A Bomb Ass Book List for Saints, Saviors and Sinners

Now that you've seen the new Ryan Coogler film, Sinners, check out these books from my personal reading library that address the provocative subjects explored in the film's narrative.

A theater film can potentially be many things besides a medium of self-gratification and entertainment.

A meaningful film can make having difficult conversations easier (Jordan Peele’s Get Out) while challenging you to expand your perception of your life and the overall nature of reality (Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar).

Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners, is one of those offerings. From what I can see online it’s fostering conversations about Black Greed in pursuit of the pro-capitalist ethos, the intrinsic purpose of Black music beyond the superficiality of pop culture and mass consumerism, egotism vs love, and the virtues of indigenous spirituality.

A lot of these topics have long been explored in depth in both fictional and non-fictional books. However a lot of people don’t like to read, because they do not have the reference to generate visual images in their minds that directly correspond to what they are reading about. If you do not have a visual reference for every word on the page, then you are generating faded, murky images in your mind.

Now that the cinematography of Sinners has allowed many to see clearly, I’d like to introduce a brief list of books from my personal reading history that will allow you to delve even deeper into the film topics at hand.

I’m not including my own books The Treasures of Darkness or Da Homey in Modern Dahomey, because I already touched on some of them in my previous post. There’s no need to be redundant. So here goes:

Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock & Roll

This book explores how the blues, Jazz, Rock & Roll—and practically every musical genre created by Black Americans (with the sole exception of gospel) was initially demonized by white America and the Black Church as “the devil’s music.” It also touches on how African spirituality always played a role in the development of Black American musical artforms.

Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition

Yvonne P Chireau wrote a highly comprehensive work on Black hoodoo tradition, and spiritual retentions from West African cultures like Senegal and Dahomey and their sometimes complicated relationship with the Black Church. Chireau explains the differences between “Hoodoo” and what has been identified as “Voodoo” in North America.

I personally see hoodoo as more of an expression of indigenous Black American science and medicine with a hint of Black Irish gnosis thrown into the mix. Other researchers may have a difference of opinion.

The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work

This is an interesting one. It’s written from the perspective and life experience of a real-life practicing Vampire!

I read this over 20 years ago and was very intrigued by it. According to the author, Vampirism is a natural phenomenon because some people naturally produce and abundance of bio-spiritual energy that they “don’t need” therefore it is fair game to leech off of their life force. This is some sick shit.

Back in 2006 I had an experience where I was in a Manhattan train station and a woman whom I didn’t know got really close to me in a way that was really awkward. We didn’t know each other, we weren’t together, yet this very pale white woman—who was slightly Gothic in her appearance—stood right next to me when there was PLENTY of space for her to stand somewhere else.

Now if you are woman reading this, you know that you are generally very protective of your personal space and you’re not going to intentionally stand up under a man you don’t know unless YOU want to. Anyone glancing at us may have assumed that she was with me, but she was not.

I intuited what she was doing because I had already read this book. I staired at her forcing her to make eye contact with me. As soon as she looked into my eyes she went far away from me without either of us saying a word. I played it cool, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little rattled. But yeah, vampires are real. Most don’t bite your neck in an attempt to suck your blood.

They try to steal your time when you’re trying to get work done. They require your gaze for no one else’s benefit but their own. In this book the author says that natural vampires have a sixth sense for who radiates an abundance of energy to feed off.

Don’t just read to better understand yourself or to find people saying things that you already believe. Read to better understand people who may be looking to undermine you. Real vampires are everywhere and they come in all skin tones. Often times, they’re in your own family.

My Soul to Keep

I actually need to reread this book which I got pretty deep in but never finished. This was my mother’s book that she ranted and raved about when I was a teenager. I ended up buying her the follow-up to this story, The Living Blood, which I myself I have never read. I heard that it was good, but not as good as this one.

The 1992 bar scene in Sinners got me thinking about this novel as I watched it unfold on the screen. It’s time for My Soul to Keep to hit the silver screen.

Imagine a dramatic thriller centered around Moorish immortals steeped in occult ritual in a modern American metropolis. Endless flames.

The Science of Love

In the film Sinners, the characters Stack and Smoke were twins, but their physical appearance was one of the few things that they shared in common.

The two men had different sets of values, and therefore chose two totally different women. Getting fixated on the race of the women is a big mistake because it obscures the fact that the men’s love interests are as different internally as they are externally. In day to day life, this isn’t always the case.

Stack’s love interest Mary is a woman of mixed ancestry passing for being white while pining for Black social acceptance as she uses her white privilege to “open doors” for Black people. Annie, on the other hand, is a spiritually rooted hoodoo woman who supports her man with her mind, body, and spirit but has the strength of character to tell Smoke when he is wrong. Smoke has the humility and emotional maturity to listen to his woman.

This book is written by Rosicrucian author, John Baines who explores what is healthy life affirming love between a man and woman verses toxic, selfish love. It’s a metaphysical book, that adds practical value to the reader. Everyone should own it.