My 4 PM alarm goes off. It’s time to get up and get ready for work. Lying awake in my bed in Berlin, I reflect on what has been a rather rough week at the club. I’ve made almost no money, and am channeling a deeply insecure inner dialogue about my whoring abilities. As I will my body to get up, my gaze falls on the prized collection of ‘witch lit’ sat next to my bed in direct line with my altar. I pull Yeye Luisah Teish’s Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals from the pile and thumb through until I reach a well-worn page: ‘A Prayer for Self-Esteem.’ I recite the prayer, loudly and boldly, three times. I feel it settle in my spirit. I know what to do.
I go to the kitchen, find a bay leaf and a green pen. I write a certain type of petition for wealth on the leaf with the pen, inscribing the name of my strip club and a few symbols. Following the instructions once given to me by a witch sister, I place the leaf writing side-up on my altar, coat the leaf’s surface in sweet, sticky honey, and place a tea light on top. Taking a moment to ground myself with breath, I light the candle.
I pray over the charm, then begin getting ready for work – hair, lips, heels, nails. When the candle goes out, I bury it, still stuck to the leaf, in the backyard under a tree. That night at work, a group of wealthy clients from New York come in and they are happy to see an American girl shake her ass. I am covered in dollars in the first hour of work, and take a video of myself in the bathroom with dollar bills tucked into every available strap of my lingerie, looking like some kind of elegant bird with dollar-bill plumage. Silently, I thank my spirit guides for answering my prayer.
I come from a long line of women with conjuring and psychic abilities. I am, to my knowledge, the first whore in my ancestral line. The other women in my family would cringe to hear me call them psychics, rootworkers, or especially witches. If asked, they term their uncannily accurate prophetic dreams – each one with her own specialty for predictions, which range from the winning lottery numbers to sensing that their child is in danger – and their healing abilities as, “Just Jesus” i.e. the power comes as a gift from Jesus. Whether we agree on where the power comes from and what it means or not, at least we can all agree that there is a power running through our blood.
I come from a long line of women with conjuring and psychic abilities. I am, to my knowledge, the first whore in my ancestral line.
There is power in being a whore too. I am a Blacktina (Afro-Latina, the descendant of persons enslaved and trafficked from the African continent into Latin America & the Caribbean) whore raised with the power of prayers to heal and call down blessings. Centuries of colonial violence, and the calculated anti-Black persecution of practices such as Obeah, Voudou, Hoodoo, and the West African religion Vodoun caused my ancestors to step away from an obvious embrace of their religious heritage and turn to Christianity as a means of survival.
I make a stern distinction between being a witch and being a heritage practitioner of a pre-Christian African religion or an African diasporic spiritual practice – a grace that Europeans did NOT give, which is where the pejorative term ‘black magic’ comes from. There are times when my witchery and the separate practices derived from my African heritage intersect, mostly when it comes to my veneration of the non-human natural world. As a whore in a whorephobic world, I can use all the blessings and protection I can get!
I’ve been a practicing witch since I was fifteen years old and a whore since I was seventeen. My whorestory is long, and fraught with ups and downs. Yet there’s been a clear upward incline in my sex work since I began incorporating ritual practices into my work in my early twenties. Age has happily brought increased knowledge. Over the years I’ve connected with more and more Black/Latinx/Blacktina spiritual practitioners, and done my own research into how a young artist-whore-witch like myself can move as safely and successfully as possible through this industry with the aid of her ancestors and spirit guides. The most impactful tools in my purse are limpias (also known as limpias con huevo), the attraction charm I mentioned before, and – with great cautionary warning – Jezebel Root.
Jezebel Root
I first came across Jezebel Root without looking for her. I was on Etsy, looking instead for flying ointment (look it up), which I had read about in the book Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the S*x Positive by Kristen J. Sollee. I never did find the flying ointment, but I did instead come across an online apothecary which sold Jezebel Root. As a whore, of course I was drawn to the name immediately, although it must be noted that Jezebel in the Bible was only portrayed as a prostitute by the Christian clergy because a verse in the Bible describes her as a devotee of a non-Christian religion, who takes the time to put on makeup before being executed – very badass.
Like a good little witch, I did my research. I was pleased to read that the root was said to have been historically used by brothel workers in the old days of New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA). For those who don’t know, New Orleans is a city with a deep history and present connected to Voodoo/Hoodoo, slavery, and whoredom [1]. It was the home of Voodoo/Hoodoo queen Mademoiselle Marie LaVeau – blessed be her name! – who organized community rituals for the Black community and served as a spiritual leader for both enslaved and newly freed Blacks in one of the most repressive slave states in the entire country. She also allegedly organized orgies (we love that) and was a procurer of women for ‘quadroon balls’ (again, look it up) [2].
All of this I already knew, but what was new to me was the history of this root among sex workers in NOLA. The root, now as then, is said to be ideal for those of us in the industry due to its ability to attract wealthy men and cultivate a willing spirit in them for giving large tips or gifts. Brothel workers were said to keep a piece of the root in their corset or put it under the pillow of the bed in their room to increase their cash flow.
Of course, in true whore erasure, you will read that this root is for anyone who works for tips, without acknowledging the whoreful history of the root [3]. At the time I encountered the root, I was newly single and back on my bullshit so to speak, and ready to return to the life of whoring that I had sidelined for my relationship. In my time on the bench, I had logged back on to SeekingArrangement and been ghosted, SESTA/FOSTA had totally fucked Craigslist Personals up, and I had very recently cried at my new therapist’s office about my lack of a sponsor. I purchased a bag.
The root, now as then, is said to be ideal for those of us in the industry due to its ability to attract wealthy men and cultivate a willing spirit in them for giving large tips or gifts.
Here is where things get tricky. As a practitioner of African-diasporic spiritual practices, a witch, and someone who was raised in the Christian church (don’t ask), I know the power of prayer. The spoken word – the exact thing you say – is extremely important. And yet, here is where I lapsed when preparing my Jezebel root. At my altar, I coated a piece of the root in my vaginal fluids, made some other preparations which are private and personal, and then prayed fervently over the little parcel that I would then keep in my wallet: “Please bring me a wealthy man.” Just this. I didn’t ask that he be kind, or mature, or generous, or intelligent, or respectful of my boundaries, or any other of the many important qualities which make a great client. This is my cautionary tale.
A wealthy man did come – but he was mean, alcoholic, manipulative, insecure, and deeply damaged by his own personal traumas. The limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic, my own fragile self-esteem post-breakup, and the fact that we sometimes had fun together, influenced me to stay much longer than I should have. We went to some nice dinners and took a trip to his beach house in Florida. We stayed for a night at a fancy hotel, where I drank champagne and ate cheesecake naked in an empty bathtub. These small treats were far from able to balance out his otherwise poor treatment of me, which was fueled by his own low self-esteem and perhaps an internalized Disney prince narrative – where a man feels that if he does something for a woman, it means she ‘owes’ him and he ‘owns’ her.
My experiences over the years have revealed that the more specific I am with my prayers, the better the outcomes are. I genuinely believe that if I had been more intentional in my prayer when working with such a powerful root, that a better sponsor would have come to me. I asked only for a wealthy man, and that energy dredged up the worst kind there is. Rootworking in general is powerful, and can be dangerous when mishandled in a way such as this. In the end, I had to do several cleansing and protective rituals on myself just to get rid of him – an effort hardly worth a few perks.
Rootworking in general is powerful, and can be dangerous when mishandled in a way such as this.
The root is the most powerful part of a plant because this is where the plant stores most of her energy and life force. It grows protected under the ground, absorbing nutrients and water to sustain the above-ground features of the plant. Herbalists know that the best time to gather a root (in the Northern Hemisphere) for medicinal purposes is generally in mid-to-late autumn, before the first frost. As autumn rises, the plant will cease putting energy towards having leaves and producing blossoms or fruit, and will redirect her energy below ground for surviving the long winter ahead. The root of plants also holds great power because although there are methods of collecting root parts for certain species without killing the entire plant, taking the root most often means that the plant will die. This sacrifice, in a classic life-death-life cycle, carries value for the work that will be done with the root.
The phrase ‘rootworker’ is specific to African-diasporic religions and spiritual practices of the Southern United States and some islands of the West Indies. It should not be used or appropriated outside of this cultural context by others. If you are ‘one who knows,’ you will have likely heard in whispers or used the phrase yourself: “she/he/they put a root on him/her/them.”
While NOLA is known for its Creole culture (in this context, a racial and cultural mix of African, Native American, and colonizer Acadian [French] and Spanish heritage), I see the usage of this root and the practice of rootworking in this context as uniquely Black. Therefore, if you are not a Black sex worker, you should do your own research on wealth-creating rituals from your own cultural heritage. What is inherent to your ancestral lineage will always be more effective than trying on somebody else’s culture, and it is also just respectful besides. Work with your own roots.
Limpia (Con Huevo) [4]
I have worked in the sex industry for over a decade, on-and-off, and I wish I had this specific tool from the beginning, as a means of protection and balancing my energy after client interactions. With the rise of ‘TikTok witches’, [5] a phenomenon which I, as a certified old-bitch/witch, speak about with some mild disdain, the limpia con huevo has become increasingly public knowledge. There are so many resources describing the process and the history [6] of this cleansing and divination tool, which I learned about from a sister witch in 2021 as being a part of Latinx [7] curanderismo. The limpia con huevo is a wonderful tool for when I encounter a client with heavy, or unsettling energy. Sometimes I even do a limpia con huevo when an online interaction – which I have increasingly had these days while cultivating my audioerotica and erotic fiction library on Patreon – leaves me with a feeling I find difficult to shake off. It happens to the best of us, especially to sensitive bitches like me. Whether someone says, does, or even looks at me in a way I feel negatively affected by, I have learned to release what does not belong to me with a limpia con huevo.
You may even wish to utilize a limpia con huevo when you’ve had a strange interaction which has left you feeling ‘off’ with a coworker, collaborator, or colleague. In my experience, someone else’s jealousy or envy is a negative energy occasionally able to cling to my spirit. As a sensitive person who has always been keenly aware of what other people are projecting towards me – whether they state it openly or not – there are times when I have found that something has affected me deeply. I once had a customer at the club who initially seemed pleasant; however, after doing a private session with him, I had the unshakable feeling that I had encountered an evil spirit living inside the body of a human being.
With the rise of ‘TikTok witches’, a phenomenon which I, as a certified old-bitch/witch, speak about with some mild disdain, the limpia con huevo has become increasingly public knowledge.
I go home, grab an egg, a glass of room temperature water, and white salt. I strip down naked, and concentrating entirely on the removal of negativity from my body and energetic field, I pass the egg, pointy side down, over my body in downward strokes, starting from the crown of my head and moving towards the soles of my feet. I pray in Spanish to my spirit guides and ancestors as I do so. The egg, as a symbol and representation of tabula rasa and new life, has then absorbed what I have asked it to. When I am finished, I crack the egg into the glass and divine what I see about the given situation. To dispose of the limpia, I sprinkle salt over the egg in the glass of water – when you see what happens after you do this, you will understand why – and then dispose of the contents in the glass in running water (the toilet, with a firm flush). Then I wash the glass thoroughly, and normally use this glass for only this purpose.
There is still immense stigma about being a witch – or if you are a colonized person, in practicing the traditional pre-Christian religion of your ancestors – and about being a whore. As a member of all those communities who identified as a witch and a whore long before the rise of this much more permissive, yet still difficult, age of being, I derive strength from the connections between the spiritual work and whoring. Learning more about the connected histories of the two is empowering, and I learn a little bit more each time I do research to this end as part of my own spiritual practice. There are contemporary sex workers like Mistress Marley who proudly walk in both their magical abilities and position in the industry; Mistress Marley regularly hosts in-person and online [8] trainings for employing spiritual work as a tool in dominance and sex work.
If you are a white sex worker reading this, I can only emphasize the importance of researching your own (Celtic/Pict/Norse/Gaelic/etc) ancestral practices and seeing how they can be applied to enhancing your work. For all readers, always remember that magic or spiritual work cannot create something out of nothing – to paraphrase the words of Yeye Luisah Teish, ritual must be followed by action! I believe my success at the strip club that night evolved from working a ritual, and then putting on the red lingerie that makes my ass look amazing. Then going over to talk to the table of Americans no one else would try because there were women sitting with them. I put in effort, reaped a reward, and very importantly: thanked my spirit guides and the energy of the universe for helping me. As we all know, this industry can be challenging, wonderful, draining, exhausting, and even, in its own way – magical.
[1] So famous for whoredom in fact, that a famed brothel in New Orleans known as ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ inspired a popular song of the same name. For more information on the infamous history of sexwork in NOLA at its peak in the 1800s, you can read: https://www.hnoc.org/virtual/storyville/sex-workers-storyville
[2]This information is derived from research done by Yeye Luisah Teish in her book Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms & Rituals.
[3]This site, however, happily acknowledges all usages: https://www.smudgemetaphysical.com/jezebel-root.html
[4]A simple entry into your favorite search engine of this phrase will unearth a treasure trove of results about this practice. Reddit has entire subthreads directed to this and other practices of divination, but please – don’t become one of those users who posts a photo of their cleanse every five minutes asking, “What does this mean?” “Someone tell me what this means!” Divination is about cultivating your own intuition and practice – and unless you are engaging the services of a trained curandera, healer, then take with several grains of salt what strangers from the internet are eager to diagnose you with.
[5]https://www.missingwitches.com/oomancy-egg-divination-is-more-than-a-tiktok-trend/
[6]For a Latinx’s view, read: https://www.popsugar.com/smart-living/how-to-do-egg-cleanse-huevo-limpia-ritual-48963277
[7]If you are not from Latinx heritage, I can suggest an alternative: from time to time, I will take a small branch of rosemary (a plant with powerful indications for protection and removal of negative energy) and pass it over my or my cat’s entire body in a way similar I would do with an egg. Then I will throw this branch into a river, and wash my hands thoroughly with white salt.
[8] https://www.thechocolatedomme.com/event-details/master-manifestation-3
miss mirage, also known online as thepasteldomina, is a writer of prose and the author of erotic semi-fiction stories such as 'Reggaeton Strap-On: A Latina Lesbian Adventure' and 'His First Escort: F*cking My Favorite Comedian.' A s*x worker for over a decade, she currently writes and records audioerotica on Patreon and works occasionally as a str!pper. She receives tributes from devoted subs and fans through https://throne.com/thepasteldomina. Her erotica can be accessed via Patreon through the web address: tinyurl.com/miss-mirages-world. You can connect with her on fetlife with her username: thepasteldomina
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