Product Description

Magic has stepped out of the movies, morphed from the pages of fairy tales, and is more present in America today than you might expect. Soccer moms get voodoo head washings in their backyards, young American soldiers send chants toward pagan gods of war, and a seemingly normal family determines that they are in fact elves. National bestselling author and award-winning religion reporter Christine Wicker leaves no talisman unturned in her hunt to find what's authentic and what's not in America's burgeoning magical reality. From the voodoo temples of New Orleans to the witches' covens of Salem to a graveyard in north Florida, Wicker probes the secrets of an underground society and teaches lessons she never dreamed could be taught. What she learns repels her, challenges her, and changes her in ways she never could have imagined. And if you let it, it might change you, too.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #576867 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Released on: 2006-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
"Droll, deadpan humor." (Pages Magazine )

"Both witty and wise....a fascinating read for the curious about the state of magic in America." (Radiant Magazine )

"Impeccably researched . . . For the curious and open-minded, her book is marvelous." (Booklist (starred review) )

"Readers will find themselves unable to put this book down, absorbed in the story Wicker has to tell." (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

About the Author

Christine Wicker was raised in Oklahoma, Texas, and other parts of the South. Her mother's grandfather was an itinerant Baptist preacher, and her dad's father was a Kentucky coal miner. During her seventeen years at the Dallas Morning News, she was a feature writer, columnist, and religion reporter. She is the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed New York Times bestseller Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town That Talks to the Dead.

Customer Reviews

I'm in Kansas, and still surrounded by magic
This book is entertaining, witty, informative, and thought-provoking. It's also a bit distracting--no less than three times, I checked the cover to look for Sarah Vowel's byline. The same tongue-in-cheek style and keen insight that make Vowel's books so enjoyable characterize Wicker's writing. Once I settled down into the subtle differences between these two outstanding authors, I was able to focus on the book and enjoy it.

I've always found it interesting that one group can look at another group and snicker at how silly they are. That ancient tribe that smears animal entrails on their arms? Yeah, they are backwards and weird. But we are somehow blind to how silly many of our own beliefs are. And even more startling is how unaware most of us are about the beliefs of people who may be living right next door.

The subtitle "Dark arts, sex spells, money magic, and other things your neighbors aren't telling you" gives the reader a clue about what the book holds. Wicker takes us along on her research for the book, chronicling one interesting encounter after another. She begins by bringing us along to the Vampire and Victims Ball. The attendees are mostly people who believe they are actually vampires.

Through Wicker's eyes, we meet people who are obviously deluded (what else would you call folks who actually think they are vampires, elves, or werewolves?). Wicker doesn't take cheap shots at these people, but lets them speak for themselves and lets us hear what they have to say. Each of them has fairly complicated "background" to justify, explain, and "make real" their delusions. This would all be an Alice in Wonderland experience, except these aren't metaphorical characters. They are real people.

What may prove especially valuable to the astute reader is comparing the delusions of the "obviously odd" people to the beliefs that are accepted as truth among many mainstream religions. It's a healthy exercise for anyone to broaden his or her horizons a bit and ask some fundamental questions. Wicker asks a few of her own, and shares some lessons she learned during her adventure of researching this book. She doesn't claim to be right or have a patent on the truth. She merely claims to listen to what people say and to reflect upon it. Any reader who does the same would benefit.

Following the main part of this book is a four-part "plus" section:

1. A Note from the Author. She provides some personal thoughts on magic in America.
2. Do You Believe in Magic? This 20-question quiz may produce results that surprise you.
3. The Stats. Are you normal? Compare your beliefs to the statistics and see.
4. Power Foods. You may recognize some of these food myths, cherish some, and simply laugh at others.

The title is obviously a reference to the Wizard of Oz. Recall that Dorothy and Toto left "normal" Kansas and had their adventure in a magical land. But I have spent the last decade in Kansas and know magic and delusion are very much alive here. That explains the "18th century mentality" behind certain Kansas laws. We're not totally backwards here, though, and every culture has its oddities. Actually, Kansas is a mix of very advanced and very backward--but isn't every locality?

I think Wicker does us a favor by pointing out that superstitions and counter-reality beliefs abound. Such things aren't necessarily bad on the larger scale of things, and she points that out as well. But realizing that our own cherished notions may not be infallible can help us understand more about ourselves and others we encounter every day.


A note on the writing: form is important, as it dictates readability. Fortunately, this book scored very well on substance and on form. This book actually uses Standard Written English (SWE). This was a refreshing change from the Pidgin English that so many of today's authors slop onto our reading palettes. The care taken in writing this book shows that the author and publisher actually cared about the reader. That's a huge plus.

An Interesting Journey Into The Spiritual Underground
Well, before the regular readers of my online reviews think I have gone bananas for even considering a reading and review of a book about this sort of subject, please allow me to explain and attempt to justify my decision to take on this project. I have spent my entire intellectual life studying human beings and their behavior both as individuals and within a social context. This study has been personal, of course, in the sense that I have always been intellectually attracted to individuals who seem to live outside what would ordinarily be considered the "norm" or the "ordinary." I find such people very interesting as well as challenging and such individuals have always appeared to be rather comfortable around me because, I guess, I tend not to judge them or try to force them into arbitrary categories. I have argued this matter over the years in a series of essays called "The Psychiatric Game."

On the other hand, a great deal of my study has been traditionally academic. My college studies were primarily in philosophy and the social sciences, from politics to psychology to human history. Generally speaking, I doubt there is much out there in the "real" world that I have not seen, read about, or heard about sometime during the past sixty-plus years. This does not mean, however, that there is nothing new to learn about, particularly when it comes to the details about some aspects of what many of us refer to as the "human condition." That's why, I have always argued, the study of human beings is far more complex that the study of nuclear physics, molecular chemistry, or microbiology. While the social sciences have often been considered the so-called "soft" sciences, this is not true; indeed, the complexities involved in the study of human beings far exceed that of the so-called "hard" sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology.

And so we come (finally!) to my brief review of Christine Wicker's "Not in Kansas Anymore," a book about the dark arts, sex spells, money magic, voodoo, vampires, and a lot more "sinister" things. Wicker is a journalist and former religion reporter and not an "academic." Her book is about her own "personal" investigation into the subject and does not pretend to be an academic inquiry into the "darker sides" of human experience. Wicker is not just writing about some arcane subject from an "objective" point of view; she actually "lived" within the subject and reports what she saw, felt, heard, tasted, smelled, and thought. Take what one will from her experiences with witches, voodoo priests, self-proclaimed vampires, and so forth, one can't deny her "subjective" analyses of the encounters she experienced. One can, of course, choose to ignore what she reports or claim that it doesn't really matter or that it is simply a narrative about a "fringe" element which exists in our society but doesn't have any real influence. You'd be dead wrong on the latter two points.

Let's consider a few statistics that Wicker gives us in an appendix: Number of doctors who've had what they consider miracle cures - 55%; Number of Americans who report otherworldly experiences while near death - 34 to 40%; Number of eighteen- to twenty-year-olds who believe in ghosts - 54%; Number of American adults who believe in angels - 75%; Number who believe in psychic and spiritual healing - 54%. She also provides statistics regarding belief in witches, haunted houses, and astrology. The numbers are too impressive to simply dismiss as some aberration. So the subject Wicker takes on in her book does matter to a lot of people and they are obviously not a "fringe" group in our society.

According to the author, "magic" has been part of the American story since the early settlers first came to the continent. Furthermore, "magic" is still here and is around us all the time. Most of us just don't think about our own "magical" thoughts and ideas; we are too familiar with them; they are too much a common property of our lives; we tend to accept them as "normal." For instance, virtually all religions -- and that includes Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, and other major denominations, as well as religions considered by the mainstream to be more "cultic" -- have some element of what can be considered "magic" within their belief system. This statement, of course, may elicit a resounding denial from practitioners of mainstream American religions, but that is only because they won't use the term "magical" to refer to any of their beliefs.

Wicker forces us, however, to confront this issue. Consider this from the author: "Some Pentecostal preachers are so familiar with evil spirits that they have names for them and a hierarchy of rankings. Sightings of the Holy Mother Mary are rising all over the world." Christianity is founded upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; Catholics believe that the wafer of bread and the wine at the communion service are "actually" turned into the body and blood of Christ. Now to be sure, they don't call these events "magical." As well, the "coming-in of the Holy Spirit" and the "speaking in tongues" of some forms of Christianity are not considered "magical" by those believers in them, yet it is hard to tell the difference between those types of activities and the "magic" allegedly performed by practitioners of Wicca or some other "occult" belief. Jewish and Islamic "mysticism" also provides many examples of this phenomenon. One person's "magic" appears to be another person's "miracle" or "mystical experience."

Basically, what Wicker provides for us in "Not in Kansas Anymore" is a personal tour of some "underground" systems of religious or spiritual beliefs existing right now in our "enlightened" country. From seemingly ordinary people who consider themselves to be elves or vampires (and attend conventions!) to voodoo temples, witches' covens, and pagan rituals in urban America, this is an investigation into a part of our society which apparently is much larger than generally assumed. But there is more here than merely that. The reader will also learn some of the history behind these modern-day practices. And, believe me, there is a rich history here to be told.

While I do recommend this book to all readers, especially those interested in religious, spiritual, and philosophical matters, I do want to issue this warning. Some of what Wicker writes about will upset certain people. Parts of her narrative will strike a lot of people as being "odd" or "quirky." Many people, I am sure, will simply dismiss some of what she relates as being "irrelevant." But there is one thing I can say for sure: Wicker's book will force all readers to do some "rethinking" of their own beliefs about the world we live in and possible worlds in which we could live. Moreover, the serious reader may have to decide his or her own status in either place. "Magic" has always been a part of the human story; it's just that we humans have not always called it "magic."

Ricky Lake in Paperback
I had read Ms. Wicker's book on Lilly Dale and couldn't wait to read this book. Her insights into Lilly Dale gave me the idea that she might delve a little further into the world of magic than a surface scratch and some mumbo jumbo.

While I found some of the material in this book interesting, I found that much of this book explored the "Ricky Lake" kind of characters that daytime TV would go for. And I was disappointed by these explorations into drama and sensationalism that made this read more like a supermarket tabloid expose than a book that seriously looks at today's modern magical community and practices.

The book opens with "Vampire and Victims Ball" where the attendees discuss their need to be blood suckers or the victims of blood suckers. There was no tie to magic here; there is no reason to include this in the book, other than to point out that some of your neighbors may have social and psychological issues.

There are some discussions with Cat Yronwode that are interesting, touching on the magical community and it's diversities, yet Ms. Wicker seems sometimes to not take Cat's practices seriously or her husband's. As a matter of fact, when confronted by some of the more obscure practices she explores, Ms. Wicker seems to be very tongue in cheek in how she writes about them.

I found her experience with the rootworker Kioni to be the closest she may have come to a real practitioner of magics. And it does seem that of all the experiences she has in this book, this is one that makes the biggest impression on her. She seems to come away from that experience with the most confusion about what it is that magic and spirits and the magical community are all about. But she does not explore it much further than to find that she is confused but still steadfast in her own personal beliefs.

I do give her credit for being open minded enough to want to examine the magical community and to delve into the folk magic and hoodoo that is out there. While my own impression of the side trips she took into some fringe groups are not my choice to explore, she does come away with some ideas as to how and why these fringe groups exist.

I do notice that witches and Wiccans are briefly mentioned but not explored to their fullest. I also noted that she used fluffy terms when she mentioned Wicca. It seems that there are some ideas and misconceptions that she could have explored but found the fringe groups much more interesting.

Overall, I was disappointed with this book, not because Ms. Wicker isn't a good writer with an open mind, but because it comes across like journalistic sensationalism out to sell a book. It read more like a National Enquirer story than a story for the New York Times. I had hoped for better.

If you ever decide you want to explore witchcraft and Wicca, Ms. Wicker, drop me a line and we can leave the sensational journalism at the door and have a nice chat over some coffee and some chocolate bat's wing cookies. We are not exactly who you think we are. Boudica