capriceum

I heard about this book from a podcast I just started listening to this year, New World Witchery. It was from their episode on Hoodoo with the author. Their conversation was fascinating, so I decided I would check out the book.

This was such a captivating and well-researched read that was mainly about the intersection of Conjure and Christianity, and the nebulous division between religion and magic. I loved that the chapter titles were taken from key quotations. The chapters on harming and healing within the tradition were great, and Chireau does a good job including a wide range of historical voices and perspectives.

It was interesting to see how circumstances/contexts affected African American spiritual beliefs. (Chireau uses the word "pragmatic," which seems pretty apt.) I especially liked reading about how Conjure went from being thought of as "cultural refuse" to an "important artifact" among anthropologists and folklorists, and how Conjure changed again when blacks migrated to northern cities and it underwent a commodification.