2. Conjure and African American religion

‘Conjure and African American Religion’ draws our attention to the continuity and discontinuity with African religious practices as well as a particular instance of a religious imagination, which differentiates itself from those who enslaved and discriminated against others. It shows how the debates in the field of religious studies about the difference between magic and religion fall apart when an oppressed people take up secret religious knowledge to make sense of their lives. Conjure is a religious practice that connects with a distant past, shadows Christian practice, and animates everyday life in ways that offer some semblance of control over circumstances that seem, at first glance, uncontrollable.