For many Hoodoo offers a connection to a spiritual self that provides the tools to directly handle the issues that come up in daily life.
Hoodoo doesn’t have the barriers that many magical practices have—there’s just the work, and how you use it is up to you.
Hoodoo grounds it’s followers and helps find peace in troubling times.
Hoodoo has been around a long time and is actually its own practice with its own rules and history.
The practice isn’t known by “spells,” but “work” or “chores.”
Hoodoo is an African American tradition.
It was created by enslaved people from various spiritual practices that they adapted to the land they found themselves in.
Hoodoo is also known by other names, mainly conjure or rootwork.
People who practice hoodoo work with a number of tools, such as candles, curios, and, of course, roots and herbs, most of the work we do is concerned with healing and protection.
Hoodoo Isn’t Voodoo
Hoodoo and voodoo are very different. Voodoo, which is also spelled vodou, voudou, and voudun, is an actual religion that is believed to have originated in Haiti and has roots in West African spiritual traditions.
As a religion, voodoo has specific practices, some of which you have to be ordained to perform. It has religious leaders, known as mambos and houngans, who oversee these practices. It has a set of deities and spirits that are worshipped and respected.
We’ll discuss Voodoo more in a moment.
Hoodoo on the other hand does not have these things. Although there is a belief in spirits and life-giving energies, there are no specific gods or god that you must follow.
You are free to worship any gods (or not) that you want.
There is no organized hierarchy.
This isn’t to say there are no rules to working with roots—there are, but it does not have the specific structure associated with religion.
Hoodoo is based in the African heritage, and as such, it is usually practiced only by the Black community.
Hoodoo isn’t closed, it’s restrictive, honoring the African American ancestors who practiced it and you must do work from an Afrocentric perspective.
Even though many believe only members of the black community should practice Hoodoo, there are those who feel race really has nothing to do with it, it’s rather economic status.
Actually, each region of the South has its own brand of Rootwork/Conjure/Hoodoo.
That’s what makes these systems so personal.
The Appalachians have a brand of hoodoo practiced by both white and blacks.
New Orleans is very much the same.
So, even though it’s restricted, it’s more status than by race.
Hoodoo is the name of a conglomerate of different Southern Conjure folk practices.
Not all of them are related to the African American community.
The practices of Hoodoo/Conjure/Rootwork were founded out of repression.
Practiced in part by African Americans, some of which were slaves, yes, but who’d forgotten their gods for the ones of their masters. This is why Hoodoo/Conjure is so heavily influenced by Protestantism.
Or, in the case of New Orleans Voodoo, by Catholicism.
There is a major difference that lies between what Hoodoo defines, and what Voodoo defines.
Voodoo is the religion, or belief system, of many African Americans living in the Mississippi Valley.
Hoodoo, on the other hand, is the magic that has derived from the teachings of Voodoo, which was originally a part of Voodoo.
Hoodoo is the craft; the practice, where Voodoo is the mindset and monarchy.
New Orleans Voodoo is a cultural strand of the Afro-American religions rooted in West African Dahomeyan Vodun. Voodoo is a result of this African diaspora.
Most especially as a result of the slave trade, West African Dahomeyan Vodun was fused with Catholicism and Francophone beliefs in the South. Voodoo especially developed along the Mississippi in the south, mostly in the larger towns of Louisiana and Mississippi, and of course with its largest influence falling in the town of New Orleans.
An combination of French, Creole and Spanish influence, this melting pot of religion fusions is what brought us Voodoo Dolls, Gris-gris, Mojo bags, and such.
Voodoo’s belief system centers around one detached God who stays at a distance, and does not interfere in a person’s life unless called.
The spirits are the ones who truly help us with what we need on a daily basis.
There is a connection with the spirits around us through song and dance, writing, candle spells, symbolism, and connecting with our own spiritual self.
The use of snakes as symbols and loa (spirit forms) is like a current that runs through Voodoo; the snakes symbolize how knowledge and a connection to the spiritual self can heal. How insight and enlightenment can lift our spirits away from the dredges of what pain and misery have to offer.
Those who practice Voodoo today hope to influence the greater good, and the greater outcome, through an ever-deepening connection with mama nature, the spirits that constantly surround us, and our ancestors’ aid.
As a sign of respect to the spirits, the practice of rituals are done in private, showing commitment and integrity without ego.
Ego only stands to distract us from pure happiness.
When we allow our ego to take over, we lose sight of what we really care about.
We get too caught up in the ‘more’ of what we want and lose our focus.
The ego has the ability to dirty up our waters of purity. When the ego is in play, we find ourselves always wanting more than what we have. We find ourselves chronically dissatisfied with what we already possess, and we forget to find happiness in what is already in front of us, loving and urging us onward in our journey.
It is always important to not only maintain healthy boundaries with your own ego, but with those in your life who let the ego run their lives.
Voodoo and Hoodoo both are designed to improve life and strengthen the individual physically and spiritually.
