"Conjurers" is a short work of stream-of-consciousness style creative non-fiction based on intimate practices, conversations, and folklore gathered from my teachers and colleagues, old Rootworkers and Conjure people spanning from the Ozark hills down to the swamps of New Orleans. - Doc Screeches
Conjurers, from Moses to Mawmaw Collette
Bible Conjure begins with Black Moses, or maybe God if you're one of those folks inclined to believe in a mighty Creator. But like Gran Wassat used to tell, "Moses was tha light," she say, "Moses comin' don off tha moun'ain, he cover his face to keep tha light in." Moses struck that rock in the desert, commanded water to come on out and it poured out its guts onto the glassy sand. Glimmer-eyed Ramses was no match for this Conjure Man. Black Moses raised up his wooden death-stick against the Kemets (a foreshadow, you know, of the Root Doctor Chris-Chris and the twisted serpent raised up on the cross), turned their rivers into running blood-water, and struck down the first-born spawn of that nation. But y'all know how that story goes. It's set to repeat in my hands, the tingle-tingle in the tips of my long fingers pointed out like spears against my enemies. Blood-water of that body seize up against itself, seize up in the name of the + the + and the + etc. etc. Written sigils hung down-down in the fire, burnt up offerings left between the red-stained horns of the Altar. Moses, through a big papyrus bullhorn, shouted out instructions for building that golden box. He's setting down in ink how we make our workin'-tables, how we mix up the inscent for driving out the enemy, and the holy-hyssop annointin' oil that's spread out across that Altar, spread on the horns, the spoons, clamps, claws, knives, and little forks we use for Workin' the Spirits.
"Exodus 30," Gran Wassat say, "that's all you need to know 'bout that."
The inscent smoke rise up from the terra-cotta dish. In the name of the + the + and the + etc. etc. that smokey-smoke stings the eyes of the Enemy, and flushes red his low-hanging balls that drag the dirt. Holy Spirit come down in a cool flame, a light springing out my eyes-holes. "Cover it up!" Gran Wassat say, "Lest you lose your powa'." That low-down Enemy, crawlin' his way in the body as snakes, lizards, spiders, groun' puppies, and all manner of slimy, mud-covered bastards. I'll tell you a secret, it was originally told to me by Pawpaw Bill, you want to give someone those things? You want to do left-hand work with the Enemy? You take you a shed snakeskin, dry it out real good, grind it up with the dirt from a murderer's grave and some cayenne peppa', then you feed that mess to them. You sprinkle that mess in their food, or mix it in their drink. Then they'll have those things inside of them, that wriggling mass of serpents in their gut. Those snakes will make them bend down to you, they will. Use shed snakeskin to make them hurt, and flayed off snakeskin to poison them.
What is this Powa'? Is it in that light spewing forth from the face of Moses? Was it on that there moun'ain that he climbed down off of? A secret hut of powa' and might, built from cypress wood and painted with tar and black hen feathers. It's coverin' up a hole in the ground that spews out yellow vapors into the dark room. Breath in those vapors like that Prophet at Delphi, a real Hoodoo Woman, you know, breath them into your body and you'll see where that powa' comes from. You'll see the Holy Spirit like an osprey, bullet-flying down from the sky. "Keep that cold-fire in your heart," Gran Wassat say, "an' you'll know wha' Moses knew."
"Solomon the Wise," Mawmaw Collette say, "was one of my ancestors, he lay his hands on me when I got this powa'."
Solomon had his conjure-pot (a bronze haint-vessel) sitting there in the Temple next to the Altar. Everyday, or at least three times a week, the King would talk in his haint-language and rattle the bones of Moses and Aaron (a conjurer of the grand sort, secretive, who kept all his tricks locked up behind a Veil). The powa' gave Solomon his wisdom. These yellow vapors spewed up through the cracks in the Temple floor, yes they did, and showed the King many wonderful things. The Book of Wisdom can be used in noonday conjurin' to knit together a golden protective-sweater against the Enemy. Or, if you happen to do midnight conjurin', the left-hand work, you can make a man's heart burst in his chest.
Solomon looks up from his bronze haint-pot then dabs at some sweat dripping down from his thick eyebrows. "Here's what you do," he say, "you get you a small coffin, like for a child, or you can make a small box out of wood, then you paint it black, all black, you know, all over it's black. Then you take the second chapter of that book I wrote, you rip it out of its binding, you know, and you lay on top of those pages the photograph of the person you want to hurt. Then you take twelve needles, if you can get gold ones that's the best, then you stick eleven of them through that photograph and all those pages. When you come to the twelfth one, the last needle, you take that one and you put it right through the heart of the person you're workin' on. And when you put that mess in the black coffin you say, Let the blood flow, or, Let it stop passin'. Then, depending on what words you spoke, that person you're workin' on will have one of those hemorrhages or that blood will stop completely. Then you take that coffin and you bury it in the ground like you're buryin' a person alive. And under this sign they'll lose, they'll just waste away, they'll just die away."
Solomon looks back at the haint-pot, dips a big wooden ladle down into the swirling, glowing liquid, then fishes out some yawning wights who he quickly gobbles up.
Root Doctor Chris-Chris is hanging off his rickety old cross, but he's not hurt. He's bleeding, but that blood's nothing but streams of living water flowing down off a mountain. He looks down at his mama who wipes away at his feet pierced by a railroad-spike, all crumpled up and crippled. (Mama Mary saved that hanky for years before bringing it first to the Holy Mountain at Athos where she buried a small clipping down-down underneath the floor of a stone hut belonging to a blind goat-herd. Then it's said she gave the rest of the brown-stained cloth to Joe Aramatheas who carried it along with Chris-Chris's blood-cup to the Angle-land). But anyway, Chris-Chris was born to be a Root Doctor, yes sir. He had the powa', he had the blessing of the Holy Spirit, when in the crystal River Jordan he was dunked and drowned by Jonny B. He died one time, came back like many other Docta's I know, came back with two heads, one lookin' around in this world, one stuck in the Shady Kingdom. You want two heads like me? Naw, you don't really. I don't think you've got what it takes to split your skull in half. If you want to be a two-head docta', follow this formule set down in the Psalter of Qua-trains, written in old Irish by conjure-monks then hidden in a bog for a few hundred years before some poor bastard dug it up while cuttin' peat. Here's what that book says: you find yourself a cold, wide river, like the Jordan itself, although I imagine it's probably got hot waters, but you can go to one of those desert places in the bogs or swamps, a place out in the wilderness where no one else goes, and find yourself a cold, wide river. You wade out into the water holding a bowl of burning inscent, and when you reach a spot that comes just up to the top of your chin you stop and stand there. You stand there like Adam and Eve when they were doing penance, you stand there till the Holy Spirit comes down and drowns you. Two-Headed Chris-Chris, drowned in the Jordan, rises up with powa' and might, two fists full of bone-dust and a tongue of fire lapping at his bald head.
This Root Doctor was famous for doing all sorts of things that we still do today. He healed the sick and dying soul with words and with sacred pastes made from the stuff of the earth. He drove out devils and haints from troubled minds in the name of the + the + and the + etc. etc. and always kept company with the low-down and rough sorts. Those folks who know the old ways, the street ways, who drink till they forget in alehouses, the tobacco ways, the ways to kill and resurrect. The Good Docta' knew that people like this need freedom, and so he broke their bonds, he melted apart the chains that enslaved them, and that enslave all folks, even today. The Good Docta' taught them to Work the Spirit, to move their hips to the beatandto the roar made from two hands clapping together. "When you workin' tha spirit," Mawmaw Collette say, "you really free, your bonds fall down, your spirit rises up to God above."
I Work it. Two times a week I Work the Spirits, do that Great Work, that Alchemy Work, boiling down that pain deep inside of me then letting pure Spirit rise up and pour out onto the Horns of the Altar. "Work it!" Mawmaw Collette yells.
The low-down trouble-making Twelve learned to Work. They were friends of the Root Doctor. They witnessed the best trick he ever laid down, that dyin' and comin' back up out the ground trick, the one every good Docta' knows. At the Pent-Ye-Cost the Twelve Conjurers gathered together in a small room with a bunch of their friends and some lady-folk to talk about the Powa', and to smoke lots of thick cigars and drink cups of rum. Peter, who keeps the Keys to Heaven and Hell, was about to have himself an epiphany (cause he had always been quicker than the others, you know) when a sudden rushing wind blew open all the windows and blew out all the thick cigars. The Holy Spirit came down-down there in tongues of fire, each one resting on a head. "You see," Mawmaw Collette say, "that where the cunjurers come from, from tha blessing of tha Holy Spirit. Moses, he come from God tha Fatha', but us, we come from tha Holy Spirit." I wrap up my own head in the Holy Spirit, that Fire that gave Mama Brigit her Sight, the Fire she kept locked up in Ireland. You want to Work? You get yourself the blessing of the Holy Spirit, you wrap your head in that Fire and Work it.
In 1912 Pawpaw George, White Magnus Su-preme in the Bog-Water tradition of Arkansas Rootwork, makes his living off of distilling down flower essences in an old copper still hidden in one corner of his stilted-house. He gave all but one of his brown teeth to the Enemy in exchange for knowledge of the Work. At a dusty three-way crossroads (cause no one in town ever dared craft a four-way devil-route) Pawpaw George wrenched out each dan lanfèr, which he then tossed onto a black handkerchief spread out in the middle of the three-way. "After ten," Pawpaw George say, "I was bleedin' all over the ground there, but I ain't leavin', no I stay there till the Black Man himself come to me. I won't tell you but once, George, you get yourself off this here ground, you go home an' make yourself a copper-pot still an' you bail down them flowers and leaves until they thick as honey. You bail that down an' they's not one thing in this world you won't be able to accomplish. An' to think, I gave all my teeth for that powa'."
Pawpaw George tried to get his woman the only way he knew how, by conjuring her into marrying him. But that man didn't know that pretty ice-eyed Margaret was a workin' woman, she worked the roots better than any man around. She rose up on Pawpaw George one day and witched his eyes for looking the wrong way at her bee-hind. He lost his sight for three years until he managed to distill down half-a-pound of catfish bones and pokeroot into an eye-saving paste that's still passed around in rural parts of Arkansas today. Spreading that mess all over his face those scales that took his vision fell off and dropped to the ground. The first face he saw, or so the story goes, was ice-eyed Margaret standing there smiling in the doorway of his stilted-house. They were married shortly after, in the sight of God and the forty-three haints they shared between them.
"When my mama birthed me," Mawmaw Colette say, "I was tha seventh child of two Root Docta's, I was born with tha veil stretched ova' half my face as a sign of the Holy Spirit on me. I come from th'ty-three generations of Black-Eyed Cunjurers and Magnus-People in tha line of Peter tha key-keeper, who got his powa' from the Root Docta Chris, who was sanctified in the blood of David and Solomon the Wise, who was blessed by the rattlin' bones of Moses an' Aaron, who was named by God. Lord, I'll tell ya, that powa' is sweet."
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