There are some books, and some ideas, that still do not appear on the internet. Google has somehow ignored certain things, and these truly esoteric teachings float around without the global peer-review afforded discussion platforms like this one. The Shotgun Miracle is one of those items Google seems to have failed to acknowledge, redirecting attempts to discover it toward unrelated violent events of more recent occurrence.
Several years ago, I was staying with a friend who had been contracted to renovate a large church for a black congregation. Three white men and their irregular roundup of alcoholics and addicts responsible for restoring not only the sanctuary but the whole building… in three months, to be ready for Christmas morning at which point everyone could get paid. It was miraculously completed in time, but it required staying all night almost every night including Christmas Eve. The place was beautiful in the end. They had a huge musical section, a lectern and book, lots of flowers, and a large brass bell.
This bell, they suggested, was used in the exorcism of demons. This place sat 400 people every week! In the book, it described an incident of the Shotgun Miracle, in which the freed slaves were fired upon but spared any injury due to their faith, and that it was a part of the church history. The book was full of black culture history about the establishment of churches that simply has not come online, even though it is preached in these huge public buildings you pass on the way somewhere else.
I will say that these people were in many ways comparable to the Mormons in terms of strict ethics and tidy presentation. They were good and goodly in all things, realistic, righteous, and enterprising. I must have attended service at every faith institution in the area at some point or another and these people were way better off in a lot of ways than a large percentage of the others. They were kicking the crap out of those demons and making good money at it.
These faith institutions are large and visible sections of the city, the people who attend them are numerous and distributed all throughout this particular city where black businesses thrive. In seeing how this has been established it reminds me in many ways of the African diaspora traditions, the rituals incorporating lots of music and the spirit interactions. A religious destiny established within the United States as opposed to the continent in general. This isn't a topic for the ATR section, but isn't it, kinda?
If anyone here is familiar with, say Pentecostal or similar practices, and have participated or would like to discuss some of those elements of rituals, that would be a fascinating thread. Few people get to see those rituals, but they are nonetheless public and not some initiatory things bound in blood oaths and such. The chickens stay in the kitchen with the brand new stained concrete floors, but there are nonetheless demons and spiritual doctrines, individual religious experiences, and other things very close to Magic if not explicitly occult.