Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic and Commerce Book

Read this for American Black History Month. This is the kind of subject they don't teach in school...and probably won't. If you do an essay on it, you'll probably get an "A."
Now with the preceding hype aside, we can go into the review itself.
If this book could get seven stars, I would give it that. I respect the author's tenacity in researching this subject, considering the odds she faced as a white woman in the attempt of investigating the dying mystical practices among Afro-Americans...and similar practices thriving in Latino communities. It's not a comfortable read, because it shows how business destroys a spiritual practice by sometimes going too far to make as much money as possible as many times as possible at the expense of customers...who in this case, actually go out of their way seeking products and services without being prompted. Here, it's in the area of the metaphysical, but in my not-so-humble opinion, if profiteers can do this in the realm of magic(k) and spirituality, in some cases, not even being aware or caring about the most basic knowledge on how magic or spirituality work in theory or in practice, they can get away with it anywhere without knowing anything about any subject at all. And they do. And they continue to make it and fake it as they go along, causing all kinds of misinformation, mischief, and damage in their wake...damage that is difficult to clean up because of bad press. No area is sacred, nor will it be. If money can be made, even if an industry is regulated or not, or whether it's even legal or not, it will be made.
Remove the subject of spirituality and magic, and replace it with subjects like selling food, clothing, transportation, or any other necessity, and the similarities are clear. You are no longer marketing an item; you are now marketing images, experiences, and even status, with the product used only to stand in for the ideal. (Starbucks, McDonald's, Ford, Nike, Pepsi & Coke...in these last two cases, the drinks have no nutritional value, but that's not important anymore.) And once a business stops being lucrative, they simply throw products in the garbage, pack up, and leave. Or they just sell the business off to an interested buyer which might be more unscrupulous than the first...or just totally abandon it. Nevermind what the value might be to a loyal customer base. Money is money.
Anyway, this is not some dry history, nor is it all shocking and dark moments. Yeah, there are some gut-wrenching places and horrifying events, but there are times in the book where I just had to say, "You've got to be joking!" and laugh. But the problem is, this kind of abuse of people's trust really isn't that funny; it's serious. I never could fully trust the business world anyway, but after reading this, I have to come away and say that if there was such a thing as the satanic, the Devil could be declared a god of business. It's that despicable. This isn't just Capitalism at work....this is pure Capitalist extremism. (Making deals with the Devil, anyone?)
Carolyn Morrow Long tries her best to be neutral about the subject of this business side of magic and spirituality, but in a few places, and understandably so, it's just too difficult to do. Since I've been in a shop that sold items she describes in her book, I know what she's talking about. A few pieces of merchandise simply break the limits of acceptance for me...Why would anyone go so far as to sell mysticism in spray cans....really?? Yet these as metaphors are transferable to the marketing practices in other fields of business.
However, Long does point out that spiritual merchants, just like in any other business arena, do range from those who really care about what they're doing and about their customers and employees on one end, all the way to those on the other end who treat their product, their employees, their customers, and even their storefronts and warehouses with the utmost contempt...all they care about is making as much money as possible whenever possible.
*POLITICALLY INCORRECT STATEMENT ALERT*
As it stands, almost all the owners of spiritual merchandising past and present, not counting the rootworkers themselves, are either white or Jewish....hardly any of them are Black-owned. (This isn't including Latino owners, of which are many now; however, most cater to less magical and more religious Latino communities.) I think that's scary....understandable but scary, considering that once again, still another piece of Afro-American culture is disappearing, or is being ripped off by the dominant culture here in the United States for the sake of consumption and even entertainment.
Before people start saying, "This is what happens to people that are ignorant of science" or "Well, this kind of practice is forbidden by God anyway," remember, neither science nor religion is immune from these kinds of abuses in marketing what they themselves offer to the public, so it's best not to point fingers. There is no way science nor religion is all that pure, pristine and blameless. Needless to say, marketing, advertizing, and sales have already made major inroads into their respective fields, making both of them look questionable and all but as suspiciously illegitimate, as in the way magic is presently viewed by both. And because secular law is not perfect either, because of so many loopholes, not even it can always, or even will always, regulate so-called legitimate practices that go on in the name of science or religion. The law is supposed to be neutral, but most of us know it's not. It's because it's heavily influenced by the opinions of the scientific, religious, and mainstream social communities.
An example of this is Ms. Long mentioning the justice system's practice of racial profiling in the arrests and convictions of suspects practicing as rootworkers or selling spiritual products and services through the mail, citing laws that make practicing medicine without a license and selling fraudulent products illegal. (Question: What criteria were they using in order to determine the fraudulence or the legitimacy of a product or practice? Probably random criteria, if any.) Realistically speaking, this was a rather long stretch to use these kinds of secular laws to drag people into court, let alone using laws pertaining to herbal and symbolic remedies. This activity was out of their league to attempt to prosecute because they didn't fully get what was really going on, but did it matter? It's like dragging Jesus into a Roman court to get convicted. Like, what?
Oh, and the news media, which is also supposed to be neutral, had more mercy on whites than they did blacks. That doesn't happen anymore, does it? What else has the law and media selectively let others get away with now, and why? I'll leave readers to figure that out.
This is a really good book, but I suggest to avoid reading it if you're not prepared for the reality of business practices, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the shameful. After all, business does permeate every level of our society...you can't get away from it. Some people go into business because they want to help others. Some people do it because they want to make bank. And some are in business because they accidentally filled a niche when they least suspected it. I know I'm making these comments from a broader perspective, but I hope such a book makes us think about the businesses we run or start, or the companies we work for or apply to work for in general. Are we willing to be or work for someone, even if unethical or immoral, just to make a living? What would that say about us? Can we, or even should we, be more conscious, maybe even cautious, of what we're doing for a living? Or should we just shrug and say to ourselves, "Eh, it's a living...."