Mullein Leaves ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

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Mullein is a magical herb thought to prevent nightmares and night terrors when one keeps a packet of it under his pillow. As it helps one to fall asleep when consumed, mullein makes an excellent tea to encourage psychic or prophetic dreams.

In European folklore, travelers are told to put dried leaves in their shoes to promote courage, drive away enemies and protect them from assaults of wild beasts. Mullein leaf powder mixed with graveyard dirt, red pepper flakes, salt, sage, and sulfur powder also appears in a few old recipes for goofer dust.

People who lack candles for ritual use mullein stalks for the wicks. This plant can be 4-12 inches long, so some folks light them like torches when invoking spirits, especially demons.

Native American tribes from Hopi, Navajo, and Potowatami tribes also used the herb as a smudge to help crazy or unconscious people return their sanity and consciousness.

In some parts of Africa and even in American South, witch doctors and rootworkers advise their female clients who suspect their partners of having another woman to get a stalk of mullein and leave it down into the pool of urine when their partners urinate outdoors. If their partners attempt to have infidelity or extramarital sex, they will suddenly get stuck on her ("penis captivus") until someone catches them.

Medicinally, mullein has fallen out of use; I suspect one reason might be that it has to be handled very carefully, both literally and as a medicine - reasons similar to the way foxglove isn't used much by herbalists anymore because it's so easy to give the wrong amount with disastrous results. Mullein has antimicrobial properties (warding off pathogens such as fungi, viruses, and bacteria). It helps with specific respiratory issues as it is an excellent expectorant, so I often use this one when the negativities I'm clearing out are 'upfront.' I know where it's coming from. Some people preferred not to burn this one because it has some fuzzy hairs that people suspect might be a bit much for the lungs if one were to inhale the smoke, but it's nice in a steam smudge.

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.