Surrounded by Witches
From James Donahue’s Papers
Every day among the Navajo was not only a learning experience, but a forced expansion of our natural psychic abilities. We learned that everything we thought was real and true was only an illusion.
On one particularly memorable night we had a room full of very unusual visitors. They included two traveling Mormon missionaries, Raymond and Elfrieda, and Elfrieda’s parents, Alfred and Mrs. Lee, plus Elfrieda's grandmother, whose name I did not get. The grandmother, who spoke only Navajo, was a frail little woman. In spite of her age and size, however, she filled the room with her mental strength. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was the matriarch in this family. Even though she spoke few words, those words were law.
During the course of our conversation, I happened to mention Richard Hoagland’s book, The Monuments of Mars, which revealed the first enhanced NASA photographs of what appeared to be a human face and nearby ruins of buildings on the red planet. The pictures were taken during one of our first fly-by missions to Mars in about 1976, when Hoagland was associated with NASA and working as an advisor to veteran newscaster Walter Cronkite.
Eventually our discussion shifted to Hoagland’s latest theory, which suggested that there also might be ruins of buildings on the dark side of the moon. At this point the old woman seemed very interested in our conversation and kept asking her family to translate what we were saying. It was after she fully understood the nature of our discussion that she made a surprise statement. “We have always known about the buildings on the moon,” she said. She acted indignant, as if the white folks were complete fools for not already knowing what she had always known.
Although she was very polite and friendly, the grandmother obviously decided that night to declare war on these foolish white people who dared to invade her domain. We later discovered that all three women in that room were practicing members of a dark order of black witchcraft. The hexes began after this gathering.
The awareness of something wrong was an almost overwhelming blanket of suspicion that we were in some kind of danger. Our dog, who was ultra sensitive to spiritual events, also knew things were not right. He had his way of letting us know.
Doris and I were continuing our daily practice of communicating with Aiwass via the "board" and by now, she was adding one new instrument of awareness. I am not sure just how she discovered this way of getting information, but it proved to be very useful on the reservation. She used that small piece of jade, carved in the shape of an elephant, which was once owned by her grandmother. She tied a green thread to the jade, and then let it hang from her extended hand. If the elephant swung back and forth, it was a good sign. If it circled, it was a sign that evil was present. I know, it sounds like something devised by illiterate natives living in a cave, but it worked. It worked when either Doris or I used it. It circled or swung no matter how steady we attempted to hold our hand. The only explanation I have is that we were manipulating the string from our subconscious, which was somehow tapped into the collective warehouse of information.
We found our first hex in our waste basket. It was a small piece of wound string, paper and hair. It was probably hair from one of our combs. The hex hadn't done much to us, but it was making the dog sick. He was an old dog and already suffering from a cancer that would get the best of him in the next few months, so he quickly fell victim to the bad energy.
The Begays were away for the day, as usual, when the hex was uncovered. Doris was so mad she decided to reverse the spell and send the energy back to where it came from. She found some hair in Elfrieda’s brush, and wrapped it around a piece of wire shaped in the form of a large woman. Then she threw it all in the stove and let it burn. We doubted that Elfrieda felt it, but just doing that seemed to make us feel like we were fighting back. We still had a lot to learn about the black arts.
A few days after that, we were spending another day alone in the house and there was a wind blowing. The air was filled with flying sand and the sky was dusky. That afternoon the dogs started barking. Doris looked out of the kitchen window and saw the dogs chasing what appeared to be a large white wolf. She couldn't believe her eyes. She called me to the window but by the time I arrived, the animals had all disappeared behind the hogans.
We went out into the storm to investigate. Because Doris said it was a wolf, I had a rifle in hand. There were two hogans in the Begay yard. There was a newer, larger building, which we used for storage and which Raymond sometimes used for religious meetings. The older, smaller hogan, was locked up and never opened. That afternoon we found the wolf tracks leading behind the large hogan. At that point, they turned into human foot prints and continued on, right up to the side of the wall of the small hogan. It was as if the animal had turned into a human being and then stepped through the wooden wall to escape us. We had heard of changelings. . . people who could change temporarily into the form of animals and back again. . . but this is the first time we had evidence that such a thing existed. The foot prints were very small and smooth, as if they were of a woman wearing moccasins. Doris and I both had a vision of Elfrieda's frail little grandmother hiding behind the wall of that old hogan.
From that day on, we were on our guard. We felt as if we were in danger. Things were starting to disappear from our bedroom so Doris found herself trapped in the house. She chose to stay behind to guard our things every time I went to town for mail and supplies. To make matters even more complex, Raymond was planning a big tent meeting in the yard. It was going to be an all-night peyote affair attended by tribal members from all over the reservation. We decided it was time to get off the reservation. The problem was that we were going to need some help, and carefully plan our escape. I was going to have to rent a truck, load all of our belongings, and once I did this, I had no place to take them.
Jennifer’s apartment in Phoenix was too small to accommodate us. We had no telephone, and even if we could get to a pay phone, Jennifer didn't have a telephone in her apartment so communication with her was limited. We decided to call Aaron and ask him to come to Arizona and help us make our escape. The plan was for me to drive to town, call Aaron, pick up our mail, buy supplies as usual, and then wait for help to arrive. Before I left for town, however, Doris decided to go over the car with her elephant on the string to make sure everything was going to be safe. The elephant swung back and forth over the engine, over the driver's side door and over the trunk. But when she held it over the front window on the passenger side, the little elephant started to circle. It circled wildly. I unlocked the door and Doris held it over the seat. It continued to circle with extreme force, the little elephant was striking the door posts and the dashboard. She reached under the seat and found a round stone, slightly smaller than a baseball. On it was painted a strange symbol in iridescent yellow. We recognized the symbol as a sigil representing a major demonic figure. Someone was obviously attempting to kill Doris, and possibly both of us. Had she gone to town with me that day, we may have been in a serious traffic accident.
What was odd about the drawing on the stone was that it faded away. Doris was attempting to copy the drawing to paper and it just disappeared in front of her eyes.
When I got to the truck stop just outside Holbrook I made my call to Aaron and found him at home. I explained our dilemma and asked for his help. That was the first time I was aware that Aaron was capable of leaving his body and coming to visit us whenever he wished. He described the house, complete with all of the old tires on the roof. He also sized up Raymond and Elfrieda. He assured me that he would keep watch over our situation and help us, if not physically at least spiritually. Aaron explained that he and Gail only had one car and that it would be difficult for him to come to Arizona at that time. His advice was to take the stone out in the yard, urinate on it, and then display it proudly somewhere in the in the middle of the dining room table. It smelled of human u e house where the Begays would see it. He said black magic works only when the victim believes in it. To combat it, we were to show our contempt and let Elfrieda know that we were not afraid of her. Aaron also promised to be present in spirit during the tent meeting. He said he would bring a surprise for the Navajo in that tent. We followed Aaron's advice. That night when the Begays returned home, the hex stone was waiting for them smelling like urine.
From James Donahue’s Papers
Every day among the Navajo was not only a learning experience, but a forced expansion of our natural psychic abilities. We learned that everything we thought was real and true was only an illusion.
On one particularly memorable night we had a room full of very unusual visitors. They included two traveling Mormon missionaries, Raymond and Elfrieda, and Elfrieda’s parents, Alfred and Mrs. Lee, plus Elfrieda's grandmother, whose name I did not get. The grandmother, who spoke only Navajo, was a frail little woman. In spite of her age and size, however, she filled the room with her mental strength. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was the matriarch in this family. Even though she spoke few words, those words were law.
During the course of our conversation, I happened to mention Richard Hoagland’s book, The Monuments of Mars, which revealed the first enhanced NASA photographs of what appeared to be a human face and nearby ruins of buildings on the red planet. The pictures were taken during one of our first fly-by missions to Mars in about 1976, when Hoagland was associated with NASA and working as an advisor to veteran newscaster Walter Cronkite.
Eventually our discussion shifted to Hoagland’s latest theory, which suggested that there also might be ruins of buildings on the dark side of the moon. At this point the old woman seemed very interested in our conversation and kept asking her family to translate what we were saying. It was after she fully understood the nature of our discussion that she made a surprise statement. “We have always known about the buildings on the moon,” she said. She acted indignant, as if the white folks were complete fools for not already knowing what she had always known.
Although she was very polite and friendly, the grandmother obviously decided that night to declare war on these foolish white people who dared to invade her domain. We later discovered that all three women in that room were practicing members of a dark order of black witchcraft. The hexes began after this gathering.
The awareness of something wrong was an almost overwhelming blanket of suspicion that we were in some kind of danger. Our dog, who was ultra sensitive to spiritual events, also knew things were not right. He had his way of letting us know.
Doris and I were continuing our daily practice of communicating with Aiwass via the "board" and by now, she was adding one new instrument of awareness. I am not sure just how she discovered this way of getting information, but it proved to be very useful on the reservation. She used that small piece of jade, carved in the shape of an elephant, which was once owned by her grandmother. She tied a green thread to the jade, and then let it hang from her extended hand. If the elephant swung back and forth, it was a good sign. If it circled, it was a sign that evil was present. I know, it sounds like something devised by illiterate natives living in a cave, but it worked. It worked when either Doris or I used it. It circled or swung no matter how steady we attempted to hold our hand. The only explanation I have is that we were manipulating the string from our subconscious, which was somehow tapped into the collective warehouse of information.
We found our first hex in our waste basket. It was a small piece of wound string, paper and hair. It was probably hair from one of our combs. The hex hadn't done much to us, but it was making the dog sick. He was an old dog and already suffering from a cancer that would get the best of him in the next few months, so he quickly fell victim to the bad energy.
The Begays were away for the day, as usual, when the hex was uncovered. Doris was so mad she decided to reverse the spell and send the energy back to where it came from. She found some hair in Elfrieda’s brush, and wrapped it around a piece of wire shaped in the form of a large woman. Then she threw it all in the stove and let it burn. We doubted that Elfrieda felt it, but just doing that seemed to make us feel like we were fighting back. We still had a lot to learn about the black arts.
A few days after that, we were spending another day alone in the house and there was a wind blowing. The air was filled with flying sand and the sky was dusky. That afternoon the dogs started barking. Doris looked out of the kitchen window and saw the dogs chasing what appeared to be a large white wolf. She couldn't believe her eyes. She called me to the window but by the time I arrived, the animals had all disappeared behind the hogans.
We went out into the storm to investigate. Because Doris said it was a wolf, I had a rifle in hand. There were two hogans in the Begay yard. There was a newer, larger building, which we used for storage and which Raymond sometimes used for religious meetings. The older, smaller hogan, was locked up and never opened. That afternoon we found the wolf tracks leading behind the large hogan. At that point, they turned into human foot prints and continued on, right up to the side of the wall of the small hogan. It was as if the animal had turned into a human being and then stepped through the wooden wall to escape us. We had heard of changelings. . . people who could change temporarily into the form of animals and back again. . . but this is the first time we had evidence that such a thing existed. The foot prints were very small and smooth, as if they were of a woman wearing moccasins. Doris and I both had a vision of Elfrieda's frail little grandmother hiding behind the wall of that old hogan.
From that day on, we were on our guard. We felt as if we were in danger. Things were starting to disappear from our bedroom so Doris found herself trapped in the house. She chose to stay behind to guard our things every time I went to town for mail and supplies. To make matters even more complex, Raymond was planning a big tent meeting in the yard. It was going to be an all-night peyote affair attended by tribal members from all over the reservation. We decided it was time to get off the reservation. The problem was that we were going to need some help, and carefully plan our escape. I was going to have to rent a truck, load all of our belongings, and once I did this, I had no place to take them.
Jennifer’s apartment in Phoenix was too small to accommodate us. We had no telephone, and even if we could get to a pay phone, Jennifer didn't have a telephone in her apartment so communication with her was limited. We decided to call Aaron and ask him to come to Arizona and help us make our escape. The plan was for me to drive to town, call Aaron, pick up our mail, buy supplies as usual, and then wait for help to arrive. Before I left for town, however, Doris decided to go over the car with her elephant on the string to make sure everything was going to be safe. The elephant swung back and forth over the engine, over the driver's side door and over the trunk. But when she held it over the front window on the passenger side, the little elephant started to circle. It circled wildly. I unlocked the door and Doris held it over the seat. It continued to circle with extreme force, the little elephant was striking the door posts and the dashboard. She reached under the seat and found a round stone, slightly smaller than a baseball. On it was painted a strange symbol in iridescent yellow. We recognized the symbol as a sigil representing a major demonic figure. Someone was obviously attempting to kill Doris, and possibly both of us. Had she gone to town with me that day, we may have been in a serious traffic accident.
What was odd about the drawing on the stone was that it faded away. Doris was attempting to copy the drawing to paper and it just disappeared in front of her eyes.
When I got to the truck stop just outside Holbrook I made my call to Aaron and found him at home. I explained our dilemma and asked for his help. That was the first time I was aware that Aaron was capable of leaving his body and coming to visit us whenever he wished. He described the house, complete with all of the old tires on the roof. He also sized up Raymond and Elfrieda. He assured me that he would keep watch over our situation and help us, if not physically at least spiritually. Aaron explained that he and Gail only had one car and that it would be difficult for him to come to Arizona at that time. His advice was to take the stone out in the yard, urinate on it, and then display it proudly somewhere in the in the middle of the dining room table. It smelled of human u e house where the Begays would see it. He said black magic works only when the victim believes in it. To combat it, we were to show our contempt and let Elfrieda know that we were not afraid of her. Aaron also promised to be present in spirit during the tent meeting. He said he would bring a surprise for the Navajo in that tent. We followed Aaron's advice. That night when the Begays returned home, the hex stone was waiting for them smelling like urine.