Now we venture into the realm of the witchdoctor. While the folk healer doctors the Devil out of the body, the witchdoctor doctors the Devils, or roots, out of the mind and spirit. If one is suspected of being cursed or doctored on, there are a few signs that can confirm it. Back in the day, the signs usually consisted of strange feelings or pains shooting through the body, swelling, loss of appetite, nightmares, insomnia, paranoia, and feeling like one is drowning or just an uneasiness about everything. Many folks also find themselves unable to leave their home for long periods of time.
REMOVE HAINTS AND PLAT-EYES
I do not joke when I say you don't know what's out there—what hides behind the lonesome headstone, or why those lights float through the trees in the woods.
In Jonesborough, back in the 1800s, they used public stock posts for minor offenses such as not paying debts owed to the court. The person would be locked in and their ears nailed to the wood and often cut off before being released. For worse crimes, like robbery or horse theft, the Washington County Court would set them to be hung just north of town in a hollow that, due to the frequency of this sentence, came to be known as Hangman's Hollow.6 Hundreds of folks were hung there. Hundreds left town with little to no ears to speak of. I have not found how many, if any, perished due to infection from their punishments, but I believe we can all take a good guess. Given the grim history of this place, I'd wager there are plenty of haints and plat-eyes lurking about. If you do have a haint or plat-eye, there are many ways to evict them from the property:
Take a used horseshoe and wrap it in red cloth. Walk around the home from top to bottom, back to front, with all doors open, while holding the horseshoe upside down and saying “Our Father,” then reciting Psalm 31:15–17:
15 My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.
16 Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies' sake.
17 Let me not be ashamed, O Lord; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.
Repeat this every day for nine days as the sun rises.
Take the herb false daisy, also called ghost chaser, and cut it up with sulfur, salt, black pepper, and gunpowder. Divide this into four parts and make each part into a hex bag, blessing each by reciting Psalm 31:15–17 three times. Set them in all four corners of the home, except for the last one nearest the front door. Pour a tall glass of whiskey and, with the hex bag, walk from top to bottom, back to front with the whiskey, calling for the spirit to come have a drink. Walk out the door and wait a bit before placing the hex bag next to it. Lead the spirit to the nearest crossroads and walk around in a big circle seven times. This will confuse it. Pour the whiskey out in the center of the crossroads and quickly walk back home without looking back. Keep the hex bags in their place, feeding them monthly with camphor oil or camphor chest rub.
Hang or carry a hex bag consisting of gunpowder, asafoetida, and sulfur. This will drive the spirit from the home, as they hate the smell it gives off.
Historically, folks would have a preacher come by and bless the home. They usually did so once a week over a period of time until the house was totally cleaned. They'd go through praying Scripture, anointing doorframes, marking crosses on all mirrors, doors, and windows; they would then verbally plead the blood of Christ against the spirit, praying that the blood cover the home and all those who resided there.
REMOVE EVIL SPIRITS FROM A PERSON, OBJECT, OR PLACE
Psalm 31:15–17 can also be used in the following works. These will remove and purge spirits from a person, item, or place.
Take some tar water and anoint every wall, window, door, doorframe, and corner with a cross using a horsehair brush. While doing this, say, “Horse find it out, tar send it out.” Work from top to bottom, back to front of the home. When you get to the front door, recite Psalm 31:15–17 three times (see page 204). Next, sprinkle cedar, salt, and black pepper through the house for further protection. This may need to be repeated, but if it is successful, then you will hear the house purging itself—creaking or popping sounds, knocks, sounds of things getting knocked off although nothing has moved—which usually last a couple days.
To chase a spirit from a person, take a bundle of false daisy and whip them with it all over while reciting Psalm 31:15–17. Pat them with the bundle from head to toe, doing three passes in total. Anoint them with olive oil while praying three Our Fathers, then have them stomp on the bushel twenty-one times. Take the bundle outside and burn it to ash, then discard the ashes in a cemetery.
If the one haunting has left some physical item behind that may be tethering them, place it in a hollowed potato and bind it together. Then bury the potato at their grave or a crossroads if the grave site is unknown.
REMOVE CURSES AND HEXES
Making roots is one thing. The tricky part is killing them—especially when they are made by others. Be diligent: crossed conditions will try to hold you back any way they can. Even if you don't have the energy to work it, do it anyway!
Go to a new grave on which grass has begun to grow. Take a handful of the grass and pay for it with nine pennies. Add this to a hex bag with new salt, baking soda, ant eggs, and black cat hair. Carry this with you until the bag feels grimy, at which point it has taken the poison and should be cast over the left shoulder into running water. Leave without looking back, no matter what you hear or feel. I've had a few clients tell me that when they used the bag I made them and they tossed it, they heard animal sounds or even a voice calling out their name. That's the root dying.
To break a conjuring, boil milk with nine gold-eye needles. While it boils, sear the milk with a hot iron. Take the needles out and refrigerate them. Take three drinks each day for nine days. Pour whatever is left on the ninth day into the toilet; the person is to relieve themselves on it and send it on its way.
Spit on the bristles of the house broom: once for the witch who sent the curse and once for each member of the household. Take the broom and sweep downward on the back of the fireplace or front door while praying Psalm 23 three times (see page 66). Hang the broom above the door for nine days and then burn it.
Add nine new needles to a pot of water, running each safely between the lips first. Boil the water until it's all gone. Do this every afternoon for nine days. Each day use fresh needles, setting the old ones aside in a white handkerchief. On the tenth day, bury the needles at a crossroads.
Take a cleansing bath as a complement to the above works. An egg cleansing will work as well, but may need to be done three times in a row for a number of days.
Take the black or big joker from a new deck of cards. On all four edges write “Run, Devil, run” and in the center write “All Devils.” Cut the eyes and hands out of the card and burn them. Fold the card away from you, folding into it devil's shoestring root, kudzu root, graveyard dirt from one of your relatives' graves (one who cared deeply for you), borax, and rattlesnake master. Burn the card at a crossroad, lighting it with a match, and while it's burning toss a pinch of borax into the flame and shout, “Run, Devil, run!” Turn back home while grinding your heels into the dirt or ground and leave without turning back, no matter what you hear.
FOR THOSE WITCHED INTO LOVE
A story I was told growing up was called “Cinder Cat.” I don't remember every detail, but it talked about slaves on a plantation, and one of them went to a conjure woman who said another worker on a plantation across the way had put a Devil on her old man so he'd love another woman and not her. The conjure woman advised her to take a grapevine and whip the other woman with it to break the spell. Whipping with branches, in the sense of hitting something or whipping a pot of milk, often come by the same cause: the need to break the power of a root.
If you suspect you have been witched into love, ask the person to hold a rag that has been wetted with blood from your left ring finger pricked from between the middle and last knuckle while you do something, like tie your shoe. When they give it back, bury it under your doorstep with salt, seven hairs from a fox's tail, and sulfur. Feed it by pouring your first urine of the morning over it for a month.
Take your left unwashed sock and place a silver dime, alum, sulfur, black pepper, and salt inside it. Put the sock under your mattress and sleep on it until you begin to smell the black pepper. Burn the sock and scatter the ashes at three different crossroads.
Take an uncrossing bath with salt, Adam's needle root, and devil's shoestring for three days as the sun sets. Toss the remaining bathwater to the west of your property each time.
Wash your feet each night with vinegar, salt, and red pepper in warm water for nine nights. Toss the water to the west of the property each night. After washing, anoint your feet with blessed olive oil, powder them with baby powder, and put on clean socks before retiring.
If you believe your partner has conjured you in some way regarding your relationship with them, discreetly place a knife under their side of the mattress and cover it with salt and baby powder. This will break their power over you.
IF YOUR MONEY HAS BEEN DOCTORED
Sometimes money goes out as quickly as it came in, or it just begins disappearing. Fewer customers come by, hours get cut, folks get demoted or laid off. This can be a sign your money has been crossed. For such cases:
Carry a poke bag made with lodestone wrapped up with your hair, devil's shoestring, salt, a dead cricket, and tobacco. Feed it weekly with good whiskey until your money situation improves. Once it does, bury it at a crossroads.
Take a dollar bill from your wallet and write “INRI” on all four edges. Write your name in the center. On your name place a dab of molasses, a bit of new salt, and devil's shoestring. Fold the bill toward you three times and sew it closed on all sides. Soak it in just boiled water. Wash your hands in this water every day and sprinkle it on your doorstep and wallet.
Carry ginseng root wrapped in blue flannel, soaked in whiskey and powdered with the ashes of black rooster feathers for twenty-one days. On the twenty-second day, bury it at a crossroads.
Take a horseshoe and line devil's shoestring roots, black cohosh root, and cornstarch along the shoe. Seal this with wax while reciting Deuteronomy 30:3–9:
3 Then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.
4 If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:
