Let’s face it. We all have Hoodoo in our blood. In fact, if it wasn’t for the hoodoo practitioners in the deep south, our ancestors probably wouldn’t have survived slavery. Now, will the Hollywood gods ever put that kind of information in a movie. Not sure. Besides, they seem to love defaming African gods and hoodoo practices in horror. There was The Skeleton Key where Violet plots to steal Caroline’s soul. Let’s not forget about True blood, where Tara gets an exorcism by a hoodoo practitioner turned charlatan. But then, there is the movie Spell, that works in the same horror genre, but is scary for all the right reasons. The first one being the boogity doll. The second one being Miss Eloise’s unconventional healing modalities. In this video, we’re going to talk about hoodoo healing spells, how hoodoo practitioners are betrayed in movies. And how you can start tapping into your power.

Tara’s story from True Blood

First, there was Tara, she was mean, couldn’t keep a job, and pushed anyone away who showed her love and affection. Of course, we started to empathize with Tara when we learned that her mother was a fall down drunk. Tara, even though emotionally and even physically abused by her mother, held onto some type of trauma bond, where she would help her mother overcome her alcohol addiction. This leads Tara to pay money for a hoodoo ritual that exorcised the demon out of Lettie Mae. But Lettie Mae only exchanges one addiction for another. And instead of being a black out drunk, she becomes a bible thumbing zealot. And to top everything off, she’s still a shitty mother.

The Skeleton Key movie explained

Then there is The Skeleton Key, where Mama Cecile and Papa Justify are hanged, for presumably, involving white children in one of their hoodoo rituals. They appear to be ghost, haunting the old, dilapidated mansion in the heart of Louisiana. Caroline, a kindhearted nurse become Ben’s caretaker. Overtime, she grew suspicious of Ben’s sudden and unexplained illness that turned him into an invalid. She digs up information, learns about certain hoodoo spells and rituals. Only to find out that Violet wasn’t a sweet old lady after all. Rather, she was Mama Cecile, looking to swap souls with Caroline and incapacitate her body like she did Ben’s. I had to admit, this was a twist that I never saw coming.

The movie Spell explained

Lastly, there is the movie Spell, where Omar Hardwick played Marquis, a power hungry, money grabbing attorney who is a father two, and husband of one. He seems to be embarrassed by his humble beginnings. And the flash backs of all his hoodoo lessons where more terrifying than all the other scenes in the movie. Yet, the past rears its ugly head. Marquis’ father dies. And the family flies down to the dirty south to honor his glory days. But a storm erupts, sweeping them into a tailspin, where Marquis awakens injured and befuddled, and missing his family of three.  An elderly woman ensures him that she can use her hoodoo portions and root work to nurse him back to health. Yet, Marquis is doubtful because he no longer believes in the power of root magic.

What is the real meaning of Hoodoo?

So what do all of these movies have in common, aside from the fact that they take place in the dirty south. Well, they all deal with hoodoo, that’s a given. But these movies are all dirty. What do I mean by dirty? Well, it means that many of the practitioners in these movies were working with a dirty, dark, or evil, kind of magic that made them go crazy. Remember, I said that it was the hoodoo practitioners and quote un quote witch doctors who healed slaves in the south and throughout the diaspora. So how did hoodoo workers go from herbal root workers and healers to evil mean hags? Well, the answer to that question is simple, the magic was simply spiked.

Understanding what a real hoodoo spell is

What do I mean by spiked? I mean that the magic was cut with a whole bunch of other shit that weakened its potency and the affect that it had on the body. We all know that heroine comes from the poppy seed. The seed when ingested with the plant isn’t as addicting or toxic for that matter. However, when you remove all the other elements, you create morphine. And we all know that morphine like cocaine is one hell of a drug. Couple that with cutting it, mixing in sugar, starch, and powdered milk, and voilá, you got one hell of mutation. And that’s what baneful magic is, it’s a mutation.

Understanding the power of hoodoo spells

We all understand that Hoodoo is mix bag of ancient indigenous religions, folklore, and Vodun practices and belief systems from Western Africa. However, what we don’t know is that much of the magic has been spike, contaminated so to speak. Like morphine, it’s been cut, diluted with oppression, racism, and slavery.  So that the spirits that our ancestors called upon back in the day, are no longer the spirits that we call upon now. Many of them are haggard, beat up, maimed, and struggling to survive within a new world that condemns them. And many people use these spirits, and in some strange way, they get results. Afterall, Miss Eloise cut out animals’ tongues and gauged their eyes out in her weird attempt to heal the human body. Mama Cecile learned how to retaliate against oppression by swapping souls. And Miss Jeanette learned that she could heal people just using the power of belief.

What African American Hoodoo has become

And these spirits and gods are so sinister because they are addictive by their very nature. Their practitioners get used to the money. They get used to the power. They get used to the fame and recognition, and thus they can’t stop working with these spirits, even if they wanted to. Miss Eloise believed that she was helping people, in her own weird way, she was. Her séances, as backward and twisted as they were, gave people eyes, and even legs. Mama Cecile figured out a way to live on forever. While Miss Jeanette cured Lettie Mae of her alcoholic addictions. But all these women also caused their fair share of harm. Mama Cecil stole people’s bodies. Miss Jeanette, lied to get people’s money. And Miss Eloise maimed and tortured innocent animals. And that’s the most sinister thing about this kind of magic, people prosper based on someone else’s demise. And thus, the lines between good and bad, right and wrong become blurred. So much so, that the healer begins to justify their twisted actions and the means in which they used to attain them.

Miss Eloise from Spell was a healer and an evil witch

Now, people may argue that’s how the world works. There are simply predators and prey.  And it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. But things weren’t always this way. We are no longer in tune with nature, our human nature. Besides, have you ever wondered how and why are ancestors were able to survive hundreds of years of slavery? Have you ever wondered how these hoodoo workers could do phenomenal things so that our ancestors could survive? Where did all that power go? We have to understand that the further we get from our nature, the further we get from the innate power that are ancestors and indigenous gods possessed. And that’s really what the movie Spell represented. It was a man, fighting against the evil and the oppression within himself.

Understanding Hoodoo Spells for protection and healing

Marquis clawed his way out of the Dirty South and away from his abusive father, because he believed that hoodoo as a whole was evil. However, it was Miss Eloise who helps him understand that the kind of hoodoo that she and her father was practicing was dirty. In the end, Marquis learned that he can used hoodoo magic and spells to save himself, and even his family. In truth, he always had the power within him. Hoodoo was in his blood. But he betrayed his very own nature when he stopped believing. And in the end, he was able to reconnect with his nature, when the belief was sparked yet again. And thus Marquis goes from a non-believer to become even more powerful than Miss Eloise. So much so, that he’s able to destroy her and her community of minions in the end. What’s the moral behind this story? You don’t have to use dirty or dark magic. That’s a choice. And dark magic is not the only thing that’s available to you. There is powerful magic that our ancestors used to heal and survive slavery, and that’s the kind of magic you should be tapping into it. Not, the mutation that it has become today.

Now, many of you are probably asking, how do I tap into this energy? You start by tapping into your ancestral line. Your ancestral line is your first line of offense. And you can do this by simply creating an altar. Once you do this, you can start to make offerings and sacrifices to your loved ones. Do this regularly, and you’ll see significant change.

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