On my way to the Miracle Warehouse in Flatbush, Brooklyn, merely a few doors away from my destination, I passed a man, who had just been stabbed, sitting on a chair and holding his wound. As police cordoned off the area, I arrived there and paused at the storefront. Lined up across the storefront window, was a diverse pantheon of statuettes: a happy Buddha, Saint Anne, Jesus Christ, Chango, Marta Dominadora with her head dress of snakes, Saint Michael stomping on Satan, Pocahontas (the runway model Disney version), Saint Martin and several representations of Native American Indians in full feathered headdress. Stepping into the store, just at my feet were an extinguished shrine of melted candles and a milk crate filled with rusted horseshoes, not the throwing kind, but those worn by horses.

The store was a true warehouse. The management provided plastic shopping baskets that were stacked next to a three-story shelving unit displaying the miracle Herbs and Roots section. The availability of shopping baskets may not seem so incredible, but one has to realize that miracle accessories come in small packages. And there were so many products, thousands of them, it was disorienting. In the Miracle Warehouse, the minutia was oppressive.

As a point of departure, the natural place to start was in the book and pamphlet section. What I found there told a lot about how the Miracle Warehouse defined a miracle. A small selection of titles were: "Santeria: Formulary and Spell Book," "Three Wise Men-Lucky Number Dream Book-Fast Super Specials-Key Numbers-Daily Selections-For All Number Systems-Pick-it and State Lotteries," "The Art of Casting Spells," "Lottery Vibrations-Established 1977-23rd year-11 Million Copies Sold," "Kansas City Kitty Dream (interpretation) Book," and "Stella's Success from Dreams-Number Interpretation-Watch 875."

Lastly, I browsed a book entitled, "The World's Greatest Magician-Black Herman-Secrets of Magic-Mystery and Legerdermain," copyrighted in 1938 and published in a four-volume deluxe edition in 1967. In the dream interpretation section, Black Herman writes, "To dream of being frightened by a Negro is a good sign and denotes safety," and "to dream that you are confined in jail shows that you will have many honors conferred upon you." Behind the book section, shelf after shelf of oils, holy waters and bathing solutions extended to the back of the store. The solutions came in containers ranging from an ostensibly endless selection of dainty bottles to larger 10 ounce bottles for the common user to economy gallon-sized jugs. A typical patron of the Miracle Warehouse might purchase a regular bottle of "Vandi's Dominating Waters" labeled with an image of a woman, her bath robe open and breasts exposed, striking an elderly man across his face. For the compulsive consumer of miracle products, gallon jugs filled with "Jockey Club-Fast Luck" water were in stock.

The names of the solutions were very specific to their purpose. The labels said: Anti-jinx, Money, Prosperity, Genuine Success, Love me, Gambler's, Double Luck, Peace, Health, Zodiac, Evil Begone, Perseverance, Black Cat, Attraction, and Confusion. The powers of oils basically applied to the powers of soap or water. Moving away from more conventional carriers of miracle powers, I found that if oil or water wasn't suitable, there were, shipped all the way to Brooklyn from Piscataway, New Jersey, aerosol cans with names like "Santa Clara Spray," "Air Freshener Indian Fruit," "Gold Silver Offering Spray-Chango Macho-Spirit of Good Luck (with an image of Chango surrounded by piles of coins and paper currency) and Aerosol de Amor (with an image of a nineteen-fifties couple passionately kissing as if they had just closed on their home in Levittown).

On many of the products' labels, there was the pervasive image of a head of a Native American Indian placed in between a horseshoe. The surplus of statuettes, many of them Native American Indians of the same kind as were sitting in the storefront window, were stored above all of the oils on the top of shelves that lined the entire store. If one wanted answers regarding the meaning of any of the symbolism, it seemed best not to ask.

I asked the stock boy a question and he referred me to "the guy with the dreds." The man with the dreds poking out of a leather cap with a Jamaican flag on top and little brim tilting upwards, sat in front of a large rotary fan and was listening to a sports talk show on the radio. Two flattened silver Happy Birthday and Congratulations balloons were attached to the wall above him. I asked him the same question and he said he didn't know anything about history. I resorted to asking a customer who said she didn't know and hurried away from me. There was only one section I had left unexplored: the votive candle section.

Every votive candle a miracle seeker could ever desire, occupied an entire wall and another shelving unit. The one that said, "Indian," listed seven "alleged" powers: Strength, Luck, Protection, House Blessing, Jinx Removing, Offering and Love. It was this spirit of the Native American Indian that made him so popular and the horseshoe added good luck. As for the use of "alleged," I could only imagine that it added credibility to the miracle. Perhaps the consumer might rationalize that if someone went to the trouble of qualifying that there was the possibility that powers were not guaranteed, then there actually was a possibility that a miracle might occur; whereas a one-hundred percent assurance would be transparently manipulative.

I made my way towards the front of the store. I heard the manager with the dreds say, "this one wards off evil and at the same time it's for healing." A woman told her friend, "don't touch it. I gotta pray on that." Near the cashier, there were variety packages of soaps, oils and waters in little plastic-wrapped baskets a la The Body Shop. There was also a specialty counter for custom-ordering of "Designer Type Oils and Perfumes." Available to Females, there were "Chanel #5," CK-1," and Bob Macki (sic)." For Males, there were "Donna Karan," "Hugo Boss," "Tommy," "Tommy Girl," "Dolce and Gabana," and "Poco Sport (sic)."

At the counter I paid for my own miracle items. I bought the Black Herman book to add to my private library and incense with a label that said, "Spiritual Incense-Powerful Indian House Blessing-Holy Death-Delightful Fragrance." There was a friendly old Polish man working at the cash register. He asked me if I was born in the US and I said, "Yes," and I asked him if he had ever read Witold Gombrowicz and he smiled and said, "Yes, yes." I shook his hand and walked back out onto Flatbush Avenue.