The Hoodoo Culture By Mama Yana

11/01/2025

ALL SAINTS DAY!

"The Louisiana Negroes on All Saints' Night cook food especially for the dead, but such food must be unsalted. God allows all spirits to return to Earth on this night, and they are supposed to eat the essence of the food. This food is left all night on the table."

~ WPA Slave Narrative Collection

The veil is thinner than usual:

The above is an expression of how All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day are observed in New Orleans Hoodoo (hence night and not the day). This expression makes it unique to Hoodoo practices originating in New Orleans surrounding All Saints' Day (November 1st) and the closely following All Souls' Day (November 2nd). The tradition mentioned—cooking and leaving unsalted food overnight for the deceased—is a specific ritual of ancestor veneration, not just for Saints and Deities within Voodoo. I mention Voodoo because it is said that the basis of Louisiana Voodoo is Louisiana Hoodoo, and at times the terms were used interchangeably.

👻 This is a clear example of syncretism, where New Orleans African American practices are viewed through the lens of living within New Orleans. Therefore, there is a noticeable Catholic expression (All Saints' Day), or La Toussaint, which is a major Catholic holy day in New Orleans, focused on honoring all the saints in heaven and, by extension, all the faithful departed. Families traditionally clean, whitewash, and decorate tombs in the city's unique above-ground cemeteries.

Hoodoo has a strong focus on ancestor veneration. The ancestors are seen as powerful forces that remain close to the living, guiding and protecting them. Offerings of food and drink are essential to maintaining a good relationship with them.

🍲 The Significance of Unsalted Food is highly significant and points directly to the New Orleans Hoodoo spiritual logic. The belief that "God allows all spirits to return to Earth on this night and they are supposed to eat the essence of the food" is an offering to draw the spirit to the spiritual world. The dead do not consume the physical substance of the food, but its spiritual energy or essence.

The problem with salt, as noted, may come from the fact that in many African and African diaspora spiritual practices, salt is associated with the living, with the physical world, and sometimes with "binding" a spirit to the material plane. Or, in some cases, salt deters certain elevated spirits.

Serving food without salt ensures the food is prepared for a spirit who has crossed over and does not belong to the world of the living, and ensures that certain elevated spirits will cross through.

It is often considered a spiritual requirement to make the food palatable or accessible to the ancestors, emphasizing their detachment from the needs of the physical body. This act of leaving a meal overnight for the dead, often in silence or performed alone, is reminiscent of the Dumb Supper ritual and rituals of offering to the dearly departed all throughout Africa.

The practice of ancestor veneration around All Saints' Day remains central to New Orleans culture, especially within the Voodoo and Hoodoo communities. Contemporary celebrations still involve cleaning graves, lighting white candles (which symbolize the connection to the spirits and guiding light), offering flowers (especially white, yellow, red marigolds, and coxcombs), and leaving offerings like ci**rs, whiskey, rum, or the deceased's favorite items, in addition to ritual food.

Newspaper clipping
The Times-Democrat
New Orleans, Louisiana • Sat, Nov 2, 1907 Page 12
All Saints Day St. Louis

10/31/2025

10/31/2025

It's not that the veil isn't always thin. It's just that it is thinner or at its thinnest during certain times and rituals.

10/30/2025

Awareness post! Don't Do this! Imma tell you why...
🩸 In Hoodoo blood is considered the most powerful and intimate carrier of a person's life force, soul, or spiritual essence besides ones skull or bones. It's often seen as the physical representation of the self.

Using one's own blood in a working can cause a irreversible connection. It creates an incredibly strong, personal, and direct link between the caster and the work. This link is thought to be more potent than using hair, saliva, or fingernails. Blood is used to make pacts! You'd be making a pact to curse yourself!

By introducing one's own blood, you are essentially attaching your personal signature to the object. In this context, the blood acts as a "lure" or identifier, signaling to any spirits, energies, or entities involved in the cursing work who performed the action and, crucially, making the worker accessible to the spell's effects.

💀 Cursing oils (sometimes called 'Jinxing Oil,' 'Crossing Oil,' are ritualistically prepared compounds of herbs, minerals, animal parts, insects, etc that are specifically "programmed" or consecrated with the intent to bring misfortune, harm, or spiritual attack to a target. Using your OWN blood would make you the target, and reduces the chance or reversing the curse.

These oils are believed to attract and direct negative or chaotic spiritual forces (often referred to as "malicious spirits," "demons,"negative energy").

💥 Danger! When the powerfully personal marker (your blood/life force) is mixed directly into the agent of negative energy (the cursing oil), the energies and spirits summoned by the oil may become confused about their target. Instead of seeing the intended victim as the sole recipient, they see the very essence of the person who created the spell (the blood) attached to the curse. You aren't using any energy signature from the one who cursed you. The spirit will sniff YOU out.

You'd essentially be Self-Targeting! Because your life force is the most potent energy in the working, the curse's negative energy may be redirected back onto its source. The spirits or negative forces see the blood as the clearest, most immediate target, leading to backfire where the caster is "seen as the target to be cursed." This can actually END a life as eggs are seen to give life. We often break eggs to END troubles but we don't use cursing oil and blood. In this case this would seal the curse and break your life. Idk if she's doing this on purpose or if she's just confused regarding technique.

By offering one's blood to a working designed to attract negative entities, you are essentially opening a spiritual door and inviting these malicious forces to directly influence or attach themselves to your own life force. Trust they will feed off of you.

10/30/2025

A Hell house is a type of haunted attraction operated by evangelical organizations near Halloween. These Hell Houses was designed to scare the living hell put of teenagers and into repentance. While they share the structure of a standard haunted house—a series of narrated, frightening vignettes with live actors—their focus is explicitly religious. They aim to scare patrons into choosing salvation by graphically portraying the real-life effects of sin and the horrors awaiting sinners in the afterlife. The Hell House is an adaptation of the Haunted House.

10/30/2025

I always push to be educated about Hoodoo lore to get an understanding of the culture in context. Hoodoo has Abrahamic influences and honestly, a lot of the lore does too. This is because most Hoodoos were self-proclaimed Christian. The Devil at the crossroads was seen as a different entity contextually, and plays a role in some of our most famous or known stories in Hoodoo.
Here is a Hoodoo tale involving the Devil of the Crossroads and Jack that rootworkers have been recorded telling. This is essentially the African American version of THE JACK of Holloween.

"Jack sold himself to the devil at the crossroads one night at twelve o'clock. For seven years all power was given to him to do as he pleased, but at the end of that period his soul belonged to the devil. Old Satan called for him, but Jack was ready. He had tacked a piece of old shoe sole up above the door, and asked the devil to get it for him. The devil stood in a chair and reached for it. Jack then took a hammer and nailed the devil's hand fast, slipping the chair out from under him. Upon a promise of his freedom Jack then released old Satan. Finally, Jack died. He went up to heaven, but those in charge would not let him in. He went down to hell, but the devil threw a chunk of fire at him and told him he was too smart for hell. Jack, deprived of a dwelling, was forced to pick up the chunk of fire and to spend all his time wandering about the earth luring people into swamps and mudholes at night."

Although Jack and John are the most common names used in Hoodoo "Folk" lore other names for a Jack-O-Lantern can include Peg- O lantern, and Will- O Whips. In retrospect, this would reflect an ignis fatuus which is a "light ghost" and would include plat-eyes which are earthbound shapeshifting spirits with glowing or firey eyes or headless horsemen with lanterns or torches who are also entities believed in Hoodoo.

This story is used to explain the floating flames or lights in the swamps at night believed to belong to the earthbound spirits of the dead. The light lures people to their death. It's said to break the power or trans that lures you. You are to pull your pockets wrong side out or wear your coat or jacket inside out. According to Hoodoo Jack holds hot coal given by the devil for light.

Citation: The Annotated African American Folktales

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10/30/2025

Hoodoo Spirit Bloody Bones

Bloody Bones is part of an African American series of spirits that teaches a lesson about talking too much, or "snitchin" and, "cashing checks our butts can't cash." These stories go by titles such as "The Talking Mule," "The Talking Bones," or "The Talking Turtle." The initial story as it relates to Bloody Bones was a talking skull in a boneyard.

Bloody Bones and a man named High Walker are connected as rivals but are now the same in a sense, because Bloody Bones is the one who got High Walker decapitated. However, before this happened, High Walker had special gifts. His gifts allowed him to command boneyard bones to move on command. He would go through a specific boneyard and command all the bones and skulls to move and talk. Bloody Bones sold his soul and body to the devil to get his gifts, as lore speaks. He told the devil he never wanted to do right and only wrong; as a result, he died and dried up doing just so.

In Hoodoo, there is a lot of lore about meeting the devil to obtain special gifts. For example, to become a witch, to become talented, a way to obtain a "night bone" (Hoodoo term for black cat bone), to have fame, etc. Even the late great Zora Neale Hurston stated having to do a ritual at the crossroads to meet the devil in order to study under a two-head. She said her experiences felt dark and cold.
(Hence, why I could never compare the devil at the crossroads in Hoodoo to Esu; the lore in Hoodoo of the spirit of the Devil at the crossroads speaks nothing of the nature of Esu.)

One day when High Walker went to his boneyard, Bloody Bones' skull was there. Bloody Bones did not speak when High Walker commanded. Later, Bloody Bones told High Walker, "It was my mouth that got me here, and it will be yours to bring you here too." High Walker went and told some white people that there was a talking skull. He said he'd show them, and if the skull didn't talk, they could take his head. Well, when High Walker took them to the skull, the skull didn't talk. So High Walker's head was taken.

After High Walker's head was taken, Bloody Bones and the entire boneyard rose and shook themselves and told the white man the same thing. "It's my mouth that got me here; it will be yours that brings you here," they said. "We got High Walker, and we are all Bloody Bones now."

According to Hoodoo lore, Bloody Bones lures people to their demise, and their bones join Bloody Bones, and Bloody Bones will use anyone or any spirit to lure you there. Bloody Bones is often associated with Raw Head, which makes one wonder if was it Bloody Bones that lured Raw Head to his demise and they became one.

(Study the lore.)

10/29/2025

Them: Where do you get your chicken feet from?

Me: I'm a Hoodoo; I get them from ceremonies meant for blessings. I have to know the chicken they came from.

10/28/2025

Many may not understand the responsibility of a diviner and what they go through.
1. 🛁 Energetic Hygiene and Cleansing is essential!
The need for frequent cleansing is paramount because energy is transferable. When a diviner connects with a client's spiritual situation, they inevitably take on some of that energy, which can include negativity, distress, or spiritual residue. This takes TIME and MONEY to care for.

This involves rituals like spiritual baths, smoke baths/cleanses (using incense or herbs), prayer, meditation, or working with specific protective and cleansing incantations and tools, etc.

This is to prevent the accumulation of residual or harmful energy that they can pick up during a consultation, which could lead to illness, emotional imbalance, loss of several things such as mental clarity, tangible possessions, relationships, or interference in future readings.
Which brings me to my second point.

2. 🧠 Mental and Nervous Care is very important and can be detrimental if not done.
Divination can be emotionally and psychologically demanding. A diviner is an intermediary who often witnesses painful, traumatic, or unsettling truths about a client's past, present, or future. This is a type of emotional labor. They must process and translate potentially disturbing information while maintaining composure and neutrality for the client. Your diviner may have to go through a mental and spiritual roller-coaster, and you may not know it. They must stay aware, calm, and level while simultaneously interpreting messages for you.

Yes, there is psychic strain. The act of opening one's mind to spiritual sight puts a strain on the nervous system. Self-care is essential to avoid burnout, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts from the visions they encounter or what they see in their tools. Practices like grounding, psychotherapy, and restful solitude are vital. Your diviner, who may also be sensitive to spirits and a medium, can experience sensory overload, spiritual fatigue, and spiritual profusion. They must put in a lot of work to care for themselves.

My third point speaks about the diviner's devotion to their spirits just so they can help others.

3. 🙏 Appeasing and maintaining a spiritual connection plays a big part in a diviner's life.
The gift of divination is generally believed to come from specific spirits, ancestors, deities, or a higher power. The diviner acts as a dedicated vessel or conduit.
So reciprocity is respectful and a part of the job. The relationship with these spiritual entities is one of reciprocity. The spirits provide the sight, wisdom, and protection; the diviner must, in turn, offer appreciation, reverence, and service through regular prayers, offerings, rituals, and adhering to spiritual laws.

Neglecting this duty can impact the diviner by weakening the gift, leading to inaccurate readings, or causing the protective spirits to withdraw, leaving the diviner vulnerable.This is because the spirits may feel neglected and that the diviner doesn't need them anymore to help give messages.

Point four is regarding the diviner's spiritual management.
4. 🛡️ Invocation, Protection, and Negativity Management must be done for an efficient reading. The diviner must be a spiritual alchemist, capable of intentionally shifting the energy in a sacred space. Typically, calling in light before a session, they must invoke positive, helpful energies (ancestors, guardians, or deities) to surround the process and the client.

The diviner must understand spiritual First-Aid. If a reading reveals or attracts a harmful entity or negative psychic attack ("something negative interferes"), the diviner must immediately know the protocols—the correct prayers, incantations, or rituals—to banish, contain, or neutralize it, protecting the client, the space, and themselves. This is the "spiritual emergency response."

5. 🔥 Knowing the "Hot Signs" and Protocols
"Hot signs" refer to moments or symbols in divination that indicate danger, powerful spiritual interference, or a significant threat. Upon seeing a hot sign, the diviner's primary action is self-protection. They must have a ready repertoire of specific prayers, incantations, and protective rites to immediately shield themselves from the negative force or spiritual heat associated with the client's condition.

6. 🏠 Protection of Self, Family, and Home.
The act of divination is an act of opening and vulnerability, and a portal. There is a risk when the diviner "calls on the client's spirits," they are essentially inviting powerful, unknown ancestors of the client and energies into their sacred space, which is often their home. This leaves them, their loved ones, and their domicile susceptible to spiritual 'guests' that don't belong. This is why it is important that a diviner knows how to close a session.

Perimeter defense is also essential. The home and family must be regularly sealed, marked, and protected with spiritual boundaries to ensure that only the beneficial energies needed for the reading are present and that all harmful residue is prevented from lingering or attaching to family members.

7. 🎓 A competent diviner has training, knows protocol, and how to give prescriptions.
The diviner is not just a reader; they are a spiritual consultant and healer. This role is reserved for the experienced and disciplined. Although they exist, your diviner may be more than just a fortune teller!
A novice might simply "reveal what is happening," which can be overwhelming and unhelpful. An experienced diviner (one who has undergone extensive training) must:
• Diagnose: Accurately interpret the spiritual condition.
• Prescribe: Know the established spiritual protocol to address the issue. This includes recommending the correct baths, offerings, ceremonies, or lifestyle changes.
• Solution-Oriented: Tell the client "how to maintain goodness and remove negativity." They provide a path forward, making them an active agent of positive change rather than a mere forecaster.This mastery of solution is what truly distinguishes a professional diviner.

So I ask, please respect what the diviner does and try to be understanding of their worth. This also goes for mediumship readers too.

10/27/2025

Here's a jar working designed to make others sweet on you or to give you "special treatment." It contains hearts and brains with sweetening ingredients.

Hoodoo jar work is built on several fundamental concepts that explain how and why these rituals work.
One concept is sympathetic work, which is the belief that "like affects like." You use ingredients that visually or conceptually resemble your desired outcome to influence a real-world situation or condition. For example, honey or sugar in a jar aims to make a person or situation "sweeter" or more loving. Conversely, sharp objects like pins are meant to "prick" a target or repel negative energy. Also, in some cases, they are used to nail down or make the energy stay put.

Secondly, jar workings are considered to be contagious work. This principle states that things once in contact continue to influence each other. That's why personal items like hair, nail clippings, or bodily fluids are often included in jar works. They create a direct energetic link to the person or situation the work is targeting.

Thirdly, the jar itself serves as a container to hold and concentrate the work's energy and your intention. Sealing the jar "locks in" the work's purpose and the power of its ingredients, allowing the energy to work continuously, sometimes for months or even years. Hence, jars should not be reopened unless discarded. So, ensure preservatives are added unless the goal is for it to go rancid.

Every item in a Hoodoo jar is chosen for its specific symbolic meaning and energetic properties: herbs, roots, minerals, petitions, and incantations, etc. Even the colors of candles used to seal the jar are meticulously selected to align with the work's goal.

10/26/2025

I highly suggest one divine for themselves at least weekly or monthly to see the energy around them. In fact, its customary to open up the day with prayer and then divination daily to ensure you do any recommended prescriptions needed to help with spiritual maintenance or obtaining blessings.