Long Dead Hoodoo Doctor Still Casts Spells with Ouija Board

As I have stated before in this publication, I am a paranormal investigator based in San Francisco. The last piece I posted here about my findings was back in 2013. I am still doing investigations, but mostly on the down low for private clients and not writing about them. Last week, however an old friend called to tell me that she had seen publicity on a new book that’s out about hoodoo in the south and that I should check it out, since it was about someone who came up in an investigation back in 2006. I went to the Facebook page she mentioned and read the description of a book named Quick-Knife Hoodoo about a hoodoo practitioner who died in 1962 and used to practice around Memphis, Tennessee. The hoodoo man’s name was “Dubble Bubble” Sims, and the writer of the book had met him as a child in the 1950s and had gotten to know him over a period of several years, since he worked occasionally on the writer’s grandfather’s farm.

The investigation my friend is referring to was of a BBQ restaurant in Memphis near Beal Street. The restaurant had a private room in the back with a pool table in it and the establishment had been in operation since the late 1930s, owned by the same family. The place was well known for many different kinds of paranormal activity, including hearing pool balls clattering in the back room late at night when no one was back there, the sounds of a weird kind of preaching, muffled conversations, etc. These are the things we were told about. The things we weren’t told about turned out to be the most interesting and, in a way, disturbing.

I, and several others I was working with at the time, decided to film the investigation as part of a pilot show we were doing for, hopefully, a ghost hunting series on cable tv. The show never got off the ground, but the investigation itself turned out to be very unusual.

In any case, we planted all the usual stuff, sound recorders, still and video cameras, etc. and captured a lot of EVP (electronic voice phenomena) activity and some anomalous movement of pool balls, orbs, etc. There were many EVPs of the words “dubble’ and “bubble” which made no sense to us at the time. In short, the planned part of the investigation was interesting, but nothing to write home about.

As we were packing up, an old woman approached us and asked about what we found. I mentioned the odd EVPs and she just laughed. “I coulda told you “Dubble Bubble” was the one still back there rolling those pool balls around and making all that racket. Did he show you his Ouija board?”

We answered no, then followed her into the back room. In one corner was a small table, two chairs and a wooden checker board. The old woman turned the checker board over and on the other side was the outline of a very old spirit board. The owners of the BBQ restaurant appeared and pulled the old woman aside. They clearly did not like what she was doing. Some things should stay secret one of the owners insisted.  The old woman said that she had “read” us and that we were ok and that Dubble Bubble had told her to let us in on what was going on. He was, apparently, something of a show-off and was tired of not getting the attention he used to get back in the day before he died.

What was going on was that Dubble Bubble, a well known and feared conjure doctor for years around Memphis and who died in 1962, was still seeing clients and helping people with their problems. These folk would show up at the back door of the BBQ restaurant between midnight and 3AM, be shown into the private pool room and consult with the old woman, who talked to Dubble Bubble through the Ouija board. He would dictate “prescriptions” for spells and workings to these people as they watched the planchette zoom about the board, sometimes on its own.

We asked if we could see a demonstration of this and contact Dubble Bubble ourselves. The old woman pulled the owners off to the side and conferred with them for a few minutes. The decision was that, even though Dubble Bubble would like this, it may not be a good idea. The police were already curious about the occasional lines of people outside the back of the place late at night, and thought that drug dealing was going on. Also, there was talk of gypsy-like fraud happening, fleecing poor elderly believers out of their money. This was not the case, of course. Dubble Bubble and the old woman had a loyal following, who did not want to create trouble for them. Maybe the best thing was to keep this all a secret, known only to insiders.

It is for this reason that I never revealed this occurrence and will not reveal the name or location of the BBQ restaurant and of what I assume is still an ongoing service to the community. The publication of the book about Dubble Bubble may finally get him the recognition and respect that he deserves without jeopardizing his continuing activities.