[UA] American Magic

[Peter Kisner]

This recalls to my mind this one section of the Foxfire books I read in my 
youth.  For anyone who's not familiar the Foxfire books are a collection of 
interviews with rural folks (mostly in the U.S. "south" or Appalachia IIRC) 
and advice on how to do certain sorts of crafts and useful things like:  get 
lye from ashes, distill moonshine, cane chair seats, etc.

But the section I remember was about an itinerant folk healer who went from 
place to place curing "the thrash".  From what this guy claimed the thrash 
sounded midway between a psycho-somatic illness and wasting disease.  Again 
if memory serves me it could go through you and turn your skin a sallowy 
yellow, strip the meat from your bones and make you listless.  Doctors 
apparently aren't able to adequately diagnose or treat the thrash so it's up 
to a few itinerant healers to do so.  The thrash often strikes the young.

Now not just anyone can cure the thrash.  Certain kinds of people are better 
at it.  It helps if your father died before you were born.  I think it also 
helps if you were born under a new moon.  Possibly there are other useful 
factors as well.

The healer being interviewed said there are a variety of techniques for 
curing the thrash.  His preferred technique seemed to involve cupping a hand 
like a tube over the person's mouth and nose and sucking the thrash out with 
his mouth.  This did not seem to require that a tight CPR type 
mouth-to-mouth seal be formed to be effective, but was more of a general 
proximity was enough (sort of like the healer from The Green Mile movie).  I 
believe there were photos of him demonstrating this cure on some kid and I 
seem to recall the kid looking baffeled but maybe a bit amused by the whole 
deal.

This particular section of the books seemed a little odd to me in comparison 
to alot of the other really practical day to day crafts being discussed.

- Peter K.

>From: "John C" <john1x at hotmail.com>
>
>If you're looking for ritual ideas, this is a great source of 'em.  An 
>example:
>
>"TO COMPEL A THIEF TO RETURN STOLEN GOODS.
>
>Early in the morning before sunrise you must go to a pear tree, and take 
>with you three nails out of a coffin, or three horse-shoe nails that were 
>never used, and holding these toward the rising Sun. you must say:
>
>"Oh, thief, I bind you by the first nail, which I drive into thy skull and. 
>thy brain, to return the goods thou hast stolen to their former place; thou 
>shalt feel as sick and as anxious to see men, and to see the place you 
>stole from, as felt the disciple Judas after betraying Jesus. I bind thee 
>by the other nail, which I drive into your lungs and liver, to. return the 
>stolen goods to their former place; thou shall feel as sick and as anxious 
>to see men, and to see the place you have stolen from, as did Pilate in the 
>fires of hell. The third nail I shall drive into thy foot, oh thief, in 
>order that thou shalt return the stolen goods to the very same place from 
>which thou hast stolen them. Oh, thief, I bind thee and compel thee, by the 
>three holy nails which were driven through the hands and feet of Jesus 
>Christ, to return the stolen goods to the very same place from which thou 
>hast stolen them. + + + The three nails, however, must be greased with the 
>grease from an executed criminal or other sinful person."
>
>(Each + indicates the caster making the sign of the cross.)
>
>John Crimmins

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