MIPC: Removing Warts

Note: MIPC stands for Magic in Popular Culture and it is a series of posts in which I take a spell, ritual, tradition, or belief from a work of fiction such as a book, tv show, comic book, or movie and analyze it against real work magical theory and practices. 

The Spell or Ritual 

Sheriff Hamilton: May I ask what you’re doing?

Mulder: We’re exhuming… your potato.

Sheriff Hamilton: May I ask why?

Scully: Sheriff, it’s, it’s been documented that many serial killers possess a fascination with police work. Some of them even holding positions on their local force. So surveillance of investigation team members is often utilized as a precautionary—

Mulder:  We found out you used to be a dog-faced boy.

Scully: That doesn’t quite explain a potato.

Sheriff Hamilton: I got some warts on my hand.

Mulder: That doesn’t quite explain the potato.

Sheriff Hamilton: To get rid of warts you rub a slice of potato on your hand and bury it under a full moon. The investigation isn’t going too well, is it? {Mulder throws down the potato}

The X-Files

Season 2 Episode 20 "Humbug"

Air Date: 3/31/1995

The Analysis 

This is actually a very old folk belief. It is actually a form of transference magic, that is, you rub a potato on your wart then bury it somewhere under a full moon and as the moon wanes, or shrinks, the wart will waste away. 

In fact, when I was very little, I developed several warts on the back of my hand. My grandmother told me it was because I let a frog pee on my hand. I don't know if she believed this or not, maybe she just wanted me to stop catching frogs and scaring our elderly neighbor Miss Ruby with them. 

We actually tried a version of this ritual on my warts. However, in this case we were instructed to rub a damp dishrag on the warts and then bury them under the steps. That didn't work - maybe we got the wrong moon phase? 

Then a while later my grandmother and her sister Aunt Ernestine took me to a healer near my Great Grandmother's house in Columbia South Carolina who could "talk" the warts off a person. The lady took a penny and rubbed it all over my warts while praying under her breath. Then we were instructed to go to a public place and give the penny to a stranger. We went to grocery store down the road and they made me approach a man (I was painfully shy) and give him the penny. Surprisingly, he took it without asking any questions. 

While some of the warts went away, the very largest (and most stubborn) wart refused to budge. Ultimately, my mother took me to a doctor and they were frozen off. I still have the scar to this day which you can see in the above picture along my wrist next to my bracelet. 

- Carolina Dean