6 Degrees of John Keel - The Rain Bringer - Zora Neale Hurston with Allison Jornlin

Morganna and Barbara are happy to welcome back to the podcast,
Allison Jornlin! In her third episode with us on the subject of
unsung female paranormal investigators from history, she talks
about Zora Neale Hurston.

Most folks know about Zora from her fiction, especially her novel,
Their Eyes Were Watching God, but she did so many other things
besides write wonderful novels, plays and short stories. She was
also an anthropologist who was a colleague of Margaret Mead and who
worked with pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas. In that capacity,
she also became a folklorist and a paranormal investigator when she
went to collect and document folktales, herbal remedies, and
spiritual practices of the New World African diaspora.

She was initiated into voodoo and worked with conjure doctors,
houngan, and other spiritual leaders in Jamaica, Haiti, and New
Orleans. She was given the name, “Rain Bringer” at one of her
initiations after fasting for three days and lying face down on a
couch in darkness for three days. She had visions during her
initiatory fast, but she didn’t report what they were.

However, many paranormal happens did occur to her and around her
and Allison, Morganna and I talk about a great many of them. She
also was the first academic to believe that zombies were real, and
were created by the use of some sort of poison or drug, though she
couldn’t find out what it was. Decades later, following up on her
instinct about the creation of zombies, anthropologist Wade Davis
found out at least part of the secret of the zombie making poison
and wrote about it in his book, The Serpent and the Rainbow.

There’s lots of fun to be had here, great true ghost stories and
conjure stories as well as weird asides about obscure laundry
chemicals. Yes, you heard it right. Laundry chemicals.

The other books we talk about in this episode are Of Mules and Men
and Tell My Horse, both by Zora Neal Hurston and Zora Neale Hurston
on Florida Food by Frederick Douglas Opie. (Allison highly
recommends the Audible version of Of Mules and Men)

I mistakenly referred to Ntozake Shange’s memoir cookbook, If I Can
Cook/You Know God Can as being by Zora. I have read both books, and
they are right next to each other on my shelf of African diaspora
cookbooks (yes, I have a shelf of them) and they are both
excellent.

Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/paranormal-uk-radio-network--4541473/support.