Voodoo has been portrayed in movies, television series and
popular books as dark and evil, a cult of devil worship dominated by black
magic, human and animal sacrifice, and pin-stuck dolls. Yet thousands of people
adhere to its precepts because voodoo is not the evil thing that is portrayed in those movies and books.
Voodoo is an official religion that is derived from African spiritual practices
and born in West Africa, then spread to the Americans and the Caribbean. Voodoo
is culturally similar to Judaism or Christianity but doesn't have a sacred
text, a church or hierarchical structure of leaders. In Voodoo, there is only
one true God and practitioners communicate with him through thousands of
different spirits. These spirits are the dead people of their community:
voodooists believe that death is a transition from the visible, i.e. physical, world to the invisible, i.e.
spiritual, world, so predecessors are still with them in spirit to intercede
between God and man and help men's concerns through their counseling.
Voodooists call spirits Loas who are comparable to Christian Saints. Most Loas
are helpful, but some can be mischievous and tricky to deal with. Every
believer of Voodoo has direct contact with the spiritual world through Loas, who can be anywhere at anytime, but, as in
other religions, there are prominent and respected figures because of their
strong connections with the spirits. Those figures are called Houngan or Mambo
who are comparable to priests
and priestesses.
They are, also, expected to perform many social functions which can show great
variation from place to place within Voodoo beliefs and practices because
Voodoo is a community-centered religion. For example, in places where
conditions are very desperate, Voodoo is often focused on survival, so
generally Loas are called to
heal the sick. On the other hand, sometimes men demand something from Loas, but sometimes Loas demand something from men and
when that happens,
even for priests, it can be dangerous to disobey spirit's wishes. To exemplify,
years ago, a Loa demanded that
the daughter of a priest become a medium but the priest wanted her to
get a modern education, so he disobeyed. Over years, she didn't understand what
the teacher was saying in the class and she couldn't hear when the teacher
spoke to her. Then the
priest realized that the Loa was performing his plan, so, he let her
become a medium to achieve her potential.
In spite of these harmless facts about Voodoo, there is so much
misunderstanding about it because theWest created a scary image of it in movies and series for their
own valid reasons. Voodoo is rooted in slavery and intricately connected to
their political and social evolution. Its first practices were done by slaves
of African descent who were not even considered fully human. So, their religion
was seen as superstition; their priests were denigrated as witch doctors, and their God and spirits
were denounced as evil because they were slaves. In addition to these disparaging attitudes towards them, there has been one
successful slave revolution which provoked a great fear in European and
American colonies, in modern history, in Haiti, where Voodoo
was born. Slaves of African descent, many of them Voodooists fighting for
freedom, overthrew European rulers and took control of the country. When all of
these facts are considered, it is seen why the image and vocabulary of Voodoo is associated with disturbing and horrifying
images in our minds and created a mythology that we have taken as truth thanks
to Hollywood.
All in all, Voodoo is not how it is seen: it is a religion
which is practiced by thousands of people. So, people should have a respectful
attitude toward it; not a fearful one to stop this misunderstanding. Through
education and getting to know
the facts about it, people can overcome that fear.
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