The Candle and the Crossroads by Orion Foxwood Book Review

The Candle and the Crossroads by Orion Foxwood Book Review 

by Elizabeth Tanous

Orion Foxwood of Foxwood Temple of Old Religion in Maryland and a co-founder of Conjure Crossroads and Folk Magic Festival in New Orleans has penned both techne and memoir of hoodoo as the practice of doctoring the root and conjuring as a call out to Spirit.  Born with the caul or second sight, he takes the notion of the crossroads in hoodoo and expands it into a guiding metaphor beyond the literal place where human beings and divine spirits meet.  

Interestingly, conjure discards the paradigm of a Cartesian dualism where material is sinful and only incorporeal spirit is that which represents the sacred or holy.  In conjure, the physical world, including candles, herbs, roots, minerals, oil lamps, powders, and conjure sticks, all are used to reach out and call to the divine.  Orion shares his eclectic roots as having taken him through many paths and leading back to where it all began, including spirit sight, signs and wonders, healing, predictive dreaming, blessing, and cursing.  There is no need for visualization here.  The nitty-gritty of daily life fuels this practice.  The old saying that “you and I are spirits in a human experience” is the guiding force to an experience of conjure as healing and restorative to full wellness emotionally, spiritually and physically.  

The most touching part of this book is how deeply personal it is.  The experience of reading it is as if you are sitting under a cypress tree at a picnic table sipping sweet tea and listening to the wisdom of not only Orion, but of his mother and his people.  One quote from Orion’s mother, “Claim your spirit or someone or something else will,” really speaks to the core of this work.  

With the plethora of books on the subject out there, Orion’s call for discernment between “noise” and “the knowing” is an essential component of opening oneself up to the practice of root doctoring.  There is a systematic explanation of the beliefs in this form of conjure calling for immanence in all things and that in order to be effective, one must always consciously participate in the act of co-creation with the divine.  Clearly Mr. Foxwood is concerned with fear-based theology trumping a love-based theology.  One example is the model for discerning spiritual illness that is infiltrating our physical lives.  These are tools of discernment to be used as the reader sees fit.  Fortunately he is also a pragmatist and addresses the importance of ancestral soul wounds that when acknowledged can drive us toward breaking a destructive, cyclical pattern.  

Throughout the whole book Orion reiterates that “root” is a metaphor for the soul.  He discusses treating the “root” soul of a person by discerning unseen forces including divine directive, divine discontent, ancestral paradox, and elemental paradox acting on an individual’s mental, emotional and physical states.  A wonderful summary of the nature of conjure and its history is also a large part of this book and includes one of my favorite quotes: “If you are not willing to cry for, be angry for, pray for and ask help of its spirits, then get away from this work.”  A truer statement I cannot find about conjure work.  Because conjure is an attempt to return power back to marginalized people and grew out of pain and oppression, it is a very practical magic.  

The book addresses some basics with regard to different styles of conjure work, including fire, healing work, spiritual cleansing, praying true, and many others.  This particular book is not a table of correspondences for herbs and their uses for particular conditions.  Rather it takes you into the very heart of conjure, the energy that drives the work.  It is one matter to know that lemon balm or lemon leaves will cut and clear a situation.  It is another matter entirely to know when to do it, how to do it and to whom you should appeal to get the job done.  

The most beautiful component is the healing work, where the worker is a conductor and the very breath of the divine takes away or “sin-eats” the disease.  The worker draws out the dark forces which are harming the client and breathes it up into the mouth of God until the worker can feel the Spirit take the affliction away.  Having watched this process performed by a local practitioner, I have to tell you it is one of the most moving and beautiful parts of ministry.  Like it or not, regardless of your particular niche of alternate spirituality, there will come that moment when you face a devastated human being and the divine uses you to carry that person through a very dark place.  This is very sobering and sacred work and I am so grateful that Orion shared some of these very personal techniques.

The dark rider.  Oh, have mercy.  When Mr. Foxwood introduces us to him, the psychopomp, the guardian, where the human world and the spirit world meet, it is both historical and prophetic.  This is one of those occasions where as a reader, I truly wanted to be at that picnic table, so that I could ask many more questions.  A well-written book will introduce you to the lay of the land and compel your mind to follow rabbit trails to wherever they may go.  This is one of those books.  I am ready for the second because I have follow-up questions.

I definitely sense a therapeutic background, particularly when discussing the pain of alienation from Spirit and the crucial understanding that this is a two-way relationship and one which Orion openly admits that no human can replace.  We pray not because we seek to change Spirit, we pray because it changes us.  The divine spark in all things makes it necessary and sufficient that the love of Spirit must be your primary relationship.  You may call it whatever you like, but that relationship has to come first.  Otherwise we are grasping with futility at things that will never fill that hunger.  The old distinction between theurgy and thaumaturgy is apparent throughout as theurgy, “Divine work,” supports the thaumaturgical effect of the work with roots, doll babies and the material aspects of hoodoo.  As a practical how-to book, it is both theoretically and instructionally very strong. 

 As a glimpse inside Orion Foxwood’s world, I can only say that I am getting to Conjure Con one way or another because this book is amazing and I will be buying it as a gift for many beloved friends.  Having said that, I have a notebook of questions, so I am going to get to Conjure Con, sit down with Mr. Foxwood and begin where he begins. I want to know more about where it all started, what it felt like to meet the dark rider, and a million other questions.  The delightful point of this is that I never want that conversation to end.