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The Ancestral Magic of Sinners
- Torri Yates-Orr
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
The Magician is often portrayed as a single person who can tap into the unconscious, but what if magic is the power that comes from a people? Can magic be innate, ancestral and cultural?
In An Open Life: Joseph Campbell in Conversation with Michael Toms, Campbell says:
The term “collective unconscious,” or general unconscious, is used in recognition of the fact that there is a common humanity built into our nervous system out of which our imagination works. (122)
What better way to examine our collective humanity than an action-packed vampire horror film?
If you haven't watched Ryan Coogler's 2025 film Sinners, be warned, there are spoilers ahead.
The horror film set a box office record earlier this year, and in my opinion, is a close to perfect film.
However, as I left the theatre, I remember feeling woozy and strange.
Something in me had activated.
Something in me had changed.
Something in me had remembered.
The alchemy of the blues
Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932, the film tells the story of the SmokeStack twins, Smoke and Stack, played by Michael B. Jordan, and their return home after a stint working with gangs in Chicago. Picking up their cousin, Sammie (Miles Caton), along the way, the twins decide to open a juke joint, a place for the black community to drink, dance, and lay down their worries in the post-Reconstruction South.
Music has always been an integral part of African American culture, serving as a way to alchemize pain, express joy, and hold on to our culture.
Music as alchemy. Music as magic.
As they're driving to the juke, elder musician Delta Slim is recounting the tragic lynching of his friend to Stack and Sammie. He starts to moan in lament. The sound of grief emanates from his body, but then, his moans turn to hums, and he starts beating out a rhythm on the dashboard with his hand, and you realize he's turning his grief into the blues.
We witness alchemy in real time.
I was overwhelmed by the realization that those who came before me had to find ways to create magic within themselves to cope with the pain of a world that was built by them, but not for them.
Have I been thinking of my ancestors only as people who endured instead of alchemists who transformed pain into magic?
The power of a people
The priest, saying Mass with his back to the congregation, is performing a miracle at his altar, much like that of the alchemist, bringing God himself into presence in the bread and wine, out of the nowhere into the here: and it matters not, to either God, the priest, the bread, or the wine, whether any congregation is present or not. The miracle takes place, and that is what the Mass, the opus, the act, is all about. (366)
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Vol. IV: Creative Mythology
The juke is open, and Sammie steps up to his altar, the stage, and plays a song that becomes the centerpiece of the entire film. "I Lied to You" is the opus Campbell speaks of. Sammie isn’t singing the blues; he is conjuring, channeling the ancestors of the past and the generations of the future through music. The audience sees Bootsy Collins-esque performers from the 1970s, ancient Zaoulie dancers from Côte d'Ivoire, and Peking opera dancers from China dancing with the crowd of the juke. Sammie's miracle culminates with the music reaching such a crescendo that it "burns the house down" and attracts the attention of our vampire antagonists, led by Remmick (Jack O'Connell).
Remmick, a vampire from Pre-Colonial Ireland, is drawn to the music because, in a way, it reminds him of his own. It reminds him of the culture he had before colonialism tried to rip it from him. Understanding the power of that connection to music, Remmick becomes laser-focused on turning Sammie into a vampire.
In my opinion, Remmick doesn’t want Sammie; he desires his connection to his people, his culture, to the "collective unconscious" Campbell speaks of. Remmick was severed from his connection, twice—through colonialism and becoming a vampire. He understands, even with all his abilities as a centuries-old vampire, that he wants the magic of the collective; he wanted connection and community.
It's no coincidence that when he eventually turns most of the people from the juke into vampires, they begin a traditional Irish dance.
Knowing
Even with all the vampires, musicians, and preachers in Sinners, perhaps no one embodies the Magician more than Annie (Wunmi Mosaku).
A former lover of Smoke, Annie is a practitioner of Hoodoo. When Smoke returns to town, he is dismissive of her spiritual practice. If Hoodoo worked, he asks, why didn't it save their child?
Annie simply says, "I don't know" with grief but acceptance.
All the magic in the world can't change what has already happened.
When the vampires approach the juke, Annie is the first one to suspect that they are not who they seem. She knows, but she throws bones, a form of divination, as a way of confirming. She throws once, and a look of knowing comes over her face; she throws again. The die is cast.
When Annie is bitten, she makes Smoke kill her to "free her soul" rather than be trapped in the body of the undead.
Inherently, Annie understands that the Magician's gift is to transform, but that there's power in not allowing oneself to be transformed.
Her magic is hers, she came in with it, and she’s leaving with it.
It comes from her, it will stay with her.
Even in the afterlife.
Conjure
"Blues wasn't forced on us like that religion. Nah, son, we brought that with us from home. It's magic what we do. It's sacred... and big."
Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo)
In Hoodoo, the word conjure is used more than magic.
To conjure is to summon, to bring forth—and with that definition, it means the magic already exists.
Sinners reminds us that magic isn't something made up; it's something to conjure and bring forth.
Magic is all who came before and will come after us.
Magic is trusting that inner knowing.
Magic is our people, our culture, and our shared collective humanity.
It's just asking us to remember them, to honor them and invite them in.
magic isn't something made up; it's something to conjure and bring forth.
MythBlast authored by:
Torri Yates-Orr is an Emmy-nominated public historian passionate about making history and mythology engaging, accessible, and informative. From exploring her genealogy to receiving a degree in Africana Studies from the University of Tennessee, the history was always her first love. Combining her skill set in production with her love of the past, she started creating history and mythology lessons for social media. Her "On This Day in History" series has over two million views. She's the content curator for the MythBlast newsletter for The JCF and co-host of the Skeleton Keys podcast.
This MythBlast was inspired by The Hero With a Thousand Faces and the archetype of The Magician.
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