The first time I called into The Lucky Mojo Hoodoo Rootwork Hour, I listened through headphones while cleaning the miniblinds in my study. As I dusted, climbing on the desk, crawling over furniture, I may have huffed a little. The next week everybody was talking about the heavy breather who had freaked them all out. Maybe somebody was doing bad work on the class, someone said. Enemies were certainly about—other conjurers jealous of their success or angry Christians.
Or maybe somebody too dumb to mute the phone, Cat’s co-host Christos Kioni offered. I should have confessed, but I resisted knowing the truth. The evil lurking at the edge of space had probably just been me, out of shape, clumsy, trying to get a little housework done. I hoped no one had put out a curse on the heavy breather.
Cat doesn’t always censure what others might call black magic. One of the students in our online hoodoo class told of having evoked spirits to deal with an official who menaced his family. The work involved sacrifices of chickens and was aimed toward the official’s car. Not long thereafter, the official had an automobile accident that disabled her. She gave up her job, and the threat to the family went away. Others in the class congratulated the student on such a strong result. When one student suggested that trafficking with such spirits might be dangerous, Cat’s response was “Some people like to play on the wild side. To each his [or her] own.” A few days later, however, she noted in a separate post that those who seek to benefit others are the rootworkers who grow strongest.
Her shop is filled with supplies that can put a hex on anyone. She stocks graveyard dirt, which scares plenty of people. Needlessly, she might say, since African Americans think of spirits as benevolent, and the most common use for the dirt is to connect with protective spirits. Graveyard dirt is also combined with other ingredients, such as sulfur and ground-up vermin, to make goofer dirt. It’s bad stuff that can be used in spells that aim to kill people. She also has black candles. I was shocked that she stocked such items.
“I won’t kill anyone,” she said. “I’ve had people ask me to, and I tell them, ‘If you want someone killed, you’ll have to do it yourself.’” She doesn’t do any work for others anymore, but she sells supplies and advises people.
“What about black magic?” I asked, and then began to clarify. “Not black. I mean dark. I mean harmful magic. Bad magic. You know what I mean.” Trying not to sound racist was twisting me in knots.
She nodded. “I know what you mean.”
“Okay. I’m trying to ask if you have any problem with that.”
“I trust that it’s justified,” she said mildly.
The word justified is important in hoodoo conjure work. Rootworkers often say Psalms and other Bible verses over their work. But in their prayers for power and destruction, they always remember to say, “If this be justified, Lord, let it come to pass.” Then it’s the Lord’s call, and the rest of us are merely his instruments, which is a cozy place to be. It beats going to war in the name of God or killing because God has been insulted or bombing school buses because his temple has been defiled or any of the other reasons I’d heard for abusing others in the name of God. The hoodoo method, setting natural forces into motion and then appealing to God for a decision on whether it’s a go or not, is a bit like prayer with a barb.
The conjurers also may refuse work that they don’t think is justified, and some who refuse to do any bad work at all are called “lady-hearted.” But what’s bad and what’s not is always up to interpretation. I suspect that if they’re convinced someone is being unjustly punished or wronged, even lady-hearted workers might feel free to help. The St. Helena Island hoodoo doc told me that a large part of his work was for people in prison. The original Dr. Buzzard, generations back, also specialized in jailhouse work. He was said to have a flock of buzzards at his command that would descend on the jail and free prisoners.
To determine what’s justified, conjurers listen to the person asking for the work. They also often do some form of divination. It might be Tarot or I Ching or throwing the bones. I don’t know whether divination works, but I do know that listening to one side of any story may not tell you what’s justified. Hearing both sides always complicates up the situation. I never talked to or heard of hoodoo docs seeking the other side of a story. They rely on their judgment, divination, and the discretion of Jesus. Maybe those three tests are enough. One more test when a hex is in question comes from Luisah Teish, a priestess of the Yoruba Lucumi tradition, which is another name for Santeria. “Hexing is appropriate when you seek to stop an abusive action for which you would be willing to receive the same punishment if you committed the same crime.”
Conjure docs often favor turning bad magic back on the sender as a way to deal with enemies. That punishes whoever bears them ill will without hurting those who they suspect but who might be innocent. A North Carolina rootworker, Adele, told me that she does reverse work once a year that’s aimed at anyone who seeks to harm her. Then she watches to see what happens. Sometimes people she hasn’t suspected have car wrecks. One man’s house burned down. Not only were they punished, but she then knew who was working against her.
When I expressed my misgivings about bad work, Cat reminded me that everybody doesn’t love everybody and everybody doesn’t do everybody else right. Poor people have always turned to religio-magic for healing and justice. Some of her clients have thrown down on drug houses, trying to get pushers out of their neighborhoods.
Does it work?
“That depends. It might, or it might be that the drug dealers were doing the same thing.”
Cat’s ideas began to shift my thoughts about the clear-cut nature of good and evil, which softened me up for a harsher challenge that was to come.
Animal sacrifice is part of many magical practices, and needless to say, I don’t like it. Wiccans don’t do it, and I never heard of Western high magicians doing it—except Crowley, who had a cat killed to prove that his magical power could keep it still despite its terror. He also crucified a frog once. I doubt that many hoodoo practitioners kill animals today, but old stories often included examples of people cruelly killing frogs, cats, and bats in order to use parts of their bodies in magic.
Among practitioners of African diasporic religions such as Santeria or voodoo, however, animal sacrifice is still important. These kinds of sacrifice aren’t for the expiation of sin, as were Christian and Judaic sacrifices. Sometimes in African belief systems sacrifices give the gods payment or food for the magical actions they are asked to perform. I also heard people say that animal sacrifice was one way among many of bringing the energy of life into the ceremony.
Wiccan circles’ cone of power is supposed to focus and intensify energy. Candlelight is a form of energy that sends intentions out into the world. High magicians in one Hermetic ceremony I watched concentrated on holding the energy of specific deities within themselves as a way of keeping those gods’ power present during the ceremony.
Defenders of animal sacrifice say that anyone who eats animal flesh has no ground for complaint since animals killed for food are often treated much more cruelly and killed with less regard than are sacrificial animals. Defenders also say that animals killed during ceremonies are killed quickly and eaten afterwards. According to U.S. law, they cannot be killed slowly or cruelly. Those are good defenses and usually stop the criticism, except among vegans and vegetarians, who have a different ethic. But I am not one of those, and I don’t like criticizing other people’s religious beliefs. I planned to ignore the issue of animal sacrifice altogether. Then I read a diary recording a trip to Haiti by a group of Americans who wanted to be initiated into voodoo.
The diary gave details of a chicken sacrifice. It was not quick and easy, as such sacrifices are often said to be. They broke the chicken’s legs and pulled out its tongue. The diarist defended the Haitians as living in a different county, with different circumstances, following an old tradition. She was being taught by an old man of great stature in his community, and she trusted hi
m, believed him to be in close touch with gods and magic forces. Nevertheless, she was so upset about the chicken that she cried. The same evening I read the diary, I began a book about urban voodoo, which touted the great strength that comes from giving up puerile Christian notions about good and evil. The two accounts were not a good combination. I read them as I was about to go to sleep. They disgusted me so much that I threw the urban voodoo book across the room.
“I will not torture chickens,” I muttered toward the blank wall of my bedroom. “I don’t care how many gods promise to aid me. I don’t care how many mild-eyed old men steeped in an ancient wisdom say it’s right. And I’ll keep my ideas about good and evil too.”
I snapped off the light, punched my pillows, and slouched deeper into the bed. I raged for a bit, still mumbling angrily as I tossed about. Then I fell asleep, and the magic began.
I dreamed that I was in a prison common room where men were lined up and being killed one by one. A woman walked down the row stabbing them repeatedly with a small knife until they were dead. None of them struggled or fought back. Watching with me was a dark-haired young man, dressed in dark pants and a white shirt, who loved me. He left the room, and the woman turned to me.
“You’ve been found guilty,” she said. “I have to kill you now.”
“You’re going to stab me with that little knife?” I asked. “Oh no. That’s going to hurt.”
“No. I’m going to give you injections that will cause your body to go numb. First your hands and feet will lose feeling. Then as I give you more shots, the numbness will reach your heart and you will die.”
She began the injections, and I slumped over onto a school desk, unable to move my hands or feet. Paralysis was moving up my body when the young man walked back into the room.
“She’s innocent,” he said.
“Okay,” the woman said, as though she didn’t care one way or the other. “I’ll stop giving her shots, and she’ll be fine.”
I awoke feeling horrified at such a bloody dream, and then I began to laugh. No one reared as I was in the Southern Baptist church could fail to know that the young man who declares you innocent in the face of judgment is Jesus. I hadn’t been to church in a long time, and few people would identify me as a Christian, but who should come roaring to the rescue at the first assault from pagan beings and occult powers? Jesus himself. Maybe he dropped down from heaven, or maybe I’d dredged him up from the core of my being. Either way, I was surprised and glad to see him. I called my mother that morning to tell her the dream. I knew she was fearful about my investigations in the occult world. Hearing that Jesus was on the case would comfort her.
In truth, it had comforted me too. The Baptists believe once saved always saved, but I hadn’t counted on it. The dream made me wonder if I had strayed as far from Christianity as I’d thought. It seemed to affirm a core of goodness, strength, or innocence within me that could withstand any occult evil that might be thrown my way. It seemed to say that I could count on that inner knowledge, which was a lot like what Hegel and the Hermeticists believed. They thought that humans are created out of God, you’ll remember, and so are part of God with the truth right there. They also had a position that seemed to speak to my struggle over the separation of good and evil. They thought that neither side is likely to have the corner on truth and that generally a synthesis of opposing ideas, taking some from each, will reveal the whole truth.
I didn’t take the dream to be an endorsement of living sacrifice, especially since it appeared that I was about to be one in the dream. I took it as an assurance that I didn’t have to be afraid of occult powers. They wouldn’t “kill” me. My core beliefs would stand up. I could let them be challenged, even modified, without fearing that I’d lose the essence of the morality I valued. My dream wouldn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, but I’m not a scientist. I’m just an ordinary Jill trying to get by. I believed the dream’s message, and it gave me courage.
Was it a message from Jesus? Who can say? But let me tell you what happened next, and you can make your own decision. That afternoon I picked up the urban voodoo book again. As I sat on my front porch I read something new to me. When voodoo spirits, or lwa, take possession of believers, the first sign may be that the believers’ hands and feet become immovable, exactly what had happened to me in the dream. The woman had given me injections, and my hands and feet were paralyzed. That part of the dream couldn’t have come from deep inside my mind. I hadn’t known it.
I put the book down and sat still, moving only my eyes, scanning the empty yard. “What is going on here?” I whispered to the sunny day around me. No one answered, which was good. If someone had, I might have run into the house, shut the door, and never come out again, which wouldn’t have made me safe at all since everyone knows that spirits can come through walls.
The first lesson from Cat had blurred the lines between good and evil. This second lesson gave me courage to push on. The third lesson mixed everything up so completely that my ideas of good and evil may never recover.
The first time I met Cat’s husband Siva, the blood-pact Satanist, he hardly spoke, which is not unusual for him. He is a quiet man. His hair is dark and long. The first tier of his beard is shorter than the rest and bushes out. The longer part, which hangs far down onto his chest, is sometimes plaited by Cat into tiny snaky braids. Tall enough to stand like a spectral presence above every crowd, he always wears black. Sometimes he adds a gray knitted watch cap. He answers questions carefully in a soft voice that belies his rather fierce appearance. Anyone who watches his eyes will see that he is often amused, frequently delighted.
Cat and Siva have their differences. She primarily does low or practical magic. He does all kinds of magic, but high magic is a strong interest for him. She claims magical results regularly; he believes as little as possible. Their house is full of her collections: Christmas ornaments, ceramic Easter rabbits, old labels, posters, jewelry. The main sign that he lives there is one altar on the porch with images of the devil on it. Her favorite deities are Jesus and the Hindu god Siva, chiefly because they are thin men with good bodies and facial hair. Jehovah she refers to as the baby-killer god, mainly for his actions when the Israelites wanted out of Egypt.
Jesus also gets her allegiance because of hoodoo. Unlike voodoo or Santeria or other African-based religions, hoodoo does not usually employ African deities. It uses African magic and medicinal lore but usually not African gods. Hoodoo is Christian through and through. In some parts of the country it’s Protestant and in others it’s Catholic. If you try to take Africa out of hoodoo, it’s not hoodoo anymore, and the same is true if you take the Christianity out. Although she is Jewish, Cat doesn’t hesitate to end any particular rootwork with the words, “Do this in the name of Jesus.” Anybody who can’t get along with Jesus can forget rootwork, she said.
Siva considers himself a monk of the goddess Kali, who is often associated with destruction. He seemed clearly on the dark side, but that doesn’t always mean what I thought it did. His blood pact with Satan, for instance, is in support of the wildness of the earth. For magical people the dark is often identified with the female, with the moon and the tides and the silent forces of nature. It is sometimes used as a way of calling up intuition and the unconscious. Goddesses are often identified with the night and sexuality. The annual sojourn of Persephone in the underworld is talked about as a necessary going into the dark for spiritual growth. The dark is also accepted as a necessary balance to the light. So that even when dark things are identified with bad actions or feelings, they are honored as part of human experience.
Siva’s full name, Tyagi Nagasiva, is one he took as all monks do when they consecrate their lives. Tyagi means one who renounces. Kali gave him the name Nagasiva. He was inspired by reading Catholic monk Thomas Merton’s writing, especially The Silent Life, and studying the lives of monastics in history. A contemplative, sacrificial way of life appealed to him. Being a monk did not forestall his marriage.
Kali first came to him one night when he was walking to the bus stop. She didn’t give her name. He only heard a voice. He thought the voice might be coming from nearby trees. He has reverence for trees and has done pilgrimages to visit some that he considers especially holy. When he asked if the voice was coming from the trees, it said, “You can believe that if you want to.” He has no holy book to elucidate his relationship with the Goddess, but he believes that she often speaks to him. He writes down what she says and has compiled other writings about her, especially those written by devotees. Those serve as his holy writ. She is not, however, a very directive goddess. She often gives him another perspective and then refers him back to his own understanding, which the Hermeticists would say is an excellent place to look for direction.
He is also a member of the Church of Euthanasia, which has four pillars: cannibalism, abortion, suicide, and sodomy. By the time I read that, I was wondering if Cat’s magic wasn’t an example of needing to be careful what you wish for. I questioned a longtime friend of Cat’s about Siva. “All I know is that he’s very kind,” the friend said. Kind? Cannibalism and suicide? Kind?
On his website he publishes a compilation of other people’s explicit tips on committing suicide. The guide recommends the action and commends all those who absent themselves from the planet prematurely. When popular media have fastened onto the site, he has been vilified and demonized, but Internet communications have often been from people grateful for the information. He is also sometimes told that he ought to kill himself, which he says he would do if he weren’t serving the earth. The material is horrifying, instructive, and sometimes funny in a sick way. He describes it and the Church of Euthanasia as Dada-esque. “It’s a method for catalyzing a change of consciousness in the human species,” he said.
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