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Not In Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic Is Transforming America

5 star:		(16)
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3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(5)

 

 

As someone who is pagan, it is difficult to know how to assess this book fairly, which may be why pagans are not reviewing it positively, or shying away from reviewing it at all. The author does an excellent job of showing us how the tolerant outsider views magical belief; they are close-minded when it comes to accepting it as a possible paradigm for reality, but open-minded enough to actually experience its effects from time to time, and report on it honestly.

Wicker, a former religion reporter for the Dallas Morning News, does some wonderful profiles of people she spent some time with - Dr. Kioni, the Florida rootworker, Catherine Yronwode and her husband Siva, the "blood-pact" Satanist, and the Goth pagan vampire set. She also did some thorough research on some of the quirkier historical roots of magical belief, and reached out to a broad sample of believers within the magical community. She even does a good job of careful criticism in an area where we need a few more checks on our behavior - witness her compassionate elucidation of the "fantasy biography" phenomena, something that pagans are often a little too prone to committing.

The trouble is that she often fails to report what we believe, confusing it with what she thinks is more important - what is appropriate to believe about us. Other American religious minorities wouldn't tolerate this sort of sloppy bias; why should it be any different for us?

Despite her efforts to be objective, too many ideas are left out, concepts that would have given people who don't believe in magic a better chance of understanding who we are. She describes Siva as a "blood-pact" Satanist. What is a "blood-pact" Satanist, and how does this differ from a more ordinary, garden-variety Satanist? She doesn't elaborate - was the sensationalist label only supposed to reinforce how different his life path is from her own? From her descriptions of his activities and attitudes toward life, it is clear that he is emulating Lucifer, the light-bringer, who brings the forgotten truth to light in subversive ways. This is how many of us actually view Satanists - why couldn't she report this?

It is easy to sympathize with her when she writes that the magical walk that she took with guidance from chaos magician and Open Sourcer Joseph Maxx "discombobulated me in a way that none of the other magic had". Many believers of magic initially go through a period of time of being very afraid of how magic will change their minds. Sanity is a construct, and if you violate too much of the construct, you are judged insane by those operating under the predominant framework of what constitutes sane reality. Rather than realizing the universality of this conflict, and interviewing magical believers in how they manage to integrate their belief with rational interaction in the everyday world, or what types of activities they themselves may choose to avoid because of the same fear, she treats this fear as if it is the sole province of the rational disbeliever. Wrong again.

She writes of Wiccans as being adamant about doing only good magic, while failing to recognize or report that the term Wicca itself has become an umbrella for many believers of other pagan traditions who affiliate under the label of "Wiccan", largely because it has become a media label that outsiders recognize and identify with. Ten or fifteen years ago, many of these people took cover under the umbrella of Universal Unitarianism, a faith which includes believers who are not magical and do not share the polytheistic world-view of neo-pagans. Today, they "take cover" under Wicca, which makes Wiccan practice more diverse, and more likely to engage with darker paths than non-believers may realize, even if those same people are proud of the Wiccan emphasis on a bright, "white light" path.

A little more explanation of some of the major traditions within magical belief would have given the non-pagan, non-magical reader a better understanding of who we are. Some of us are not pagan; there are Christians who quietly believe in and work magic.

Vampires often identify as being Goth pagan, a minor but significant tradition within our conglomerate of believers. She mentions the chaos magicians, the fey-and-dragon believers, and devotes a significant portion of the book to the mesopagan traditions of voodoo and hoodoo, without giving an unfamiliar reader a framework to "hang their hat on". Neither the Asatru nor the Druids make it into this book at all, even though their scholarly approach to reconstructing ancient belief systems has had a strong impact on contemporary pagan thought. The outside reader doesn't learn much about our internal structure after finishing this book, and isn't that the purpose of writing a book on a largely unknown group of spiritual believers?

Instead, what we get is a simplistic paraphrasing of Pascal's famous pensee, "My magical experiences were too little to convince me and at the same time too much to dismiss." One suspects that she simply doesn't want to identify with us too closely because of her devotion to conformist, upper-middle class social values and sensibilities. In the end, it becomes more important to ultimately repudiate our beliefs by reassuring her readers and herself of the supremacy of rational thought.

But the magical community as a whole had the right to expect more of religious investigative journalism. When I went to look up a source for Eric Vogelin's work on Hegel, or check the publication date for Francis King's Ritual Magic in England, neither of these sources was included in the bibliography after being mentioned in the text. Even the bibliography could have been checked more carefully for sloppy errors prior to publication.

When is an array of vampires, elves, witches, Satanists and hoodoo doctors NOT a freak show? When they fall under the respectful, thoughtful gaze of Christine Wicker. What she has done for the spiritualists of "Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead" she now does for a much wider cross-section of American spiritual culture.

If you yourself are a magic-worker or "alternative believer" of any kind, you would do well to read this book. We all tend, like everybody else, to look down on people who walk our path in "the wrong way." I will never laugh at people who think they are elves again.

I am the hoodoo doc that is described as the computer geek next door in Not In Kansas Anymore. My name is Christos Kioni and it was my pleasure to be included in Christine Wicker's book. With the wave of her magic pen and trusty self typing computer, she opens the dusty vaults of the esoteric to reveal the commonalities that draw people from all walks of life to high and low magick. As a former journalist, Christine probes and ask questions you always wanted to ask but didn't know who to ask about, magick, hoodoo, Wicca, New Thought, etc. You will discover yourself identifying relatives and friends who watch for omens, and in some light hearted way or serious observe superstitons and employ magical remedies when needed. This book delves deeply into how spirituality is sweeping across America. It also reveals how people of faith and no faith find magick empowering. Not In Kansas Anymore is a page turner and before you are finished; you will have traveled far beyond the rainbow, and find yourself light years from Oz.

Dr. Christos Kioni
Metaphysical Consultant/ Spiritual Practitioner
Cocoa - Port St. John Florida

Christine Wicker has a talent for making the reader feel included in her numerous field trips. And she handles success well, for after the publication of LILY DALE she became one of the most-talked about authors in America and yet she never let it go to her head.

The ideas she comes up with in her new book strike some radically different postures, however, and I don't expect people will take to this miscellany as they did to the tightly focussed LILY DALE. Here it seems like she bundled together a bunch of magazine pieces and expects us to read it as a unified book. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. That said, some of the tales are keepers. I did enjoy finding out about the real story of the "most famous pubic hair in America." When Clarence Thomas said that someone had left a pubic hair on his can of Coke, white people read that one way, as if it was describing some kind of arcane, obscene sex act, but Wicker claims that black people knew that Thomas' "complaint" was a reference to hoodoo, the way that sex magic is performed by claiming the body parts of another or of oneself, often some intimate items such as pubic hair. Did Thomas come from a voodoo-believing background? These issues never rose their heads in the famous Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, but Wicker seems to have cracked the case wide open.

I was glad to see that she makes extensive use of Valerie Boyd's well-researched and enchanting biography of Zora Neale Hurston, WRAPPED IN RAINBOWS, but I believe that Wicker is propagating a lie when she repeats the hideous old story about Hurston boiling a cat alive (to obtain a bone for a voodoo spell). Cultural differences aside, how low can you go when you want to attack a person from beyond the grave. You claim that they tortured defenseless animals.

Wicker is widely acclaimed for her lack of judgment and her tolerance towards different kinds of religious practices, but I found her withering comments on sado-masochism to be the reverse of tolerant. Okay, you tried it, you didn't like it, let it go, Christine Wicker. Don't put everybody else who does it down.

All in all, this is a curious book, a combination of "new journalism" and a credulous, open heart, the sort of thing that made a millionaire out of the late Carlos Castaneda. Magic does happen, as Wicker shows us, right where you'd least expect it.

First of all I think it is great that someone would write a book telling the world that there are all kinds of folks in the practicing all kinds of magic, everyday, and doing so on an honorable and caring basis. Unfortunately there are also those who scam people out of their life savings with promises of magic spells, curse removal, and all that nonsense. I think this book gives those folks a foot in the door!
As a travel journal it was fun to read, but as an authority on the subject, not even close. I think Christine could have written a whole book just on the vampires she met at the beginning of the book. The book just seemed like it haphazardly covered a very broad subject. She spoke of the people who claim to be elves for instance. She didn't really tell you much about them, but that they live and think they are elves...well we all know people who are walking this earth, who think they are all kinds of things (that they are and aren't). Some just need a little adjustment to their medication. Why would that interest me, or any other reader? That whole chapter seemed like fluff to make the book longer.I am just afraid that someone who doesn't have any experience in the world of magic, the metaphysical, and witchcraft, etc., will read this book as gospel, and it is missing MUCH information. It seems like it is someone's little notebook from their summer vacation. Maybe that was the author's intent, but I think that putting something like that out in the world is just asking for more misinformation to be spread around on a subject that already has a "not so well deserved" reputation!
If Christine set out to prove that there is magic in America, she failed. She didn't prove anything unfortunately. I wish she did!
If you know much about the occult and metaphysical, then read it, it is enjoyable. However if you want to LEARN about these subjects in any way, please do not, you will not get quality information.

I teach philosophy and religious studies at the university level and have been encouraging my students to pick up Wicker's book. It is such a fascinating (not to mention, at times, hilarious) book about the role that non-traditional religious expression often plays in the lives of individuals. At a time when only 22% of Americans go to church on a regular basis (even though over 80% claim to be Christian), Wicker's work seems to suggest that people are seeking something that traditional Christianity cannot offer (or refuses to offer, or has forgotten, or has chided, etc). I, like Wicker, used to scoff at the "obvious" inanity of such belief systemts. And while it is true that many of these individuals still come off as being "out there", I have a much greater appreciation for the enchanted world that these people live in.

Magic is taking hold in modern American society, as evidenced by widespread interest in the supernatural from ghosts to voodoo magic and good luck chants: the movement receives close inspection in NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE: A CURIOUS TALE OF HOW MAGIC IS TRANSFORMING AMERICA. From practicing Wiccan communities to the increasing presence of magical interests in standard American settings such as the suburban family, NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE comes from a religion reporter who searches for what's authentic and what is fake in America's new magical involvements. A most intriguing study blends history, sociology and spiritual investigation.

What a wonderful, soul expanding work. She proves you never can tell about people. Who would've thought a woman raised as a Southern Baptist could end up as curious and open-minded as Ms. Wicker? I, a member of the magical tribe, was nearly guilty of being as close-minded as some Christians I critcize, and thought of not reading this book. That would've been my loss! I hope many neo-Pagans, Wiccans as well as Baptists and Pentecostals read this -- there is something here for everyone to learn -- and one of the things she modeled for me in this book, was the kindness of her approach to all.
Lastly, I am grateful to her for helping me with a definition of myself that has remained blurred for the 35 or so years of my own spiritual quest, and that lies in chapter 12, when she delineates the four bridges that connect the magical world to the mundane. Two of the four were a custom fit.
She works out the maps to this mysterious inner geography in a new and very original way. I found it among so many other things, a positively refreshing read.
Dawn Killen-Courtney, author of
The Trollton Chronicles series

A couple years ago, I saw the book "Lily Dale" as part of Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers program and skimmed through it and decided not to buy it. It looked interesting but not compelling enough. Then that Barnes and Noble had a book signing and lecture by the author, Christine Wicker. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go. I wavered on buying her book (only because I buy about 5 books each month and only read about 2 or 3 per month), but the way she spoke and presented her insights really impressed me. For one thing, she has a very uncanny resemblance to Annette Bening in "The American President" (not just look alike, but she sounds like her with similar mannerisms). After her lecture, I told her that if Hollywood ever made a movie about her, Annette Bening had to play her. She laughed and said that several people in Lily Dale, New York had said the same thing.

I fell in love with her that night. She has a great personality, very approachable, terrific sense of humor, and the way her writing is in both books, that's how she is in person. That's what made me buy her book about Lily Dale and what a great find. I learned a lot as I read that book and found myself wanting to visit Lily Dale (though it hasn't happened yet). When I found out she has a new book out, I no longer had any hesitation in buying it. I love her writing style and how she views things with an open-minded, yet protective skeptical mind. Her hesitation to embrace all ideas thrown her way is one I share, so I feel like she is experiencing things for me. I'm glad that she has written about people who are/have been marginalized by the majority culture. Even if we find most of those magical practitioners to be a little odd, its still nice to see things from their perspective for a little understanding. Most journalists won't do that, but Christine Wicker has put her reputation on the line to good effect. This book leaves me hungry for more, so she simply has made a fan out of me. I'd love to see her cover the supposed "mole people" of New York City next...or any other group out there that isn't covered by the mainstream media.

Think your neighbor seems odd? Maybe wears a bit too much black and looks a bit...toothier...than the norm? Maybe that's because he or she is a vampire. Or maybe some of the local moms are room mothers by day and witches by night. Whatever the circumstances, this book will open your eyes and mind to the possiblity that there is more magic lurking in the suburbs than you ever expected. If you want to be enlightened and laugh a little, READ THIS BOOK.