HOODOO HERB AND ROOT MAGIC - A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure by catherine yronwode

 I still don't have a camera available - and I blame C. for that - so I can't show the nifty stuff that has been boiling and rolling from the cupboard to the cauldron, so, here’s another book.

 For those that don't know, Hoodoo is a syncretic African-American folk magic tradition - do not mistake it for Voodoo, which is a religion - that has, at various points in its development, mixed African beliefs and practices with Native American, European- as the Medieval and Renaissance Grimoires became available to the general public in the beginning of the twentieth century- and, more recently, Mexican Brujeria and Espiritismo.With the advent of the Internet and the subsequent spread of information, interest in Hoodoo has grown exponentially in the Pagan community, an interest that, I believe, can be partially attributed to the fascination of actually learning a tradition that is living and thriving as opposed to trying to resurrect a certain religious movement that has been dead for centuries with all its difficulties and the large amount of guess-work that naturally ensues. Other than this obvious allure, Hoodoo is also a completely pragmatically paradigm that lacks any of the home-made makeshift morals that plague the Pagan community and that render nearly any magical activity pretty much ineffective due to the extreme amount of watering down whilst still maintaining, in itself, enough flexibility to be detached from any theological links and adapted to -if any exist at all - religious flavour that the practitioner might require.

 One of the main public figures related to Hoodoo - and a traditionalist to boot - is catherine yronwode (no, there is no typo, miss catherine really does prefer not to capitalize her name; yronwode reads as ironwood). She started to learn Hoodoo in her teens, being taught by people who used it on a daily basis near the place she lived and that weren’t shy to share. Nowadays she maintains a very large webpage full of resources for people who want to know more about this tradition. In her webpage you can find her store "Lucky Mojo", but also thousands of web archives that relate to the subject at hand. I highlight Hoodoo in Theory and Practice , an online book which is not yet completed; her correspondence course ;  her Hoodoo radio show, complete with archives from previous years and finally Southern Spirits - A scholarly online resource . There is much more to be found in her webpage. This lady truly does it out of love and devotion.

One of the names are that are used to refer to Hoodoo is Rootwork. Whilst Rootwork doesn't necessarily imply a different or more specific set of practices within Hoodoo, it does point to the importance of plants in conjure. Following the doctrine of signatures, which basically attributes magical significance to a plant's appearance and modus vivendi, Rootworkers build their formularies with a fix, or trick, for nearly any situation that may arise. This book focuses precisely on that. It contains nearly 500 herbs as well as animal and mineral curious which are also largely employed in conjure. Organized as a reference encyclopedia, each herb entry features its taxonomic name, its popular name/s, what its used for and how its employed, recipes and/or spells connected to it and, finally, other herbs that it interacts with together with the "how" and "where" that particular herb was first introduced to Hoodoo. But this is not all. catherine goes one step further in the series of herbals that are published each year and actually explains the context where those herbs are used and i am not referring to the black and white definition of uses but the practices and folklore behind it. Whilst not a how to book in anyway - praise the lord! - if this is your first contact with Hoodoo your basic education won’t be negliged. You will learn about Mojo Hands and how and why they are fixed; the importance of body fluids and what they are for and in what context they are used; how and what types of clothing play a part in conjure as well as other personal concerns such as nails, hairs, skin scrapings; measures, foot tracks, disposing methods et all.

Do not miss this one. It is certainly worth the money.

Happy conjurin'