Occult America_ The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation - Mitch Horowitz [63]
Unlike most stage magicians—who saw magic strictly as a hard-earned skill and disdained the claims of Spiritualists and psychics—Herman blended stagecraft and spellcraft, casting himself as both an entertainer and a master occultist. “I was born in the jungles of Africa,” he intoned, “where I learned the secrets of roots from the greatest tribal witch doctors. I learned the language of the animals. When I first came to this country, if I became hungry, I would merely call to a rabbit; one would come—and I would have rabbit stew!” Herman would then commence with a part of his act that involved his famous animal impersonations and ventriloquism.
Like his stage show, Herman’s 1925 memoir and guidebook, Secrets of Magic, Mystery & Legerdemain, was an unusual mixture of biographical myth-making, stage tricks, hoodoo formulas, astrology, and dream interpretation. It, too, framed magic as a way of resisting oppression: The cover showed a drawing of a caped Herman sitting astride a globe with a scroll marked POWER in his left hand; his right foot rested atop a pile of esoteric books with the names The Missing Key, The Key to Success, The Key to Happiness, and on the largest book the words, Black Herman COVERS the WORLD. Herman presented a dramatic anomaly in the field of professional magic, where a black performer—when employed at all—was typically cast as a clownish sidekick to a white magician. Black assistants often distracted the audience with pratfalls designed to conceal the headliner’s sleight of hand.
There would be no such demeaning roles for Black Herman. He had apprenticed himself to another African–American magician (“Prince Herman”) and entered the spotlight after his mentor died in 1909. But Black Herman aspired to be more than a lead performer. In true hoodoo fashion, Herman positioned himself in the footsteps of the great magician Moses—playing the part of a modern-day conjurer–emancipator. In his book, possibly ghostwritten by Henri Gamache, Herman noted:
Magicians have been in existence since the days of Moses. When Moses was commanded by the Lord to deliver the Israelites from bondage, did he not come in touch with magicians? Did not the good Lord use magicians to prove to Pharaoh that he was God and beside Him there was no other? If magicians were needed in the days of Moses and Pharaoh, they are needed again at this time.
Offstage, Herman presented himself as a model of worldly achievement, appearing in an elegant Prince Albert coat, tuxedo, and tails, with a pyramid-shaped amulet around his neck. In the 1920s, he was a well-known figure in New York’s Harlem, living in high style amid Oriental rugs, African masks, floor-to-ceiling murals, and antiques in his three-floor town house on West 136th Street. Herman claimed to readily loan money to neighbors and friends for rent and coal. He treated neighborhood kids to prizes in apple- and pie-eating contests. His stage shows and occult-product businesses provided full- and part-time work to dozens of people. Indeed, he could pack in crowds of four thousand a night at Marcus Garvey’s Liberty Hall. His was not a “race act” but a rare integrated stage show, attracting both black and white audience members. Never one for small plans, Herman dreamed of fashioning his Harlem town house into the headquarters of a “New Negro Renaissance,” and in the 1920s and ’30s he presided over Sunday-night salons with local businessmen, lawyers, and artists.
In a move of daring and self-confidence that rivaled any shown by Houdini, Herman one day revealed the peak of his personal powers. In his invaluable history of African–American stage magicians, Magical Heroes, writer Jim Magus relates how Herman once outsmarted a group of thieves who were out for money—and blood. One afternoon while on national tour, Herman took his