Conjuring the Folk

Conjuring the Folk PDF Author: David Nicholls
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472110346
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Provides a new way of looking at literary responses to migration and modernization

Conjuring the Folk

Conjuring the Folk PDF Author: David Nicholls
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472110346
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Provides a new way of looking at literary responses to migration and modernization

Conjuring Culture

Conjuring Culture PDF Author: Theophus H. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198023197
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book provides a sophisticated new interdisciplinary interpretation of the formulation and evolution of African American religion and culture. Theophus Smith argues for the central importance of "conjure"--a magical means of transforming reality--in black spirituality and culture. Smith shows that the Bible, the sacred text of Western civilization, has in fact functioned as a magical formulary for African Americans. Going back to slave religion, and continuing in black folk practice and literature to the present day, the Bible has provided African Americans with ritual prescriptions for prophetically re-envisioning, and thereby transforming, their history and culture. In effect the Bible is a "conjure book" for prescribing cures and curses, and for invoking extraordinary and Divine powers to effect changes in the conditions of human existence--and to bring about justice and freedom. Biblical themes, symbols, and figures like Moses, the Exodus, the Promised Land, and the Suffering Servant, as deployed by African Americans, have crucially formed and reformed not only black culture, but American society as a whole. Smith examines not only the religious and political uses of conjure, but its influence on black aesthetics, in music, drama, folklore, and literature. The concept of conjure, he shows, is at the heart of an indigenous and still vital spirituality, with exciting implications for reformulating the next generation of black studies and black theology. Even more broadly, Smith proposes, "conjuring culture" can function as a new paradigm for understanding Western religious and cultural phenomena generally.

Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones

Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones PDF Author: Stephanie Rose Bird
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 9780738702759
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Tracing the magical roots of "hoodoo" back to West Africa, the author provides a history of this nature-based healing tradition and offers practical advice on how to apply hoodoo magic to everyday life.

Conjuring Freedom

Conjuring Freedom PDF Author: Johari Jabir
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780814213308
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Conjuring Freedom: Music and Masculinity in the Civil War's "Gospel Army" analyzes the songs of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment of Black soldiers who met nightly in the performance of the ring shout. In this study, acknowledging the importance of conjure as a religious, political, and epistemological practice, Johari Jabir demonstrates how the musical performance allowed troop members to embody new identities in relation to national citizenship, militarism, and masculinity in more inclusive ways. Jabir also establishes how these musical practices of the regiment persisted long after the Civil War in Black culture, resisting, for instance, the paternalism and co-optive state antiracism of the film Glory, and the assumption that Blacks need to be deracinated to be full citizens. Reflecting the structure of the ring shout--the counterclockwise song, dance, drum, and story in African American history and culture--Conjuring Freedom offers three new concepts to cultural studies in order to describe the practices, techniques, and implications of the troop's performance: (1) Black Communal Conservatories, borrowing from Robert Farris Thompson's "invisible academies" to describe the structural but spontaneous quality of black music-making, (2) Listening Hermeneutics, which accounts for the generative and material affects of sound on meaning-making, and (3) Sonic Politics, which points to the political implications of music's use in contemporary representations of race and history.

The Candle and the Crossroads

The Candle and the Crossroads PDF Author: Orion Foxwood
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 1609258010
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Learn the ways of magic and healing from the living, oral tradition of Appalachian Conjure in The Candle and the Crossroads. Orion Foxwood offers a primer on the real magic and techniques of Southern root magic, knowledge he learned first-hand growing up in rural Appalachia. Foxwood explains magical techniques including: Spirit SightWorking by the Signs (the ability to synchronize work such as farming, fertility of humans and animals, orcharding)ConjuringFaith HealingSettling the Light (candle magic)Doctoring the Root (the ability to use herbs, roots, stones, or animal parts—bones, claws, fur, etc. for magic or the clearing, cleansing, and blessing of the spirit of a person, also known as his or her root)Praying or Dreaming True (Blessings of spirit/God to a person, place, or thing as well as prophetic or predictive dreaming)Blessing or Cursing The Candle and the Crossroads shows how to create magic in today’s world with the old ways and traditions of Appalachia.

Theorizing Scriptures

Theorizing Scriptures PDF Author: Vincent L. Wimbush
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813542049
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Historically, religious scriptures are defined as holy texts that are considered to be beyond the abilities of the layperson to interpret. This volume takes a look at the social, cultural and racial meanings invested in these texts.

Mountain Conjure and Southern Root Work

Mountain Conjure and Southern Root Work PDF Author: Orion Foxwood
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 1633412105
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Traditional Southern root magic and conjure from someone who learned the old ways growing up in rural Appalachia. Folk magic conjurer and root worker Orion Foxwood invites you to take a walk through his native Appalachia, through moonlit orchards and rural farms, to the dark of the crossroads. From the oral tradition of his ancestors to the voices of the spirits themselves, Foxwood brings readers the secrets of Southern magic: • Working by the signs (the ability to synchronize work such as farming, fertility, and orcharding) •Faith healing •Settling the light (candle magic) •Doctoring the root (the ability to use herbs, roots, stones, or animal parts for magic or for clearing, cleansing, and blessing a person) •Praying or dreaming true (blessings of spirit/God to a person, place, or thing as well as prophetic or predictive dreaming) •Blessing or cursing Mountain Conjure and Southern Root Work shows how to create magic in today’s world with the old ways and traditions of Appalachia. This book was previously published as The Candle and the Crosswords. This new edition includes a foreword by Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch.

Doctoring the Devil

Doctoring the Devil PDF Author: Jake Richards
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 1578637333
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
"Appalachian folk magic and conjure are little known today, but forty or fifty years ago, just about every person you might ask in Appalachia either knew something about it themselves or knew someone who did it. These practices and 'superstitions' are at the core Appalachian culture. Who were the old conjurors and witches of Appalachia? What did they do, believe in, and dress land talk like? How can you learn the ways of conjuring for yourself? This book answers those questions and more"--

Slavery, Race and American History

Slavery, Race and American History PDF Author: John David Smith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317459857
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
These essays introduce the complexities of researching and analyzing race. This book focuses on problems confronted while researching, writing and interpreting race and slavery, such as conflict between ideological perspectives, and changing interpretations of the questions.

Slavic Witchcraft

Slavic Witchcraft PDF Author: Natasha Helvin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620558432
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
A practical guide to the ancient magical tradition of Russian sorcery and Eastern Slavic magical rites • Offers step-by-step instructions for more than 300 spells, incantations, charms, amulets, and practical rituals for love, career success, protection, healing, divination, communicating with spirits and ancestors, and other challenges and situations • Reveals specific places of magical power in the natural world as well as the profound power of graveyards and churches for casting spells • Explores the folk history of this ancient magical tradition, including how the pagan gods gained new life as Eastern Orthodox saints, and shares folktales of magical beings, including sorceresses shapeshifting into animals and household objects Passed down through generations, the Slavic practice of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery is still alive and well in Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus, as well as the Balkans and the Baltic states. There are still witches who whisper upon tied knots to curse or heal, sorceresses who shapeshift into animals or household objects, magicians who cast spells for love or good fortune, and common folk who seek their aid for daily problems big and small. Sharing the extensive knowledge she inherited from her mother and grandmother, including spells of the “Old Believers” previously unknown to outsiders, Natasha Helvin explores in detail the folk history and practice of Russian sorcery and Eastern Slavic magical rites, offering a rich compendium of more than 300 spells, incantations, charms, and practical rituals for love, relationships, career success, protection, healing, divination, averting the evil eye, communicating with spirits and ancestors, and a host of other life challenges and daily situations, with complete step-by-step instructions to ensure your magical goals are realized. She explains how this tradition has only a thin Christian veneer over its pagan origins and how the Slavic pagan gods and goddesses acquired new lives as the saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church. She details how the magical energy for these spells and rituals is drawn from the forces of nature, revealing specific places of power in the natural world as well as the profound power of graveyards and churches for casting spells. She explores the creation of amulets and talismans, the importance of icons, and the proper recital of magical language and actions during spells, as well as how one becomes a witch or sorceress. Offering a close examination of these two-thousand-year-old occult practices, Helvin also includes Slavic folk advice, adapted for the modern era. Revealing what it means to be a Slavic witch or sorceress, and how this vocation pervades all aspects of life, she shows that each of us has magic within that we can use to take control of our own destiny.