FRIDAY
upon reflection i shouldnt have come at the hoodoos so hard, interesting that when i was younger and into
building armies i would have come at them more seductive, trying to convince them of my position
you would think that as i mature i would get more mellow but it appears i am more dismissive, ive spent
many years trying to convince the hoodoo world of the validity of my positions, apparently i am no longer
trying, just get your work done rick, let the work do the work, even still i should not have come so hard, i
alienated folk that i would much rather love me
and everything i stand for THURSDAY
hello world, im down w/a cold but i aint feeling no pain, there folk sometime you know of them and they cool w/you
but one day you actually hear them, thats the way its been with me and memphis slim today, i been redeemed
WEDNESDAY
some of my hoodoo colleagues got no problem understanding that christian fundamentalism is problematic
same same islamic fundamentalism, but they seem to think that fundamentalist hoodooism is a good thing
position seems to be if thats the way hoodoo was done in the 1800s, thats the way its supposed to be done forever
i have not read the responses on the listserve, when i step out there like that it always embarrass me
probably my biggest failing as wouldbe prophet, it embarrass me when i get to exhorting, god i
aint ready - then i lie low till the ripples die out, i can imagine what they got to say
got an email from one of them, full of personal insults, well im certainly not going to get drug
into an exchange of personal insults, my daddy would call that wrestling w/pigs
my daddy say never let anybody pull you down into the mud, its like wrestling w/a pig
you just get dirty and the pig enjoys it
plus that the brother sound like somebody i could have been cool with, my kinda people really, so i kept it on the
highroad, told him thats cool my brother, you do your thing, ima do mine, room enuf at the table for everybody
i mean who got time for petty personals, i got so much work to do, and though the brother
seems to think he is my enemy now he is not, we got real enemies, me and him both
TUESDAY
recently put this on a hoodoo listserve, they were making all these pronouncements about what hoodoo is and isnt, i couldnt help myself: none of this is news to you, dear regulators, but i wish i had not been so dismissive of their positions, that was defense on my part, all the folk who will respond that im not real
gon try to deny me my reality, the power of my conjuration
had to send an addendum apologizing for the tone, told them if i didnt care what they thought wouldnt be communicating with them
hello all
arthur flowers here, aka rickydoc
let me run some points by you on contemporary hoodoo as i read it
first off where im coming from - im a novelist, from the griotic school
of african american lit, a practitioner of what ima call literary hoodoo
mystically inclined africanamerican writers who manifest the tradition
through our works - now there will be some of you who will claim that aint real hoodoo
tell that to charles chesnutt, zora neale and ishmael reed, literary hoodoo has been
a blacktradition as long as folk hoodoo has, if anybody is dismissive its me of you
so, we will let the question of who is authentic and who isn’t rest there for the moment -
point is that i practice a different kind of hoodoo, i got different goals
mostly enhancing the human condition, shaping reality, shaping future generations and human evolution, shaping and illuminating human culture, in particular african american culture, what ima call for sake of argument high magic hoodoo
to distinguish it from folk magic hoodoo, but which i consider just hoodoo
what yall doing is where i started as a young hoodoo, folk magic, and i got no problem with folk doing their folk magic thing, i just find it amusing when you argue
that there is only one kind of hoodoo, but let me continue,
so, with understanding that i practice a different kind of hoodoo lets get more explicit with a quick history of literary hoodoos role in afroam culture
suffice it to say it was zora transformed hoodoo from a folk tradition to a literary tradition, it was ishamel reed transformed it to an ideological tradition
this might not mean anything to you because you don’t operate on this plane
but it is very much a driving part of african american culture, black literary thinkers/mystics, taking the tradition to higher ground and shaping the evolution of the culture
i, rickydoc trickmaster, aspire to the prophetic
ima hoodoo lord of the delta and power is what I do
my current novel is about a hoodoo sorcerer who aspires to be a hoodoo prophet
jubilation tucept highjohn, based on highjohn the conqueror mythology
what you have to understand at this point is that i use the realworld as research for my novels, if i want to write about a hoodoo sorcerer who aspires to be a prophet then i try to manifest that in the realworld so that i can write about it w/authority
and the reason im doing it in my novel is because this what im doing in the realworld, it’s a circular feed - and because im a mystically inclined novelist, what would be delusional in most folk is realworld for me because i write about it, if that makes sense to you
and if i fail in my attempt to be a hoodooprophet in the realworld, which is likely, i just write about it, which means i didn’t fail, failure makes the best literary material
which gets me to point of moment - i aspire to be a hoodoo prophet, to take hoodoo to the next level and i don’t much care about folk who tell me what i can and cannot do - it comes with the territory –
as to what im trying to do w/hoodoo, clearly im sayng folk magic is okay but its not cutting edge, its slaverytime hoodoo, what has been written down and disseminated to point where folk traveling thru think they’ve found something new – while the culture itself has moved on to the next stage
now, when i speak of the hoodoo prophetic im looking at hoodoo as part of the family of afrospiritual practices in the americas, im looking at it in terms of being the magical system in a family of more religiously based systems, with their rules, regulations, hierarchies and dogmas, whereas hoodoo tends to be flexible and more easily adjusted to evolving cultural conditions – perfect for the prophetic role, an institutional dispensation to break tradition - as im trying to do w/hoodoo
im seeing where african religious traditions have lost out to aggressor religions all over the world, including africa, in part because the aggressors are more organized and illuminated traditions and the african traditions archaic qualities (inlu slaverytime hoodoo) I hold responsible for the degradation of african culture in the world, i believe a people reflect their spiritual traditions, a healthy tradition generates healthy cultures, and clearly the african traditions have to be upgraded, illuminated, made more pertinent to the 21st century sensibility and condition, i suggest hoodoo for that prophetic role (in part because I want for hoodoo the power that bring)
folk think prophecy about foretelling the future, when instead its about connecting contemporary behavior to future consequence - continue as you are and your generations will suffer, listen to me and they will flourish
high hoodoo trying to empower and illuminate our culture to make the 21st century cut, to be one of the significant cultures of the evolving uniworld culture
so anyway, in order to establish hoodoo as the prophetic tradition of the blackworld and - thru all the folk who have adopted hoodoo, the whole world, as part o the process of universalizing a national tradition - there are 4 dialogues i have to engage
one, with the world - in order to authenticate hoodoo as more than a folk magic tradition and establish it as one of the respected magical/spiritual traditions of the world instead of the malevolent folk tradition its currently assumed to be
two, with the family of traditional african religions - to establish it as the prophetic tradition in the atr family
three, with the worlds spiritual traditions - to establish it as a respected true contender (ie more than just folk magic)
and four, in hoodoo circles - to establish high magic hoodoo as a viable hoodoo option, for those who can see
basically i have to with my life define what it is a hoodoo prophet do
don’t bother trying to prove me wrong, im not interested in true dialogue, im not trying to convince anybody of anything - the culture acknowledges me as one of the hoodoo powers of my era, perhaps any era to date, so i don’t really care what you think
im writing for future generations, not this one, im just using this opportunity to further implant my position into the historical dialogue – in this case, hoodoo dialogues
and i assume i will be a misunderstood failure in my lifetime, comes w/the prophetic territory
there are in fact folk in the tradition who accuse me of telling too much, they tell me arthur let them stay where they are, not our job to educate them - but it is kinda my job if i want to take hoodoo to the next level and because ima writer, i tell secrets – but if you not ready you not ready
and i apologize for my unseemly lack of humility, I generally maintain a much lower profile
but i do want you to understand that there is another level of hoodoo game in play for those of you interested in longgame on the hoodoo board of destiny
in the name of the conqueror, this spell is done
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