I was fortunate to have a teacher for an all-to-short a period of time who introduced me to some of the conjure he practiced, having learned from the women in the small town he grew up in. He's been dead for several years now, but reading Starr Casas' Living Conjure: The Practice of Southern Folk Magic brought him back to me in fond memory.
Casas doesn't explicitly define conjure, so here's my attempt: Conjure, Hoodoo, and rootwork are all parts of what could be called African American folk magic. It blends a lived version* of Christianity, Jewish mysticism, and Native American practices, as well as European folk magic with specific practices "brought over" on slave ships from the many family and tribal groups stolen from Central and West Africa. It may be called Hoodoo, but is emphatically not Voudou (by any spelling).
Conjure is not religious nor spiritual in and of itself, but more of a collection of techniques done to bring about change in a situation. Whether that situation is a relationship, money, a job, revenge, healing, or cleansing, the fundamental tenet of Conjure is to do work that changes the circumstance.
The hardest part of reading Living Conjure was two-fold. For the first, Casas writes as if dictating into a recorder, or speaking with one of her children as she tells the stories and shares the information -- which is how she herself learned. Its repetitive at times and you need to put yourself into a specific frame of mind to read it. (One that I do not love to be in, frankly.) The second is very much "on me." Much of the practice she describes is very outside my preferred spiritual and magical modality. It would take a great deal of research and labor for me to find grave dirt from someone buried with a broken heart, for example. Or even to get an iron nail.
That said, Casas clearly knows what she's talking about. She learned from four generations of southern root workers and generously shares her knowledge with all of us. In no way does she "whitewash" the struggle, perseverance, and trauma that is imbedded within Conjure's practices. Casas makes it clear that you cannot separate Conjure from its past, let alone the history and culture from which it arose and for what purpose.
This may not be the only book you get on Conjure, but it's a great start on a path into a new way of getting what you need done.
~review by Lisa McSherry
Author: Starr Casas
Weiser Books, 2024
pp. 184, $19.95
* Lived, as in what people do, not just what so-called authorities do in specific buildings on specific days of the week or write down in specific books.
