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I feel more than a little awkward using hoodoo stuff, TBH, given the vast gulf between my own advantages and the bitterly oppressed state of its origiators.
You could look at it like that, but on the other hand, the body of knowledge that we've received as "hoodoo" comes from all over the shop. African folk magic, native American herbalism, European witchcraft, 18th Kardekian Spiritism, weird Dutch folk magic, Anglo-Germanic grimoires, the Bible, etc... so it's more difficult to apply the same criticisms of cultural imperialism that you might level at, say, a white western magician practising something like Haitian Vodou.
Whilst the elements of hoodoo were syncretised by practitioners who mostly, although not exclusively, belonged to poor black communities in the American South, it's a more complicated scenario when we're just talking about the magic and not the specific beliefs and specific entities of another culture. You tend to get the same basic mechanics in all cultures, with differing emphasis, and that's why the elements of hoodoo blend together so well.
Hoodoo is all about appropriation, particularly in its approach to texts like the Bible and European grimoires, so the ground becomes a bit murkier. There's also the fact that, despite your current advantaged western position, your own ancestors from the period when hoodoo had it's heyday, might well have had to cope with fairly nasty conditions themselves. For instance, it's more than plausible that a section of my own ancestors lived in abject poverty in the North East trying to scrape together a living down the pits, whilst hoodoo was being formed an ocean away. Which, whilst it obviously lacks the racial dimension of many hoodoo workers experience, was probably no picnic either.
it's pretty much the only system I can work with and not feel like the proverbial stoner-gatecrashing-a-peyote-ritual
Not wanting to turn this thread into the cultural appropriation thread's evil bizarro world twin, with me arguing from completely the opposite perspective to what I'm talking about there, but I do think it is possible to have a healthy relationship with the God/desses and Spirits from cultures other than your own – without neccesarily falling into this trap.
I'd say that half of the battle is in being aware of the issues around it and the implications of what you are doing. You can choose to either gatecrash the peyote ritual like a stoner, or you could approach the situation with as much honesty, integrity and genuine desire to learn as you can, and try to convince those involved (practitioners, Gods, Spirits) that you're willing to do whatever is necessary to broaden your understanding of magic by involvement with them.
There is a tradition of magickal practice in my family but sadly it fell into abeyance a couple of generations back. I cannot now find much reliable information as to what that practice might have entailed.
Have you ever tried any ancestor work to ask them about it? You've potentially got a whole family of powerful ancestral magicians on the other side who could provide you with everything you need to get your family tradition up and running again and working for you, not to mention being having their own collective clout to lend you when the chips are down. If I were in your position, I'd set up a mini-altar somewhere as a focus for talking to them, feed them regularly, and see if the voices start coming through stronger. You never know where it might lead. |
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