Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ:
Hello and welcome to Chasing Leviathen. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here today with Dr. Yvonne Chirot, and we're talking about black magic, and just really excited to have you here, Dr. Chirot.
Yvonne Chireau:
Thank you. Thank you. This is great.
PJ:
So tell me why this book, why Black Magic, Religion, and the African American Conjuring Tradition.
Yvonne Chireau:
Okay, well, I'm really happy to be here. As I said, I'm always happy to talk about my work, if not myself. So I went to graduate school in the 19... geez, man, it must have been the 90s,
PJ:
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Yvonne Chireau:
right? Late 80s. At one of the premier institutions to study religion, which I didn't know at the time because things just happened. And I ended up working with the premier person probably the father of African American religious history, the late Albert Raboteau. And you know, I was a kid, it was a long time ago, there were a cohort of us, we were all brilliant hotshots and we were there to do something. And I'm sounding glib, but you kind of have to think of what Princeton University was like at the time. And it was a wonderful experience, I'm actually very happy that I went there. But this professor gathered around him a number of black students, black scholars. who were interested in big questions having to do with religion. And it was in the religion department. My degree is in religious studies. And so, you know, like you do in grad school, you try to find topics, you do a lot of reading. But what Raboteau did, and his book is a classic, his book is called Slave Religion, he tried to understand the history, the experiences of African American people from Africa to through the lens of religion. And so it's a classic book, it's been reprinted, everybody knows about it. But there was one chapter in there that I was intrigued by and that was when he started to talk about African American enslaved religion and magic. And so,
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
like, you know, any grad student, you're like, I need a topic. So I decided to kind of go into that. And... I think that's what people still do, you know, it's like, because everything's been written on PJ, right? So I wanted to expand on this idea, looking at slavery and the slave period, which is such a formative period for looking at religion, and look at this thing called magic, or
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
you know, who do conjure a number of words. And I got a dissertation out of that. So that turned into the book later, very fortunate. At the time, you know, no one was really talking. about it. One other person was writing on it, so I was like, ah, okay. And so it's really been interesting to me how the subject has this sort of staying power. The book was written 20 something years ago, and I get people calling me about it because there seems to be a kind of revival, if you want to call it that, or sort of a resurgence of interest in the material. So.
PJ:
Yeah, OK, and I'm sorry I have to get this out of the way because it is just our culture. Why hoodoo and not voodoo?
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah, well, if you go to my website, academichoodoo.com, it explains that, and I'm being jokey. The book is really because it was started out of the Princeton dissertation, kind of defending and challenging some of the theories of religion. So the book. actually ask the question why magic and not religion and
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
using the word black is sort of a play on words So when people see black magic, I actually literally people said, oh scary. It's you know, no read it. So I'm kind of playing with race, but
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
also this category of religion. Now this is where the problem is. Voodoo has sort of emerged as a trope. And I'm actually writing about this right now. My latest gig is about... You're going to laugh. My latest thing is about comics, comic books,
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
comic editor, and this notion of voodoo. Because the word is sort of a synecdoche. It's a trope. It is a utility term. that sort of disparages religion. And so what we know is that there is a religion in Haiti. In the Creole, it's called Vodou, it's not Voodoo. There is a religion in Benin, West Africa, Togo area, that is called Vodoun, it is not called Voodoo. So Voodoo becomes in the West at an important period, and I'm gonna have you guess when it was, sort of a junk term for describe. African-derived spirituality as dangerous, as insurgent, as weird, as magical. It's not a religion. So voodoo is not a religion. Now tell me, you know, as this is put your historian hat on,
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
when do you think that term would come about to kind of slander or to describe African religion or African-derived religion as being very dangerous, very bad? everything that it's associated with. What do you think that, what does that
PJ:
Well,
Yvonne Chireau:
have
PJ:
I'm
Yvonne Chireau:
to do
PJ:
gonna
Yvonne Chireau:
with?
PJ:
cheat and I could be wrong here, but you mentioned comics and I know that When you talk about the Ku Klux Klan you see a huge revival in the 20s and 30s So I would say 1920s 1930s. I could be wrong here
Yvonne Chireau:
Oh, the clan, okay. Go even 100 years before.
PJ:
Okay, okay.
Yvonne Chireau:
The origin of the term voodoo comes out of the... cataclysmic event of the Haitian Revolution and the
PJ:
Oh,
Yvonne Chireau:
overturning of slavery
PJ:
that makes sense.
Yvonne Chireau:
in the
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
Western Hemisphere, something that has never been done, and something that remarkably we in the West have sort of a weird, vague memory about. So within a few decades of France's Revolution, the US's Revolution, this little Caribbean island, the richest island in the hemisphere for, in terms of the colonies, has its own revolution. We've kind of blocked it out, but it was there in Haiti that African religion became a thing that was scary and
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
terrible and why Because it was the religion of the rebels it was the religion so it's so it's so there's race here. There's
PJ:
Yes.
Yvonne Chireau:
religion There's all these juicy things that we like, but we don't think about it. We just say oh yeah voodoo It's a little scary. It has black people it has magic So so I don't
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
use that word because it's so loaded and
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
when I do my comic thing, which will happen eventually, I want to examine how it's been used as a visual trope too because
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
when you think of voodoo it's like oh boy I know what that is. It's, it's, no. It's not, and it really isn't a religion. So that's the long term. Now I do use the word hoodoo. Hoodoo is a word that sort of came about in the 19th century to describe uncanniness and strangeness with respect to spirituality. Now no one has been able to tell me where this word comes from. We
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
see the word as it applies to English maritime folklore. in the 1700s, ghost ships, right? Nothing to do with black people. We also, I think out in Utah, if you Google this, because I know because people come to my website, Academic Hoodoo, from the Hoodoo Ski Resorts, which is Hoodoo's, yeah, this is how, yeah, I mean it's true, but I looked into that, right? And Hoodoo's are actually, I don't know if you've seen them, they're these extraordinary, they're like mountain ranges, right? And lo and behold, the Native American people and usually look it up after the show. These sort of formations in the rocks they look like people and Native Americans out there called them hoodoos to describe these beings that later turned into rock. Nothing to do with black people right so then of course someone said oh hoodoo is an African word. I'm like okay so I don't really know where that word comes from in the 1800s to talk about African American magic, supernaturalism, and even today, people are using it to refer to a kind of magical spirituality. But yeah, it's one of these sort of riddles where you try to find it and then you don't get an answer, but it's kind of funny.
PJ:
And forgive me a lot of this is just coming out of ignorance It's part of the reason why I wanted to talk to someone who was an expert in this field like even the stories One we didn't really cover the Haitian Revolution even though I got my bachelor's in history like it was like
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
maybe like there was like Memorized these dates, but we didn't talk about it, right and then And then something is, you know, when people did talk about it, they said that Haiti was dedicated to Satan. You know, like there's like this story I don't and I this is like an urban myth that was passed on. You know what I mean? Like this idea that
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
it was like we dedicate this nation to, you know, I can't even remember who told me this, but it was something and that's not me trying to protect somebody. Literally,
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah,
PJ:
I don't remember who told me. Someone
Yvonne Chireau:
yeah,
PJ:
told me that it was like, go ahead.
Yvonne Chireau:
probably someone religious, right? So, and you know, we heard different kinds of things coming out of it, but I just wanna go back for a second and imagine
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
this, how important this is. The first nation, the first post colony, the first nation to overthrow. the colonial system with their own revolution, and then the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to have universal emancipation for all
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
of its citizens. It just, it didn't happen, all right? It didn't
PJ:
Hmm,
Yvonne Chireau:
happen anywhere
PJ:
right.
Yvonne Chireau:
in the West except here. So why wouldn't we hear about it? No, we're gonna talk about the devils. Politically,
PJ:
You're
Yvonne Chireau:
it's
PJ:
right.
Yvonne Chireau:
important, but it becomes over, the devils and the whatever become
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
more important. I actually think there's a little gaslighting going on there, like,
PJ:
Yeah, we...
Yvonne Chireau:
oh. Okay, that explains everything that happened in this great nation that overthrew slavery, this ragtag nation of people that created a system, a constitution with universal emancipation, no slavery. Oh yeah, let's go back and talk about the religion, which... the observers at the time, one observer in particular, called voodoo. He
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
called it that. Now the term has become all kinds of things. So yeah, it's interesting. And never apologize for not knowing. I mean, we see these kinds of things going on now with our education system, people trying to cut out chunks or put chunks. It's like, how is anyone going to know anything? It's just, it's fascinating to me how this is really one of the most important events. of the 18th century, and yet it's like a blip. And this is our neighbor, it's like a blip. Except when you wanna talk about voodoo. Ha ha.
PJ:
Yes, well, you know, it's funny as you talk about gaslighting. I have to confess part of the reason I reached out to you and I saw your book, I think it was on Twitter, it was like maybe a reprinting or something. And I was like, I smelled some gas. Let's be honest. I was literally I was like, it's pretty
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
strange that someone be like, I dedicate this land to Satan. Right. Unless it's like some like stick it
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
in the, you know. in some kind of like Ozzy Osborne way where it's like I'm just trying to scare the you know, like they're like I'm gonna try and scare the white man kind of thing from Haiti, right? Like I'm like, I don't think they would do that right and it's and so this is you know that's
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
part of these I want to talk to you because I wanted to understand and Yeah, even and what's fascinating even as you talk about this difference between voodoo and hoodoo And this is something that I have some degrees and, you know, philosophy, I have an A degree in philosophy of religion. Um, my master's in that. And you talk about, uh, syncretism and it is like human beings have very messy lives. And even that, that first part of your book, you talk about how, uh, who do, and this black, um, conjuring tradition gets mixed with, uh, Christianity and And that's something that makes people uncomfortable because they like very straight and rigid categories. Can you talk a little bit about how that process works?
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah. And that, and you're absolutely right, people like rigid categories or they go for, and I'm talking about religious folk, who I love, by the way. I actually, there's not a religion that I love. I had a student who was like, yeah, what about Satanism? I was like, yeah, bring it. There's
PJ:
Ha!
Yvonne Chireau:
not a religion out there, knowing everything that I know about religion that I don't
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
respect and I don't love because I know that religion is like art. So I just lost my thought.
PJ:
Well,
Yvonne Chireau:
You're okay
PJ:
I'd love to come back to religions like art, but anyways, continue.
Yvonne Chireau:
Syncretism, syncretism. So syncretism, of course, as you know, was one of the theories, the prevailing theories, that I think come out of anthropology of religion to try to understand how religions blend and then recombinate and then become something else. So, and that theory has actually been kind of, there's a pushback on it with respect
PJ:
Okay.
Yvonne Chireau:
to black religion of late. So what we know is at the time, Africans were coming to America, what later became the US, beginning in the 1600s, right? So, and then things really ramp up in the 1700s. So, what you find is that as these enslaved people are flowing into the country, they are bringing their religions with them. So, one of the myths was that, well, they didn't have religion in Africa. They just, you know, they lived in jungles, And that sort of idea prevailed for a long time. And then Raboteau writes his book and he's like, look at the religion in Africa. So that was actually huge. Now it's like everyone on TikTok knows that, but the idea is that people bring their religions and I'm gonna put them in air quotes because. you know, the scholarship said no, they were pagans or what's the word they love to use fetishes. Religion isn't in there because only the Christian
PJ:
uh
Yvonne Chireau:
West has religion. So
PJ:
Animism?
Yvonne Chireau:
exactly,
PJ:
Yes,
Yvonne Chireau:
whatever
PJ:
yeah, yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
these people had, they
PJ:
Right, right,
Yvonne Chireau:
brought
PJ:
right.
Yvonne Chireau:
it. Exactly. So right there, I'm starting to play on that with my thesis. but they were religions and some of them were quite complex and sophisticated. And in the U S I love the irony of this. Some of these enslaved people come from nations that were already Christian. Right. So, and we're talking
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
about in central Africa, the Portuguese, the missionaries always get their first PJ. They
PJ:
Hahaha!
Yvonne Chireau:
got there and they got there in the 15th century. And in Congo, where a lot of people come from and end up here, the entire kingdom converts to Catholicism, right? So they're already Christian. So these people are bringing in, you know, their religions, whatever you want to call it. And some of them were Christian, some of them were Muslim, right? And so when they get here, what happens? And for us, for my mentor, that was the big question. What happens to religions? What happens to religions within slavery when they arrive here? So the idea of syncretism, suggests that when people bring whatever they have, call it religion, magic, whatever, let's just say it's Islam or whatever, when it encounters another religion, say the Christian missionaries in, I won't pick on anyone, in South Carolina in the colonial period, they either hold onto it, they convert, but even when they convert, they still hold on, they still carry a little bit. The outcome is syncretic. The outcome is sort of a blending. And so that, I believe it can be argued, happened all over the place. It happened unevenly because, as you know, some parts of this country... They didn't really care for Christianity either. So that's another one of the myths, the myth of the Christian nation. John Butler says that until the 19th century, most people were not, he calls them unchurched, but most people had no interest and they weren't Christian. So the syncretism, when it did occur between the African side, it was uneven, it was regional, but one of the things that we see early on found early on is that there's this thing that emerges that they call different names, conjure magic, who do, you know, sometimes they use the English word cunning, and that pops up in different parts of the country where these African people are. So yeah, the syncretism question is interesting. It also really speaks to this idea that whatever It's responsive to the environment. So if
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
you have, you're going to, it's going to, even if you want to keep it pure, which I know it's good, you're still in an environment that's gonna inform it. So that's, I think that's really important, even though it doesn't make people comfortable because they, you know, like I have friends that say, and again, I love them dearly, yeah, we're practicing Christianity the way Jesus did. And I just
PJ:
Ha
Yvonne Chireau:
sort
PJ:
ha
Yvonne Chireau:
of roll
PJ:
ha!
Yvonne Chireau:
my eyes, you know, without rolling them. And I'm like, yeah. because that's really important, this sort of purity, but on one level I think it's impossible. So, and syncretism does the work of making sense of that.
PJ:
Well, and that's from my interpretational background. It's like you can't just like erase history, right? Like you can never practice what is 2000 years ago because. You like there are good things to that, like there's a progression and there's sometimes there's some problems that come and those are new problems you have to deal with. So you can't
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
just erase 2000 years of history and like it's like I'm sitting at Jesus feet. It's like no, you are 2000 years later, right? Even as you're talking about syncretism and. forgive me, I'm gonna, this is just a personal story, but, and I think it'll help, like, you know, you talk from a race perspective, you know, there's a race and a religion, like, pursuit for purity that becomes a problem sometimes. And it's like, oh, we aren't syncretistic, we are the pure ones, right? That becomes an issue. And so, like, for instance, as we talk about, I'm, you know, I'm part of a church right now. love the church, sweet group of people. And one of the things it's like, it's very easy, and it's very hard not to syncretize Christianity and capitalism. And so, I know that's part of it, right? I know that like, one of the things I've been trying to recover and talk a lot about is Sabbath.
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
Because there is no like, this idea of a sacred rest day, in our current culture, it's like, I rest so I can work better. And it's like, No,
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
no, that's not. And that's where, you know, and hopefully, even as you talk through this, like, one of the resources of religion is are the roots that allow you to critique some of the pitfalls of our current culture.
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah, really. But I mean, let me just, I'm not gonna challenge you because
PJ:
No,
Yvonne Chireau:
again,
PJ:
no, go for it. Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
I'm thinking about this art thing because when I say art, I mean the creative impulse.
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
What if you really do experience yourself sitting at the feet of Jesus? And what if you go
PJ:
Hmm. Ha
Yvonne Chireau:
around wearing robes and
PJ:
ha ha.
Yvonne Chireau:
you are living in this sort of realm in which especially in the sacred space or the rituals within your community, sometimes we call them Orthodox people, experiencing it in this sort of pure way. And that is an interesting way, the story of fundamentalism. It's like, yes, let's get back to the fundamentals of the way they did it. All right. So, so,
PJ:
Okay,
Yvonne Chireau:
and, and.
PJ:
I have to stop you real quick because I actually grew up independent fundamental Baptist. So like
Yvonne Chireau:
Okay,
PJ:
you
Yvonne Chireau:
uh oh,
PJ:
are, I
Yvonne Chireau:
I
PJ:
have,
Yvonne Chireau:
better
PJ:
yes,
Yvonne Chireau:
be careful.
PJ:
I, I have, uh, there's been a long journey there, but I like, yes, when you talk about this, yes, I am very familiar with this idea of, and I, I will say, and I appreciate you saying that because, and I don't want to give the impression. I think there are real and powerful spiritual and religious experiences to be had. And in a very real sense, those are pure. But what happens It's really, there's a sensitivity and there's a vulnerability that happens with that, that often gets co-opted by people who in the name of purity
Yvonne Chireau:
Yes.
PJ:
say the... And so I do think that's good to distinguish because there
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
is a real spiritual power and a real vulnerability and just there's something very special that can happen in those like and pure in those religious experiences.
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah, yeah,
PJ:
So anyways. Sorry.
Yvonne Chireau:
yeah. Eh, eh, yeah,
PJ:
I'm
Yvonne Chireau:
eh.
PJ:
very familiar.
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah, no, and this is surprising. When we're done, I want to talk more about it. But, and so you think about that, and I think that, and I agree with you, but you think about slavery,
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
you think about Christianity, you think about the long years of slavery, and you think about, and you wonder, and this is again, my Princeton education, and I'm not touting Princeton because there are other people who do this too, but that was the big question. How, what is the relationship between slavery And again,
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
my advisor really wrote the book on this. But, you know, well, if we're gonna be pure Christians, there's slavery because Jesus didn't say anything about it and it's in the Bible. And so the good intention becomes sort of a rationale. And then there's those that say, nah, sort of, you know, the Bible's kind of ambivalent about slavery. It's there, but you know, so even this question of slavery It has followed us, it's followed
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
us past slavery. We're dealing with that now because religions, and I will say this, can't be counted on to deal with because those people who had interest in enslaving, you know, they even, you know, and again, I have to tell you to read this book or to get this book, it's called Slave Religion. He talks about how Christian slaveholders, they're like, well, Too bad, we still have to have slavery. Well, let's treat them a certain way and let's just make sure they have Jesus. And then the reformers, as you know, they're like, this is outrageous. You can't enslave human beings. So if Christianity can't handle what we today think is a simple question, slavery
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
is an abomination. What about these other questions like women or queer people? So that's my rant. I like to do that, problem and to see what did people say about this. And I don't dwell too long in that in my book. The big question for them is, what do you do with these other religions? What do you do with people who have gods that don't look like Jesus or don't even look human or whatever? What do you do with this? And I actually think those questions come down to us today. We claim to be in a religiously pluralistic society. extremely pluralistic, all right? And I just touched on that. I said African people, when they arrived, they were Christian, they were Muslim. Some of them came from ethnic traditions. So there's a religious diversity built in. But I don't think that we're doing too well with that these days. It's,
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
I mean, I don't know. That's my rant about, you know. and everything else, that this Christian nation myth really does prevail and how we kind of navigate that is important. But I was concerned with the magic part because, you know, and I still don't know, is magic a slur? I mean, the coolest people I know in the world, the coolest people, and I'm actually teaching a course on this, are magicians, you
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
know? They're magicians for a living and so, well, is that, I ask them, is that bad? My cynical friend is like, hey, it's branding. I have to brand myself as a magician. But you know, so
PJ:
Alright.
Yvonne Chireau:
anyway, it's fascinating. It's fascinating.
PJ:
Well, and this question of vocabulary is also because until I was looking at your book, I didn't know what you meant by conjuring. And did you say the English word was cunning? That
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah,
PJ:
was the...
Yvonne Chireau:
and
PJ:
Well,
Yvonne Chireau:
conscious.
PJ:
like, where did that come from?
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah, well, you know, Europeans had problems with witches and magicians. Again, I would say, I wanna blame it on the Christians, but it's not just the Christians, because the Catholics and the Protestants were fighting over this, because you Catholics do magic. So,
PJ:
Right, right.
Yvonne Chireau:
I won't blame anyone, but they had an issue with unorthodox. or what's the word I want to use? Unofficial, I'm trying to use gentle words, but basically they hated anything
PJ:
You can use
Yvonne Chireau:
that.
PJ:
the mean
Yvonne Chireau:
But.
PJ:
words, yeah. It's okay.
Yvonne Chireau:
It's not very scientific, but basically, you know, the other, right? So
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
in England, of course, where most of these sources are, there were people who were seen as practicing a kind of sorcery, but there were also those who, you know, one of the kings had these diviners and magicians. So you did have traditions of what I call magic, because it's not part of the church, but then the priests, also understood as practicing a kind of magic. So it's completely mixed up. But the term cunning comes from the English, usually talking about men in contra distinction to women who were always witches. Not always, but women always get blamed. So men who were considered to have powers, they called them jugglers and so forth. And then contrarers were the same thing. Now, contrar is interesting because it suggests that it's kind of a trick. It's a fake. And actually, I would say half of the people who talk to me about my book think I'm talking about magic performances and shows and the professional stage magicians who are, no. there were black people who did that too, which I'm like, yay, everybody wins. But so, and that, and I'm, again, I'm being silly, but in the 20th century as conjurer in who to move north. guess who pops up? A number of black magicians who perform these shows. And this was the time, you know, medicine shows and things like that. Anyway, so this is what I'm trying to work through, how this idea of magic, it's good, it's bad, it's ambiguous, it's sort of this category. And then I think the most controversial thing that I do in that book, and I don't dwell long because you'll see it's a really short book, is I say, because people say, well, what happened to Hoodoo and Condor? I was like, well, it went into, okay, you're smart. I'm gonna test you again. One of the largest American religious movements occurred at the turn of the century in 1906, sort of originating this new worldwide global form of Christianity that involved both black and white people. Do you know what it is?
PJ:
I
Yvonne Chireau:
1906.
PJ:
would guess Pentecostalism?
Yvonne Chireau:
Yes,
PJ:
Yeah,
Yvonne Chireau:
yay,
PJ:
yeah,
Yvonne Chireau:
you get the A
PJ:
yeah. No,
Yvonne Chireau:
in my
PJ:
I mean,
Yvonne Chireau:
question.
PJ:
you
Yvonne Chireau:
I.
PJ:
could see the snake charming. Yeah, you know,
Yvonne Chireau:
I
PJ:
it makes
Yvonne Chireau:
love
PJ:
sense.
Yvonne Chireau:
it,
PJ:
Yes,
Yvonne Chireau:
I love
PJ:
yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
it, I love it. So my argument is because Pentecostalism, and interestingly, Pentecostalism began with the work of a black preacher and a white theologian, but everything segregated in 1906. So the black preacher sort of institutionalizes certain practices. But they look kind of like what the Contra people did. Some of the spiritual, the Pentecostals are really into performance of what the Holy Ghost, but some of it, I argue, goes underground into these black Pentecostal churches with their spectacular healings, because Hoodoo had a spectacular healing element. And I got in trouble, I had all these people writing me all these preachers, that's not from Hoodoo, that's from the Bible.
PJ:
hahahaha
Yvonne Chireau:
Okay, sister, you got it right, but you got that wrong. And then other people, they're like, yeah, yeah. So the argument is syncretism, right? And you can see it's kind of a dangerous notion, right? That these black people, these black Pentecostals who split from the white Pentecostals early on, again, segregation is the word, they are sort of not embracing it because they would never say it. But the interviews that I found in the 1920s, the government during the Depression had a lot of interviews with former slaves. They're talking a lot about hoodoo and they're like, don't call it hoodoo, but it's similar. I won't go so far as to say it's the same thing, but if you pushed me, I would say it's the same thing. So it changes color. Magic becomes part of black... Pentecostalism and other forms of Christianity and in places of course like New Orleans where it's like that is the the center,
PJ:
That,
Yvonne Chireau:
a
PJ:
yes, yeah,
Yvonne Chireau:
geographical
PJ:
yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
center, you find this sort of mixture of, you know, not just Protestants but Catholics too. So, but you can imagine, I'm saying all this stuff, and people are reading it, which makes me happy because it is an academic book, but it's also like pricking, I'm like, no, how can you say that? My sister, she'll never listen to this, they don't talk to me. They don't talk to me because they're evangelical, I think they're But they're evangelicals, beautiful people. And my sister, I was just talking to someone. She is a more excellent version of me. She's a physician. I'm not going to give her name, but you could Google it. She is a big official in the last administration. She is a conservative Christian. They act as if. Professor Chirot's work just doesn't exist. And I can understand why, but it's kind of sad. I mean,
PJ:
Mm.
Yvonne Chireau:
I don't know if this has happened to you, but I always like to think, I always like to believe that there is a vibrant intellectual tradition, whatever you are, whether you're a Pentecostal Christian. I like to think that Christianity has maintained that because it used to, people used to debate these things. They used to
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
have, I remember, you know, full disclosure, I used to really be into the various Christian, Christianities, but they used to have stadiums and you know, the preacher would debate the other. It was like, it was like a, you know, the kind of sport that you see on YouTube. I feel in some ways that the church has gotten, and I'm going to generalize and say the black churches, not that they're not, they're sort of like, because black churches after that I mean, and again, I can speak to that or I could talk just about magic, but people are really defending themselves. So it's changing. I think it's changing with black churches, but by and large, people don't want to hear this. It's like, you know, all this voodoo stuff. But I think it's changing. And the fact that, you know, you're having conversations about this, but these sort of debates go back. They're not new to us.
PJ:
Yeah, I mean, I think of myself and forgive me for, you know, this is an academic discussion, but I think it's good sometimes to get personal because there are real ethical implications to this. And one of the biggest gifts that my own mother gave to me is when I was younger, I just had lots of questions. I was that kind of kid. I was every teacher's either worst nightmare
Yvonne Chireau:
I'm gonna
PJ:
or
Yvonne Chireau:
go.
PJ:
biggest dream. Some teachers absolutely hated me because I wouldn't stop asking questions and some teachers
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
loved me. It really I learned that as I look back on it now, I realized it said more about the teacher, but that's another aside the um And what my mom said to me, uh, as I was reading play-doh, um, you know in around junior high and then reading Nietzsche in high school, which you know god is dead, you know, my parents were like ah You know, she said, I believe that the Holy Spirit will lead you into truth. And that like, as you
Yvonne Chireau:
Yes.
PJ:
and this idea that, um, I, I'm a devout Christian. I believe there that I believe in Jesus, that he is the son of God. And I believe in God, but I believe he's not scared, right? Like, he's not like, he's not scared by questions. And that was a huge gift from, from my mom and you, and there are different, you know, you talk about informed by the environment and you even mentioned this with the African-American church right now, the black church right now, that, but there are very vibrant traditions that you can dig into to inform your environment that have like, Calvin talks at length about
Yvonne Chireau:
Yes.
PJ:
all of the different ways, like if someone is shining light, it's God's light and it doesn't matter if they believe in Christianity or not, it's like if they tell you the truth, The truth is the truth. And I think so. Anyways,
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no,
PJ:
again,
Yvonne Chireau:
that's,
PJ:
forgive
Yvonne Chireau:
that's...
PJ:
me my rant, my sermon
Yvonne Chireau:
No!
PJ:
there, but that's, yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
No, I live for this in the classroom, because you can imagine, I teach nothing but religion classes. And I always look for, OK, that kid over there, that's the fundamentalist, and that's the scared. And then I have my Satanist in the background, and it becomes this beautiful conversation. But the rules of the game are this respect that I expect we have for each other, just because we're human. That's lost when you're talking about some of these things. And
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
that really, I think, I don't even know how to deal with that. It's like, you know, and I think it's gotten worse in the public discourse, you know, because now people are doubling down, like, you know. Although I have a lot of hope.
PJ:
I agree.
Yvonne Chireau:
I really, I have a lot of hope. And actually talking to you, it's like, wow, this is refreshing, so this is great.
PJ:
Well, it's hard to really empathize and connect with someone in 30 seconds to five minutes. And I think that some of this, without getting too far down the rabbit hole, I've talked to other people who are in the technology sphere and the medium is the message sphere that One of the things, our culture has developed this incredibly powerful thing called the internet and social networking, and we don't, we haven't thought through the consequences of what we're doing to ourselves. And I think some of the, you know, even as we talk about this, the reason I'm in podcasting is this long form, right? That we're able to really connect because you cannot connect in 30 seconds. And so
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah,
PJ:
anyways, but
Yvonne Chireau:
yeah,
PJ:
yeah. I,
Yvonne Chireau:
yeah. No,
PJ:
I.
Yvonne Chireau:
I, yeah, I oh gosh, I'd love to talk to you some more about this. But okay, okay. So let's talk about my book. Let's talk about
PJ:
Yeah,
Yvonne Chireau:
me.
PJ:
yeah, your book, your book. Talk to me about, actually, this is one, God bless you for keeping it short, because then I feel like I can just really grasp it. One of the most discouraging stats in my life is every time you say yes to a book, you say no to 100,000 other books. So for this, I feel like maybe it's only like 50,000 other books, right? Like...
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
It's really nice when it's something, you know, it's like I'm reading through Augustine City of God right now It's 800 pages and
Yvonne Chireau:
Yes.
PJ:
I'm like, I know this is a classic but I could be reading so much more anyways, so thank you but This is the kind of thing one that really taps into kind of that fear of voodoo Right you talk about the harming tradition and then you talk about the healing tradition Can you talk about those two traditions and how they? grow beside each other and what roles they play.
Yvonne Chireau:
Yes, and this is something, and people ask me about this a lot, and I actually coined that phrase of healing and harming with respect to these religions. I don't know if I would use them, I said religions, these traditions. I don't know if I would use it now. So I actually think that all magics are oriented at their core at a kind of healing practice, and when I say healing,
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
I'm not just talking about healing of the body. communities, right? Close-knit, under siege, you know, just jealousies and passions and, you know, that who to work as a mechanism to sort of heal relationships or to police. relationships and communities. One of the things that we find of course, and what's interesting of course is that Hudu was used not just for, you know, by enslaved people because that's what I focus on, on black people, but it's used on, you know, on slave owners. So I get that
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
all the time. Well, if magic is real and it works, you know, because why didn't they use it against the white people to get free? And so one of the most that we have is David Blight wrote... prize-winning, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Frederick Douglass. And one of the stories he tells, Frederick Douglass, our black statesman, when he was trying to run away from slavery, because flight was the way to go. That's what you did. That's how black people resisted slavery. But let me tell you the story quickly. So he runs away. He goes in Maryland. He's like a kid. He's out in the woods. And he tells this story in his autobiography a conjurman, an African conjurman in the woods. I can't wait for the movie because it's,
PJ:
Ha ha!
Yvonne Chireau:
you know, he meets this conjurman and, you know, he's exhausted. He's not gonna make it, right? He's running, you know, and so many black folk didn't. And the conjurman gives him a route and he says, this is a magical route. It will keep any white man from striking you. And so, you know, we know Douglas, he wasn't particularly religious. He takes it, he goes home. the slave owner does not hit him. And then
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
the next day, he draws, it's just a fascinating story. But so he's messing around with this notion that, oh, there was some power in the root. And we know Douglas didn't believe in those things, like many black intellectuals, right? So he sort of puts that out there, that this is what helped him survive. And then we have that very famous story of the, And every time I talk about the tragic Denmark VC rebellion at the same church in South Carolina that was attacked by the white supremacists years ago, the very same church. So one of these historical ironies. The rebellion in the early... 19th century was planned in the church, but it involved a number of African Contra people, and one in particular who, once the plot was revealed, they devastated these people. So my point is that magic was used in order to resist the system. That is the controversial part, because sometimes this kind of war... involves harming. And you just look at Haiti as the example. Devastating,
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
devastating. So healing is a part of this magic. Healing of the body, healing of the relationships, I'll give you a charm. You can help get that pretty lady over there. You know, whatever. Healing, healing. And then the flip side is harming. And for some people, that's the line that they draw. Once you do harm, because there's do no harm. But I always tell that story. I said, yeah, well, what happened about that time when Jesus got pissed off because the figs weren't ripe and he killed the tree? And then they're like, oh, she knows that story? So cursing, you
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
know, and I know there's an exegesis and people interpret it differently, but basically I'm saying that cursing is not unknown.
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
in the Christian tradition. So I love to do that because I do know the Bible. I
PJ:
Yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
love to throw that out because, again, for some people harming magic, and for me too, this is not something I like. That's the line that they draw. I will not do that kind of work, that kind of spiritual work. But I always say, try to imagine what it is like to live in a situation under slavery where you have no agency. So, you know, you can't break the law because, you know, so try to understand what that was like. And it's very hard for us to see that even the meaning of, you know, right and wrong is inverted because the good Christians are the ones who are enslaving you. So
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
what's righteous and what's not? So, but the healing and harming thing, I see them as going together. And I'll just say this quickly, where that comes from, I think, comes from the African, There is no binary between good and evil. Good, it's almost like there are shades of each other. And you see that represented in their religious systems. There's no such thing as evil. I think that's a holdover in who to encounter in the United States. I think so. Yeah.
PJ:
Almost similar more to like a poison metaphor where it's like poison, you know, it's medicine in one Dosage and poison
Yvonne Chireau:
sick.
PJ:
another And honestly if you do regardless of the fig tree story You can go to what the Bible commands and I think this is something that people who live in a developed country With privileged lives do not have to really they can just ignore people because they are privileged, and they just think they're not harming them. One, ignoring people is a form of harm. But
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
also, like when you, you see in the Bible, it's talking about casting people out from the congregation, and it's never something you should be happy about. It's the idea of trying to bring them back.
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
But this idea that, and without getting into it, I've experienced this personally, even in the last couple years, where you have people who, It's not working, right? Like, if they are, they will bring the whole community down if they are part of it
Yvonne Chireau:
us.
PJ:
because they have chosen evil. And unfortunately, in the case of enslavement, what you have is whole society that has chosen evil, and
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
that's even a different
Yvonne Chireau:
Yes.
PJ:
thing. But when you talk about harming, and again, if you think of it in this poison metaphor, it's like, you have to, sometimes you have to push people out. to get them to understand that in order to make this work, I was just talking to a young lady who I love very much and she came from a very broken home and she is constantly fighting for what she wants. Even when everyone is very calm, she is fighting, but what I told her was, you are fighting for a place at the table. and everyone has made a place. This is a place where everyone has made a space at the table. And I'm talking at a very therapeutic and psychological level here, but I think everyone understands this. It like there are people who have grown up in situations where they were not, people did not make space for them and they've had to fight for that. And obviously I'm not talking about casting her out. I'm talking
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah.
PJ:
about the people who, for her I'm trying to get her to understand. It's like, if you wanna be part of this community, you, You want to be, you want to make space for other people and they'll make space for you because that's the way it should be. Right? It shouldn't be like elbows gouging each other, you know, putting your head in the plate trying to like steal as much food as you can. And so, um, go
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah,
PJ:
ahead.
Yvonne Chireau:
yeah, I agree with that. I believe that people are rendered that way. And it's strange, we live in a time where people believe that they're rendered that way when they're not. And this
PJ:
Mmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
notion of scarcity, it's, I'm not gonna say it's killing us, but it's harming us. This notion of scarcity is harming us. And I won't say too much on it, but I absolutely see what you're talking about as at a societal level. You know, and we are harming ourselves, even though most of us, I believe, want to heal. I do
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
believe that. I'm more optimistic than my Afro-pessimistic friends in some way, you know. And it's fine. It's fine.
PJ:
Yeah,
Yvonne Chireau:
But
PJ:
yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
so I see exactly what you mean. Yeah. So.
PJ:
Yeah, and it just kind of. And forgive me, I've talked quite a bit here, but I just want to make sure that we go through kind of your book here. You end with conjuring the black American cultural traditions. We all believed in who do. And so if you could kind of sum up what What who do has given in the conjure tradition has given to him our culture and what is valuable about it and what it what it voices that we need to hear. What would that be
Yvonne Chireau:
Yeah, okay, and that's actually a great question. I'm actually, the more I do this, and it occurred to me the other day, that Hoodoo is the flip side of what voodoo is. Voodoo is
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
an invention. Hoodoo is, and I see the young people on Hoodoo Talk, God help me, which
PJ:
Ha!
Yvonne Chireau:
talk? I don't see them because people said I'm not on it. But.
PJ:
Right, right.
Yvonne Chireau:
Well, it is a kind of, there is a cultural, not preservation, what's the word, recovery. That this is the tradition that kept the ancestors and for black people, our ancestors going. And as I've written, whether or not they're Christians, because a lot of them were Christians, they saw no problem in taking part in this in whatever way. And this is not to say post emancipation, it didn't change into something, it did, it changed. But as far as enslavement, what it brings to us is, first that sort of spiritual diversity that I talked about that challenges the notion of the Christian nation, which I think is a pernicious myth, useful for some, but it challenges that. People are coming, as I said, they're bringing their own cultures, religions to this environment in this terrible brew of oppression and violence that
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
was slavery in this country. So I think that people can now look at that and say, huh. It wasn't voodoo. It was a kind of spiritual, it was not even, yeah if you want to call it religion, I like to call it a spirituality that enabled people, it healed them, it helped them to resist. And it is a kind of... I want to say, and this is what these young people are trying to do, I don't want to say too much because they're also selling it because it became a commodity, but the young people are seeing this and recovering this and saying, this is the tradition of my great, great. And there is nothing to be ashamed of. Just like Haiti, there is nothing to, in fact, there's something of value here that we should look at. So that's what I see. the internet being what it is, these kids, they are doing all kinds of, they make it up. And I'm, they might hear this. It's become a cultural trend too, like, oh yeah. But interestingly, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of... appropriation of Hoodoo. And that actually starts in the 20th century that white people see, oh, there's some money to be made and it becomes really a commodity. There's such a pushback against that now that I actually have to tell my students to calm down. I say, well, there were. white people involved in this, just as, you know, but so, but it's sort of a claiming of voodoo and conjure because it's ours, you know, it's sort of this propriety thing. So I don't like that. I don't like it because it gets me away from the things that I want to talk to, talk about,
PJ:
Right.
Yvonne Chireau:
but I see that, that this is a sort of a cultural treasure that should be, you know, take another look at it. And it's not, it's not voodoo and take another look at voodoo when my, My
PJ:
Well,
Yvonne Chireau:
other project
PJ:
I'm excited about the comics one. I would love to have you back on to talk about that. That's fascinating to me. Yeah,
Yvonne Chireau:
Oh, it's
PJ:
for
Yvonne Chireau:
so
PJ:
sure
Yvonne Chireau:
geeky it is so geeky
PJ:
I mean
Yvonne Chireau:
so geeky
PJ:
The reason I got into interpretation was because of art first like I was a literature nerd and I was reading, you know Anyways, so, you know the philosophy was just an excuse to study literature more so
Yvonne Chireau:
Beautiful.
PJ:
but uh One let me say first of all, I want to be respectful of your time and also it's so I'm so grateful you came on today, Dr. Shereau. If you could leave our audience with one takeaway, just something to meditate on for the week. Not a summary. I think sometimes people think I'm asking for like, hey, if you could summarize your entire life's work in one sentence, but what's a takeaway, something that you would want them to meditate on through the week after listening to this?
Yvonne Chireau:
Oh wow, that put me on the spot. The thing that comes to mind right away is, is magic real?
PJ:
Hmm.
Yvonne Chireau:
Is magic real? What is that? And what do we think of when we talk about magic in distinguishing that from religion? If we wanna get fancy, science. Is magic real in relation to these other ideas of religion and science? That's a trick question, but
PJ:
Yeah,
Yvonne Chireau:
that's the
PJ:
yeah.
Yvonne Chireau:
kind of stuff that, you know,
PJ:
What does
Yvonne Chireau:
right?
PJ:
magic really mean? I love that, because, no, I think that's a great question. I will think about it this week. Dr. Chereau, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you.
Yvonne Chireau:
Thank you so much. This has been great. Okay. All right. All right. So I'm going to press this thing.