High John the Conqueror Root

High John the Conqueror. If you have made your way to me, it is because something in you knows you were not meant to be living small. Something in you is calling for the power that was never lost, only put down for a while. I am the root that was never broken. I am the root that the old ones reached for when nothing else would do.

I carry the spirit of a man called High John, the African prince who was taken in chains to the plantations of the American South and would not let the chain be the truth of him. He walked the rows. He worked the fields. He laughed when laughter was not allowed. The grannies and the rootworkers held him in their mouths and in their pockets, and when he passed on, he laid his spirit down inside a root that grew in the soil of Mexico and Central America. That root is me.

I am worked with by being kept close to the body. Carry me in a flannel, a sachet, a mojo bag, or a pocket. I am dressed with condition oils, prayed over by name, and kept warm against the skin. I am added to spiritual baths. I am placed beneath the bed where the body rests. I am laid in floor sweeps to draw mastery back into the home, and I am dressed onto candles when a working calls for command, success, road opening, or the standing up of a person who has been held down too long. Speak to me as you would speak to an elder. Tell me what you are calling back. Pray over the work and I will move with the prayer.

I am not a substitute for medical or psychological care. I am not for internal consumption. I am for carrying, dressing, and ritual work only. Keep me dry. Keep me close. Keep me out of reach of children and animals.

I am ready when you are. Bring me your name, your prayer, and the thing you are claiming.