MANY Jamaicans rush to separate themselves from the stigma of obeah, but Simon ‘Reader Man’ Davis embraces it as a spiritual gift.

“Some people get diverse gifts, some read and some work. I get the gift both ways – I can read and I can work,” said Davis, who considers himself a ‘spiritual person’ with high powers of discernment.

His knowledge of obeah practices is sufficiently respected for the venerated Institute of Jamaica to consult with the rural occultist on an obeah exhibition now on display there.

Davis, whose multiple occupations range across photography, tailoring, and sound system owner/operator, does not operate a typical ‘balm yard’. There is no flying coloured flag, only a small piece of bandanna on a wooden post beside the door to his small two- room boardhouse.

On Friday, when the Sunday Observer visited his ‘base’ in the cool hills of Sligoville, St Catherine, Davis was arranging the altar, on which he laid out two East Indian mangoes, bottles of cream soda, wine and beer, and candles.

“This feast altar is not no different from the church harvest,” he said, pointing to his display, saying it was meant to appease the spirits.

“I invoke spirits and angels if it is necessary, especially when you are casting out demons.” He claims not only cast to out demons, but said he has even seen a few.

“They don’t really have a face … they appear like shadowy or smoky; sometimes like a man or dog face.”

Davis, who is in his 30s, said too that the type of magic he practises relies heavily on astrology.

“Some people work with skull and fallen angel; I work off the sun, moon and star.”

The unassuming ‘scientist’ says he has been around magic all his life.

“Every body for me do it… Mother Ramsay is my godmother, I grow up around Kumina queen Imogene Kennedy, Shepherd Kyle, Father Gooden and the famous, Leader Robinson known as ‘Run Come’.”

Just then, his cellphone rang. It was one of his clients – a female.

“You cyan mad, and you naah dead,” Davis assured the woman. Mere minutes later, the interview was once again interrupted by another call, this time from his landline.

He advises the caller to read Psalm 26 and that, tomorrow (Saturday) he would “prepare a goat head for sacrifice.”

His clientele, he said, is split equally among the genders, and ranges across professions, even venerated lawyers, the police, and pastors.

“Sometime we set table, where you light candle and sacrifice dove, goat or sheep,” he told Sunday Observer, adding that he sometimes uses deer blood during rituals.

“Somebody bring down the blood. It illegal, but people still smuggle it in (to the country).”

Davis says his clientele also includs persons living overseas.

“The two ladies I was just speaking to calling from Cayman and England … people fly down just for that.” Davis claims to reject black magic, but did not deny knowledge of it.

“In black magic, you can use the blood of a dog, young puppy or a black puss,” he said, adding that he does not use this type of magic since it is mainly used to hurt.

He also told the Sunday Observer of the ancient practice called Dambala – a serpent god in voodoo (the Haitian form of obeah).

“You watch Chucky where the man put him spirit in the dolly?” he said using the analogy to explain that the practice allows spirits to occupy inanimate objects.

Despite his claim to having vast knowledge of the spiritual world, Davis wants out.

“Me a try fi come out a it,” said the reader-man.

He is also trying to discourage his children from spiritualism, but says: “My daughter an’ my son can see things.”