The hoodoo tradition of the American South is another one that is powered by plant energy and often does not require the patient to “take” medication to experience healing.
The word ‘hoodoo’ has African origins and is used to describe various forms of magic, folk healing and ‘sorcery’, using roots and herbs. Today, the hoodoo practitioner is often referred to as a ‘roots doctor’ or ‘juju man’. These colorful terms belie the power of tradition, however, because in Africa, these practitioners were priests (botonons) and sorcerers (azondoto), who were rightly feared and respected for their expertise in herbs and knowledge of spirits and bochio, or soul.
When these priests came to America as slaves, they brought their knowledge with them, but the unavailability of some plants meant that they had to adopt Native American and even European plant allies and practices in their work. Within modern hoodoo, therefore, we see the merging of many magical plant threads.
One of the best known forms of this magic is the ‘mojo bag’: a bundle of consecrated plants and items made to bring luck and protection or to ward off negativity. These are not so different from the offering packages, created by Andean shamans as a call to the spirits who direct their healing energies towards the person making the offering. The word mojo comes from the West African mojuba (“prayer”), a method of directing spiritual energies with a similar effect.
To look at, a mojo is a flannel bag containing magical items, usually carried by the person, hidden out of sight, and often worn next to the skin. If the mojo is meant to protect property rather than a person, it can also be hidden near the front door. In either case, it’s important that no one sees or touches the bag other than the person who owns it, or its magic could be lost.
The contents of the bag vary depending on its purpose, but there are usually at least three magical items, be they roots, leaves, feathers, crystals, stones, snake vertebrae, magnets, metal amulets, or papers on which sigils or symbols have been drawn. wishes. written. Sometimes there are more than three, in combinations that always add up to an odd number.
The reason odd numbers are used differs depending on who you ask, but one popular idea is that the universe operates with odd numbers to “keep things moving.” Three, for example, wants to ‘fall into’ four, while four is ‘solid’ and fixed rather than flowing. So, to “get the energy moving” for a client’s benefit, or to undo a seemingly “endless” streak of bad luck, an odd number is used to signal to the universe that now is the time for a change. .
The Jungian psychoanalyst, Marie-Louise Von Franz, also discusses this in her book The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Quoting Jung, she comments that: “the three is generally connected with the flow of movement… two poles and the exchange of energy between them are needed for movement – for example, the positive and negative electric pole and the current that equalizes the tension.”
For financial success, for example, an old magic trick is to wrap the root of High John the Conqueror in a dollar bill and add frankincense and a little sugar, then tie them all up in a green bag. Five elements are used here: the root, the dollar bill, the incense, the sugar, and the bag itself. The symbolism behind these items works according to the plant spirit principle that like attracts like. High John is used to ‘conquer’ money problems; the higher the denomination, the more money the magician or his client will be attracted to. The bag is green because this is the color of money (‘greenbacks’), and the sugar ‘sweetens the pot’.
For a peaceful home, angelica root, olive leaves, rosebuds, lavender flowers, lemon balm, and basil leaves are tied in a blue bag (for harmony) along with some intertwined hair. of all family members. Again we see the doctrine of signatures at play in the choice of angelica (‘angel root’) and balm for spiritual harmony and the leaves of an olive branch for peace.
Another unusual mojo trick is for invisibility. This requires poppy seeds and dried fern leaves to be ground together “under a dark moon”. To this are added myrrh, marjoram, slippery elm and fresh dill, mixed with spring water and almond oil. When dry, the mixture can be added to a bag of mojo or sprinkled on objects to hide them from others. The magic in a spell like this, as healer Doris Rivera Lenz says of her own work, can be in giving a client the self-confidence that they won’t draw attention to themselves, so they can navigate their difficulties with more confidence. in itself. ‘know’ that she is invisible. The change, in other words, is for the client and not for the outside world.
Once prepared, a bag of mojo is purified into incense and its spirit is ‘fed’ with rum or whiskey and Agua de Florida. Bodily fluids can also be used, especially if the spell is to influence another. For a person to fall in love with you, for example, it’s helpful to have a bit of their sweat, urine, or saliva to rub on the bag (other personal items, as close to their DNA as possible, like hair or nail clippings – too can be added to the bag itself).
A bag of mojo can also be used for fortune telling (as we understand it in the West) by tying it to a string and using it as a pendulum. By asking the spirit of the amulet to show you ‘yes’ (often spinning clockwise) and ‘no’ (often rocking back and forth), you have a spiritual device for answering simple questions.
For more complex questions (for example, ‘How do I make the man I want fall in love with me?’) it is better to write the letters of the alphabet and let the pendulum explain the answer by gravitating towards each one of them. .
