Juju Bae | |
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![]() Juju Bae in 2021 on YouTube's Real Talk Session Series | |
Born | 1992 (age 31–32) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Witch, spiritual healer, writer, podcaster |
Years active | 2018–present |
Known for | A Little Juju (podcast) |
Notable work | The Book of Juju (2024) |
Juju Bae (born 1992) [1] is an African American witch, spiritual healer, writer, and podcaster. She uses her platform to help her listeners navigate the practice of African Traditional Religions. She is best known for her podcast A Little Juju, which was nominated for Best Religion and Spirituality Podcast at the 2020 iHeartRadio Podcast Awards. She is a main cast member on the Hulu series Living for the Dead . Bae released her debut book, The Book of Juju, on June 18, 2024 under Sterling Ethos.
Juju Bae began her spiritual journey and practice of African Traditional Religions (ATRs) [2] during adulthood, after she was directed by her ancestors. [3] Beyoncé's visual album Lemonade , which includes imagery related to the Orishas, was another touchstone that helped her continue her study. [3] She first began to practice the African American tradition of hoodoo in 2016, and later added the Yoruba practice of ifá in 2018. [4]
Juju Bae gained notability through her podcast, A Little Juju, which she launched in 2018 after she began to practice hoodoo. [5] The podcast centers Juju's explorations of the connections between Black modern life and ATRs. In 2020 the podcast was nominated for Best Spirituality & Religion Podcast at the iHeartRadio Podcast Awards. [6]
The name she uses professionally, Juju Bae, is a nod to the catch-all term "juju", which encompasses African medicine, spiritual practices and magic, and has negative connotations at times. [5] One of her objectives is to demystify ATRs, which have been stigmatized by Abrahamic religions. [2] Ancestral connection is a prominent feature of Bae's spiritual practice and education [7] because it is a central tenet of many ATRs. [5] As of 2023, Bae was working as a psychic, and communicates messages from the dead for her predominantly-Black clientele. [1] She uses divination techniques as part of her practice. [8]
In 2023 Bae appeared on the Hulu reality series Living for the Dead , where she and the other LGBTQ cast members use spiritual tools to assist ghosts and paranormal entities that haunt various locales around the United States. [3]
Bae's debut book The Book of Juju: Africana Spirtuality for Healing, Liberation and Self-Discovery was released on June 18, 2024 under Sterling Ethos. [9] She stated that her intention with the book was to answer many of the questions she is frequently asked, such as "What if I don’t know my ancestors? What if I don’t have gifts? What if I’m adopted? What if my ancestors weren’t good people?". [3] In a positive review, Publisher's Weekly stated, "Throughout, she conveys the wide scope of the topic without losing sight of her focus on how readers can adapt African religious practices to seek joy, success, and ancestral connection in their own lives. Those looking to broaden their spiritual horizons will find plenty to celebrate." [9]
Juju Bae was born and raised in Beechfield, Baltimore, Maryland. She was raised Catholic. [10] She graduated from Seton Keough High School in 2010. [1] She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from Spelman College. [8]
Bae is bisexual. [1]
A mojo, in the African-American spiritual practice called Hoodoo, is an amulet consisting of a flannel bag containing one or more magical items. It is a "prayer in a bag", or a spell that can be carried with or on the host's body. Alternative American names for the mojo bag include gris-gris bag, hand, mojo hand, toby, nation sack,conjure hand, lucky hand, conjure bag, juju bag, trick bag, tricken bag, root bag, and jomo. The word mojo also refers to magic and charms. Mojo containers are bags, gourds, bottles, shells, and other containers. The making of mojo bags in Hoodoo is a system of African-American occult magic. The creation of mojo bags is an esoteric system that involves sometimes housing spirits inside of bags for either protection, healing, or harm and to consult with spirits. Other times mojo bags are created to manifest results in a person's life such as good-luck, money or love.
Vodun is a religion practiced by the Aja, Ewe, and Fon peoples of Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria.
A Simbi is a Central African water and nature spirit in traditional Kongo religion, as well as in African diaspora spiritual traditions, such Hoodoo in the southern United States and Palo in Cuba. Simbi have been historically identified as water people, or mermaids, pottery, snakes, gourds, and fire. Due to the forced removal of Bantu peoples from Africa to the Americas, the veneration of simbi exists today in countries, such as the United States, Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti.
Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous botanical knowledge. Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure men or conjure women, and root doctors. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include rootwork and conjure. As a syncretic spiritual system, it also incorporates beliefs from Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims, and Spiritualism. Scholars define Hoodoo as a folk religion. It is a syncretic religion between two or more cultural religions, in this case being African indigenous spirituality and Abrahamic religion.
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Juju or ju-ju is a spiritual belief system incorporating objects, such as amulets, and spells used in religious practice in West Africa by the people of Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cameroon. The term has been applied to traditional Western African religions, incorporating objects such as amulets, and spells used in spiritual practices, and blood sacrifices. This is under the belief that two vessels that have been in close physical contact with each other have similar spiritual properties and in turn, makes the objects possible to manipulate.
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Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, is an African diasporic religion that originated in Louisiana. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional religions of West Africa, the Roman Catholic form of Christianity, and Haitian Vodou. No central authority is in control of Louisiana Voodoo, which is organized through autonomous groups.
Affirmative prayer is a form of prayer or a metaphysical technique that is focused on a positive outcome rather than a negative situation. For instance, a person who is experiencing some form of illness would focus the prayer on the desired state of perfect health and affirm this desired intention "as if already happened" rather than identifying the illness and then asking God for help to eliminate it.
Invisible churches among enslaved African Americans in the United States were informal Christian groups where enslaved people listened to preachers that they chose without their slaveholder's knowledge. The Invisible churches taught a different message from white-controlled churches and did not emphasize obedience to slave masters. Some slaves could not contact invisible churches and others did not agree with an invisible church's message but many slaves were comforted by the invisible churches.
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