Is Hoodoo A Closed Practice? ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

Is Hoodoo A Closed Practice?

I am aware that some people believe Hoodoo is meant for African-Americans only. However, I know some people from their community who don't share the same ideology. Most of my teachers here in this tradition are African-Americans, so I disagree that most Black communities are against this cultural exchange and integration. When cultural exchange and integration are done well and respectfully, people become more appreciative of things they tend to ignore.

I also know that some practitioners believe the practice becomes something other than Hoodoo without an African ancestral link. However, as my mentor said, there are two types of ancestors we are asked to venerate: ancestors of our bloodline and ancestors of our spiritual path. My partner, Tim, and I practice Hoodoo, which originates not from our country but from American South. To our knowledge, we both have no ethnic or ancestral lineage to Africans or African-Americans; that's why it surprises many people when they interact with us because they know we are Catholic Filipinos, yet we practice a practically foreign spiritual path.

Yes, we may not have an African-American cultural heritage, but we honor the enslaved African ancestors and our Filipino ancestors correspondingly. We honor our ancestors in character and skills (my partner, Tim, for instance, had particular relatives who were folk healers who used traditional Latin prayers called "oracion" in their spiritual works. It would not hurt him to do the same in their honor) and we revere the ancestors of Hoodoo folk magic through learning and applying how they practice their spirituality.

For us, Hoodoo is a form of folk magic and is not associated with any particular religion and can be practiced by any race.

I practice Hoodoo strictly as I greatly respect Black people and their culture. Our most treasured magical and spiritual practice is built on the sweat of their ancestor's backs. I make sure I perform all that my mentors are teaching me without discrediting their own culture. To dishonor the inherited traditions of African ancestors who struggled to preserve their folkways and customs in the face of slavery and oppression is inappropriate and condemnable.

I do understand, though, why some members of the Black community call us outsiders or, worse, scammers, but I just let them be. The ongoing hatred, contempt, avoidance, and rejection of some people of other individuals who are not part of their ethnic group is a potent reminder that segregation is still in existence. I understand because some people (Whites, Asians, Hispanics, etc.) are outrightly and blatantly dishonoring and disrespecting their traditions by changing and blending their practices instead of keeping them intact. Moreover, they are aided by others who will not stand in defense of 'outsiders.' Racism, segregation, supremacy, bigotry, and intolerance are the oldest diseases known to mankind, and while they always start with the adherents, the hatred eventually spreads its tentacles to others.

From all corners of the earth, those anti-non-Black invective is shrill. And all of this is meant to pummel us; to adversely affect our morale; to effectively break our dedication to help them preserve their wisdom. It will not happen to us, though, as we are still supported by more open-minded members of their community. My African-American friends and teachers never told me to stop what I was practicing (but instead encouraged me), so why should I? I'd rather listen to them, right?

I also just had a conversation with a practitioner a month ago. She asked me how much 'respect' I have for the Black community and their tradition if there's an ongoing debate on whether outsiders should be taught. I just went on and did it anyway?

My response to her is simple: I asked her back how much respect she has for a community and tradition if there's an ongoing debate on whether outsiders should be taught, and she just went on and support segregation, supremacy, discrimination, and bigotry against the non-Black people practicing conjure and rootwork? Is she also listening to other African-American and Hoodoo community members who believe that Hoodoo is not a closed tradition?

The fact is disagreeing is not synonymous with disrespecting. I may disagree with some members of the Black community who support this ideology, but it doesn't mean I am disrespecting them. The problem nowadays, some people have difficulty accepting that because everyone believes that their view or opinion is the only reality. However, spirituality, whatever path it is, knows of many realities, all of them true, each containing different interesting lessons for us in this current reality.

Hoodoo, as my mentors said, is not an exclusive or initiatory practice. It's restrictive, they would tell, as we are told to honor the African-American ancestors who practiced, preserved, and retained it. We must practice it from an Afro-centric and Judeo-Christian perspective.

Suppose anyone has a problem with us practicing Hoodoo and even the Yoruba religion, Ifa. Why don't they tell their concern with our elders in the United States and Nigeria? They might want to correct their views.

One more thing that I would like to point out is Hoodoo is a conglomerate of different Southern Conjure folk practices. Not all of them are related to West African culture.

Some people also tell me that one cannot practice Hoodoo and other African traditional religions because they were created in response to slavery, the destruction of a culture, and centuries of abuse upon a whole community. I'm sorry, but I don't get why one could not practice a particular spiritual tradition just because of racism and cultural appropriation? I mean, there are a lot of spiritual and religious traditions out there that shared the same fate throughout history. Judaism faced discrimination, and Early Christianity experienced oppression and persecution. Do you mean people can't be initiated into these traditions too?

I firmly believe that culture, with all its religious traditions and spiritual beliefs, should be shared and appreciated. All these different sects, denominations, communities, or groups try to convince others that they are right and others are wrong. They all claim to have divine duty or authority to convert everybody to their mindset. But the truth is, they are all just the same. They all share commonalities and have borrowed something from older traditions. No faith and practice began in a vacuum.

Those practitioners who keep on insisting that Hoodoo is a closed tradition are also standing there with overwhelmed faces adoring Jesus as their priest, savior, and redeemer, not realizing they are calling a non-African Deity and performing some rituals not practiced by Africans but by European Christians and even some Messianic Jews. So what's the essence of fighting and destroying all interpretations or beliefs that are different from or opposed to your own if we're all the same?

Hoodoo is not about race and ethnicity. It's a folk magic practice.

This does NOT mean that Whites, Asians, Hispanics or Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and other races can claim ownership and authority over Hoodoo. I'm totally against it. We should still respect the Black ancestors who preserve it and honor them as if they are worthy of being praised.

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.