fourteen holy helpers – Seraphin Station

The Fourteen Holy Helpers are saints or holy figures who were petitioned in medieval Europe during the terror of the Black Death. Also known as the “auxiliary saints,” they were called on as a group for protection from a variety of illnesses and troubles that would strike both people and animals. Their popularity continues to this day.

While you will occasionally see variations in a few of the names depending on region, the “standard” 14 Holy Helpers and their particular areas of specialty are as follows:

Agathius – headache, agonizing pain
Barbara – fever, sudden death, fire
Blaise – illnesses of the throat and protection for domestic animals
Catherine of Alexandria – sudden death, diseases of tongue
Christopher – plague, sudden death, and temptations while traveling
Cyriacus – temptation on one’s death bed, eye disease, possession
Denis – headache, demonic possession
Erasmus (aka St. Elmo) – intestinal and stomach troubles
Eustace – family discord and strife, fire
George – domestic animals, boils, lesions
Giles – plague, for good confessions, for the maimed and beggars, epilepsy, mental illness, nightmares, panic
Margaret of Antioch – childbirth, protection from devils, headache, backache
Pantaleon – physicians, midwives, against cancer and TB
Vitus (aka St. Guy)- epilepsy, lightning and storms, protection for animals and from animal bites

I released this oil years ago as part of an expanded line of blessing, uncrossing, and protection formulas, having no idea at the time that we’d one day be facing a sort of modern plague of our own. So I figured now’s a good time to make another batch of this stuff.

One of those multi-use spiritual oils that’s worth keeping in the supply cupboard because one little bottle does so much.

Enjoy 15% off tangibles in the Blessing, Healing, Protection, Uncrossing, Spiritual Cleansing, and Saints/Spirits categories on any order totaling $20 or more, at Seraphin Station or at Etsy. Offer good now through midnight CST on Monday the 17th. Discount is automatic – no coupon code necessary.

Read more or order now at Seraphin Station.

N.B. Not a medicine and not a substitute for proper medical treatment by a qualified medical practitioner.

Did you know there was a very active St. Expedite Society in Independence, Louisiana up until very recently? I didn’t. Read more at Folklife in Louisiana: “St. Expedito’s Role in South Louisiana Catholicism, in New Orleans and in the Italian-American Community near Independence, Louisiana,” by Karen Williams.

Hindu deities on vodun altars: Rush, Dana. “Eternal Potential: Chromolithographs in Vodunland,”African Arts vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1999), pp. 60-75+94-96. Also helpful more broadly, imo, for any student of folklore/popular religion who’s ever encountered an argument about whether Abre Camino is “real hoodoo” or not, wondered what to think about the development of the seven-colors school of approach to Santisima Muerte, or pondered the relationships between figures like Legba vs. Ellegua.

Giffords, Gloria Fraser. The Iconography of Mexican Folk Retablos. Thesis. University of Arizona, 1969. I tend to assume everybody immediately sees why stuff like this is so interesting. I tend to be wrong. But basically the iconography had never been studied before this, so this was a big deal, this work. And if you like to understand what you’re looking at when you see a candle in a botanica or grocery store, you’ll encounter plenty of stuff that had its origins here whether you personally work with that imagery/tradition or not.

I read Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South years ago, and even then, before I’d really started *studying* this stuff in any consistent and applied way, I felt like everybody I knew ought to read it. I knew they wouldn’t – people think this stuff doesn’t have anything to do with them if their families weren’t the ones being described in these stories – but they’d be wrong, ’cause this is part of how we got here. And the impact of it doesn’t just disappear suddenly when it’s no longer fashionable or feasible or *whatever* to have domestic employees. This is part of Southern culture, y’all, and it’s part of how your role in it, as whatever sex, race, class, gender, family role stratum you occupy, got constructed and defined.

I still feel the same way in 2020. I think Southern folks should read this book — especially white folks. Especially white women. Here’s a review with a useful summary at the Washington Post.