Customer Reviews

Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition

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This well-researched, well-written, and richly detailed study illuminates a world that hitherto has been misunderstood by both scholars and the general public and adds greatly to our understanding of the myriad dimensions of African American spirituality. Stephen D. Glazier, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Hoodoo and conjure are just about the most *natural* things in the world. These magical and religous *bits and pieces* were parts of African Ancestral traditions that survived with the African's who crossed over the sea. They augmented what they brought with them with the flora and the fauna and the condition of enslavement.

This history of Hoodoo & Conjure doesn't quite resound with the naturalness of the practice. It beats around the bush fitting what was related to common sense or mother wit onto an intrepretive schemata which is itself *other than*, i.e. based on non- African interpretive models formulated for academic analysis.

What I love about this book is hearing the names of the Old Souls and in too few cases seeing a drawing of them. The author has included their own words and this is priceless.

What I did not like was the shortness of the work itself, the many footnotes and the doctrate feel of the work. The author joins with Theophus Smith's Conjuring Culture in having more references to other works in footnotes than personal observation due to their own interaction with the subject. This book as is Smith's is sterile. It "tastes" like canned collard greens. For the amount of *new* information included it is also overpriced in the hardcover edition.