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Ep 49: Moving Through Black Mysticism and Imagination
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Hey y'all. We're back with our season 8 premiere. This season we're planning on dropping a new episode every week of Hoodoo Heritage Month discussing a theme and a historical Hoodoo that you may not know about.
In this episode, we discuss the violent effects of colonialism on our bodies, imagination, and relationships. We touch on the current political climate before getting into the life and work of Father Divine and the need to use Black mysticism to navigate through the destruction of colonialism.
RESOURCES
- "Nikki Giovanni on the importance of self love | Generational Anxiety" ALLARTSTV. YouTube.
- "Ep 47: Dreaming a New Dream with Austen Smith" Hoodoo Plant Mamas.
- Loving Corrections by adrienne maree brown
- September Patreon Minisode: Loving Corrections
- Father's Kingdom documentary
Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr
BOOKSHOP
https://bookshop.org/shop/hoodooplantmamas
Apocalypse Still by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
bloom by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
About the Boy by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
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Twitter: @hoodooplants
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This podcast was created, hosted, and produced by Dani & Leah.
Our music was created by Ghrey, and our artwork was designed by Bianca.
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Transcript
Welcome Back to Season Eight
00:00:00
Speaker
Who do plant mamas? Get your soul fair and your spirit red This year and the trend Has possessed a power from way back when Backward focus ripped from all of it So they have to find the magic within And set the together my urge I conjure at my altar
00:00:45
Speaker
Hey, y'all, and welcome back to season eight of Who Do Plant Llamas?
Personal Updates: Divorce and Relocation
00:00:50
Speaker
I am one of your co-hosts, Lea Nicole. And I'm Danny B. And before we get started, Danny B, how have you been since our last season?
00:01:00
Speaker
been doing okay. I'm more settled into where I'm currently living. I feel like we talked about that. So yeah, um I'm doing okay. What about you? I had a summer, let's say that I am currently going through a divorce. Thankfully, my husband agreed with me that it was time for a divorce. It hasn't been hard or difficult.
00:01:27
Speaker
And that way it has been kind of like hard emotionally because it wasn't really something that I was, that I thought was going to happen. And so yeah, that's what I'm going through right now.
00:01:40
Speaker
life be life and well, let's get
Gratitude and Daily Affirmations
00:01:43
Speaker
into some gratitude. What are you thankful for today? I am going to say that I am thankful. Um, definitely thankful for my sister and my nephews. That's who I have been staying with. And they have also told me how thankful they are that I'm here to help. I also want to say shout out to Rachel. She was who I drove to after I left my husband. So.
00:02:07
Speaker
She has been very supportive of me as well. So shout out to my friends, to my family. I love it. I'm grateful for Nikki Giovanni because I came across a video yesterday of her talking about how our generation and you know, older people do this thing, but she ate with this one.
00:02:27
Speaker
where she talked about how we don't really like ourselves, we're not fond of ourselves, which is not a lie as far as but me. And she said how we should wake up in the morning and the first thing we should do is say, I love you to ourselves. While we're brushing our teeth, I love you, you know? And it's something that I just started like, was today the first day I did it? Or maybe I did it yesterday.
00:02:54
Speaker
I am going to try to start doing that in the morning when I wake up. I'm trying to do this thing where I'm like, there's a name for it. I think it's called habit stacking. Like when you build a habit and then you add another one to kind of help you with building multiple habits. So for the past.
00:03:14
Speaker
Honestly, year, but more consistently for the past, I would say two months, I've been consistently getting up anywhere between 4.30 AM and 5.15 AM to like do a whole stretching routine, resistance training, cardio, and then starting my day. And so I'm trying to, I'm like, okay, you have consistently built this habit. Like even if you set the wrong time for your phone, your body naturally wakes up during this time. So I'm trying to incorporate that and also like material practice, spiritual practice. So yeah, lots happening, but I'm thankful for seeing that video and just like trying to, you know, do right by myself. I also saw that video and it really helped me to be like,
00:04:04
Speaker
wake up in the morning and be like, what are the actions that I can take to show myself that I love me?
Colonialism and Black Mysticism
00:04:12
Speaker
And that's me like getting up and making myself breakfast and making sure that I'm exercising, make sure that I'm like taking care of myself throughout the day. um But yeah, that is, that is a really good video. I do recommend, I'll probably put in the show notes.
00:04:27
Speaker
that's a good idea today we wanted to talk about black mysticism and kind of break it down to two parts like one look at colonialism and how it is causing like destruction on a wide scale and then two look at the need for black mysticism to move through the colonialism and destruction. So this is something that I have been thinking about a lot since our episode with Austin of imagination doulas and how imagination is a white western construct.
Political Critique: Kamala Harris and Global Conflicts
00:05:02
Speaker
I think about that every time that I look at the news every time I look around me and we can just see how everything is crumbling our bodies our economies our earth because all colonialism wants to do is extract it wants to take
00:05:16
Speaker
And we talk about how in ATRs, like a very central idea is this idea of balance and harmony, balance with each other in communities, balance with the earth. Colonization does not want to give back anything. It just wants to take. It's all about the self. It's all about power and domination. And now with the world looking the way that it does, everyone wants to be saved. But I think we're at a point with this country, with the United States specifically, where the country has no choice but to eat itself. like And it brought it on itself. you know I think this is the perfect conversation for
00:06:01
Speaker
our current, you know, what's happening currently with election season. I feel like the older I've gotten and the more I began to understand how politics work, I've started to like dread, especially presidential elections, partly because people get real weird.
00:06:22
Speaker
people get very weird. One thing that I'm struggling with is that a lot of the people who are sort of uncritically supporting Kamala, they're pushing this idea that the people that are critiquing her don't know politics. Although many of these people are grassroots organizers, some of these people have been arrested, lost their jobs, housing, all kinds of shit for protesting genocide.
00:06:52
Speaker
This is in addition to the folks that are actively witnessing their families and loved ones be destroyed and not just in Gaza. One thing this has done like with everything that's happening and watching our government sort of aid in this, fund it, refuse to like Divest from the destruction of a people is that it's opening people's eyes who maybe didn't know about the US's other dirty work beyond Gaza, because this isn't a new thing. This country has always been actively engaged in the murder exploitation and corruption happening abroad, in addition to what's happening here.
00:07:39
Speaker
All a lot of people have to offer the blue, no matter who folks is that, well, this administration is
Imagining Beyond Colonial Constructs
00:07:46
Speaker
more flexible. We can work with them. You mean the same administration that has very clearly taken a side literally at the DNC 2024 convention. They allow one side of this quote unquote war to speak and talk about what they've been going through in their families. But the other side, you wouldn't even let them in. They don't have a voice. They don't matter. That administration, like what does that say?
00:08:19
Speaker
And even people getting upset about protesters interrupting Kamala's events, why would they protest Trump? People keep saying like, oh, why why they not protesting Trump? Because they know Trump isn't going to budge. You should be happy that these people have a little bit of hope and desire that Kamala and the Democrats would do the right thing. As we can see, they're refusing to. They simply will not. They'll say some things that sound good and then completely go against it you know when it comes down to it but that's politics and we need to get over it because we don't know how it works and i feel like that is so it's so patronizing and it's unhelpful and it's not how you win in an election i know that much i may not know politics but i know that's not how you get people on your side by by talking down to them and telling them well
00:09:14
Speaker
too bad, like that's not going to happen so we need to just vote. I think it goes into what you're saying because a lot of people, whether they explicitly say it or not, they really believe that oppression and destruction of a group of people is worth their comfort. They believe we should settle for these tools that we have because it's our only choice and that's really rooted in not just fear but When we met with Austin, they're working through sort of like imagination and like it possibly being a colonial construct. Isn't that what we discussed? But I think the lack of imagination is
00:09:59
Speaker
a really big problem the way I see it because people cannot imagine anything outside of what we have and maybe that is connected to it being colonial construct maybe their imagination it is their imagination that is so limited and it's by design perhaps is that I feel like there's this ah internalized belief that we have to play the game of our oppressors in order to win.
Systemic Oppression in the South
00:10:24
Speaker
And it's wild because we're never going to win, pent playing by their rules. And I don't know why people believe that. I think you were right, it is the lack of imagination, but it's also fear, like a people are really afraid of what will happen if Trump is in power. And I do want to say I think the fear is mostly tied to, like you said earlier, that comfort, the fear that they are going to lose, mainly when I say that I mainly mean white people.
00:10:53
Speaker
white people, because this is about Democrats, white liberals, white liberals are afraid that they are going to lose their comfort. They're afraid they're going to lose their power, their privilege. And so they're like, we need Kamala. When in reality, they need Kamala. um The rest of us are going to suffer regardless. I think something that a lot of people still have not realized is that what you allow for others, you allow for yourself.
00:11:22
Speaker
And I think about this all the time when we talk about abortion access, because we have this discussion every four years about abortion. We did not grow up with access to abortion in Mississippi. Yeah, there was the pink house, but like it was so highly restricted that a lot of people did not have access to abortion. And for most of my life, I have been told that's what you get for living in Mississippi. And because of that, because you allowed it for us,
00:11:50
Speaker
That is a reality for you now. And now every four years, you have to deal with the fear that you will not have access to ah safe abortion. And so when we say these things, like we cannot let Kamala continue to send weapons to Israel.
00:12:08
Speaker
to continue to push this genocide overseas. It is not to like virtue signal or something. It's because we know if we allow this thing to happen to them, it will happen to us too. There's no separation between the two of us. And I think so many people still have not gotten that because they live in this country, because they have power and privilege and all and comfort.
00:12:31
Speaker
they still have not accepted the fact that like you co-signing that is also you co-signing that for yourself. I love that you said that about Mississippi because it applies to the South in general where people say, well, y'all need to just leave. There needs to be a mass exodus because they think that they can outrun the country at its core, which is what the South in a lot of ways represents. It's nothing but a mirror. Didn't two or three people just get shot over like $2 because they didn't pay for for the train?
00:13:12
Speaker
What do you, like, you know, it's just not making sense. You can't outrun this. And I know I've jokingly said, you know, Mississippi is the reason Roe v.
Social Disconnection and Political Cycles
00:13:22
Speaker
Wade has ended, but no, it's a collective responsibility.
00:13:26
Speaker
Because like you said, those of us in very rural areas did not have access to the pink house. It was very hard because you had to get transportation to Jackson. If you were a teenager and you messed around and accidentally got pregnant, you got to try to figure out a way to get there.
00:13:44
Speaker
And you got to have somebody that that you trust, unless your parent was you know supportive enough to go ahead and take you. like It was always a struggle for us. And now you know that because y'all have a lot of people feel like we're not worth the fight, forget them, now it's all of our problem. And you thought,
00:14:07
Speaker
that you can move and and push north your way out of who this country is. It's just wild to me. We talked about this on our September Patreon with Adrian Marie Brown's new book, Loving Corrections.
00:14:24
Speaker
That book was mainly about like how a lot of how we operate on a day to day level is a reflection of these larger systems. And I think in that book specifically, it showed me how like colonialism teaches us to just dead things. Like if something's not working out for you, you kill it. And we're taught that people and land and animals are all disposable. It doesn't teach us how to heal or build up relationships, which is a lot of why I think we are at the place that we're at now, like why we see so many other people as disposable and not thinking that that falls back on us, right? Because we're alienated. We're alienated, we're lonely. A lot of us don't know how to build loving connections with each other. We don't know how to empathize with other people and where they're at. And most of it isn't our fault, I'll say that, because we've been taught how to view our relationships as transactional.
00:15:24
Speaker
and only about what we can get out of it. We have been taught that people are supposed to like read our minds and anticipate our needs. And if they can't, they're garbage. and And we aren't taught anything else. And I think many of us are still learning. Many of us are still learning.
00:15:42
Speaker
how to practice having healthy relationships, we're still learning how to navigate it all. And so I did appreciate that book for being like this will be a lifelong practice and we're not going to get perfect but we should still try because I find that oftentimes people will be like oh well we can't even attain perfection so let's just do these bad things and I'm like no we can still try to make better decisions especially in terms of this country We can still try to make better decisions. We can still try to hold people accountable. We can still try to get people to budge when they are causing like mass harm to other groups of people. Yeah, I think to what you said, this book really does get at the heart of how disconnection from self alienates us from the world around us. And I think that's why a lot of folks during this election season can't see past their own needs
00:16:37
Speaker
the idea of like, well, we have, we have to think about our rights here domestically when what they really mean is I have to think about my comfort and they don't understand or maybe don't want to understand because it is really scary that like your rights and your comfort on the backs of others will never be sustainable, especially if you are a marginalized person. We cannot play or win a game that was not created for us. And so,
00:17:07
Speaker
Really all we can do with that mentality is destroy our ourselves from the inside out as the oppressor continues to flourish. I think the question that comes to me is how do we move past that individualistic thinking? How do we learn to understand ourselves in connection with other humans and the trees and the oceans and the cows and all the living things?
00:17:30
Speaker
And how do we really internalize that we are part of the ecosystem from here to Palestine, to Congo, to Haiti, to the damn rainforest? I feel like this is some of what Adrian is getting at in this book, but also the accountability component of we are accountable to ourselves and the whole. We are accountable to our ecosystem as Adrian really emphasize in this book we need to work on that internal accountability in a loving way because that's the only way we're going to be able to like de-center that colonial thinking of like people talk about like oh don't be hopeless
00:18:12
Speaker
This type of like settling and just like acceptance of what we have is a form of hopelessness. And I don't think people like see it that way. But you literally feel like this is your only option. That is fucking hopeless. That you feel like Trump and Kamala is as good as it gets. You're
Supporting the Podcast
00:18:35
Speaker
definitely right. And I think that's why so important and necessary to like know and understand that it can be better than this and to come up with alternatives as part of our liberation. I think a lot of people are isolated, they're lonely, they're alienated, they're going through so much stuff and so they're like trying to hold on to what crumbs is being given to us but it's like we have to imagine bigger and we have to think bigger and I think that's very hard to do when all around you you just see destruction, but I think that's my design I think colonialism wants us to be.
00:19:14
Speaker
in the space of lack, in the space of fear, in the space of there's nothing better than what you give me. is It's abuse, honestly. In thinking about these alternatives to what we have and, you know, trying to really achieve liberation, I know it's easier said than done, but community, like community.
00:19:41
Speaker
I saw a post where someone was talking about one of their friends moving in walking distance of them and how excited they were for it and they said some other things but I i don't want to I'm bad about misquoting and like remembering key details, but I wish I would have screenshotted it. But I was just thinking about how much happier many of us would be if we live near friends or live in the same neighborhood. If I could walk next door and be like, Gray, do you have some sugar? Do you have some coffee? Do you have some like, um,
00:20:14
Speaker
You got some food. I'm hungry. I don't have anything like that would reshape my life. It will reshape my life because a lot of us deal with unhappiness and suicide ideation. Actually, a lot of people do. They just don't share it. Well, we share it with each other because we're able to be like people who experience if you find another person, it gets real dark. But I think people don't realize like being able to talk about it and being validated in that is important.
00:20:43
Speaker
And I feel like a lot of us deal with that because we don't have community because we're lonely. So as we talked about on the Patreon in conversation about Adrian's book is sort of these questions around how do we show up for each other? How do we imagine the world not built on violence and dominance?
00:21:04
Speaker
What does that world look like? How might we achieve that together? And like, those are scary questions. It feels impossible. It feels unrealistic, but we have to like, I just feel like if our ancestors believed that and moved that way, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here. And yes, it has taken centuries and it might take even more centuries to get further, but we are here because they knew This can't be all there is. It's impossible that we should just accept that we are inferior and we are meant to be enslaved to these people. Amen. Did you want to take a break? Yes, let's take a break.
00:21:56
Speaker
Let's get into some ways you can support the Hoodoo Plant Mamas. One is through our bookshop where you can buy the books that we've previously discussed with our Writing the Spirit guests. We have a Hoodoo Beginners Guide as well as our top reading picks. You can also buy Leah's books. Every purchase you make helps support our show. Check us out at bookshop dot.org slash shop slash Hoodoo Plant Mamas.
00:22:21
Speaker
or the link in our show notes. Other ways you can support us include rating and reviewing this podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Also think we might be on Amazon Music, so get into that. Follow us on Twitter at Who Do Plants and Instagram at WhoDoPlantMamas. Check out our Patreon where we share exclusive video, plant, and spiritual content for only $3 a month.
00:22:44
Speaker
We have a new patron. Welcome, Nettie. If you prefer a one-time donation, you can donate via Cash App, Cash Shack, Who Do Plant Mamas, or our PayPal, whodoplantmamasatgmail.com.
Father Divine: Spiritual Leader or Controversial Figure?
00:22:56
Speaker
Let's get back to the show.
00:23:03
Speaker
I think it's all in conversation, getting back to this Black mysticism and how that is important to our liberation in a lot of ways. I recently was introduced to Father dev Divine. I'm obsessed with him. he's an icon okay problematic fave so i learned about father devine in a cult docu-series because i'm that girl and he was mentioned as someone jim jones looked up to if you don't know jim jones he was the cult leader that had a very large black following and it still noted as i think or maybe 9 11 broke the record but i It was literally the biggest mass death, a mass suicide on American soil. So if you if you know about that cult that did that and Jim Jones, that too, which I guess that doesn't that's probably takes away some cool points. But when I learned that he was black and that he was most active in the early 1900s, I fell down a rabbit hole.
00:24:14
Speaker
I'm going to read a condensed bio about him to kind of give you some background. So, Father Divine is an American spiritual leader and he was active from about 1907 into his death in 1965. As far as when he was born, it's questionable as is for most Black people once you get under 1900. It's estimated that he was born in maybe 1876, 1877, somewhere in that time period.
00:24:45
Speaker
He founded a group called the International Peace Mission Movement and it started off as a small, predominantly black congregation and grew into a multiracial and international church. He is considered a cult leader to some people because he claims to be God, which is tea.
00:25:06
Speaker
We gon' get to it. Little is known about Father Divine's early life or even his real given name. And the movement didn't keep many records. He refused to acknowledge his relationship with any family. Newspapers in the 1930s had to dig up his probable given name, which is believed to be George Baker. And some early researchers believe he was born in Georgia to sharecroppers. But then some other research based on census data finds evidence of a George Baker Jr. in Maryland born to formerly enslaved folks, are free black people who were enslaved. There's so much mystery around his life. And so I want to say this, there is no definitive evidence that he was a hoodoo, but we know hoodoo is black.
00:25:56
Speaker
is black people shit. But I believe that based on how he moved through the world, based on the fact that he was a very clear threat to the social order of that time period, and he very blatantly and intentionally antagonized those committed to the oppression of black people.
00:26:15
Speaker
I just don't see how there's no magic there. I find that to be so divine, no pun intended, like there is something so divine about that. So let me give a few examples of this. There's so many, but these are the few I wanted to pull. At some point in his you know, career as a spiritual leader. He traveled South to Georgia. He preached a lot in Georgia. And in 1913, conflicts with local ministers led to him being sentenced to 60 days and en on a chain gang. While he was serving his sentence, several prison inspectors were injured in an auto accident, which he viewed as a direct result of their disbelief. And then a group of him and his disciples moved to Savial, New York.
00:27:04
Speaker
In 1919, he and his followers were the first black homeowners in that town. Father Devine purchased a house from a resident there who was trying to spite his neighbors. So he intentionally marketed to colored buyers, which I thought was like, okay.
00:27:24
Speaker
You ate that one little thing, even though you low key racist, like not even low key, you ate that. And so a lot transpired with that. It was a whole thing. The white people was mad. Y'all know they was mad. This led to him being arrested in a trial.
00:27:41
Speaker
And he was found guilty or whatever in the process of his sentencing and all that. The judge lectured him about how he was a fraud and a menace to society before giving him the maximum maximum sentence for disturbing the peace. And then maybe like three days later, I think this same judge had a heart attack. And I'm sorry, this is so funny to me and it shouldn't be.
00:28:07
Speaker
It's widely reported that because the reporters, first of all, the media was going like insane with this. like this was This is really what catapulted his popularity when this happened because it was so wild. And he allegedly told the reporters, I'm so sorry, y'all. I hated to do it. I'm sorry, this is iconic.
00:28:34
Speaker
That is fucking iconic. I hated to do it, but I did. And the last thing, this is so much, I'm so sorry, I'm going on and on. When I tell you I'm obsessed, the last thing that I wanted to mention was that he he purchased properties where his followers could live and search for jobs inexpensively.
00:29:02
Speaker
And he opened a hotel near Atlantic City, New Jersey so that blacks could have access to the beach because at that time it it was segregated and he said, bet we in here. Him and his disciples became the largest property owners in Harlem at one point in time. I mean, I'm sorry, like it's given hoodoo. Like i don't I don't really know what else there is to say other than like,
00:29:30
Speaker
I just couldn't stop thinking about the fact that he survived all of this because you watched the documentary, which you're going to talk about. The Klan wanted him. The Klan wanted his head and his final home with him and his followers was a 72 acre estate located in Pennsylvania. This was ah allegedly gifted to him. And we talking about, he died in 1965.
00:30:00
Speaker
So this was during a time where a black person getting that much land, and in addition to it being a fucking mansion, to me, his life defies logic. That's all I'm gonna say. Watch the documentary on 2B or Amazon Prime. It's called Our Father's Kingdom, and we'll put it in the show notes, but yeah, iconic.
00:30:27
Speaker
I ah saw the documentary on Tubi because you have been talking about Father Divine for the past few months. And so I was like, let me go look up this man. I had never heard of him before you said anything. And so when I saw the documentary, there was this one quote that he said that um I thought was very interesting. he Father Devine said, I would not give five cents for a God who cannot help me here on earth. It's a fake delusion that you might just as well go ahead and suffer here and after a time you will go to a heaven somewhere. If God cannot provide heaven for you here, you are not going anywhere.
00:31:06
Speaker
And I think that this does two things. I think it points out this like white Christian logic that's especially given to Black people. Like, oh, you're going to suffer here, but your reward will be in heaven. Your reward will be somewhere else. But then also this very African principle of like, we are meant to experience wealth and luxury and abundance and pleasure and and a lot of good things. it will It will not stop us from experiencing bad, right? But we are meant to also experience good. And so I thought that that was very interesting. And I think that that was a lot of why his message was so effective because he wasn't just saying, oh, you deserve good things. He was like actually doing them. And so this was a man who went from having enslaved parents allegedly
00:31:53
Speaker
No one knows for sure. But to living on a 72 acre palace, right? This was a man who fed the hungry during the Great Depression. And it was more than just sandwiches. Like he had whole feasts when people were starving. He gave them cheap housing. He evaded white supremacist violence over and over again.
00:32:13
Speaker
in order to have an integrated community. And so in that way, when he talks about being God, you know, I think about our ability to create something out of nothing. That's conjure work. And so I'm like, I do agree with him there. and But like, my hesitation was like, I think that we all have that ability. It's not just like, it's not just Father Divine. I think it's all of us. No, I wanted to add that this man had white people calling him God. I just wanted to say that like,
00:32:42
Speaker
I mean, they was riding for him. Something that I think was really interesting for him was like his approach to race and gender. One, he said that race did not exist. We're all part of the human race. But he did specifically require white people to do some like inner work in order to be right with God and to be right with the international peace mission. But this work was not required of Black folks. And so I think that that goes back to something we've said a few times on this podcast. I know when I mentioned Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition, I talked about how a lot of being in community and coming together
00:33:23
Speaker
to go up against like the US s
Teachings and Legacy of Father Divine
00:33:26
Speaker
government. It requires white people to do a lot of internal work before they can even think about being in community with the rest of us because if they don't, our harm is inevitable. So the fact that he was able to get white people to do that work, I think it's pretty incredible.
00:33:42
Speaker
And so part of me part of me did also wonder, like, is this part of like the magical Negro trope where these white people thought like, oh, if I submit to him, it would like get rid of their white guilt or something. I'm not sure. That's a fair assessment. I didn't think about that, but it was fascinating to watch these people that very clearly look like they probably descendants of a Klan member. Yeah. you Like he is God like.
00:34:09
Speaker
period.
00:34:13
Speaker
I think in terms of gender, he was trying to get women, the women in the mission, he was trying to get them jobs so they didn't have to deal with husbands and kids. And so he was offering women a way out of like domestic labor that did not benefit them because they were like housekeepers and stuff, but they were getting paid for it. I think my problem was like,
00:34:36
Speaker
watching Father Divine and watching a lot of other spiritual figures, especially today, I often feel called to question my relationship to wealth. And this is something that came up in a reading for me a while back, like I am afraid of being wealthy. And I'm not saying like a billionaire wealthy, I don't care about a billion dollars, but even being comfortable where My bills are paid. I have no debt. I have savings. I can travel. I can swipe my car and not think twice about it. It kind of scares me and I'm still trying to figure out why because I did write years ago that blackness is not just struggle, but I think this idea that I can be comfortable seems like it's too much. I think for me, that's where my lack of imagination right is coming from. And this is something that is touted a lot in spiritual circles about luxury and wealth and opulence and abundance and how this is our birthright. And oftentimes, a lavish lifestyle feels like I'm doing something wrong because it's like, who am I to deserve good things when the people around me don't have them as well?
00:35:46
Speaker
And maybe that's colonialism, you know, telling me I don't deserve these things, but like white people deserve them. But I don't know. I think I was called to question like my relationship to like being wealthy or having an abundant life like Father Divine did. This is why his story is so complicated and I feel like anyone who encounters it begin question begins questioning everything. So him being a cult leader is open to interpretation, but I think based on how the group function at its core, it meets the standards.
00:36:21
Speaker
even if he didn't move like a Jim Jones, even if he didn't move, like there wasn't a lot of controversy around him. There was tabloid stuff that people alleged that he was having sex with women because another thing about the movement was like no sex and all that, which is like boring, but none of it could be substantiated.
00:36:49
Speaker
and there were no allegations of abuse, but it still met those standards. There was also questions around where his money was coming from. He claims the money did not come from his followers, but I don't know if I'm buying that, but that mansion and though that those acres of land was gifted to him. I mean, and that land and house has to be worth millions, if not a billion, but it has to be worth millions.
00:37:18
Speaker
so i don't know there's like a lot of mystery around that but to your point father dev divine seems to believe in the power of words and i think it goes back to what you said about this idea of god and creating something out of nothing something that he It's said that he ended his sermons with was sincerely wishing that you and those with whom you are concerned might be even as I am, for I am well, healthy, joyful, peaceful, lively, loving, successful, prosperous, and happy in spirit, body, and mind, and in every Oregon muscle sinew, I don't know what that is, joint, limb, vein, and bone, and in every
00:38:02
Speaker
Adam, fiber, and cell of my bodily form. That deserves some snaps. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. and And his explanations around his wealth always gave. It just came as a being. he It just came because he's God. Everything he and his followers needed came to be.
00:38:30
Speaker
It just was. And so what does that mean for a black man like possibly born to formerly enslaved parents to claim and receive that level of wealth during a time where things were strategically put in place to prevent this? What does it mean to survive through that? What does it mean for this possible direct descendant of slavery to call himself God?
00:38:54
Speaker
So be a black person and call yourself God. A lot of scholars say that he he's left out of history because of the controversy around him calling himself God. And I have a problem with that.
00:39:07
Speaker
One, because white supremacy is rooted in this idea that whiteness is divine whiteness in that they are God. That's literally how they, how society function. And I wonder, like, I just feel like whether it's true or not up for interpretation, we don't know because nobody really has the answers. He really, I think that belief that he was God that really shaped his life and it shaped the life of his followers. And I wonder what that might mean for us when it comes to liberation and creating the world we need. Like what does it mean to call these things that see our life and be up unapologetic about it. I think
00:39:51
Speaker
What's different from him is what you said. And I think about it a lot too, is us not believing we deserve certain things. There's so much negativity associated with wealth because of what wealthy people are doing to the earth.
00:40:07
Speaker
And yet, Father Devine really flipped, I guess we could say he flipped capitalism on his head, but I don't even think it was really capitalism what he was doing. Like, it was really a type of wealth distribution. His followers lived in that mansion with him. It wasn't just he was in the mansion. They all lived on their land.
00:40:29
Speaker
He took care of people. he Like you said, he had those big feasts, um especially when you know black people were getting the shit in of the stick during the Great Depression. So it's like, I don't know. Maybe he was out of pocket for saying he was God, but all I'm saying is the proof is in the pudding. Just a little bit.
00:40:54
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. I guess I just have questions as always. I think that there was something very mystical about him. I don't have the answers. I'm going to be completely honest. Do I believe that he was God? No. Do I believe that he was a divine being? And it's probably an elevated spirit because his followers built, have built altars to him and they still like elevate him. Yes.
00:41:23
Speaker
Absolutely. I actually probably need to be 014, I'm low-key.
00:41:30
Speaker
I don't know if I would go that far, but um but yeah, so I don't know. You talked about not knowing if he was a hoodoo, but like the way that his followers were moving,
00:41:43
Speaker
Like, they would set a table or set a plate for him at the table. They would talk to him. They would give him offerings. They would give him food. It was like, it was very much. That lady was like, yeah, I come in, I wash his clothes every week. And I was like, okay, then sister.
00:42:02
Speaker
My theory, we can get, we can talk more about this or one of you experts who know more about this can come and be in conversation with us if you'd like. My theory is that he was an embodied trickster spirit. Like just look at his face.
00:42:22
Speaker
Like, I don't know. He gives very trickster energy, very sly. Like, I'm sorry to come back to this, but I hated to have to do it. That,
00:42:40
Speaker
I don't know. I believe something was with this man, something divine, something mystic, something very deeply. Oh, this is what I said on my close friends. I believe that there is something ancient under his under his spiritual like practice, under how he moved through the world, something ancient and African and spiritual, because how? How?
00:43:08
Speaker
Do you have any final thoughts about our conversation? I don't know. I think really watching the way that he moved through the world is especially at a time where like he was dealing with Jim Crow violence, great depression, a lot of shit. And so he used that mysticism to kind of navigate through colonialism and through extreme white supremacist violence like that is if nothing else an inspiration. I'm very grateful that you shared him with me and so I could see like his life and his work and I just couldn't believe the the stuff that he did when he did it.
Reflections and Listener Engagement
00:43:53
Speaker
and how he was able to. And I can't believe it gets left out of history, like black history. And it's not saying nobody knew about him. Like there are people that have studied him, that have taught him in classes, but like mainstream wise, even people older than me, much older than me are like, I don't know who that is. My grandma knew of him.
00:44:18
Speaker
And she just knew him as like a preacher up North, but she didn't really know all the ins and outs of his, you know, group and all of that. She just had heard of him. And so it's interesting, but I'm not going to stop talking about him. I'm just not. I think we, well, we know he was imperfect. We don't know where the money came from. He's saying it came out of nowhere is given.
00:44:48
Speaker
I don't know, questionable, but I think he can teach us a lot about creating yourself. Like he made himself, he said, I am God and no matter how you slice it, that is the way he moved in the world and that is the way he died in this world. No matter where he started, whether he was born to enslaved folks, whether he was born to sharecroppers, born poor, we don't know because he made a decision about who he was
00:45:22
Speaker
and he created that life and he lived that life and he garnered whatever came with that so yeah so yeah i think i think that's what we could take from that and hey if you like this episode
00:45:44
Speaker
You can light rate and review Who Do Plant Mamas on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If anything from the show resonated with you, make sure to share it with us on social media. You can find us on Twitter at Who Do Plants and Instagram at Who Do Plant Mamas. Thank y'all for listening and stay tuned for the next episode, which is next week because we didn't, did we we do we we didn't say Oh yeah, so we'll be releasing an episode every week of October for this season. So get into it. Yeah. Alright, bye y'all. Bye.