Overcoming Love Troubles 40
23. The Man Who Cannot Get a Sweetheart 40
24. The Lady Who Has a Love-Rival 41
25. The Man Who Lost His Sweetheart 42
26. The Lady Who Lost Her Lover 43
27. The Man Whose Wife Left Home 44
28. The Lady Whose Husband Left Home 45
Overcoming Family Troubles 46
29. The Man Whose Children Do Not Help Him 46
30. The Woman Whose Children Are Ungrateful 47
31. The Man Who Wants Peace in His Home 48
32. The Woman Whose Children Are in Trouble 49
Overcoming Legal Troubles 50
33. The Court Scrape, or: The Lady Going to Trial 50
34. The Man Who Is Pursued by the Law 51
35. The Lady in the Law Suit 52
36. The Man Whose Lodge Brothers Gainsay Him 53
Overcoming Social Troubles 54
37. The Man Whose Lady Friends Speak Badly of Him 55
38. The Lady Whose Men Friends Speak Badly of Her 56
39. The Man Who Has Been Slandered Among Men 56
40. The Lady Whose Lady Friends Spoke Meanly 57
41. The Lady Who Cannot Get Lady Friends 58
42. The Lady Who Cannot Keep Men Friends 59
Conquering Bad Neighbors 60
43. To Make Them Move Out of Their House 60
44. The Man Who Wants to Control Evil Neighbors 61
Conquering Enemies 62
45. The Lady Who Wishes to Cross Her Enemies 62
46. The Man Who Wants to Drive His Enemy Insane 63
47. To Conquer Those Who Have Made You Suffer 64
48. The Curse 65
Breaking Crossed Conditions 66
49. The Lady Who Wishes to Be Uncrossed 66
50. The Man Who Wishes to Be Uncrossed 67
51. The Woman Beset by Evil Spirits 68
52. The Woman Crossed with Sadness 69
True Messages from Dreams 70
53. The Secret of Dreaming True 70
How to Work with Candles 71
Candle Devotions 71
Trinity, Star, Cross, Octave, and Novena 72
Outstanding Significance of Candles 73
Birth Month Candles 74
Star-Sign Candles 74
How to Know the Zodiac 74
Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo. Virgo, Libra, 75
Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces 82
Wedding Anniversary Secrets 87
How to Read the Cards 87
Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades 88
List of Supplies 92
Chronological Bibliography 96

[ychirea1]

I have you signed up for electronic Patreon files only, not the monthly Patreon goody box. Did you change tiers? I would be glad to send you one if you do sign up for the boxes.

O man I don't know I just pay bills and see what stuff comes.

Maybe I will wait and get the whole set

[catherineyronwode]

RETURN TO THE REALM OF THE READERS!



Tier 3 AUGUST 28th, 2021

Hello, everyone, and thank you for supporting "It's All Ephemera"!

This week, as i am preparing my video presentation for the 2021 Hoodoo Heritage Festival workshop on "Down-Home Sex Magic," "Your Wate and Fate," returns to the lost world of the psychic readers, numerologists, clairvoyants, and cartomancers of the 19th and 20th centuries, with four new additions to the page.

Two weeks ago my Patreon web page on "The Realm of he Readers" opened the door on the shadowy shades of those who came before. This time a bit more light is shed, as we meet one fortune teller of 1915 who offers to take off spells caused by "Hoodoo, Witchcraft and Conjurations," and yet another reader who breaks with 1920s convention to offer readings "for white and colored," until, lest we feel too optimistic, we run smack dab into a tea leaf reader working out of a World's Fair building that promotes American unity with Hitler's Nazi Germany. Yes, then as now, occultism ran the cultural gamut from the angelic to the demonic. So it was. So it is.

1) "In the Realm of the Readers"

[PATRONS GET THE SECRET URL IN EMAIL ONE YEAR BEFORE IT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC]

Four more rare business cards and flyers, ranging from 90 to more than 100 years old, have been added to this quirky illustrated page on the metaphysical practitioners of yesteryear.

Thanks to my wonderfully supportive Patrons -- you have made this web page possible.

2) "Your Wate and Fate" Web Site

http://yourwateandfate.com/Your_Wate_and_Fate

"In the Realm of the Readers" is part of the Your Wate and Fate web site, which is dedicated to mechanical and personally-conducted fortune telling. If you are not yet familiar with the public portion of the site, check it out!

DISCUSSION FORUMS FOR PATRONS

3) "Your Wate and Fate" Private Forum:

[THE SECRET URL IS SENT TO PATRONS VIA EMAIL]

As a Patron, you have access to our exclusive threads at the Lucky Mojo Forum! Signing up takes a few seconds, and each thread allows you to participate in discussions with me about the ongoing Patreon page publications. To comment on this week's new pages, or any of the previous posts, please go to my private Patreon forum at the web address above.

4) And remember, if you have any difficulty reaching any of my PRIVATE Patreon forums, you can post a notice and request for help at the PUBLIC Patreon Forum page here:

http://forum.luckymojo.com/support-cat- ... 93993.html

PUBLIC-ACCESS PAGES

5) If you want to support me on Patreon, please go to "It's All Ephemera," where you can read my update posts and sign on as Patrons:

http://patreon.com/catherineyronwode

6) Please follow me on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/catyronwode

Cordially,

cat yronwode

[catherineyronwode]

Leaves from the Root Doctor's Garden: WHEN HOODOO WAS ILLEGAL

Tier 1 SEPTEMBER 7th, 2021

Hello, everyone, and thank you for supporting "It's All Ephemera"!

This week in "Leaves from the Root Doctor's Garden," i take a look at the United States Post Office's successful legal action to suppress the folklore writings of the famed African American author Zora Neale Hurston

1) "When Hoodoo Was Illegal"

[PATRONS GET THE SECRET URL IN EMAIL ONE YEAR BEFORE IT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC]

This illustrated page introduces us to the Afro-India Import Company and its suppression at the hands of the United States Post Office in 1959.

Thanks to my wonderfully supportive Patrons -- you have made this web page possible.

2) "Herb Magic" Web Site

http://herbmagic.com

"When Hoodoo Was Illegal" is part of the Herb Magic web site, which is dedicated to herbs, roots, and minerals in African American hoodoo folk magic. If you are not yet familiar with the public portion of the site, check it out!

DISCUSSION FORUMS FOR PATRONS

3) "Leaves from the Root Doctor's Garden" Private Forum:

[THE SECRET URL IS SENT TO PATRONS VIA EMAIL]

As a Patron, you have access to our exclusive threads at the Lucky Mojo Forum! Signing up takes a few seconds, and each thread allows you to participate in discussions with me about the ongoing Patreon page publications. To comment on this week's new pages, or any of the previous posts, please go to my private Patreon forum at the web address above.

PUBLIC-ACCESS PAGES

4) And remember, if you have any difficulty reaching any of my PRIVATE Patreon forums, you can post a notice and request for help at the PUBLIC Patreon Forum page here:

support-cat-yronwode-on-patreon-t93993.html

5) If you want to support me on Patreon, please go to "It's All Ephemera," where you can read my update posts and sign on as Patrons:

http://patreon.com/catherineyronwode

6) Please follow me on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/catyronwode

Patrons at Tiers 4, 5, and 6 can expect their packages of books and ephemera to go out on September 1st, 2021.

Cordially,

cat yronwode

[catherineyronwode]

Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog: WHEN HOODOO WAS ILLEGAL: Henry B. Gottlieb

Tier 1 OCTOBER 7th, 2021

Hello, everyone, and thank you for supporting "It's All Ephemera"!

This week in "Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog," i take a look at the United States Post Office's successful legal action to suppress prayer and folk magic and prevent its practice by African-Americans.

1) "When Hoodoo Was Illegal: Henry B. Gottlieb and Twinz Co. versus the United States Post Office"

[PATRONS GET THE SECRET URL IN EMAIL ONE YEAR BEFORE IT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC]

This illustrated page brings us the Twinz aCo. of New York City and its suppression at the hands of the United States Post Office in 1956.

Thanks to my wonderfully supportive Patrons -- you have made this web page possible.

2) "Southern Spirits" Web Site
http://southernspirits.org/wiki/

"When Hoodoo Was Illegal" is a category of web pages at the Southern Spirits web site, which is a site that collects primary documentary accounts of the practice of hoodoo, the folk magic of African-American practitioners. If you are not yet familiar with the public portion of the site, check it out!

DISCUSSION FORUMS FOR PATRONS

3) The Public Southern Spirits web site:

http://www.southernspirits.org

Southern Spirits one of my nicest, but least-known web sites. Online since 1994, Southern Spirits brings the ghost-voices of our magical past into the modern age. These are our spiritual ancestors speaking -- both as others heard them and as they told the world about themselves. Listen!

The material at Southern Spirits was gathered from a variety of sources, including old books, magazine articles, newspapers, and even fragments extracted from novels and short stories. It is heavily annotated with interpretive and comparative notes, especially distinguishing between narratives told *by* practitioners and narratives *about* them, particularly when the latter are recounted by derogatory or "amused" white observers.

PUBLIC-ACCESS PAGES

4) "Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog" Private Forum:

private-patreon-forum-f237.html

As a Patron, you have access to our exclusive threads at the Lucky Mojo Forum! Signing up takes a few seconds, and each thread allows you to participate in discussions with me about the ongoing Patreon page publications. To comment on this week's new pages, or any of the previous posts, please go to my private Patreon forum at the web address above.

5) If you want to support me on Patreon, please go to "It's All Ephemera," where you can read my update posts and sign on as Patrons:

http://patreon.com/catherineyronwode

6) Please follow me on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/catyronwode

Patrons at Tiers 4, 5, and 6 can expect their packages of books and ephemera to go out on October 15th, 2021.

Cordially,

cat yronwode

[catherineyronwode]

When Hoodoo Was Illegal: The Old Chief Medicine Co.



Tier 2 NOVEMBER 14th, 2021

Hello, everyone, and thank you for supporting "It's All Ephemera"!

This week in "Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog," i take a look at the United States Food and Drug Administration's successful legal action to destroy traditional American herbal knowledge that had its roots in ancient Native American medicine.

1) "When Hoodoo Was Illegal: FDA versus Indiana Botanic Garden and Old Chief Medicine Co. 1950"

[PATRONS GET THE SECRET URL IN EMAIL ONE YEAR BEFORE IT OPENS TO THE PUBLIC]

This illustrated page brings us the story of A. L. Machris and the Old Chief Medicine Co. of Detroit, Michigan, a mail-order house that purchased bulk herbal teas from Joseph E. Meyer's Indiana Botanic Gardens in Hammond, Indiana. Lucky for us, while ordering several shipments of these folkloric medicines to be destroyed, the FDA also carefully noted down all of the ingredients in six different remedies -- so now you can make your own!

Thanks to my wonderfully supportive Patrons -- you have made this web page possible.

2) "Southern Spirits" Web Site

http://southernspirits.org/wiki/

"When Hoodoo Was Illegal" is a category of web pages at the Southern Spirits web site, which is a site that collects primary documentary accounts of the practice of hoodoo, the folk magic of African-American practitioners. If you are not yet familiar with the public portion of the site, check it out!

DISCUSSION FORUMS FOR PATRONS

3) The Public Southern Spirits web site:

http://www.southernspirits.org

Southern Spirits one of my nicest, but least-known web sites. Online since 1994, Southern Spirits brings the ghost-voices of our magical past into the modern age. These are our spiritual ancestors speaking -- both as others heard them and as they told the world about themselves. Listen!

The material at Southern Spirits was gathered from a variety of sources, including old books, magazine articles, newspapers, and even fragments extracted from novels and short stories. It is heavily annotated with interpretive and comparative notes, especially distinguishing between narratives told *by* practitioners and narratives *about* them, particularly when the latter are recounted by derogatory or "amused" white observers.

PUBLIC-ACCESS PAGES

4) "Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog" Private Forum:

private-patreon-forum-f237.html

As a Patron, you have access to our exclusive threads at the Lucky Mojo Forum! Signing up takes a few seconds, and each thread allows you to participate in discussions with me about the ongoing Patreon page publications. To comment on this week's new pages, or any of the previous posts, please go to my private Patreon forum at the web address above.

5) If you want to support me on Patreon, please go to "It's All Ephemera," where you can read my update posts and sign on as Patrons:

http://patreon.com/catherineyronwode

6) Please follow me on Facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/catyronwode

Patrons at Tiers 4, 5, and 6 can expect their packages of books and ephemera to go out on November15th, 2021.

Cordially,

cat yronwode