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7 Holy Spirits Bath - The Original Hoodoo and Voodoo Bath for Luck, Love and Success

old time hoodoo bath spell

In modern hoodoo practice, it's not uncommon to take spiritual baths for purposes like drawing love or money. However, when writing Conjuration: Hoodoo Spells 1800-1920 I noticed that in the oldest spells, baths are only used for cleansing and purification. (Though drawing good luck might be an expected result of the bath, as once the victim was free from evil it could be supposed their good luck would be unlocked.)

These older baths were usually herb baths, or made from simple mixtures like salt, boiled pieces of silver and baking or washing soda. On a hunt to find the first commercial hoodoo baths, I found the 7 Holy Spirits bath from the 1944 O&B Catalogue. The advertisement is featured above. Clearly it's some kind of 7 bottle set, meant to be taken every other day.

The catalogue says little about the bath recipe, but as it happens, a sort of recipe is given in Lewis de Claremont's Ancient Book of Formulas. This book rarely gives complete conjure recipes, instead letting the reader know which "bouquet" fragrance blend to use when making oils (presumably de Claremont was selling these formulas or knew of some seller for them.) Cross-checking the fragrance blends for the bath with the fragrance blends for the anointing oils, we get the following formulas:

Seven Holy Spirit Baths
Day 1: Lovers, colored blue
Day 2: Commanding, colored red
Day 3: Van Van, colored yellow
Day 4: Indian Guide, colored green
Day 5: Temple, colored brown
Day 6: Uncrossing, colored green
Day 7: High Conquering, colored purple

The baths consisted of one ounce each soluble oil base with 4 drams of the fragrance added. De Claremont doesn't give his recipe for this oil base, but here is one from Jeanne Rose's Herbal Body Book:

  • Melt 1/4 cup hydrous lanolin and add slowly, mixing all the while, 1 1/2 cups alcohol in which 1 oz. essential oil has been dissolved.
  • Add slowly 1/2 cup alcohol in which 1 oz. essential oil has been dissolved.
  • Shake all together thoroughly. This substance is milky although the milkiness does not show in the bath and it will disperse immediately in the water.
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