Browse:Trickery by Doctor: Cast It into Oblivion (Volume 1, entries 795)
Trickery by Doctor: Cast It into Oblivion
Volume 1, entries 795. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → Tricks. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 795
I knew a man that was said to have a spell put on him. He was a lawyer who didn't believe in anything. Anyhow, he had something that they deemed to be a nervous breakdown. They had three doctors with him. It seems that he would be up today but tomorrow he would be in the same condition. In the meantime, a woman came to his wife and told her that she knew somebody that could do him some good. She said to the woman, "I will do anything to try to help him, because he cannot go to his office and all of his business is going to pieces." She said, "I will bring the man to your house tonight and he will tell you what you must do." On the designated night she brought the man. The man went in to the lawyer's wife and told her, "This is a spell that is put on your husband by conjuration. I can help him. You, tomorrow, go to the bank, get me seventy-five dollars in silver [silver dollars] and have it here tomorrow night when I come." In turn the man left. The next day the woman went to the bank, got the seventy-five dollars out in silver and brought it home. When the man came next night, he took this silver, and he had this lawyer lay flat on his back, and he laid this silver all up and down his breast and all around. He bound it every one in its place till he had the seventy-five dollars on his body. He said, "Leave that be for three days and I'll be back." He went away. The third night he was back. He unbound the lawyer and took the money out. Each piece of the money was black. He took it out and laid it down and said, "See herel" When he got the seventy-five dollars off it was all very dark. And he said to the man's wife, "Now, I will rake all of this into this bag and I will cast it into oblivion, and he will get well, because this is his disease that's in this silver." So he took the silver and went away and stayed away for quite a while. When he came back the man was up and about the house. And he said, "Are you getting better?" He said, "I don't know. I don't feel so strong. I don't feel like going to my office. But still, I am convinced of the fact that something must of happened to me." He said, "That's all I want' - that's the conjureman. "All I want is for you to be convinced that you are conjured. Now, that you are convinced, now I will begin to work on you. He kept working on the man till he got about five-hundred dollars out of him - and the man by that time was in such a low state of health and of spirits - till he had to move out of the house that he had been owning for about sixteen years and go into another that was given him by a white man. And he stayed there as a baby for three years till his hair was gone. He was just like an invalid. And about three years ago he died right in Orangeburg [South Carolina]. [New York City, (10), Ed.] [The preceding subsection, Doctor and Doctor, gave some beliefs and practices emphasizing the difference between the primitive thought of hoodoo's magic world and the modern thought of science. Now comes a survey of doctor's entire career. As an introduction to the following margin-titles, I will use a story permitting us to watch two doctors on the same case, one succeeding the other; the first a country doctor, the second a city doctor. Medical doctors are also involved at the beginning.]