HOLY MOLY!: THE SAINTS & HOODOO
It may seem at first blush that Hoodoo and Christian saints don’t have much of a natural connection, especially outside of the context of New Orleans, Louisiana, where there has been a longstanding historical synergy. If you ever read any of the Hyatt books, where a lot of Southern Hoodoo is cataloged in sociological style, you will see quickly that working with saints was not reserved for that one part of the South.
The connection is not as far-fetched as it might seem. For one thing, saints are Christian spirits. Hoodoo itself has strong Christian roots and tended not to work with a lot of other spirits outside of the Bible (mainly because the most considerable Abrahamic influence on early Hoodoo was Protestant Christianity, not Catholicism). But even for a Protestant worker, if they were Black, they were also working on a foundational premise of African spiritualities (and really, any indigenous spirituality). That premise is that Indigenous people recognize power wherever it comes from. Sometimes anthropologists see the practical results of this belief and assume Black people will worship anything—and when they do, they are missing the point.
The saints have long been established witnesses in the lives of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Episcopal churches. Workers would have seen or known people who revere the saints in the church, seeing them in prayer, at feast days, and so forth, and the light bulb would have gone off.
Add to this the fact that Hoodoo and American Spiritualism/Spiritualist Churches began to exchange ideas and fuse into each other’s practices, and you have the perfect storm for some rootworkers who choose to work with saints. What I find fascinating is, when I read some of the stories and prescriptions Hyatt received where saints were mentioned, the rootworkers would combine reverence for, for example, Saint Expedite with rootwork to get some quick money or return a lost lover. With its reverence for these spiritual superheroes, the “high magic” of the Church made love to the “low magic” of working roots, tying knots, and fixing money to hunt more money!
In some of my classes, I, too, show how I work with certain saints to specific ends. For example, there is no better saint for mental and emotional issues than Saint Dymphna. My first working with her years ago was for a dear friend whose brother got into trouble with the Law and had to do some serious time. The problem wasn’t his crime as much as his mental health. His mom had visited him when he was just in holding, and she could tell that his mental health was already bad. So, she reached out to me and asked if there was anything I could do. So I prayed to Dymphna like I knew how. Pretty soon after, I received a spiritual bath and candle ritual. Dymphna taught me that a mother could take baths for their child, and its benefit would reach the child—because they have an unbreakable bond. And sure enough, when we visited her son, he was much better and wasn’t sure how!
Like other spirits, saints are great teachers and will show you what you need to know. I hope you consider them and their value in your practice.
