Episode 89: On Ishmael Reed's 'Mumbo Jumbo,' or, Why We Need More Magical Thinking

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2021

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ishmael Reed's 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo is a conspiracy thriller, a postmodern experiment, a revolutionary tract, a celebration, and a magical working. It is a novel that, over and above prophetically describing the world we live in, creates a whole new world and invites us to move in. For Phil and JF, Mumbo Jumbo exemplifies art's creative power to generate new possibilities for life. It is also the perfect occasion for pinpointing the difference between the kind of magical thinking that fuels virulent conspiricism, and the more profound magical thinking which alone can save us from it. **Image: **Albrecht Dürer, Two Pairs of Hands with Book REFERENCES Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo Harold Bloom, The Western Canon For more on Colin Wilson's concept of lunar religion, see The Occult Weird Studies, episode 36: "On Hyperstition" William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch Carl Van Vechten, American writer Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, Illuminatus! MC5, "Kick Out the Jams" Karl Pfeiffer (dir.), Hellier, webseries Jasun Horsley, 16 Maps of Hell Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell), SSOTBME Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot Fats Waller, American jazz musician Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry Weird Studies, episode 57 - "Box of Gods: On Raiders of the Lost Ark" Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:23.3	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weird studies. This is Phil.
0:53.0	On this episode, J.F. and I discuss Ishmael
0:55.9	Reid's 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo. Mumbo is a lot of things. A madcap satire of race
1:03.9	in America, a secret alternative history of the 1920s, a cosmic conspiracy theory, but maybe most of all, it's a book about music.
1:14.1	Music is the aesthetic and spiritual impulse behind this novel. The story concerns a plague called
1:20.4	Just Gru, that causes people to dance and party with fleshy abandon. Just Gru is the power of
1:27.3	music to move bodies and raise up the soul.
1:30.4	It's actually not a plague at all, but an anti-plague.
1:34.4	Quote, some plagues caused the body to waste away.
1:38.1	Gisgrew enlivened the host.
1:40.7	Other plagues were accompanied by bad air, malaria.
1:44.8	Jess Gru victims said that the air was as clear as they had ever seen it,
1:49.0	and that there was the aroma of roses and perfumes which had never before enticed their nostrils.
1:55.1	Some plagues arise from decomposing animals, but Jess Gru is electric as life and is characterized by abulience and
2:03.5	ecstasy. Terrible plagues were due to the wrath of God, but Jess Gru is the delight of the
2:09.7	gods. End quote. Every 20 or 30 years, it seems, there will be an outbreak of Jess grew,
2:17.0	and thousands will be swept up in a joyful
2:19.2	ecstasy that the guardians of white supremacy will anxiously try to repress. But never completely,
2:25.4	and never for long, for how can anyone prevail against the power of music itself? And not just any
2:31.7	music, but music with the black mud sound.
	...

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