Voodoo: The Revolutionary Roots of the Most Misunderstood Religion

Is Voodoo misunderstood? Learn about the religion's revolutionary roots and the truth behind the many stereotypes associated with it.



Olivia Barrett, BA & MA History

The Collector

January 23, 2022 

Black magic, devil worship, zombies, human sacrifice, orgies, and cannibalism are many people's frame of reference when it comes to Voodoo.

This small religion has a big cultural impact and a decidedly sinister reputation. Over two centuries of hostile propaganda have morphed Voodoo into a deeply racialized form of witchcraft in the popular imagination. In the wake of decades of racist sensationalism, the commercialization of Voodoo continually manipulates tourists' fascination with the unfamiliar. Today's Vodouisants are still forced to compete with a persistent distrust of their traditions.

Whether it is feared or mocked, Voodoo almost always inspires a kind of morbid curiosity in outsiders. But what is Voodoo really? Where did it come from? Why is it so misunderstood?
The Birth of Voodoo

Contrary to popular opinion, Voodoo (or voudou) is not a form of witchcraft or demonic worship. It is a folk religion originating from Haiti that came into being when Africans were captured and forced into slavery, causing their cultures and religious beliefs to collide with Catholicism.

The African roots of Voodoo may stretch back over 6000 years, making it one of the world's oldest ancestral traditions. The more modern incarnation of this ancient African religion—Voodoo—emerged as a unique blend of Catholic and African magical and religious rites. Voodoo, however, is a dynamic religion with no standardized dogma. It is quite common and completely acceptable for two neighboring voodoo temples to practice different traditions. So defining Voodoo and the beliefs of its practitioners can be tricky.

That said, there are recognizable threads that unite the varying traditions of Voodoo. The African elements of the religious practice are derived mainly from the Dahomey region of West Africa (modern Benin) and from the Yoruba, Fon, and Ewe peoples of West Africa and the Kongo people from Central Africa. Many elements of African spirituality continue to exist in modern Voodoo, in the practices of transcendental drumming and dancing, worship of the ancestral dead, and worship of the spirits called lwa.

The lwa (or "loa") are thought to be invisible supernatural beings that serve as intermediaries between humans and the supreme creator God known in Haitian Creole as Bondye (from the French "bon dieu" meaning "good God"). Despite the importance of the lwa, Voodoo, like Christianity, is a monotheistic religion.
Christian Elements in Voodoo

There are clearly recognizable Christian elements of Voodoo. Those unfamiliar with the practice might be surprised to learn that it has a lot in common with Catholicism, including prayers such as the Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary, and rituals such as baptism, making the sign of the cross, and the use of candles, crosses, and images of saints. Some followers of Voodoo self-identify as Catholics and regard the saints and the lwa as different embodiments of the same entities. Other Vodouisants choose to distance themselves from identification with Catholicism and Christianity in general, holding that Catholic imagery and ritual in Voodoo was and is a mere facade intended to disguise African spiritual practices as Catholic rites.

The initial adoption of Catholic rites, after all, was indeed a result of European colonists' ruthless attempt to suppress all aspects of African culture, particularly so-called "heathen" religious beliefs. In Haiti and across the Atlantic world, enslaved Africans were forced to toil in merciless conditions. Their homes, property, families, and communities were all torn away. They had very little left except their faith to which they clung tenaciously.

In Haiti, as elsewhere, there was an attempt to strip them of that. In 1685 the French king Louis XIV passed Le Code Noir, a decree that dictated the lawful conditions that were applied to slaves and slaveholders across the French colonial empire. Le Code Noir specified that slaves must be baptized as Roman Catholics upon arrival in the French colonies and that the practice of any other religion was forbidden. Slavers who allowed or even tolerated their captives' subversive religious habits would be punished along with them.

But the colonists were outsmarted. As aforementioned, African and Catholic practices became integrated as a way of circumventing religious oppression so that the enslaved population could continue to practice their own religious customs under the guise of worshipping Catholic saints. For this reason, many lwa became equated with specific saints. Papa Legba, for instance, the lwa guardian of the crossroads and spiritual gatekeeper in Voodoo traditions, is associated with Saint Peter. Another lwa, Ezili Dantor, is thought to be a protective warrior mother and is the national lwa of Haiti. Syncretic modern representations of her are commonly associated with the Black Madonna of Częstochowa.

The lwa are crucial to Vodouisants' practice since Bondye is thought to be too distant for humans to contact directly. Believers recite prayers and perform sacrifices to call and feed the spirits. Once the spirits have been beckoned, the Vodouisants dance, hoping to be possessed or "mounted" by the lwa. This tradition is often met with suspicion, primarily because in European and Euro-American Christian cultures, possession is associated with the devil and demons. But for Vodouisants, to be possessed by a spirit is an honor and humanity's primary means of communication with the divine. It is believed that the spirits communicate through possession, by which they can offer guidance to the worshipper, heal them or even speak to the congregation through them. In fact, many Haitians today believe that the lwa helped their ancestors break the shackles of slavery.
The Haitian Revolution and Voodoo's Arrival in Louisiana

On the night of 14 August 1791, as the story goes, slaves from a few neighboring plantations stole away in the night to meet deep in the forest at Bois Caïman, in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue. There, gathered around a bonfire, mambo Cécile Fatiman presided over a ceremony. The priestess prophesied that a revolution was coming. She said that it would be led by three of the men in her presence: Jean François, Georges Biassou, and Jeannot Bullet.

Slitting the throat of a black creole pig, Fatiman handed each a cup of the sacrifice's blood to drink as they swore their solemn oath to destroy their oppressors. According to folklore, at that very moment, storm clouds gathered and thunder rumbled as Fatiman was possessed by Ezili Dantor. The warrior mother lwa then bore witness to the beginning of what would become the Americas' first black republic: Haiti.

Thus began one of the most consequential movements in the history of the Atlantic slave trade. The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was a spectacularly successful insurrection that overthrew the white colonist population and freed black Haitians from enslavement. It was also responsible for bringing Voodoo to the United States. Over the course of those 13 years, many white planters fled Haiti with their slaves in tow, bringing their traditions and beliefs to Louisiana.

Louisiana, and more specifically New Orleans, then became the epicenter of Voodoo in the United States. This cultural import from the Caribbean had a profound influence that can still be felt today. But unfortunately, the average tourist's experience of Voodoo in New Orleans may be warped by the persistent processes of misrepresentation that crystallized over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and really never went away.
The Evolution of Voodoo in the United States

Due to its unique history, Louisiana had a very different ethnic and religious makeup to the rest of the United States by the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. At this time, the other states already had a unique American identity, having declared independence from Britain around twenty-seven years prior. Louisiana was not only late to the game in becoming an American state, but it was quite culturally distinct, having been a Spanish and French Catholic colony. Worse still, most of the black enslaved population in Louisiana had come from Haiti.

This was significant, given that the Haitian Revolution had been such a crucial turning point in the history of slavery, striking fear into the hearts of slavers across the Americas. It was the only slave insurrection that had seen success on such a remarkable scale, having overthrown a colonial government, abolished slavery, and installed the formerly enslaved people in power. The self-liberated slaves hit back at France, one of the most powerful empires in the world, and won.

Haiti and Haitians themselves, therefore, were seen to represent an enormous threat to the colonial world. Voodoo, as something unique to Haiti at that time, was viewed as an important factor. The authorities (like many of the enslaved) believed that Haitian Voodoo religious leaders and even the lwa had had a hand in instigating the rebellion. Now these Haitian Voodooists were on American soil and had brought their "dangerous spirits" and "heathen" religion with them. This, slavers feared, could be Antebellum America's downfall.
Voodoo in the American Imagination

Emphasizing these supposed ties between Voodoo and slave rebellions was one of the most important social functions of post-Civil War public Voodoo narratives. As historian Michelle Gordan has argued, Voodoo narratives were used to establish black criminality and hyper-sexuality as "fact" in the popular imagination; the practice of Voodoo could then be cited as evidence to justify racism and segregation. The exploitation of these phobias is strikingly apparent in the nineteenth-century newspapers and magazines that described rampant sexual hedonism, gory rituals, and even human sacrifice.

Take for instance a story published in the Daily Picayune in 1889, melodramatically entitled "Orgies in Hayti — A Story of Voudou Horrors That Pass Belief". The author claimed that Vodouisants engaged in wild interracial orgies, carried out violent sacrifices, and had even cannibalized a little girl. The correspondent from New York claimed to have gathered this disturbing information while undercover in attendance at a Haitian ritual, "disguised" in blackface.

Like many alleged eyewitness accounts of its time, the story offers precious little in terms of credible information, instead relying almost entirely on sensationalist, highly racist propaganda and stereotypes:

"On this occasion a white goat was sacrificed, but my guide informed me that last year he was present… where a female child was stupefied with drugs, [her] veins opened and the blood sucked." The reporter then goes on to insist that, though it "seems incredible… well authenticated cases where recently buried bodies have been exhumed, cooked and devoured by the almost completely barbarous inhabitants… have been heard of."

Such violence, demonic rituals, and bloody sacrifices served to "prove" the supposed barbarity of people of Haitian/African descent in the white imagination. The sensationalistic reports of Vodouisants and their purportedly monstrous rituals could then be used to undermine Louisiana's notably radical Reconstruction and emphasize the imagined horrors of black enfranchisement and desegregation. White newspapers ran stories promising "Full Particulars of the Hell-Broth and Orgies" with such astonishing regularity that by the late 1880s, a prominent African American newspaper called the New York Age lamented that "It seem as if each [newspaper] had a special agent to work in this particular field."

Likewise, in the twentieth-century public, Voodoo narratives continued to rely on those racial and sexualized tropes, appropriating Voodoo as a form of gaudy entertainment. The image of Voodoo in the public imagination morphed into something slightly more complex as movies and novels shifted the focus away from "news reports" and towards sensationalistic fiction. Voodoo came to be seen as something fascinating, alluring, erotic even – but simultaneously dangerous and frightening.

This tantalizing sort of evil is palpable in films such as Douglas Fowley's Macumba Love (1960. In the film, an American writer and his son-in-law are beset by a South American "Voodoo Queen" seeking to pursue her insatiable lusts, both for blood and sexual gratification. The theatrical release poster demonstrates the blatantly prejudiced overtones of the narrative, depicting the image of a ghoulish woman in a skeletal mask, holding a screaming infant over a flaming black cauldron while scantily-clad dancers revel in the violent ritual. Meanwhile, the captions read, "Blood-lust of the VOODOO QUEEN! Weird, Shocking, Savagery in Native Jungle Haunts…" The imagery and lexicon here used to describe Voodooists and their practices is very telling. It employs the very same racist appeals to the so-called "savagery" and "weirdness" of Voodoo to inspire shock and horror in its audience. Those same methods are still often used to represent Voodoo in film and television and to sell touristic experiences in New Orleans.
Voodoo Today

From the 1960s up until the present day, Voodoo in the United States has been used as a source of entertainment and a tourist attraction quintessential to New Orleans. Nowadays, the city's tourists are sold things like mass-produced Voodoo dolls, "blessed" chicken's feet, and ghost tours, most often touted by people with no real connection to the religion but a desire to capitalize on its notoriety. But its cliché-ridden public image is in dire need of an update.

In an effort to tackle the prejudiced ideas surrounding Voodoo, institutions across the world such as the New Orleans Voodoo Museum, the Bureau of Ethnology in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Chateau Musée Vodou in Strasbourg, France, serve to offer the curious public a more educational insight into the history of this deeply misunderstood religion. Centers of art and research that are sensitive to Voodoo's unique cultures and history help combat the misconceptions that continue to undermine it.

Meanwhile, there has also been an upsurge of interest in the spiritual practice of Voodoo amongst Americans, but especially in Voodoo's spiritual heartland, Louisiana. Today there is a plethora of mambos and hougans (priestesses and priests) who serve a multi-racial community of believers who are serious students and followers of Voodoo. New Orleans' modern intelligentsia are waking up to the potential of a religion that is seemingly much more in tune with contemporary liberal ideologies than more traditional Western faiths. As Wesleyan University's Elizabeth McAlister pointed out in an interview with The Guardian, Voodoo is a religion with equality at its very core.

Voodoo affords its priests and priestesses and its male and female followers equal status. Moreover, it also seems that in Voodoo, all followers are valued and respected, including LGBT folks. McAlister notes that Voodoo inherently embraces notions of gender fluidity; female spirits can take possession of male bodies, and male spirits can possess the bodies of women. Poignantly, it is even believed that gay lwa can "adopt" and serve as protectors for young gay adults. Voodoo, having been so demonized and stigmatized throughout its existence, is by its very nature "radically un-judgmental".
Voodoo: Conclusion

Modern Voodoo is still recovering its reputation in the wake of a smear campaign that has lasted for over two centuries (and still has not entirely let up). This legacy of Voodoo's complex history is very much recognizable today. Nonetheless, more and more people are becoming cognizant of Voodoo's complicated yet fascinating story and its practitioners' rich cultural heritage.



By Olivia Barrett BA & MA History Olivia holds a BA from University College London and an MA in History from the University of Manchester, England. She specializes in histories of gender, sexuality and religion, with a particular interest in how the beliefs, folklore and mythologies of the past manifest in the present.





https://www.thecollector.com/voodoo-history-misunderstood-religion/

'Voodoo Is Part of Us'

Inside a religious Haitian soiree in Brooklyn.

Gina Cherelus
November 21, 2019

The New York Times

In a dark club in Downtown Brooklyn, surrounded by more than 100 people, Agathina Ginoue Nozy took a sip of Haitian rum. She stood near an altar stacked with skulls, lit candles, cigars, rum, coffee and bowls filled with charred salt fish, boiled plantains, cassava and piman (spicy peppers).

“You typically drink white liquor during Fet Gede, but if there is none you drink rum with no ice to feel the heat,” Ms. Nozy said. “Gede is a hot thing.”

Her face was painted to look hollow, like a skull, and she wore a dark skeleton bodysuit and a black veil. With her fingers wrapped around a smoking pipe and an austere look on her face, Ms. Nozy had become the embodiment of Maman Brigitte, a Haitian lwa (or goddess) of death.

Voodoo believers, Haitians and curious partygoers gathered last Saturday night to celebrate Fet Gede, or the Festival of the Dead.

Similar to Mexico’s Day of the Dead, Gede invites revelers to dress up, eat, drink and dance to honor the lwas and the ancestors who came before them. It is one of the most anticipated celebrations in the Haitian voodoo religious calendar.

Ms. Nozy, a 29-year-old Haitian immigrant who was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, moved to New York City just before she turned 17. As someone who believes in voodoo, she looks forward to the celebration each year, but acknowledges that many people, including Haitians, lack an understanding of what it is.

They believe that the religion “has something to do with black magic,” Ms. Nozy said. “Voodoo is part of us. It’s who we are. It’s the culture. Voodoo is the food that we eat. It’s the language that we speak.”

What voodoo is not, contrary to popular belief, is a dark spell-casting practice full of pin-dolls and demonic prayers, said the party’s organizers, Monvelyno Alexis, 43, and Riva Précil, 30, a husband and wife musical duo who have organized one of the city’s most popular Fet Gede events for the past seven years.

This means that the event of Fet Gede can be somewhat misunderstood, too.

“I know a lot of Haitians that dress up their kids for Halloween. But when it comes to Gede they say I am not interested in that thing,” Ms. Nozy said.

“Our generation is more open-minded when it comes to the voodoo religion,” said Ms. Nozy, who was part of a large crew at the party that night.

At the club, guests were dressed in the official Gede colors — black, purple, and white — and danced to rhythmic drumming. The room was thick with smoke from incense and cigars.

The night kicked off with a rum tasting at the altar, which helped guests get in the Gede mood. As Ms. Nozy and her crew danced, one man splattered Florida Water — a perfume used in voodoo for spiritual cleansing and protection — over their heads, leaving a sweet citrus and floral scent that covered the room. At times, Ms. Nozy and others would scream, throw their hands in the air or slam a wooden cane into the ground.

Fet Gede is observed typically in early November, although it can be celebrated all month.

Rituals include a special Gede dance, Banda, and making offerings to the spirits, the most famous of whom is Baron Samedi, known as the god of death (he is also the husband of Maman Brigitte, the goddess of death), Ms. Précil said. Together, both spirits — the Baron and Maman — revel in eroticisms, obscenities and drinking.



The ancestors, Ms. Précil said, like to party. “They don’t have the same restrictions or rules as we do here on earth,” she said. “They’re very fearless, so it’s a time where we sort of channel their ways and celebrate them by taking on their way of life.”

Haitian voodoo is a religion that emerged out of institutional slavery.

Starting in the mid-1600s, many Africans who had been brought against their will to the Island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) arrived with their own spiritual traditions, eventually integrating them with those of the indigenous people of the island. As a result, voodoo, which means “spirit,” was born.

Voodoo, often spelled Vodou, is still regarded by many Haitians as the spiritual source of the country’s strength, healing and resilience.

Mr. Alexis said that voodoo isn’t something he practices or follows with a strict set of rules; it is more of a connection. He emphasized the importance of working to help Haitians reconnect with voodoo through events like this one.

“Whenever somebody asks us questions we always answer them,” he said. “We want to bring the Haitian way back to Haitians.”

Despite more than 80,000 Haitian immigrants in New York City, Gede celebrations aren’t that common, Ms. Précil said. If her ever-expanding parties are proof, however, she sees a growing interest in the event. The couple has been asked recently to bring their party to parts of Canada and even Haiti.

Music and dance are key for a successful Gede. Last weekend, Mr. Alexis and Ms. Précil each sang, accompanied by a live band, and Ms. Nozy performed a Haitian folklore dance, gyrating and chanting to the drummer’s beat. The energy of the crowd swelled as the room became more congested, everyone trying to inch closer to the show.

Folks could be seen taking shots of liquor and eating different Haitian dishes, including griot (fried pork) or banan peze with pikliz (plantains with spicy pickled cabbage).

There was a tarot card reader and a face painter. At one point there was even a trivia contest, testing partygoers on their knowledge of Gede trivia and traditions.

“This is something that our ancestors left for us and we need to cherish it,” Ms. Nozy said. “Even though you’re not in Haiti, if you’re living in a foreign country, the culture is still alive. And it’s in you.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/nyregion/fetgede-voodoo-haiti.html

The Witches of Baltimore

Young black women are leaving Christianity and embracing African witchcraft in digital covens.

SIGAL SAMUEL

The Atlantic
November 5, 2018

“We may not be Christian here, but we still pray,” said a woman dressed entirely in white as she addressed a large audience of African American women. Standing behind a lectern, speaking in the cadences of a preacher, she added, “I understand God more now, doing what I’m doing, than I ever did in the Church.”

The call and response that followed (“No one’s going to protect us but who?” “Us!”) was reminiscent of church—but this was no traditional sermon. The speaker, Iyawo Orisa Omitola, was giving the keynote address last month at the third annual Black Witch Convention, which brought together some 200 women in a Baltimore reception hall. The small but growing community points to the hundreds of young black women who are leaving Christianity in favor of their ancestors’ African spiritual traditions, and finding a sense of power in the process.

African American witchcraft originated in West Africa, the birthplace of Yoruba, a set of religious traditions focused on reverence for ancestors and worship of a vast pantheon of deities known as orishas. Those traditions accompanied West Africans who were brought to the Americas as slaves, and were eventually combined with Western religions, such as Catholicism, that many slaves were pushed to embrace.

By the early 19th century, Cuban Santeria, Brazilian Candomblé, Haitian Vodou, and other syncretistic faiths had emerged as a result. In cities like New Orleans, voodoo (slightly different from Haitian Vodou) and hoodoo, which also descend from West African faiths, grew popular. These practices—which often involve manipulating candles, incense, or water to achieve a desired result—may have helped give slaves some sense of power, however minimal.

Modern black witches are practicing Yoruba-based faiths, with a few Millennial touches. They build altars to ancestors so they can seek their advice on everything from romance to professional advancement, cast spells using emojito help banish depression, surround themselves with crystals in the hope that they will relieve stress, and burn sage to cleanse their apartments of negative energy.

Some hallmarks of Millennial spirituality are common to both white and African American witches. They’re typically disillusioned with hierarchical institutions—the Catholic Church, for example—and attracted to do-it-yourself “spiritual but not religious” practices such as the use of crystals. But the budding black-witch community also has unique traits, including a desire for “safe spaces,” a wariness of cultural appropriation, and a penchant for digital religion.

Many black witches, nervous about practicing witchcraft openly, feel more comfortable meeting online than in person. Some fear they’ll be shamed by devout Christian parents, according to Margarita Guillory, a Boston University professor who studies Africana religion in the digital age.

“The internet is almost becoming like a hush harbor for these witches of color,” Guillory said, referring to places where slaves gathered in secret to practice their religions in antebellum America. Online, an avatar or a handle allows women to speak freely. A popular Tumblr promotes inspirational images of black witches and Facebook groups for the women have thousands of members each, while some have even developed smartphone apps.

Some young women at the Baltimore convention told me their parents had long hid their grandmothers’ or great-grandmothers’ involvement with witchcraft—a decision the Millennials resented, until they realized their parents may have felt the need to suppress any talk of magic because their ancestors were harshly punished for their rituals. New Orleans, for example, saw sweeping arrests of voodooists in the 19th century.

Monica Jeffries, a 28-year-old teacher who had playfully donned a pointed witch hat for the convention, grew up in the Apostolic Church, but she broke ties with it four years ago. She said her mother had “forced” Christianity on her. Jeffries sometimes calls home trying to figure out why. “I’m asking her questions about Christianity, and I’m like, ‘Why would you do this to us?’ She still can’t give me answers.”

While some Millennials enter the black-witch community seeking answers, others are simply hungry for a place where they can belong. Mambo Yansa, a witch who grew up in Panama, told me witchcraft serves as a “safe haven” for some LGBT youth who don’t feel welcome in the Church. The number of online posts by and about LGBT witches attests to the overlap between queer and witch communities.

Empowerment was an unmistakable aspect of the Black Witch Convention. Replete with talk of sexual trauma, suppression, and self-acceptance, it felt like group therapy. Women cried or spoke in trembling voices as they described experiences of abuse.

“While the #MeToo movement is out there, there are still African American women out there who don’t have a voice. We are not represented,” Omitola said in her keynote. “One thing I know from studying African religions is, I have never seen one subservient goddess. So why are we sitting here thinking we have to be subservient?”

Omitola went on to differentiate between African witchcraft and “New Age shit,” like the witches who gather to hex President Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. But some of the black witches’ practices—astrology, say—are what the Pew Research Center considers New Age. In fact, a recent Pew study found that the rate of belief in New Age ideas is especially high among the communities that many convention attendees came from: historically black Christian denominations.

The study’s finding that New Age and Christian traditions often coexist in the same person was on full view at the convention. While some witches told me they were finished with Christianity, others said they still attend church, and argued that Christianity and African witchcraft are complementary, not mutually exclusive. As Omitola put it, “The Bible ain’t nothing but a big old spell book.”

For all the black-witch community’s openness to other religious traditions, they’re still deeply ambivalent about whether some people should be kept out. On the one hand, there’s a sense that they now have an easier time embracing their ancestors’ traditions because white Millennials have rebranded witchcraft as “cool.”

There is, however, a concern that white witches are appropriating African rituals they may not properly understand. “White women these days are making witches’ covens as something ‘fun’—it’s just fun for them,” Yansa said. “But in our tradition, witches have to be totally initiated to be considered a witch.” Initiation typically involves receiving oral instruction and hands-on training from an elder—the sort of embodied learning that, Yansa said, young witches don’t get when they rely too much on digital religion.

In-person gatherings like the Black Witch Convention are meant to serve as an antidote to that overreliance on internet culture. The Millennials I spoke to all said it was a necessary counterbalance—but they also emphasized how much they value the highly individualized, DIY rituals they practice back home.

“The Church is oppressive for a lot of black women,” said Tamara Young, a 32-year-old government program analyst. “But these African traditions empower women. They’re empowering you to have a hand in what you’re doing—to create your own magic.

Reporting for this article was supported by Public Theologies of Technology and Presence, a journalism and research initiative based at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. SIGAL SAMUEL is an associate editor at The Atlantic, covering religion and global affairs. She is the author of The Mystics of Mile End.



https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/11/black-millennials-african-witchcraft-christianity/574393/

Suspected member of sex trafficking network which used voodoo to control victims arrested

ALEXANDRA RICHARDS
The Evening Standard
February 21, 2018

Police have arrested a woman suspected of being a key member of a sex trafficking gang which used voodoo rituals to tempt, control and scare its victims.

The Spaniard was tracked down to a house in Miles Platting, Manchester, and arrested on a European Arrest Warrant on February 2, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

Spanish authorities believe she is part of a network which recruited women in Benin and Nigeria, under false promises of a better life, before trafficking them to Spain. Once there, they were forced into prostitution to pay off their "debt".

Investigators believe the victims were coerced using voodoo rituals and controlled through fear that if they did not comply, they or their family would be killed.

As part of the rituals, they would be forced to eat raw chicken hearts and had their fingernails and pubic hair pulled out, the NCA said.

There were also two Nigerian men, aged 39 and 34, at the address who have been held on suspicion of drugs and immigration offences.

The raid by Greater Manchester Police and NCA officers comes as a further 11 suspected network members were arrested in Spain in an operation led by the Spanish National Police with the backing of Europol and Nigeria's National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons.

Liam Vernon, of the NCA's Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Unit, said: "Through close cooperation with the Spanish authorities and Greater Manchester Police, we have located and arrested a woman believed to be a key member of a network that trafficked and forced vulnerable women into prostitution against their will.

"Criminals involved in modern slavery seek out and exploit vulnerable individuals. They treat their victims as a commodity that can generate income over and over again.

"Tackling this threat is a priority for the NCA and we are committed to working with partners in the UK and overseas to pursue and disrupt those responsible."

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/suspected-member-of-sex-trafficking-network-which-used-voodoo-to-control-victims-arrested-a3772706.html

Police: 5-year-old girl burned in voodoo ritual; 2 charged

AP
February 03, 2018

EAST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. (AP) - Two sisters tied down and burned a 5-year-old girl, permanently disfiguring her, in a voodoo ritual meant to rid her of a demon causing her to misbehave, police said. The women also threatened to cut off the head of the girl's 8-year-old brother with a machete, authorities said.

The boy said his sister was tied down on at least two occasions while the sisters blew fire over her face and cut her on the arm and in the collar area with a needle-like object, drawing blood, according to police. The girl said the women also poured over her eyes a substance that stung.

Peggy LaBossiere, 51, and Rachel Hilaire, 40, of East Bridgewater, denied injuring the girl and threatening the boy, the Brockton Enterprise reported . They pleaded not guilty on Jan. 29 to mayhem, assault and other charges. A public defender for the women didn't return a call seeking comment on Saturday.

Police say the girl's mother is a hair stylist of Haitian descent who has LaBossiere as a client and requested the ritual. She has not been charged but is receiving mental health treatment.

The sisters will be back in Brockton Superior Court on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether they're too dangerous to be released.

The sisters told police that they have performed "cleansing baths" for family and friends in the past, something that involves chanting prayers, rubbing frankincense and eucalyptus oils and sea salt on their bodies, and burning myrrh, the newspaper reported. Children sometimes get burned as spirits leave the body, they said.

The girl suffered a third-degree burn across her face that will leave her permanently disfigured, police said. She was treated at a hospital and taken into custody by state welfare authorities, along with her brother, who described to police what happened at the sisters' house over multiple days.

Voodoo refers to religious practices developed centuries ago by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, primarily in Haiti, where the practices are sometimes spelled "vodou."

http://www.wowktv.com/news/national/police-5yearold-girl-burned-in-voodoo-ritual-2-charged/950824217

'We are being targeted': Voodoo believers fear a backlash

Alanna Durkin Richer and Philip Marcelo
CTV News
The Associated Press
February 12, 2018

BOSTON -- Two separate crimes against children in recent days have one haunting similarity: authorities have pointed to Voodoo rituals as a possible motive.

But practitioners of Haitian Vodou, which adherents spell differently to distinguish it from other variants, say the religion does not sanction violence and fear the crimes will spark a backlash against their community.

"We are being targeted," said Maude Evans, a Haitian native and Vodou priestess in Boston's Mattapan neighbourhood. "I'm really concerned that that's how it's going to be from now on. They will do things and blame it on Vodou."

Two sisters in East Bridgewater were arrested last month after they tied down and burned a 5-year-old girl, permanently disfiguring her, in a "voodoo ritual" meant to rid her of a demon, authorities say. Peggy LaBossiere, who was arrested with her sister Rachel Hilaire, also is accused of threatening to cut off the head of the girl's 8-year-old brother with a machete.

About a week later in nearby Brockton, officials said, a mother stabbed two of her children in what she described as a ritual involving "voodoo stuff," according to court documents. Days later, at a candlelight vigil that drew hundreds of mourners to the crime scene, a local Christian bishop denounced the practice of Voodoo, to cheers from the crowd.

Voodoo refers to religious practices developed by Caribbean slaves who took spiritual traditions from their native Africa and merged them with elements of Christianity and other faiths. Adherents generally believe everything is infused with a spirit and that prayers and other devotional acts will help bring them good health and protection.

But there has been a movement in recent years in Haiti to refer to the practices as Vodou, which means "spirit" or "deity," to set it apart from U.S. Deep South variants more commonly associated with occult objects like Voodoo dolls and talismans.

The negative portrayal of Voodoo in American culture goes back at least to the Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s, said Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, a retired professor of African Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In "White Zombie," a 1932 film that often is credited as the first feature-length zombie flick, Bela Lugosi played an evil Haitian voodoo master who commanded an army of zombies.

Lunine Pierre-Jerome, a Randolph, Massachusetts, resident who was raised in a Haitian Vodou household and still practices privately, is adamant that what is being described as "voodoo" in these cases is not a reflection of her culture.

"Some see us as worshipping the devil or evil spirits, but that's far from what it is," Pierre-Jerome, who teaches at Cambridge College in Boston and was a longtime administrator in the Boston public school system.

Evans agreed: "We don't hurt children. It's about healing."

The mother of the woman accused of killing her sons had voiced concerns to police about her daughter's mental health and said her daughter had become obsessed recently with a range of conspiracy theories, rituals and mythologies, The Brockton Enterprise reported . It is not clear whether the woman is a follower of Haitian Vodou, and her attorney did not respond to an email sent on Friday.

The women accused of burning the child blew fire in her face and cut her on the arm and in the collar area with a needle-like object, police said. LaBossiere and Hilaire, who are of Haitian descent, said they had performed "cleansing baths" on the children but denied threatening or harming them, The Enterprise reported . Police said the girl's mother requested the ritual.

The women have pleaded not guilty to mayhem, assault and other charges and are being held without bail. An attorney for LaBossiere declined to comment, and an attorney for Hilaire did not respond to a phone message on Friday.

A spokeswoman for the Plymouth prosecutor's office, which is handling both cases, declined to comment.

"Cleansing baths" designed to free someone from some sort of spiritual force are common in the various forms of the religion, said Jeffrey Anderson, a history professor at the University of Louisiana Monroe who has studied Louisiana Voodoo and Haitian Vodou. But Anderson said he is unaware of any ritual that involves the intentional burning of a child's face and speculated that the woman may have hurt the girl by accident.

Animal sacrifices are also common in Vodou, but "only the devil may destroy people's life," Pierre-Jerome said.

Elizabeth McAlister, a religion professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, who specializes in Haitian Vodou and other Afro-Caribbean faiths, also questioned the link between Vodou and the two cases.

"Vodou never, ever sanctions stabbing or any kind of child abuse," she said. "It seems nonsensical."

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/we-are-being-targeted-voodoo-believers-fear-a-backlash-1.3799589

The Right Chemistry: Placebos, persuasion and all that voodoo

So I visited New Orleans and bought a voodoo doll. Can it actually do harm?

JOE SCHWARCZ
MONTREAL GAZETTE
October 20, 2017

Bourbon Street in New Orleans features a number of shops selling voodoo dolls.

“Why is that one more expensive than these others,” I asked, pointing at one on the shelf behind the counter.

“Because that one is not just a souvenir — it is real,” came the answer.

Of course, I had to have that one.

The instructions were simple enough. To torment someone, you just have to acquire a piece of fingernail or a strand of hair from the intended victim and place it on the doll before sticking pins into it.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“Well, it helps,” I was told, “if the person knows you intend to inflict harm.”

That argument I can buy, because what we then have is a classic example of the “nocebo effect.”

The term “nocebo” comes from the Latin meaning “I will harm” and can be regarded as the famous placebo’s evil twin.

A placebo produces health benefits in spite of having no plausible scientific merit, while the nocebo effect occurs when something that rationally should have no effect causes real symptoms. “Think sick and be sick” would be an appropriate description.

A study back in 1987 in which patients with unstable angina were treated with aspirin to reduce the risk of a heart attack represents a classic example. Some of the subjects were told that aspirin can cause gastrointestinal side effects, others were not. Six times as many patients withdrew from the study citing gastrointestinal effects in the group that had been told of the possibility of side effects than in the group that had not been so informed. There was no objective evidence such as peptic ulcer or gastrointestinal bleeding in the case of subjects who abandoned the study. Their subjective symptoms, which were very real, were generated by the mind. The nocebo effect in action.

There are numerous other examples. After reading accounts of radiation poisoning following the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan, people as far away as the U.S. reported experiencing symptoms despite there being no possibility of exposure to radiation from the accident.

The nocebo effect can also be noted in cases of “mobile phone headache syndrome,” a condition in which people claim to suffer from headaches when they are exposed to radio frequencies generated by the device, often triggered by media accounts that raise the spectre of harm. However, when 17 individuals who claimed to be affected took part in a double-blind, randomized trial using sham or actual radio frequencies, no difference was found in reported instances of headache or other discomfort.

There are also some fascinating individual case reports. Take, for example, the man who was involved in a trial of a new antidepressant drug. He had a fight with his girlfriend and decided to end it all by taking all the pills in the bottle he had been given. Soon he started to feel ill, regretted his decision, and asked a neighbour to take him to the hospital where he duly collapsed. All tests came back negative, but the feeling of being unwell persisted. When doctors contacted the organizers of the study, it turned out that their patient had been in the placebo arm of the trial and had tried to kill himself with sugar pills. When informed of this, the man made a rapid recovery.

Now back to my voodoo doll. Can it actually do harm?

In 1942 Dr. Walter Cannon coined the term “voodoo death” to describe demise brought on by a strong emotional shock such as fear. He described a number of cases, albeit anecdotal, in which death occurred as a result of a belief that a curse had been imparted.

When the salesperson noted that I was somewhat skeptical about the evil powers of the doll, she quickly assured me that it can also be used for good. Stroking the doll, she explained, can trigger affection from a person whose picture is placed under the doll. I don’t think I would place too much faith in that, but I do think that a voodoo doll can cause mischief for people who believe in such things. The link between body and mind is indeed a fascinating one.

That relationship is exactly what we will explore further in this year’s “Trottier Public Science Symposium.” On Monday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m., we will hear from CTV health journalist Dr. Marla Shapiro and McGill placebo expert Dr. Amir Raz. On Oct. 24, also at 7 p.m., our speaker will be Dr. “Patch” Adams, who was portrayed by Robin Williams in a movie about his exploits. He will explore the value of laughter as therapy.

The location is the Centre Mont Royal, 1000 Sherbrooke St. W., corner Mansfield St. The event is free and, of course, everyone is welcome.

joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca
Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.

http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/the-right-chemistry-placebos-persuasion-and-all-that-voodoo

Inside West Africa's vanishing voodoo rituals

Anisha Shah, Contributor
Business Insider
May 15, 2017


West Africa is fast gaining recognition for its wildly beautiful barren beaches, hypnotic African beats, vibrant fashions and strong cultures, which have reshaped the face of mankind.

Yet, Voodoo remains the world's most secretive and misunderstood religion, veiled in mystery. Predating many religions by tens of thousands of years, Voodoo is a way of life in its country of origin, Benin.

Battle of Benin

I've arrived in the tiny nation to unearth the final frontier of unexplored Africa and to expose the Battle of Benin, a turf war threatening to banish the religion to history books. For the intrepid and inquisitive traveller, an extraordinary realm of ancient rituals, trances and fetishes awaits discovery. And it doesn't take long to become immersed in this otherworld.

In a scene straight out of Star Wars, Benin is deep in the throes of a deadly conflict between good vs evil - Voodoo vs Witchcraft.
Voodoo Vs. Witchcraft

Voodoo may conjure images of scrawny witches, pins-in-dolls, and steaming cauldrons, but as I quickly learn, that's not entirely myth - it's an extreme offshoot of the peaceful spirit religion that is Voodoo.

"Many witches live in this town," I'm told matter-of-factly by my guide Paul Akakpo, as we bump along red sandy dust-tracks of coastal Ouidah. "They practice in a closed secret sect so they are unidentifiable. Some admit, on their deathbed, the murders they've caused," continues Mr Akakpo. His uncle, the late Voodoo Pope Sossa Guedehoungue, famously met Pope John Paul II and was key in initiating annual National Voodoo Day (10th January) in Benin.
Centuries-endured slave trade outpost

Ouidah, voodoo capital and nucleus of a centuries-endured slave trade, bears the sobering UNESCO-backed 3-mile 'Route des Esclaves' or Slave Route. Lined by museums, monuments and shrines, the solemn stretch opens to the 'Gate of No Return' on a wide windswept Atlantic shore.

Feral, untamed and bordered by lofty palms, this is the desolate and dreamy coastline bequeathed much of West Africa. Dotted only by tiny fishing villages and coconut-sellers, the beguiling beauty belies a chilling history.

These West African shores were the final footsteps of millions of shackled slaves forced to depart their homeland forever, boarding gigantic slave ships. They were exported to the New World, as the Americas are known here, defining today's cultural constitution of the American continents and Caribbean. Voodoo still thrives across Haiti, Brazil and New Orleans.

"Witches are abundant in Benin but they cast only evil spells and kill people, which is the antithesis to voodoo's healing and helping. Sorcery is Benin's biggest war," explains Mr Akakpo.
Voodoo's identity crisis

Voodoo has a major image problem. This growing malpractice by witches is driving genuine worshippers underground. Even witches "cloak themselves in Christianity at Church by day," warns Mr Akakpo. Nearly half of Benin's population practices voodoo officially, and two-thirds unofficially. As Voodoo draws on nature, philosophy, spirituality, and tolerance of all faiths, the closet devotees are a growing norm. If the trend continues, this primordial religion could be vulnerable in its birthplace.

Early European invaders to Benin implanted today's global stereotype. Whilst enforcing Christianity, they demonized Voodoo by spreading tales of black magic and sorcery. Today's thriving witchcraft makes matters worse. Voodoo wrongly endures the hangover.

Voodoo priests protect people from the evil eye, as prevention and cure, using inherited knowledge of nature. As village doctors, they're often the first point of contact, presiding over rituals at shrines and temples. These are as abundant in Benin as cafes in France, the former colonial guardian bestowing the French language. At the heart of Voodoo are rituals and sacrifice, as I soon find out.
1. Voodoo priests and fetishes
Voodoo oracle reading

Sitting on a cold hard floor deep within a village, a tiny corner window illuminates Benin's most renowned Voodoo priest. He is performing an oracle reading - mine. He holds strings of cowry shells, water in a glass and miniature statuettes to the light to determine my fate. Calmly, he communicates with Voodoo divinities, who transmit ancestral spirit messages to the living. My guide translates.

Voodoo is founded on pleasing the spirits of passed ancestors, to bless the living, merging the melodies of life and afterlife. His first two remarks leave me bewildered, striking a personal chord. Fortunately, he sees no evil spirits around me, swerving the need for a purification ceremony. These would involve being bathed naked in the sea or placing a concoction of white linen-clad herbs at a crossroads to divert evil.
Voodoo Animism fetish market

A darker experience emerges at the world's largest Voodoo Fetish market, considered a traditional pharmacy, in neighbouring Togo. Face-to-face with severed heads of monkeys, dogs, crocodiles, chameleons, and cobras rotting on wooden displays in searing 42C heat, the breeze is bittersweet. Each fetish is believed to cure a woe, from lacklustre libido to the darkest curse.

Behind-the-scenes, the Voodoo Fetish Priest, Thomas Zonnontin, communicates with Voodoo gods to heal visitors, by grinding animal skulls with herbs and rubbing into incisions made on their back. He gives me his business card. I politely decline the offer to 'perform in bed like a buffalo' settling instead for travel protection. For locals, these are go-to remedies.
2. Trances and dances with the dead
Egungun funeral trance

Voodoo's most volatile dance is the Egungun funeral rites trance, in which spirits of the dead possess the living.

My guide gets a tip-off. Musicians are pounding drums, whipping a secret sect of fully-cloaked statuesque Yoruba dancers into frenzy. A hundred-strong crowd of locals fills a dusty village compound, many peering from behind trees. Top-to-toe shrouded dancers twirl and whirl like dervishes in flame red, emerald green and sapphire blue velvet shrouds. The faces of this cult of initiates are veiled in a smokescreen of cowry shells. Being touched by them is the ultimate curse.

As Capoeira-style music impassions, one dancer slips into a frenzied trance. "He is possessed and not aware of his actions now," exclaims Mr Akakpo above the wild din. Guised by the spirit of the dead, the entranced dancer chases crowds; a mass exodus ensues like a sandstorm into the dusty distance.

That's when the hulking giant flits attentions towards me, the obvious outsider. He flies over, grabbing the stick of our 'security guard,' threatening to strike us. Mr Akakpo bows, throwing cash his way, influencing his retreat. His mask represents a Voodoo God and his cape bears the name of the departed. As pandemonium progresses, feverish dancers cut themselves to bleed using metal, and can whip the public. Before this, I'm handheld to safety to reclaim heart from my mouth.

Voodoo rituals are ongoing in Benin. Travellers can readily encounter religious ceremonies, "We want to show visitors our ancient spirit religion, so they can understand it and shatter false stigmas."
'Night hunter magic festival'

The following day, we're told about an impromptu festival of the Zangbeto Night Hunters. This closed secret sect maintains community safety by arresting outsiders and burying them alive inside their iconic conical-thatched hut, where they're enshrined as Voodoo divinities. This festival is rare.

In front of a mysterious Voodoo Temple of Cults, life-sized thatched-huts twirl into view. It is a surreal suspend-your-disbelief sight. Moving mounds of thatched straw twirl incessantly in hypnotic motion to crazed beats, whipping impassioned crowds to fever pitch.

The Voodoo priest sprinkles magic powder on a hut, before revealing the interior. A small chicken clucks inside. Of everything I witness, this invisible act is most incredulous. I grab a series of candid photographs before we must leave.
3. Rituals and temples
Dankoli sacrifice shrine

Animal sacrifice is central to appeasing spirits and Voodoo gods.

The most powerful shrine in Benin is Dankoli fetish shrine. Here, I participate in a voodoo ceremony, where animal sacrifice is standard exchange for personal favors from the spirits. Inconspicuous white flags mark the rural outdoor spot. On closer inspection, the revered shrine is a piled-high mecca of putrefying blood, guts and feathers. The gut-wrenching odor saturates the surrounds.

I walk across ground coated in sludgy tar-like remains to take instruction from the Voodoo fetish priest: hammer a wooden peg into the mound and pour red palm oil. The next step defies my instinct, as I sheepishly swig a mouthful of Akbateshie, home-brewed gin, which tastes like fire, and spray it across the shrine. A female onlooker giggles at my pathetic dribble. Opting out, I watch the priest sacrifice two chickens, whose blood is poured over the shrine, whilst reciting prayers and blessings.

And then our car breaks down. So I spend an extra couple of hours ensconced in the broiling stench, wondering what happened to the blessings.
Unveiling voodoo in Benin

To understand West Africa is to truly understand Africa. Voodoo is a deeply-rooted yet severely misunderstood religion, and the chance to explore it feels a true travel privilege. As a pivotal platform of history, culture, and natural beauty, unique in the world, travellers who appreciate the continent are invited to unearth Benin and t last slice of authentic and unexplored Africa.


www.businessinsider.com/photographs-of-west-africas-vanishing-voodoo-rituals-2017-5

Sects, Cults, Cannibals: Reza Aslan on His Controversial Fringe Religion Show

Religious scholar explores independent Scientologists, Hawaiian doomsday believers and Israel's Ultra-Orthodox community on 'Believer'

Eric Thurm
Rolling Stone
March 24, 2017

The reaction to the premiere of religious scholar Reza Aslan's new CNN series Believer was, to put it mildly, zealous. In one particularly intense scene, Aslan eats human brain matter as part of his attempt to understand the Aghori, a sect of Hindus who use such shock tactics as a way to disrespect the caste system. The sequence drew ire from Hindu groups, including representatives of India's ruling nationalist party and American Representative Tulsi Gabbard.

Aslan assiduously maintains, however, that this was merely a representation of what certain people believe – he had, after all, been asked to consume the material. "We let the people involved do the talking," he tells Rolling Stone.

Still, it's not surprising that Believer would provoke this kind of response; the series is practically designed to draw criticism. Each episode of the six-part series focuses on Aslan investigating a particular religion by adopting its traditions and rituals. The faith in question is depicted via one rather extreme, high-profile sect, and subsequently other milder, more humane adherents. By moving from the fundamentalists to the more recognizable, secular practitioners, Believer makes its central argument: that, ultimately, conflicting religions are not so different.

But this seemingly mild thesis has proven, ironically, to be the most controversial thing Aslan could have said. Though the host dismisses much of the controversy over the Aghori episode as the result of both "knee jerk critics" and the series' sensationalist ad campaign, even he was somewhat taken aback by the response. In particular, he's received a surprising number of death threats – a form of correspondence he has to keep cataloged in a file. Aslan says he used to be able to "shrug it off," but with a family and children, having a thick skin – and approaching this kind of work with a sense of fearlessness – has become harder.

It's true that in the episode itself, Aslan repeatedly says that the incident is a misrepresentation of Hinduism, and isn't in line with what he's trying to do in the series – but the segment still aired. The ads are cut to highlight the most insane, lurid part of the episode in an attempt to draw largely non-religious eyeballs, but does that really alleviate all responsibility? Doesn't all television come with a mandate to seek out the most gripping images possible, even, perhaps especially, when presenting sensitive topics? Certainly, grappling with that ethical territory should – though often is not – part of the territory of airing something on a network like CNN.

Part of the problem is that, while Aslan's focus is almost entirely on the nature of belief and how it connects people, it's difficult to extricate faith from its consequences. (Other roughly anthropological shows like, another of CNN's shows, Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, tackle similar material without drawing the same criticism – almost certainly because religion is far more central to individual conceptions of identity.) Some of Believer's subjects are members of small communities, like a doomsday cult based out of Hawaii, run by a self-proclaimed prophet named Jezus with a "Z." But others, like Haitian vodou practitioners battling with Evangelical Christians, encompass far larger political conflicts.

The Aghori episode might not even be the most controversial hour of Believer. That depends on the reception to the episode that focuses on the haredi, the extreme wing of Israel's Ultra-Orthodox community. Aslan describes this as "the least hopeful" episode of Believer, which seems like an understatement.

During the episode, Aslan talks to Yakov Litzman, a member of the knesset (Israel's parliament) and the government's minister of health who is originally from Brooklyn, and who once compared LGBT Israelis to the "sinners" who danced around the golden calf. During an uncomfortable conversation with Aslan, Litzman flat-out refuses to even pretend he cares about secular Jews, let alone non-Jews. He can afford to, thanks to Israel's rapidly changing demographics and the haredi's place in the ruling coalition of the knesset.

One of the secular Israeli Jews Aslan interviews recall being shouted at, blockaded from her, and attacked with bags of urine. Aslan talks to her from her car, because they would both be attacked by Ultra-Orthodox children upon getting out. One of Believer's own producers refused to believe the full extent of the Ultra-Orthodox community's political power in Israel, and CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief was brought in to fact-check the episode.

One such child – the son of a couple who has invited Aslan into their home – excuses himself from the dinner table at 9 PM to return to studying, after a ten-hour day at yeshiva. Aslan admits that, as a father, the encounter made him uncomfortable – and it doesn't help that the boy's father, when asked point-blank about the possibility that his son might not grow up to sit around doing nothing but studying Torah, refuses to even consider it – but Aslan hears him out nonetheless.

What are we to do when confronted with this kind of community? Aslan's commitment to humanizing people is noble, to the point of discomfort. (In the episode, he describes the haredi's commitment to following the Torah as "beautiful.") But it also smacks of forced naivete. Asked whether he thinks there's a line beyond which the faithful are no longer deserving of his empathy – if their commitment to zealotry, oppression, and murder in the name of God ever make his quest to paint religions with the same brush dangerous – he sidesteps the question, trying to instead highlight what makes expressions of faith appealing even when they lead followers to monstrous actions.

It's an approach that works shockingly well in the series' Scientology episode, which was something of a pet project for Aslan, who sees Scientology not as a dangerous cult but as, simply, a religion. (Are the things Scientologists believe any more ridiculous than the things other religious people believe? Aslan compares Scientology to Mormonism's early reception as the "punchline to American Christianity.") Intriguingly, Aslan focuses on independent practitioners of Scientology, whose existence he compares to the Christian Reformation.

The fissures within Scientology appear to have happened surprisingly quickly – the Reformation happened after over a millennium of Christianity, while Scientology has been around for just over 60 years – but Aslan sees them as the natural result of modern communication: "The greatest threat to a church's control over its orthodoxy is the availability of information." In this respect, the schism reflects Aslan's approach to these religions: increase the availability of information so the uninformed can understand their doctrines.

In the show's second season, Aslan plans to investigate several newer religions. There's caodai, a monotheistic religion in Vietnam that dates back to the 1920s and that Aslan describes as a "distinctly Vietnamese spirituality that is syncretistic with all other elements of Vietnamese spiritually." There's the neo-druid movement in the United Kingdom, which Aslan describes as of a piece with the "nationalistic fervor" that produced Brexit. And there's the John Frum cargo cult, worshipping a soldier from the Second World War who may or may not have existed, and a sort of messianic figure foretold to bring wealth to an island.

The John Frum cult is the sort of religion that, with a different host, could be easy to exoticize. But understanding Aslan's approach, it's not hard to see how Believer will approach it. If we're supposed to come away thinking Scientology's beliefs aren't as strange as we may think, is it really that odd for believers to have their own Christ figure be an American G.I.? And like Scientology, the John Frum cult appears on the verge of splintering, consumed with its own sectarian conflict. "No matter how small a religion is," Aslan says, "there will always be people within it who find some reason to break away and make it even smaller," a process that, of necessity, ultimately means conflict.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/reza-aslan-on-sects-cults-cannibals-fringe-religion-show-w473446

Five anti-voodoo cult members die from suffocation in Benin

Reuters UK
January 30, 2017 

Five anti-voodoo cult members die from suffocation in Benin

Five people died from asphyxiation in Benin this weekend and several more were hospitalised after a religious cult told followers to seal themselves into prayer rooms and burn incense and charcoal, residents and a survivor told Reuters.

The group, whose name in French translates as the "Very Holy Church of Jesus Christ of Baname", has thousands of adherents across the country and has stirred tensions by vehemently opposing the local voodoo culture.

Its young woman leader, Vicentia Chanvoukini, known by her followers as "Lady Perfect", has proclaimed herself a god.

"With the help of old cloths, we sealed off all of the exits to the prayer room before using incandescent charcoal and incense to prepare for the descent of the Holy Spirit," said survivor Yves Aboua at the Porto Novo hospital where he was admitted with respiratory problems on Sunday.

Church members were told to stay in their prayer rooms until Sunday so as "not to be held accountable" when the world ended, he said. Several other people remain in hospital in critical condition, according to residents and hospital workers.

In a shady courtyard in the town of Adjarra, five kilometres (3 miles) northeast of the capital, a woman fanned a survivor sitting on a straw mat to resuscitate him while awaiting medical attention. The body of his brother, who died during the prayer ritual, lay beside him.

Local mayor Michel Honga confirmed that the victims were members of prayer groups but declined further comment. Police officials declined comment and Reuters was unable to contact anyone representing the Baname church.

About 40 percent of the West African country's population follow Voodoo, and Benin has a national holiday to celebrate it. Many Christians and Muslims incorporate some of its beliefs into their faith.

The Baname church, named after Chanvoukini's hometown, has drawn criticism because it rejects Voodoo entirely.

There have been several violent clashes between Baname followers, who often wear red scarves to identify themselves, and members of other faiths since 2009.

(Reporting by Allegresse Sasse; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-benin-cult-deaths-idUKKBN15E1GM

Djimon Hounsou returns to native Benin for 'true voodoo'

Daily Nation
AFP

January 7, 2016

As the drumming rumbles on, Hollywood actor Djimon Hounsou walks shirtless with a voodoo procession making its way through the dusty streets of Heve in his native Benin.

“I am like an African who has come home, who needs to know and learn about his culture,” says Hounsou, who has starred in blockbusters like Blood Diamond alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Gladiator with Russell Crowe.

The American-Beninese actor is now making and starring in his own film documenting his quest to understand voodoo in this west African state where it was born, before history spread it overseas.

“The practices here are not bad and they aren’t savage,” says the tall, 51-year-old with a shaved head and a salt-and-pepper goatee, decrying the negative image often depicted on the silver screen of back-alley sorcerers casting malicious spells.

ANCESTOR WORSHIP

One classic is the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die where a Caribbean dictator uses voodoo to frighten and manipulate his island.

But Hounsou says such images undermine the religion.

“That concept dates back to slavery. That is why we need to clarify what defines voodoo,” Hounsou tells AFP, explaining that racism in the past is still perpetuating negative stereotypes about voodoo.

In the village of Heve, which lies at the western edge of Benin’s coastline, the people have long practised voodoo, celebrating air god, Dan, and water god, Mami Wata.

As the worshippers file through the streets, resplendent in white robes and draped with multicoloured beads, Hounsou’s crew films everything.

By mid-morning, the heat in Benin, a country of more than 10 million people, is already intense. As technicians set up equipment in the town square, girls draw water from a tap.

The village, with its devoted voodoo cult, was not chosen at random.

“These spirits are very well preserved and people kept dedicating themselves truly to voodoo,” explains priest David Koffi Aza, who practises Fâ — a system of divination — and is working as a guide for Hounsou and his crew.

“Imported religions didn’t take hold so it’s a purer practice.”

Spirits play a central role in voodoo, acting as a link between the living and the dead in a religion that is built upon the worship of both ancient ancestors and the four elements: earth, water, wind and fire.

In the wake of the slave trade, voodoo practices spread from west Africa to the West Indies, Brazil and the United States.

According to the last census in 2002, 17 per cent of Benin’s population practises voodoo —an official religion in the country — while 27 per cent are Catholic and 24 per cent Muslim.

However, such figures mask the reality that many Beninese, whether they go to church or attend mosque, have voodoo shrines in their homes.

A STORY BADLY TOLD

“After spending so much time in Europe and the US, seeing African diaspora traditions that resemble ours, I began to ask questions,” says Hounsou, dabbing sweat off his brow.

Working with Hounsou on his bid to document voodoo in Benin is co-director and star Sorious Samura, a well-known journalist from Sierra Leone.

The two met nine years ago on the set of Blood Diamond, a film that was based on Samura’s documentary Cry Freetown, which dealt with the civil war gripping his country.

“Voodoo is a story that is very badly told, full of witchcraft, magic and evil – even Africans believe that,” says Samura, adding that such ideas have been “buried deep in our psyche.”

The two directors hope their film, entitled 'In Search of Voodoo: Roots to Heaven', can help change that misconception.

With less than a month until they finish shooting, Hounsou says they are not seeking to win converts.

“Voodoo has existed for centuries. It doesn’t force itself on you,” he says.

Shooting of the film is expected to finish on January 10, when a huge voodoo festival will be celebrated across the country. (AFP)

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/Zukqa/Djimon-Hounsou-returns-to-native-Benin-for-true-voodoo/-/498272/3024468/-/447taxz/-/index.html

Max Beauvoir, the biochemist who became Haiti’s chief voodoo priest, dead at 79

The Washington Post
September 14, 2015
Sarah Kaplan

Max Beauvoir was a middle-aged businessman with little interest in the occult. The son of a doctor and a scientist himself, he boasted degrees from schools in New York and Paris and a burgeoning career as a biochemist in the U.S. He was not the kind of man who went about seeking spiritual encounters.

So no one was more shocked than he was when his nonagenarian grandfather, lying on his deathbed in Haiti surrounded by more than a dozen descendants, lifted a single, unsteady finger and pointed it at Beauvoir.

"Grandfather turned to me and said, 'You will carry on the tradition,'" Beauvoir recalled in 1983, 10 years after the moment that changed his life. "It was not the sort of thing you could refuse."

"The tradition" was voodoo, Haitians' vibrant amalgam of Christian traditions and the animist rituals of their West African ancestors. Beauvoir's grandfather had been a houngan, or priest, and had selected Beauvoir to carry on the faith.

Beauvoir did so, with enthusiasm. Abandoning his scientific research and commercial work, he became the public face of voodoo and its most prominent advocate in a nation wracked by political upheaval, natural disaster and cultural change. In 2008, when Haiti's struggling houngans came together to elect their first chief, Beauvoir was their pick.

"We Haitians want to move forward in life," he told the New York Times at the time. "We need to find our identity again, and voodoo is our identity. It's part of our collective personality."

Beauvoir died in Port-au-Prince Saturday after an illness, according to the Associated Press.

In Haiti, where many people practice at least some elements of voodoo, often in conjunction with Catholicism, the 79-year-old Beauvior is mourned as a national celebrity.

"A great loss for the country," tweeted President Michel Martelly.

But that kind of reception is relatively new for Beauvoir, who spent much of his second life as a houngan battling Hollywood's stereotypes, Christian missionaries' antagonism and his own people's mistrust. Until 2003, voodoo was not even recognized as a religion in Haiti.

The faith has its roots in Haiti's history of slavery and is revered for its role in Haitian's successful struggle for independence from French rule. Like Christianity, voodoo has one God, but in practice the religion bears much more resemblance to the traditions of the West African slaves who founded it: Spells are cast, animals are sacrificed, one of the religion's 401 spirits are invited to possess followers at raucous, colorful ceremonies.

Beauvoir began his study of voodoo in 1973, at age 37. And because of his scientific training and American background, he swiftly became the resource of choice to people who wanted the religion of zombies and ritual sacrifice interpreted by a "Western" voice.

The ethnographer Wade Davis, author of the 1986 book "The Serpent and the Rainbow" on the voodoo process of making zombies, credited Beauvoir and his daughter Rachel with guiding his research.

"Max Beauvoir laid the country before me like a gift," he told Reuters. Davis's book was turned into horror film of the same name involving "zombie drugs" and an unflattering portrayal of "witch doctors."

But Beauvoir wasn't usually willing to indulge outsiders' visions of voodoo as some sort of primitive paganism. In his thinking, voodoo was far less backward than that other powerful force in Haitian society — political corruption. From his Peristyle de Mariani, the grand residence on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince where he held ceremonies and operated a village clinic, Beauvoir lobbied for voodoo as a solution to Haiti's problems.

For example, the country's 6,000 houngans should be recognized by the government and trained in healing, he said, since they vastly outnumbered Haiti's handful of doctors. And voodoo priests should have a formal role in government, since they were more representative of Haitian society than the government, which only reflected "the values and taste of the elite and the foreigners who pay our bills," he told the New York Times.

That interview was in 1983, when Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was still in power. The second-generation president for life, who spent lavishly but ruled with a dictator's iron hand, had a rocky relationship with Beauvoir and the houngans. On the one hand, his father, Francois ("Papa Doc"), had relied on voodoo to bolster support for his regime and recruited houngans for his dreaded Tontons Macoutes, the "bogeymen" secret police who suppressed his opposition. On the other hand, Beauvoir was critical of the younger Duvalier's excesses, and the two clashed over what Beauvoir said were his "deeply nationalist views." More than once, the outspoken priest found himself hauled before the Tontons Macoutes for questioning.

That fact didn't protect Beauvoir after Duvalier's ouster three years later. Enraged about the houngans' role in keeping the Duvaliers in power — and perhaps egged on by Christian groups — mobs attacked and killed more than 100 voodoo priests in the days after Baby Doc's departure from the country. According to a Newsweek article in 1986, Beauvoir's home was besieged for two days by a crowd clamoring for his death.

"Houngans cannot sleep quietly in their beds any more," he told the Guardian.

Eventually, the post-revolution violence quieted down, and Beauvoir returned to his religious practice. With a flair for showmanship that some critics found unseemly, Beauvoir turned his home into a temple for followers and fellow priests and a tourist destination for (paying) visitors looking for an exotic encounter with the supernatural.

In "The Rainy Season: Haiti-Then and Now," the journalist Amy Wilentz wrote of Beauvoir as an opportunist with "the oily manner of a man whom you wouldn't want to leave alone with your money or your child."

Beauvoir waved off that, and most other criticism.

But he couldn't keep himself out of politics. He was a severe critic of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former Catholic priest who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. After receiving one too many death threats, he and his family fled to Washington in the 1990s, where Beauvoir founded the Temple of Yehwe and based his efforts to sell voodoo in the U.S.

For example, voodoo practitioners do not stick dolls with pins, he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at a "demystifying voodoo" conference in 1997, and the possessions were nothing to be alarmed at: "The mind of the man cannot comprehend the whole God. The spirit comes and talks to everyone and helps solves their problems. After the ceremony, everyone feels better."

In 2008, frustrated with their lack of influence, Haiti's houngans made the unprecedented decision to form a national federation. Beauvoir, the obvious choice for their public face, wasted no time returning to his home country

At a special ceremony at the Peristyle de Mariani, accompanied by the beat of drums and blaring music, Beauvoir was named "Ati," or the supreme chief of voodoo.

After Haiti's devastating earthquake in 2010, Beauvoir held a memorial ceremony for the more than 15,000 killed, and called on his fellow hougans to help with the recovery effort.

"One must understand that Haiti is voodoo," he told the Boston Globe at the time. "Helping Haitians is nothing else but helping ourselves."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/14/max-beauvoir-the-biochemist-who-became-haitis-chief-voodoo-priest-dead-at-79/

A U.S.-Trained Entrepreneur Becomes Voodoo’s Pope

Marc Lacey

New York Times

April 5, 2008


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Max Beauvoir, above: "We Haitians want to move forward in life. We need to find our identity again, and voodoo is our identity."

THE goat tethered to a tree outside Max Beauvoir’s home is doomed.

Mr. Beauvoir, tall and majestic with closely cropped white hair, is a voodoo priest who was just named the religion’s supreme master, a newly created position that is aimed at reviving voodoo.

His grand residence on the outskirts of the Haitian capital serves as a temple for voodoo practitioners and a late-night hangout for those paying customers eager to take in an exotic evening of spiritual awakening.

The temple, the Péristyle de Mariani, is where Mr. Beauvoir and his followers dance around a giant totem to the beat of drums. It is where they light bonfires to summon the spirits. And it is where they drain the blood of animals like that scrawny white goat to, among other things, heal the sick.

On a recent night, Haiti’s voodooists convened for a special ceremony. With music blaring and devotees dancing with all their might, two children threw white rose petals on a red carpet. Then along came Mr. Beauvoir.

Popular in Haiti even among many of those who attend Christian churches, voodoo lacks the formal hierarchy of other religions. Most voodoo priests, known as houngans, operate semi-independently, catering to their followers without much structure.

But many of Haiti’s houngans recently came together into a national federation and chose Mr. Beauvoir, 72, as their public face. He is now the spokesman for a faith whose followers say too often gets a bad rap and is in dire need of an image overhaul. (Think “voodoo economics.”)

Even before he got the job, Mr. Beauvoir was a voodoo promoter extraordinaire. With his own Web site (www.vodou.org) and a following among foreigners intrigued by voodoo, Mr. Beauvoir is criticized by some purists as too much of a showman.

“My position as supreme chief in voodoo was born out of a controversy,” Mr. Beauvoir said, saying Haiti’s elite had marginalized the houngans who generations ago wielded significant influence in society. “Today, voodooists are at the bottom of society. They are virtually all illiterate. They are poor. They are hungry. You have people who are eating mud, and I don’t mean that as a figure of speech.”

A DOCTOR’S son who was not particularly interested in spiritual matters in his youth, Mr. Beauvoir left Haiti in the mid-1950s for the City College of New York, where he studied chemistry. Then he went off to the Sorbonne for graduate study in biochemistry. After various jobs in the New York area, he returned to Haiti in the early 1970s to conduct experiments on traditional herbal remedies.

It was then that voodoo called.

His grandfather, who was in his 90s, was dying and the entire extended family had gathered around his bed. Before he died, though, the old man pointed at Mr. Beauvoir and ordered him to take over his duties as a voodoo priest.

Mr. Beauvoir said he was taken aback. He did not know his grandfather well, and could not understand why he had been selected from the 20 or so other family members in the room. And he knew virtually nothing about voodoo.

But that was decades ago. Mr. Beauvoir has devoted the rest of his life to studying the religion, a mix of Christianity (introduced by slaves to mask their paganism from their masters) and animism that traces its origins to West Africa, which is also where Haitians, descendants of slaves, originated. The more he learns about voodoo, Mr. Beauvoir said, the more convinced he is that it can, and should, play a role in resolving Haiti’s problems, especially given its reach among the most disenfranchised people.

As it is now, he said, the government seeks the input of Catholic and Protestant leaders when grappling with societal issues. “But do they call for the input of the voodooists?” he asked, shaking his head.

Haiti has long been a battleground for Christian missionaries who view voodoo as devil worship and work tirelessly to convert the population to Christ. Voodoo, like Christianity, has one god, but it incorporates pagan elements that make Christians uneasy: casting spells and worshiping spirits seen as the major forces of the universe.

To turn things around, the country’s voodooists decided they needed to organize themselves and confront voodoo-bashing head on.

“We decided to come together and form a new voodoo structure,” Mr. Beauvoir said. “We Haitians want to move forward in life. We need to find our identity again, and voodoo is our identity. It’s part of our collective personality. We feel the government we have is relying too much on foreigners to fill their pockets.”

VOODOO and politics have long been intertwined in Haiti, with some past leaders reaching out to voodooists as a way of burnishing their populist credentials. Mr. Beauvoir has himself been linked with Jean-Claude Duvalier, or Baby Doc, the dictator who fled the country in 1986 after a popular uprising against him. And Mr. Beauvoir opposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide, making him a hated figure among Mr. Aristide’s loyalists.

In “The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier,” her 1994 book on Haiti, Amy Wilentz portrayed Mr. Beauvoir as an opportunist who preyed upon his people and had “the oily manner of a man whom you wouldn’t want to leave alone with your money or your child.”

Mr. Beauvoir waves off such criticism. He acknowledges that he received death threats from political opponents in the mid-1990s and that he was worried enough about his safety — and that of his wife and two daughters — that he fled Haiti for the United States. He settled in Washington, D.C., where he continued with voodoo ceremonies from his apartment not far from the White House. Recently, though, he returned home and wasted no time in grabbing the spotlight.

Speaking of the current crop of political leaders, Mr. Beauvoir is as harsh as some are about him.

“They have been seduced by Western attitudes,” he said of current leaders. “They believe foreigners think that way so they have to think that way. They fear that if they don’t oppose voodoo, they won’t get a dime in their bowl.”

The movie industry is another focus of Mr. Beauvoir’s wrath. And he speaks as something of an insider, having helped the anthropologist Wade Davis with his investigation of voodoo, which first became a book, “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” and later a Hollywood movie. On the big screen, zombies are scary monsters, Mr. Beauvoir complained, and not the carefully controlled subjects of voodoo science that he believes them to be.

“The voice of Hollywood has grown beyond the border of the United States,” he said. “It’s everywhere. The voice of Max Beauvoir is very small compared to that.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/world/americas/05beauvoir.html?ref=business