Peggy Chan Professor Emerita of Black Studies and Professor Emerita of Religion Yvonne Chireau served as a historical consultant for Sinners, the hit new Ryan Coogler film set in 1930s Mississippi. Written and directed by Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan, the film premiered April 18 and set box office records in its second weekend.

An expert on Black American religion, Chireau ensured the accuracy of religion and spirituality in the film, especially regarding Hoodoo, Christianity, rootwork, and conjure.

In a conversation with Religion Dispatches, Chireau, who is very selective when accepting consultation requests, recalls telling the award-winning director: “I don’t do horror, Ryan Coogler.” But after he outlined a scene set in a juke joint where the character Preacher Boy calls in spirits and the ancestors of his audience, Chireau agreed.

“I said, ‘You’re trying to convey Ancestral Time.’ And I thought, ‘Never mind the vampires. He’s got something here,’” says Chireau.

With more than 30 years of experience working alongside Black and Caribbean religious practitioners, Chireau emphasizes that she and the filmmakers were careful not to disclose protected knowledge. She hopes that practitioners see themselves represented accurately in the film.

Chireau notes that Sinners isn’t simply a vampire movie, but a historically accurate story steeped in Black culture, the realms of religion, and the blues. Coogler, a blues enthusiast, knew of Chireau’s writings discussing how blues is the “soundtrack for Hoodoo,” and framed the spiritual experiences in the film with music.

“The blues were the first commercially produced music to explicitly embrace the culture from which conjuring traditions emerged,” says Chireau, author of Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition. 

Chireau advised the filmmakers about Hoodoo, Vodou, and other spiritual traditions in the film. She ensured the accuracy of references to Ancestral Time, where the ancestral world’s nonlinear continuum surfaces in the present, and Mojo bags, pouches that have spiritual properties in conjure practices. 

Chireau also worked closely with actor Wunmi Mosaku for several weeks to develop her character Annie, a Hoodoo practitioner and herbalist. At the Sinners premiere, Mosaku said that Chireau’s consultation on the development of Annie reflected the filmmakers’ deep respect for the culture, religion, practice, and wisdom of the conjuring women of Louisiana and West Africa.

“The sacred and the secular, at least in Black culture, are imbricated in these spaces of performance,” says Chireau. “Whether it’s the juke joint or the church.” 

This spring, Warner Bros. interviewed Chireau on campus in the Intercultural Center’s Big Room for a short documentary discussing her work on Sinners and expertise in Hoodoo, conjure, and rootwork. The interview will be included in the home entertainment release of the film. 

Chireau, who joined Swarthmore’s religion faculty in 1993, taught classes on American religions, Africana and Afro-Atlantic religions, and magic and religion studies until retiring in December 2024. She will address the Class of 2025 at Baccalaureate during Commencement Weekend in May.

Watch Chireau discuss African American religious traditions and ancestral recovery: