How To Use Crystals And Gemstones In Hoodoo? ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

How To Use Crystals And Gemstones In Hoodoo?

Unlike most of the other systems of magic, most Hoodoo teachings (oral traditions) you would get from the down-home, old-fashioned conjure workers don't include any mentions of using crystals or gemstones within traditional spells and preparation of magical supplies such as oils, bath crystals, mojo hands, etc., except for minerals such as pyrites and lodestones, and other natural mineral powders, dust, grits and rocks such as salts, alum, saltpeter, and bluestones to name a few. This is because Hoodoo is a region-based folk spirituality and the region where it originated, the South-Eastern United States, is not a significant source of gemstones or crystals. Also, most African-American people many centuries ago didn't have the extensive ability to find and purchase crystals or other semi-precious stones until the 20th century.

Yes, some Hoodoo and African-American spiritual supplies shops carry a fine selection of crystals, not because they are prominent in Hoodoo practices but because they are trying to serve many people with different magical practices. Nevertheless, this is not to say that crystals don't have magical uses or have no use in Hoodoo practice. Conjure adapted some European occult practices within the Judeo-Christian folklore, and this includes the use of gems and myriad stones.

According to one of my mentor with both African-American and Jewish heritage, the use of crystals now in some healing modalities reflect early Hoodoo healing practices; conjure workers in the olden days often used different kinds of stones that they had found and gathered from nature, such as rivers, seas, swamps, crossroads, and forests which they blessed with prayers to ward off evil spirits and disease. Actually, my mentor and some conjure workers prescribe their clients to wear crystal talismans or amulets for curative purposes. The only difference is that old-style trick doctors don't give much thought or attention to the metaphysical properties of the collected stones. But my mentor, as his grandfather taught him, believes that a stone is proven only effective after it has "cured three people, or one person three times."

A Hoodoo approach to crystals and gemstones should still include prayer and traditional African-American practices. Unlike how some Neo-pagans and New Age adherents employ their crystals and gems in their magical workings, using crystal alone in Hoodoo should never usurp traditional occult practices of early rootworkers as the primary tool. "Traditional Hoodoo practitioners can't rely on crystals or gemstones. It's a supplement, not a substitution for herbal, mineral, zoological curios, and even prayers," my mentor said.

So how can one use crystals in Hoodoo practice?

Most conjure workers whom I know incorporate crystals through the preparation of amulets and talismans, which involves designing and fixing pieces of jewelry that integrate gemstones, precious metals, shells, sigils, beads, religious items or medals, and other lucky tokens such as coins and even animal curios for the conditions they are intended to address.

Other two-headed doctors use crystal balls as their tool for divination. Crystal balls became accessible to rootworkers after the Emancipation period, as European grimoire sources made their way into Hoodoo through mail-order houses and other Hoodoo supplies shops.

Quartz crystals are one of the most common ones used as an ingredient in a mojo bag and as a token or curio in a bone reading set. They are also used in spiritual workings during slavery time. Quartz crystals were one of the items archaeologists usually discovered under the floors of slave quarters, along with other Hoodoo trinkets such as coins, shells, roots, pins, buttons, glass beads, broken pieces of a china plate, etc.

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.