The part I found particularly interesting was the owner's response to whether or not she "believed" in what she was selling:
Stephanie May has two degrees. In past lives, she’s worked in the restaurant business and as an oil and gas executive. A self-described “gun-totin’ liberal,” she’s also a Southern aristocrat—her ancestors owned thousands of acres of Arkansas plantation lands (and when not in Houston, she’s farming some of that same land today). All of that would make it seem unlikely that she was a true believer in hoodoo, and May says a TV reporter once asked her if she believed in the magic she was selling.
“I told her I believed in positive visualization,” she says. “If it takes lighting some incense, burning a candle, saying a prayer, wherever you find that positive energy, then yeah, I believe in it. We stopped counting after more than ten of our customers had won the lottery. We don’t sell Lotto tickets, but there’s not a convenience store in town that could tell you that. Now is it because all my customers play the lottery? I don’t know.”
The same principles May applies on her holistic farm in Arkansas also are at play in hoodoo. “It’s like the butterfly effect—everything you do affects the whole. The way your raise animals on the farm, your business, the way you live your life, you have to consider that your overarching goal is maybe to be happy and out of debt. Everything you do needs to march toward that goal. It’s the same way with the people who buy candles, herbs and incense here: they are attempting to achieve that goal, and it’s one more step in that direction.”
The successful practice of hoodoo is more about changing your path than merely performing a ritual or making a sacrifice, May believes. It’s also about positive thinking. “If you change yourself, amazingly everyone else around you changes too,” May says. “You change your attitude, the way you look at life, suddenly, the world changes. It’s so much easier to try to change yourself. But you wanna try to change someone else? I’ll happily take your money, but don’t expect it to be easy.”
She cites one timely example. A popular New Year’s hoodoo ritual: “Bayberry kit burned to the socket brings love to your life and gold to your pocket,” she recites. “The kit has the Psalm you read and a bayberry bubble bath and there’s a whole ritual you perform on New Year’s Eve. There’s a candle you burn every day for seven days to bring positive influences into your life. If you believe your life’s gonna be better this year, your life is gonna be better this year. If I spend the first week of the year thinking positive thoughts, it’s gonna help. And the fact that your house now smells awesome doesn’t hurt.”
No comments:
Post a Comment