Actually, one doesn't need to be part of any 'religion' to practice Conjure and Rootwork; however, Hoodoo is, far more often than not, always practiced in a Judeo-Christian context. Hence, the Deity or the Spirit that authentic practitioners of Hoodoo are worshiping or working with is the Biblical God or the Holy Trinity. The Bible is also considered the most powerful talisman, especially the collection of Psalms. Most conjure workers are also Protestant Christians; therefore, if you choose to approach Hoodoo without utilizing some of its Christian elements, then you are not actually practicing Hoodoo.
How can you say you are practicing Hoodoo when you are not even keeping up with and observing its traditions? This reality actually becomes a matter of disagreement for some would-be practitioners.
Hoodoo developed when our Black ancestors combined their African culture with Christian tradition and other multiple spiritual paths, giving birth to a new folk practice. The truth is, we cannot separate Christianity from Hoodoo more than we can remove the influence of Central West African spiritual and magical practices from it. It is an outright and blatant dishonor and disrespect to the ancestors who preserved this practice in the face of slavery if you wish not to keep the tradition intact. That said, if one simply cannot get into the Bible, pray to the Biblical God, or even say "in Jesus' Name," then Hoodoo is not for you.
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19th Century African-American Christianity.
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We could actually say that Hoodoo is the folk magic of Black American Christians—in the same way that one could say that "Lihim na Karunungan" is the folk magic of Filipino Christians. Hoodoo is not a religion but the folk magic of a community of generally religious and spiritual people who also inherited this knowledge and practice from their Christian ancestors.
No matter who instituted that "Hoodoo practice is free for all," in the slavery time and reconstruction era, rootworkers and conjure men worked with the Holy Trinity, Jesus, angels, and prophets; read and studied the Bible; regularly attended their respective Churches for worship and service; and the fact that renowned conjure workers such as Allen Vaughn, Adam Rascoe, and Jim Jordan amongst others are lay preachers and Church leaders is irrefutable evidence that no Wiccan, Santero, Hindu or any other pagan was known to have a primary significant hand in Hoodoo tradition. The Christian rootworkers and conjure men and women assembled and congregated to pray and devote themselves to God, heal the conditions of people, and prophesize with the help of the Holy Spirit because they knew nothing about other theology and spiritual paths other than Black Theology and Black Christianity.
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Bishop Charles Harrison Mason Sr., founder, Chief Apostle, and first Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, currently the most prominent African-American Pentecostal Church in the United States, used roots and gnarled and twisted woods to discern God's will.
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Bishop Charles Harrison Mason Sr. was another famous conjure worker who was spiritually baptized as a Christian. He was a Pentecostal denominational leader and the founder of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) based in Memphis, Tennessee. One of the most critical events in Mason's life was surviving a yellow fever epidemic when he was twelve years old. His recovery was attributed to prayer and rootwork. His mother, Eliza, formerly enslaved, was known in the community as very powerful and spiritually gifted, which people believed he eventually inherited.
Although COGIC's founder had known to use rootwork and divination as his methods for him to both communicate to the saints and prophets of God and deliver the message of Pentecostalism to the Church followers, there are now very few rootworkers who belong to the said Church as they now denounce Hoodoo as sinful. The congregations or communities that still accept conjure workers and root doctors as members are Missionary Baptist Church, African Methodist Episcopal, Holiness-Pentecostal Movement, and Spiritualist Church Movement.
See, What Our Path Is
Being immensely interested in African diaspora religions and Folk Catholicism, we primarily honor our ancestors, Church saints, angels, folk saints, and Afro-Caribbean spirits such as loas and orishas. If we absolutely have to put a label on ourselves, we prefer the label of “Folk Judeo-Christian” as we live according to the customs and traditions of conjure workers and root doctors from the Deep South and syncretic followers of Christ in various nations of the Caribbean and Latin America.
Our spirituality includes West African-based Caribbean-style tradition as well as Esoteric Christianity and Yoruba religion. Generally, we practice Gullah folk magic popularly known in the Deep South as Hoodoo or Lowcountry Voodoo; the ancient wisdom founded by Orunmila in Ile-Ife called Ifa, and a bit of Lihim na Karunungan (Filipino Esotericism or Philippine Mystery Tradition).
Respect, What Hoodoo Is
Despite visible evidence of Central West African, Islamic/Moorish, Native American, Judeo-Christian, European, and even a few East Indian/Hindu, Chinese, and Latino/Caribbean retentions, influences, and admixtures, this does not mean that Hoodoo is an open and unrestricted system of eclectic magic.
Conjure, and Rootwork is rooted in African-American culture and Folk Protestant Christianity. Any practitioners of Hoodoo who did not grow up within African-American culture should still have a fuller understanding and high regard for its origin.
In the beginning, the early conjure doctors were entirely Black. The students were all Black, the elders were Black, the teaching was Black, and they focused only on Blacks as their audience. But other races were accepted when they had also been brought into the Hoodoo community and learned the tradition. Even so, we should still acknowledge that Hoodoo, Conjure, or Rootwork is not ours but only belongs to the Black community. We are just believers who are grafted into their rich yet humble tradition and, by word and deed, embrace genuine African-American folk spirituality and magic. This is all we can do for all the blessings we received from God and our Black ancestors.
Hoodoo's lack of religious structure and hierarchical authority do not mean that any person or group can appropriate or redefine it. If one cannot respect Hoodoo as it is and for what it is, then please, do not play with it.
Learn, How Conjure Is Worked On
Authentic Conjure is not all about blending and selling oils and casting spells online to make money. Hoodoo has its own spiritual philosophy, theology, and a wide range of African-American folkways, customs, and practices which include, but are not limited to, veneration of the ancestors, Holy Ghost shouting, snake reverence, spirit possession, graveyard conjure, nkisi practices, Black hermeneutics, African-American church traditions, the ring shout, the Kongo cosmogram, ritual water immersions, crossroads magic, making conjure canes, animal sacrifices, Jewish scriptural magic, enemy works, Seekin' ritual, magical incorporation of bodily fluids, etc.
Unfortunately, they are currently missing in marketeered or commercial Hoodoo, as they are being removed, disregarded, or ignored by unknowing merchants who simply want to profit from an African-American spiritual tradition, thus reducing Hoodoo to just a plethora of recipes, spells, and tricks.
Tim and I are completely aware that we are not African-Americans, so we are doing our best to retain and preserve the customs and traditions of the slave ancestors to avoid unnecessary conflict with the larger Black-Belt Hoodoo community and prevent them from labeling us inauthentic outsiders and our practice as mere 'cultural misappropriation.'
Accept, Who We Are
The byproduct of eons of slave history, Black supremacists believe that only people with African or African-American blood are real Hoodoo practitioners and are often inclined to consider themselves as the elite of the Hoodoo community; a place in which they believed that Whites, Latinos, Asians or any other races who do not have Black ancestry do not belong. Black supremacists are prone to be very hostile towards both “outsiders” and those accepting of them, fearing that their promotion and acceptance would dilute or even negate the Black identity of Hoodoo.
Although we do understand why some Blacks hold this stance, since a lot of people nowadays are misappropriating many aspects of Hoodoo and teaching the spiritual path even without proper education and training (for purely monetary purposes), we would, however, want to say that not all non-Black Hoodoo practitioners are the same.
WE respect what Hoodoo is, and we never try to change it, claim it as our own, disregard its history, take unfair advantage of it, speak against the people who preserve it, and mix it with other cultures (like our own) and call it Filipino/Pinoy Hoodoo, Gypsy Hoodoo or Wiccan Hoodoo because there are no such things.
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