Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: "There Is a Mystery"… -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- List of Contributors -- Introduction: Africana Esoteric Studies: Mapping a New Endeavor -- Part 1: (Pre-) 19th Century -- 1 Esoteric Writing of Vodou: Grimoires, Sigils, and the Houngan's Notebook -- 2 Paschal Beverly Randolph in the African American Community -- 3 The Self Divine: Know Ye Not that Ye are Gods? -- Part 2: Early to Mid 20th Century -- 4 Working Roots and Conjuring Traditions: Relocating Black 'Cults and Sects' in African-American Religious History -- 5 Spirit is Universal: Development of Black Spiritualist Churches -- 6 The Harlem Renaissance as Esotericism Black Oragean Modernism -- 7 Mathematical Theology: Numerology in the Religious Thought of Tynnetta Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan -- 8 On the Knowledge of Self and Others: Secrecy, Concealment and Revelation in Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam (1934-1975) -- 9 Post-Imperial Appropriation of Text, Tradition, and Ritual in the Pseudonymous Writings of Henri Gamache -- 10 Mystery Matters: Embodiment and African American Mystics -- 11 Show and Prove: Five Percenters and the Study of African American Esotericism -- 12 The "Nu" Nation: An Analysis of Malachi Z. York's Nuwaubians -- 13 Sacred Not Secret: Esoteric Knowledge in the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors -- Part 3: Late 20th Century to Present-day -- 14 Astro-Black Mythology: The Poetry of Sun Ra -- 15 Conjurational Contraptions: Techno-Hermeneutics, Mechanical Wizardry, and the Material Culture of African American Folk Magic -- 16 Portraying Portraits: The Intersectionality of Self, Art, and the Lacanian Gaze in the Nahziryah Monastic Community -- 17 Those Mysteries, Our Mysteries: Ishmael Reed and the Construction of a Black Esoteric Tradition.

18 Rockin' for a Risen Savior: Bakongo and Christian Iconicity in the Louisiana Easter Rock Ritual -- 19 Pole Dancing for Jesus: Negotiating Movement and Gender in Men's Musical Praise -- 20 Wonder Working Power: Reclaiming Mystical and Cosmological Aspects of Africana Spiritual Practices -- Conclusion: The Continuing Quest to Map Secrecy, Concealment, and Revelatory Experiences in Africana Esoteric Discourse "There Is a Mystery…" -- Afterword -- Bibliography -- Index.