Goofer Dust - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

The X-Files:

• Episode 14 of season 7 (Theef), referenced the use of goofer dust by the vengeful father of a woman who died due to poor hospital care.

Supernatural (U.S. TV series):

• Goofer dust was referenced as a protection against hellhounds in the television show Supernatural (U.S. TV series). Season two, episode eight "Crossroad Blues". This is not only an uncommon use for goofer dust; in fact, it seems to be an error on the screenwriters' parts, as most popular references to goofer dust in African American blues music refer to its killing powers, e.g. "Getting sick and tired of the way you do; good, kind mama, gonna poison you; sprinkle goofer dust all around your bed — wake up in the morning, find your own self dead." (This verse is from the song "I Don't Know" by Willie Mabon; similar verses have been recorded from the 1920s to the present by many other blues and jazz musicians.). Goofer Dust has, in rare occasion, been used as a protection spell. By using graveyard dirt from a loved one of the practitioner, along with salt and pepper and other ingredients, the normally offensive functions of Goofer Dust become protective functions (it also can be made protective by having it blessed by a Voodoo Priest with holy water as this creates a contradiction with the fact that the spirits in the graveyard dirt cannot cross running water, expelling them). Whether or not the writers of the series were aware of that fact is uncertain. The use is possible, just uncommon.

King Diamond On the "Voodoo" album, the character Salem uses graveyard dust (referred to as goofer dust) to send the spirits of dead people into Sarah's head during the song "Sarah's Night".

The Richard Pryor show

Featured performances by the O'jays and singer-dancer paula kelly. in sketches, Pryor holds a press conference as the first black president; leads a voodoo healing ceremony; tends bar at a galactic watering hole.