I knew some of these witches. Still do. They carry on a tradition that probably goes back thousands of years in it's roots, but as times change, practices do as well, somewhat. At it's roots are European witchery, but after the move to this area, Indian witchery was added in, and modified the practices somewhat.
Not practitioners of a particularly hidebound art, Appalachian Granny Women tend towards what works for them, rather than formulaic ritual.
BUT - it isn't limited to women. Some fellas also have "The Gift".
I've seen, with my own eyes, warts "bought" and bleeding stopped as mentioned in the above video. Of the two, the blood stoppage was the more dramatic, as the warts take a few days to disappear, but the blood stop is nearly immediate. In that case, the healer muttered a phrase from Isaiah over the victim, and the flow stopped nearly immediately. Whether that was "magic" or simply mind-over-matter belief I can't say. All I can say is it worked.
My dad was "peculiar" like that. He didn't do much healing beyond doctoring up family, but he would just "know" things, know them without being told. I asked him about it once, and he said he had been born with a "veil" or a "caul", which meant nothing to me, as I didn't know what on Earth he was talking about. Researching it, apparently some babies are born with a section of the amniotic sac over their faces, and that has to be cleared off for them to start breathing. In the old days, that was called "being born under the veil" or "born with a caul", and it was supposed to be a sign that the child would have peculiar abilities.
The practices are still alive and well in these hills. Not as prevalent as they have been formerly, but they are still here. This young-'un is an example of the younger generation still digging in to it. This is the first video in a series she made for YouTube (caution: she rambles a lot):
She does bring up an important point, however - a real witch will tell you it's not him or her that is "magic", that the "power" comes from somewhere else, and just "flows through" them, and that they are not the source of it. They are merely a conduit. She kinda goes off the rails when she's discussing Mountain Deities - the ones she mentions, mostly Greek, are no part of it. That sounds to me like some modern Industrial Wicca creeping in.
I did know a Cherokee "Medicine Man" many years ago, from the reservation in the Smokies, on the NC-TN border. I learned a lot from him in a little time.
Her "Cherokee" sounds more like Yiddish to me, though. Like I said above, it's always changing in the peripherals, yet always staying the same at it's core.
A longer video - this one just shy of an hour:
A L-O-O-O-N-G podcast on the subject, for them that cares to continue torturing themselves with the subject. It's about 2 and a quarter hours long:
A note about "water witchin' " - I reckon just about everyone has heard of it, but few are left who really know how to do it. My Dear Old Dad taught me how. Now, I've seen him tinkering with bent coat hangers like so many use today, but he was never really satisfied with that method. He preferred forked tree branches, and so do I. There is a "life" to them that isn't there in the cold metal coat hangers. To do it right, you have to hold your palms up, thumbs outward, and put one fork of the branch across each palm. The you take your thumbs and put a little forward pressure on each fork, and squeeze them inward, towards one another, just a little. This puts a tension in the branch, sort of spring-like. As you walk along, concentrating on whatever it is you're trying to find, that branch will dip downward at the loose end, more strongly the closer it is to what you're trying to find. I have seen them twist so hard it wrings the bark off right there in your hand.
You can feel the branch tugging and trying to twist in your hands. I reckon that's really on account of the spring tension you are putting into it, but it feels like the branch itself is alive.
That can be used to find anything, not just water. I've used it to find all sorts of stuff, from water to gold to arrow heads. Never known it to fail, although some times you have to dig a fair piece to find what it says is there. Some times it's right there at the surface, other times it seems you might have to dig to the earth's core to find it, but it's always there.
Willow is a waterside tree, it loves wet places, and that's what I prefer to use looking for water. Kind of a sympathetic magic, I reckon. other things respond better to a peach branch, others to hickory, and so on. Why it works, I don't know. May be that some energy is emanating from whatever you are concentrating on that resonates with you, and it's all subconscious. I do know that moving water does give off such energies - infinitesimal electrical currents generated as water molecules slide against one another, bounce off of rocks, etc, tiny, tiny radio waves of a sort.
Maybe the individual doing the dowsing picks up on that energy in some way.
.
Not practitioners of a particularly hidebound art, Appalachian Granny Women tend towards what works for them, rather than formulaic ritual.
BUT - it isn't limited to women. Some fellas also have "The Gift".
I've seen, with my own eyes, warts "bought" and bleeding stopped as mentioned in the above video. Of the two, the blood stoppage was the more dramatic, as the warts take a few days to disappear, but the blood stop is nearly immediate. In that case, the healer muttered a phrase from Isaiah over the victim, and the flow stopped nearly immediately. Whether that was "magic" or simply mind-over-matter belief I can't say. All I can say is it worked.
My dad was "peculiar" like that. He didn't do much healing beyond doctoring up family, but he would just "know" things, know them without being told. I asked him about it once, and he said he had been born with a "veil" or a "caul", which meant nothing to me, as I didn't know what on Earth he was talking about. Researching it, apparently some babies are born with a section of the amniotic sac over their faces, and that has to be cleared off for them to start breathing. In the old days, that was called "being born under the veil" or "born with a caul", and it was supposed to be a sign that the child would have peculiar abilities.
The practices are still alive and well in these hills. Not as prevalent as they have been formerly, but they are still here. This young-'un is an example of the younger generation still digging in to it. This is the first video in a series she made for YouTube (caution: she rambles a lot):
She does bring up an important point, however - a real witch will tell you it's not him or her that is "magic", that the "power" comes from somewhere else, and just "flows through" them, and that they are not the source of it. They are merely a conduit. She kinda goes off the rails when she's discussing Mountain Deities - the ones she mentions, mostly Greek, are no part of it. That sounds to me like some modern Industrial Wicca creeping in.
I did know a Cherokee "Medicine Man" many years ago, from the reservation in the Smokies, on the NC-TN border. I learned a lot from him in a little time.
Her "Cherokee" sounds more like Yiddish to me, though. Like I said above, it's always changing in the peripherals, yet always staying the same at it's core.
A longer video - this one just shy of an hour:
A L-O-O-O-N-G podcast on the subject, for them that cares to continue torturing themselves with the subject. It's about 2 and a quarter hours long:
A note about "water witchin' " - I reckon just about everyone has heard of it, but few are left who really know how to do it. My Dear Old Dad taught me how. Now, I've seen him tinkering with bent coat hangers like so many use today, but he was never really satisfied with that method. He preferred forked tree branches, and so do I. There is a "life" to them that isn't there in the cold metal coat hangers. To do it right, you have to hold your palms up, thumbs outward, and put one fork of the branch across each palm. The you take your thumbs and put a little forward pressure on each fork, and squeeze them inward, towards one another, just a little. This puts a tension in the branch, sort of spring-like. As you walk along, concentrating on whatever it is you're trying to find, that branch will dip downward at the loose end, more strongly the closer it is to what you're trying to find. I have seen them twist so hard it wrings the bark off right there in your hand.
You can feel the branch tugging and trying to twist in your hands. I reckon that's really on account of the spring tension you are putting into it, but it feels like the branch itself is alive.
That can be used to find anything, not just water. I've used it to find all sorts of stuff, from water to gold to arrow heads. Never known it to fail, although some times you have to dig a fair piece to find what it says is there. Some times it's right there at the surface, other times it seems you might have to dig to the earth's core to find it, but it's always there.
Willow is a waterside tree, it loves wet places, and that's what I prefer to use looking for water. Kind of a sympathetic magic, I reckon. other things respond better to a peach branch, others to hickory, and so on. Why it works, I don't know. May be that some energy is emanating from whatever you are concentrating on that resonates with you, and it's all subconscious. I do know that moving water does give off such energies - infinitesimal electrical currents generated as water molecules slide against one another, bounce off of rocks, etc, tiny, tiny radio waves of a sort.
Maybe the individual doing the dowsing picks up on that energy in some way.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’