Henri Gamache
From Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers
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The name Henri Gamache first appeared in print in 1940. Over the course of less than a decade this author produced six books on folk magic and spell-casting that were distributed through hoodoo drugstores, herb catalogues, and via ads in Black-owned newspapers and magazines, helping to preserve older Southern oral traditions during the Great Northern Migration, between the two world wars. These titles were reprinted continually, their copyright renewals were always kept up to date, and by the 1960s, they were sold in every conjure, candle, and incense shop in America, from Oakland, California, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Many people believed Henri Gamache to be Black, Creole French, Haitian, or Jamaican, but the author never made any such claims, despite always placing African-American beliefs front and center.
In the early 2000s Catherine Yronwode discovered that this well-loved author was a Jewish woman named Anne Fleitman, born on January 4th, 1906. During her life she had owned five different publishing houses, and one of them, Sheldon Publications, was named for her son, Sheldon Fleitman (1932-2011); her other son was Jules Fleitman (1926-1994). Under the pseudonym Sally Edwoods she kept an office at 6 West 28th Street in New York City, plus a ten acre parcel in rural New York which she leased to carnival operators. She died on October 24th, 1990, at the age of 84, and was buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, New York. By all accounts, she was a wild, fun-loving, politically liberal woman who strongly supported the Civil Rights Movement and took it upon herself to document urban and rural hoodoo practices and to promote Black cultural pride.
The first Henri Gamache book, "Doorway to Your Success," published by Fleitman's own Open Door Publishing Company, was primarily a New Thought text, explaining the value of positive thinking. It did not prove popular and was never reprinted. With her second title, "The Magic of Herbs," published in 1942 by her own Power Thoughts Publishing Company, she landed firmly in the field of African-American root and herb magic. Her third work, "The Master Book of Candle Burning," also released in 1942 by Power Thoughts, was her biggest hit. In it she explained in great detail the use of candle spells in hoodoo, with altar work layouts and recommendations for conjure oils and the recitations of appropriate Psalms. This title proved so popular that she reprinted it many times over the years under her own Sheldon Publications imprint. Her next book, "The Master Key to Occult Secrets," which she published in 1945 with the imprint of Doorway Publications, was unusual in format, oversized and limited to very few sealed copies sold at a high price. It comprised a sort of secret course in rootwork for her students only.
In her fifth book, "Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed," published in 1946 by her own Raymond Publishing Corp., she assembled a comprehensive and well-illustrated collection of African, African-American, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions of counteracting and repelling the evil eye with herbs, scriptural prayers, talismans, amulets, charms, and enchanted jewelry. This book was reprinted for a couple of decades under the title "Protection Against Evil." In 2021, a restored and expanded version of the book, with additional text by Catherine Yronwode and Dr. Jeremy Weiss, was published under its original title as part of the Lucky Mojo Library of Occult Classics.
The sixth Henri Gamache book was Fleitman's most Afro-centric offering, "The Mystery of the Long Lost 8th, 9th, and 10th Books of Moses," published in 1948 by Sheldon Publications. She presented this influential modern spell-casting text as a sequel to the 18th century German-Jewish grimoire known as "The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses," which itself drew heavily from the 13th century Jewish grimoire "Sefer Raziel" or "The Book of Raziel." "The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses," translated into English, had already entered into commerce as a hoodoo text by the early 20th century, when it began to be marketed to root doctors by the Chicago-based publisher L. W. DeLaurence. Fleitman combined three elements into her sequel. First, she wrote an Afrocentric history of Moses as a Black conjurer, "The Great Voodoo Man of the Bible." This concept continued from the ideas of the Jamaican Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey and the African-American folklorist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston. Second, from "The Greek Magical Papyri," a Greco-Egyptian spell book dating from 100 BCE to 400 CE, she included the 13th section, known as the "Eighth Book of Moses." Third, she translated into English selected spells from Moses Gaster's German translation of the 13th or 14th century Jewish grimoire "The Sword of Moses" and included them in the text. Advertised in African-American newspapers and sold nationwide in hoodoo herb and candle shops, this influential book effectively melded "The Sword of Moses" and other Jewish grimoires into the practices of American hoodoo root doctors.
Fleitman's final work in the field of conjure was anonymous. She collected the hoodoo candle spells that Zora Neale Hurston had previously written and published in "The Journal of American Folklore" and had spuriously attributed to a non-existent source who Hurston claimed to have been the nephew of Marie Laveau. Fleitman filled out Hurston's text with her own additional material, and the compilation, published as "Black and White Magic of Marie Laveau," has gone through many editions in the ensuing years, including a restored and expanded version edited by Catherine Yronwode and published in 2018 as "Genuine Black and White Magic of Marie Laveau" as part of the Lucky Mojo Library of Occult Classics.
The Books of Henri Gamache
- "Doorway to Your Success." 1940. Open Door Publishing Company, 312 Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C., N.Y.
- "The Magic of Herbs." 1942. Power Thoughts Publishing Co., 24 East 21st Street, N.Y.C., N.Y.
- "The Master Book of Candle Burning." 1942. Power Thoughts Publishing Co., 24 East 21st Street, N.Y.C., N.Y.
- "The Master Key to Occult Secrets." 1945. Doorway Publications, Astoria, Long Island, N.Y.
- "Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed." 1946. Raymond Publishing Corp., 116 West 27th Street, N.Y.C., N.Y.
- "Mystery of the Long Lost 8th, 9th & 10th Books of Moses." 1948. Sheldon Publications, Highland Falls, N.Y.
Credits
This page is brought to you by the AIRR Tech Team:
- Author: Catherine Yronwode
- Contributors: catherine yronwode, Lukianos
- Images: Charles M. Quinlan; sourced and photo-edited by cat yronwode and nagasiva yronwode
