Am I Gifted For The Work?

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According to the Scriptures, there are different spiritual gifts that God chooses to give to certain people. As with all other gifts, not everyone receives these spiritual gifts. Some people have a gift for the work, and some do not.

1 Corinthians 12:4-11 "Now there are many forms of gifts, but the Spirit is one. And there are many forms of ministrations, but Master YHWH is one. And there are many forms of power; but Elohim, who works all in all men, is one. And to each man, there is given a manifestation of the Spirit, that it may help him. To one, by the Spirit, there is given a word of wisdom; and to another, by the same Spirit, there is given a word of knowledge: To another, by the same Spirit, faith: to another, by the same Spirit, gifts of healing: And to another, miracles: and to another, prophecy: and to another, the discerning of spirits: and to another, (diverse) kinds of tongues: and to another, the interpretation of tongues. But all these works that one Spirit; and He distributes to every one according to His will."


The Ruach HaKodesh, or the Holy Ghost, gives gifts and abilities to the church (1 Cor. 12:11).


There is way too much emphasis on being born with spiritual gifts today, especially in the Hoodoo community and some charismatic African-American churches where it is a prerequisite to 'being a spiritual worker.' This is true, and no amount of training can substitute for being born spiritually gifted. However, having spiritual gifts can be faked, so people should be careful.

You will know the fake ones when they say nothing profound; usually some fluff, like, "I, the Lord God, say to you that you need to do this or to do that for you to be healed." We never once heard someone mention that God told the congregation to stop wallowing in religiosity and obey His commands!

Please note that neither the Scriptures nor the Hoodoo tradition says that we have to 'learn' to use our spiritual gifts, as so many insist. When God gives you a gift, you 'simply know' how to do it. For instance, hundreds of Web portals come up when you search on Google: 'schools for prophets' or 'prophetic training' or words to that effect. The same thing happens when you search the internet: 'learn to speak in tongues?' Where in the Scripture suggest we must learn from other humans how to speak in tongues or prophesy? Yes, in Biblical times, some prophecy schools would train exceptionally gifted disciples to develop the spiritual and Kabbalistic science and arts for Divine encounters. But nowadays, these skills can only be honed or developed as we use our gifts, but there is no reason to pay for any workshops or seminars by some 'scholar' whose only goal is to make money from something you are born with - from something God gave you for free!

What exactly are these spiritual gifts or the gifts of the Holy Spirit?

Sadly, though, even though a lot of people try to explain the psychic phenomena, many conservative Christians still view it as crafted for deception. They believe that this so-called psychic gift originates not from their God but from demons.

These Christians never realize that the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit that Paul enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 are psychic abilities. These are only a few ways the Holy Spirit manifests in a human being. Psychic powers ARE NOT works of the demons or the Devil. Many of these, in fact, have some biblical basis.

Demonic entities have nothing to do with spiritual abilities. In fact, many Christian Hoodoo practitioners believe that demons or any other entities cannot create or bestow, especially to 'mankind.'

Now, if we just analyze each of these gifts of the Spirit, we can easily see that they refer to sure psychic gifts or mental abilities that are neither evil nor Satanic.

  • Wisdom refers to one's perception of things that is intuitive and spiritual, not rational and mundane.  A wisdom that a person knows is real even though he has no way to back it up. Wisdom goes beyond reason. It could be the ability of claircognizance.
  • Knowledge may refer to knowledge not only of the present but also of either the past (retrocognition), the future (precognition), any other important events, and many other hidden things. This is known as psychic reading. Some physic readers can make accurate readings without any divination tools at all. Others may use bones, crystal balls, tarot cards, tea leaves, runes, and even a Bible. They are merely used by the reader to focus his attention to reach the person's subconscious mind.
  • Faith is utilized mainly when gifted people perform spiritual works such as exorcism, deliverance, or depossession. Exorcism refers to the ability or power to cast out malignant and unclean spirits and entities from a person or drive it out of place as a house, office, building, or lot. There are different ways or methods of casting out malignant entities. It depends upon the exorcists' faith and spiritual path. To cast out these negative, dangerous attachments, an exorcist must have a strong will and conviction and not be afraid to face entities that may even physically harm him. Only highly trained and authorized persons should perform an exorcism, which should never be attempted by inexperienced and untrained individuals.
  • Healing refers to the ability where the gifted individual becomes merely an instrument through which the spiritual, universal, or divine healing power passes, usually through spirit guides, plant consciousness, nature spirits, ancestral spirits, angels, saints, divinities, and other heavenly beings. In spiritual healing, the power is believed to be entirely outside the healer. There are a lot of so-called spiritual healers all over the world. Still, their practice has become an object of severe criticism due to their decency toward commercialism, and a few have reportedly been caught cheating on their patients. This, however, shouldn't lead us to condemn spiritual healing as a whole. Shamanic healing and faith healing are just two of many types of spiritual healing.
  • Working miracles, thaumaturgy, and wonderworking is a spiritual power to make subtle changes in higher realms, producing physical results. Examples of wonderworking are astral projection, bilocation, levitation, materialization, telekinesis, telepathy, etc. Most saints in Hoodoo can work miracles. Famous ancient Christian thaumaturges include St.Anthony of Padua, St.Philomena, St.Gerard Majella, St.Cyprian of Antioch, and St.Patrick.
  • Prophecy is the power or ability that could manifest not only in a waking state but also during sleep, in a meditative state, in a hypnotic state, or in a trance. Many people have reported dreams, visions from meditations, or just hearing voices inside their head that warned them of things to come which have actually occurred. Such prophecies usually pertain to forthcoming deaths, wars, disasters like natural calamities, and the sinking of ships. Some people believe that, unlike precognition, prophecy cannot be thwarted as if the events in prophecies are already written in one's life path or destiny.
  • Discernment of spirits, to be more exact, is the same third eye, sixth sense, or 'The Clairs' such as clairvoyance, clairsentience, clairaudience, clairolfaction, and clairgustance. This can be defined as the faculty of perceiving with the inner or spiritual senses. Discernment need not involve the use of the physical sense of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. When one perceives immaterial, invisible, and intangible things to the physical senses, he is simply using his inner faculties. Some people can willfully turn their focus and attention from the physical to the spiritual sense. Most people don't have the such willful capacity, but it happens spontaneously.
  • Speaking in tongues or glossolalia refers to the ability to speak in a foreign language that's completely unknown to the person. This usually happens during spiritual or religious sessions or seances. But it may also occur on some other social occasions. Usually, the person who speaks in tongues is in a trance and doesn't know what he's talking about. 
  • Interpretation of tongues or xenolalia is also made in the trance state. In glossolalia, neither the gifted speaker can interpret the language himself. This is because speaking in tongues is one gift, but the ability to interpret tongues is another, according to St. Paul.

These psychic gifts, as I said, are the endowment of the Holy Spirit, enabling people to perceive personally the Divine, the spirits, and the otherworlds, which is available to help them to become enlightened and reach a balanced state.

These gifts must come from God alone and should be developed through observing mental, emotional, and physical 'cleanliness' in my experience. It shouldn't be developed for its own sake or through some manipulative ways. These gifts don't just appear suddenly – although it has sometimes happened that a person can have some powers after an accident or an intense emotional trauma. However, most Hoodoo practitioners believe that spiritual gifts run in families like any other talent, such as singing, dancing, cooking, or drawing. Some unique healing gifts can only be transmitted to a chosen or volunteering family member at the end of the spiritual worker's life. If there is no suitable family member, the abilities may be given to a gifted child from another family.

Strictly speaking, these nine gifts of the Holy Spirit are abilities that only Jesus Christ and probably the holy saints possessed. But since we are created in the image of God and were given the Holy Spirit to help us resemble our great teacher, spiritual gifts can be seen in our spiritual lives, especially for Christian conjure workers. Nonetheless, these gifts do not immediately develop but require time and dedication. The process of spiritual growth is ultimately mysterious and divine.

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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.