Ave, In the old African Hoodoo (and if properly practiced and studied) the Hoodoo of today, it is understood that the power of the herbs and roots we use come from Spirit. This isn't like some sort of spiritual electricity, it is sentient and living virtue; these spirits can be communed with, and propitiated to do the work for us. It's worth noting that Spirit empowers more than plants; they empower minerals, words, they can empower methods . There is precedent for this in Western Magic as well. In my own book (Kameothic Internal Alchemy) I give my small Ordo's ( the Ordo Octopi Nigri Pulveri , not the Golden Dawn) method of Solomonic-based healing magic that uses the Spirits of the Deacons/Faces (for example, the First, Second, and Third Faces of Aries all have a particular Spirit, from whom certain effects might be had) to create cures for ailments. The methods given in the Solomonic text would be completely ineffectual without the spiritual empowerment; for exampl...