Education

The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist

The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist is a storytelling podcast rooted in the sacred traditions of Black Southern spirituality. Hosted by Chelsea VonChaz—doula, philanthropist, and Southern-born truth-teller—this series blends testimony, conjure, ancestral wisdom, and church girl grit.

“This podcast is a living, spoken reflection of my spiritual path — an inheritance of Hoodoo passed down from my great-grandmothers who worked the roots in silence. These recordings reflect my practice, which lives at the intersection of healing, storytelling, and honoring those who came before me. This isn’t instruction. It’s remembrance. It’s testimony. This is my practice.”

www.chelseavonchaz.com

Latest Episodes:

When The Bible Sits Next To The Jar. Jun 20, 2025

Show notes

I never had to choose between the Bible and the jar, or prayer and rootwork.

Between the cross and the candle. Both live in me. And both lived in the women and men who came before me. The truth is: Hoodoo was never separate from the Black church — it was woven into it.

The lie that you can’t hold both? That was taught. That was imposed. That was colonized thinking trying to make us forget how we survived.

The church mothers knew. The deacons’ wives knew. The grandmothers with florida water in their purses, who prayed Psalm 23 while rubbing oil on your forehead, knew.

They were doing rootwork in plain sight — under hats, behind hand fans, wrapped in white lace gloves.

The Psalms weren’t just prayers — they were spells.

* Psalm 91 for protection.

* Psalm 35 for justice.

* Psalm 23 for comfort and covering.

* Psalm 121 for safe travels.

Our ancestors used what was given to them and infused it with what they brought with them. They laid hands while burning herbs and sang hymns while working roots. They anointed doors before the preacher arrived, and did what needed to be done to protect their homes, their children, and their spirits.

I am a Hoodoo Baptist because both bloodlines run through me.

My practice doesn’t conflict with my faith. It completes it. You don’t have to choose between Jesus and your ancestors. You don’t have to abandon one to honor the other.

They’ve already made space for both to live in you.

Covered by spirit. Guided by blood.

🎙 Now listen to the full reflection of The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist.

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Discernment Is The First Rootwork! Jun 13, 2025

Show notes

Before there was a candle lit or an oil blended. Before the roots were gathered. There was discernment.

That was my great-grandmother Madear’s greatest spiritual gift. She didn’t trust everybody. She didn’t speak on everything. She moved when Spirit told her to move — not a moment sooner.

And that’s how she kept herself, her children, and her family covered.

In Hoodoo, discernment is rootwork. It’s knowing who to pray for and who to pray against. It’s reading energy before words are even spoken. It’s knowing which rooms you don’t belong in, which conversations you don’t need to have, and which hands you shouldn’t shake.

Hoodoo isn’t just jars, candles, or floor washes — it’s protection that starts in the spirit before it ever hits the altar. As Black women, discernment has always been part of our spiritual technology. Passed down in bloodlines, strengthened by survival, sharpened by the world we move through.

And every time I trust that nudge — the one that says “not this time,” or “watch this one,” — I hear Cleopatra’s voice right behind it. Her discernment lives in me. And I honor that work every day.

Discernment doesn’t make you paranoid — it makes you prepared. It’s the reason some things never touch you. It’s the reason you can walk through this world protected.

Covered by spirit. Guided by blood.

🎙 Listen to this full reflection now on The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chelseavonchaz.com/subscribe

Hoodoo Ain’t Evil. Jun 06, 2025

Show notes

They’ve called it evil for centuries. But the only evil was how they tried to separate us from it. Hoodoo is not evil, it’s not the devil, and t’s not something to be feared. It’s survival. It’s a way of being.

My great-grandparents, especially my maternal great-grandmother practiced Hoodoo with discernment and protection. They were not conjuring demons — they were protecting the family from a world that was designed to harm us.

The demonization of Hoodoo was never about what we were doing — it was about control.

Enslaved Africans brought spiritual medicine to these lands. They carried the knowledge of herbs, roots, ancestors, spirits, and divination. When forced into Christianity, they didn’t abandon their practices — they blended them, adapting for survival.

And because our power didn’t rely on a pulpit, it became a threat. Because we could pray and pour libations, chant Psalms and burn herbs, sing hymns and work roots — we were labeled dangerous.

But Hoodoo has always been a form of resistance.It is protection, healing, and discernment. It is ancestral intelligence moving through bloodlines that refused to break.

Arthur Rickydoc Flowers, excerpt from LITERARY HOODOO AND THE SACRED TEXT:

One semester one of my undergrads, upon learning that I was a practicing hoodooman, was sorely perplexed. She raised her hand up in class one day and said ‘Professor Flowers, how are you, you know, teaching in a prestigious university, if you, you know, are a hoodooman.’

Boom. Teaching moment. Told her she probably thinking folk magic hoodoo. Spells, spirits and black catbones. Or maybe stage magic. Pulling rabbits out the hat. Explained we talking high magic up in here:

- helping folk cope with life: souleasery

- personal evolution: soulcare / soulwork

- playing w/reality and the divine mind: magicwork

- enhancing the human condition: rootwork

- guide & guardian of human destiny: destinywork

- oneness w / divinity / the great mojo: godwork

Making Real Into The World That Which Was Not. Same same Art. Same same Conjuration

I don’t practice Hoodoo for aesthetics or perform it for entertainment. I speak of it to honor my folks. I live it because it’s mine too. Because my great-grandmother whispered to the Spirit when no one else was listening. Because I was raised with both the Bible and the Florida water. And I never had to choose between the two.

The shame was taught to us. The fear was planted in us. The lie was never ours to carry. This practice is a return home.

Covered by spirit. Guided by blood.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chelseavonchaz.com/subscribe

The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist: An Introduction May 30, 2025

Show notes

I was born into this. Not through books, but through blood.

One of my great-grandmothers was an Alabama Creole woman. A descendant of enslaved Black Americans and Native Americans, who practiced what the world tried to demonize: Hoodoo.

She lived it with discernment. Quiet power. Protection. Spirit and blood guided her hands. And now, it guides mine.

I am an Afro Indigenous woman, because I am both of African descent and Creek descent. I am a Hoodoo Baptist — simply because I am both.

The church didn’t cancel the root. The root never erased the cross.

I was raised where Bible verses sit beside glass jars, where prayers sound like both hymns and chants, where the Holy Spirit and ancestral spirit hold hands. I never separated them. I never needed to. For years, hoodoo has been silenced, misnamed, feared, or flattened into something it’s not. It’s not evil. It’s not entertainment. It’s not a costume. It’s survival. It’s sacred. It’s my inheritance.

The Practice of a Hoodoo Baptist is where I will share my story, my rituals, my reflections, and my remembrance.

Some of it you’ll read. Some of it you’ll hear — because this practice was always oral first. It’s how I learned. I’m still learning.

With this series, I’m introducing an audio element — intimate, spoken, personal — so you can experience this tradition not only through my words, but through my voice. As my great-grandmothers passed it down, so I will pass it on.

This isn’t a grimoire. This isn’t a class. This is my practice.

Covered by spirit. Guided by blood.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.chelseavonchaz.com/subscribe