Florida Water Spiritual Cleansing of Body and Room

Florida water is a citrus-and-spice cologne first sold in New York in the early nineteenth century that became one of the most widely used substances in spiritual cleansing across the Americas. In African American hoodoo, Puerto Rican and Cuban Espiritismo, Mexican curanderismo and Andean healing, it is splashed on the hands and neck, added to washing water, or sprinkled in rooms to refresh the spirit and clear away heaviness. This page gives a simple personal and household cleansing.

How to do it§

1. Prepare the space. Open a window. Set the white candle on a stable surface on the far side of the room, well away from where you will use the cologne. Florida water is mostly alcohol and is flammable.
2. Make the cleansing water. Add a capful or two of Florida water to a bowl of clean, room-temperature water. Swirl it and say a prayer or intention. Many use the Lord's Prayer or Psalm 51:7 ("Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow"); a simple original wording also serves: "Let what is heavy leave me; let what is clear remain."
3. Light the candle. Light it and take a moment of quiet.
4. Cleanse the hands. Dip your hands in the bowl and rub them together, then shake the drops off towards the floor or the open window.
5. Cleanse downwards. With damp hands, stroke downward over the crown of your head, the back of the neck, shoulders, arms, chest and legs, always from top to bottom, as if brushing dust away. Many end with the soles of the feet. Avoid the eyes and mouth.
6. Refresh the room. Sprinkle a few drops of the bowl water with your fingertips into the corners of the room, or mist it lightly from a spray bottle, moving from the back of the room towards the door or window.
7. Dispose of the water. Pour the remaining water outside onto the ground, at the foot of a tree or down the drain, not into a houseplant. Rinse the bowl.
8. Close. Dry your hands with the white cloth, give thanks and snuff the candle.

Origins and history§

Florida water was introduced by the New York perfumer Robert Murray in 1808, and from the 1830s it was sold by the firm of Murray & Lanman. Its scent combines citrus oils with lavender, clove and other spices, and its name evoked the lush springs of Florida and, in popular imagination, the legendary Fountain of Youth. Advertised as a cologne for gentlemen and ladies, a skin freshener and a remedy for fainting, it was exported widely to the Caribbean and Latin America during the nineteenth century.

Spiritual use spread through several channels. In African American hoodoo, Florida water joined other colognes and toilet waters in cleansing baths, floor washes and offerings, as recorded in the interviews of Harry Middleton Hyatt and discussed by Carolyn Morrow Long. In Cuban and Puerto Rican Espiritismo, influenced by the French Spiritism of Allan Kardec, it is used to cleanse mediums and the spiritual table. In Mexican and Mexican American curanderismo it accompanies limpias, and in Peruvian and Andean healing, agua florida is sprayed in ritual cleansings. Researchers note that commercial products became part of folk religion because they were affordable, fragrant and associated with freshness and respectability. See hoodoo and rootwork and African diasporic religions.

Variations§

A homemade alternative: steep the peel of a lemon and an orange, a teaspoon of lavender and three cloves in a cup of vodka for two weeks, strain, and use in the same way. Some add Florida water to a bath (a capful only), or to a floor wash. In Espiritismo a glass of water with a little Florida water may stand on the spiritual table. Some practitioners combine this cleansing with the egg cleansing.

Safety and good sense§

Florida water and homemade colognes are flammable. Never use them near a lit candle, incense, gas hob or cigarette, never spray them towards a flame, and allow skin and surfaces to dry before approaching fire. Keep away from the eyes and mouth, do not drink, and keep out of reach of children. Fragrance can irritate skin and trigger asthma or allergies; patch-test first and dilute as described. Spiritual cleansing is no substitute for medical care, grief counselling or mental-health support.

Sources and further reading§

• Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce — Carolyn Morrow Long, 2001
• Hoodoo—Conjuration—Witchcraft—Rootwork — Harry Middleton Hyatt, 1970
• Witchcraft and Welfare: Spiritual Capital and the Business of Magic in Modern Puerto Rico — Raquel Romberg, 2003
• Curanderismo: Mexican American Folk Healing — Robert T. Trotter II & Juan Antonio Chavira, 1981
• Hoodoo, Voodoo, and Conjure: A Handbook — Jeffrey E. Anderson, 2008