4 More Interesting Topics Surrounding Voodoo

Voodoo Dolls binding people to Haiti, to a family or to another.

Have you ever heard about Voodoo Dolls, Zombification or wondered about the rolls of the Catholic Church and Jazz in Voodoo? Well here are some basics on these four topics.  Click the links for information form the Voodoo museum in New Orleans (keep in mind New Orleans Voodoo is not the same as Haiti's Voodoo).

The voodoo doll - I actually saw some of these and talked to a man who was had a spell cast on him by the woman (whom he had never met) who is now his wife.  These dolls are typically used to bind someone.  In this example the wife bound the man to her, after the binding ceremony, they met and got married.

Zombification - My understanding is that a zombie is created once a spell is cast, the person looses life signs but is not dead (possibly due to a powder), is buried, and brought back.  The zombie is now under the spell that is cast.

Jazz - Voodoo is a world that means to dance.  Music and dance are integral to Voodoo religion.  Music interacts with the possessing spirit.  Different spirits have different beats that accompany them.

Catholicism - During colonization Catholicism was the dominant religion forced onto those who were captured as slaves.  As would be expected African beliefs were kept but adapted to the only religion they were allowed and forced to practice.

Moving Like Bernie (a parody of a zombificaiton scene in Weekend at Bernie's)

The Power of Music

Be careful what you think, because your thoughts control your actions.

Proverbs 4:23

This is one of my favorite Bible verses because I think that it is true Update: I think all verses are the true and living and active and have the ability to work in our hearts :) this one was one of the first verses that I memorized.  We must think about something before we do it and often what starts as a thought will become an action.  

I understand that there is a variety of music and there is no particular style that I am against or for, beyond personal taste.  I tend to think that it is the lyrics which we get stuck in our heads affect us the most.  If you repeat words over and over, they will become a sort of personal mantra (and repeated mantras are not how we are called to praise and honor God). Below are a couple examples that argue the beats and music itself does play a deeper role in life than I have just argued. Some music is designed to control the body by it's beats and this is common in the New Age. I am not an expert in these practices, but being controled by anything is not biblical. 

However ,voodoo also comes from the term Vodun which means "to dance".  This is in part because those who practice voodoo use the music as a part of the possession ritual and the dance is a visible symbol of the spirit he or she is possessed by.

John Todd is an ex-Satanist who converted to Christianity.  If you look back at Satanist beliefs (video below), he states that the beats, rather than the lyrics are what affect us.


What do you think? What does the Bible say? DO lyrics or the beats affect you more? Does music possess any power at all.

15 Thoughts on Syncretism or the Mixing of ContradictoryReligions

15 thoughts in response to my trip to Haiti and the mixing of religions...I am not sure that any of these thoughts are accurate or TRUE but they are fun to think about and challenge my beliefs.

1. According to the pastor we worked with…Almost everyone in Haiti will call themselves Christians. Christian in Haiti has a similar meaning to human. Instead of saying “yes, I am a human being,” like we would in America, many Haitians would say “yes, I am a Christian being.” It has the same meaning. This is why the term Evangelical is important.

2. From what pastor Mark said, most Haitians also believe in Jesus and the Bible, but do not understand the importance of excepting Jesus or believing that he is their one true savior.

3. This seems to be true in America too.  Many people believe that Jesus was a great prophet, but not much more.  My husband and I were talking about the act of accepting Jesus and what "excepting Jesus" actually means just a few days ago.  We seem to agree that it should be a conscious decision, but there are certainly exceptions (especially individuals with developmental disabilities and those in other countries who may not have heard).  It is a tough subject.

4. It was fascinating to see how a Voodoo temple would be right across the street from a Evangelical Christian church.

5. The Voodoo priest would come hang out at the Church Under The Tree (Evangelical Christian). My pastor and I were there sharing the gospel once when he came by.  The kids giggled because they knew the irony of the situation.

6. Another time when the pastor was sharing the gospel (using the EvangeCube) nearly every child rose their hands saying they believe. I am now wondering if that means they believe the story of Jesus or if they have accepted Jesus or believe that he is their savior or if they simply believe he was a good man.

7. The Europeans forced their religion on the African slaves in America, Brazil, Haiti, and Cuba. In response the Africans often times kept their beliefs and added aspects of Catholicism (or Christianity) to their original beliefs. A common example was the use of the imagery of the saints to represent African gods. According to Haitian pastor Mark, in Haiti Catholicism still has deep voodoo ties.  Voodoo is the mix of Catholicism and African Animism specific to Haiti.

8. The effects of Colonialism on world religion may be another example of the mixing of religion or at the very least a corruption of Christianity.  The gospel of colonialism was not Christ-like at all.

Possession

The first day leaving the village, I saw the voodoo priest standing outside one of the houses. I knew instantly that there was something going on and knew he was the voodoo priest. I could tell when I looked into his eyes.

The voodoo priest had the same look in his eyes that a client I worked with in the past. She would sit up in the middle of night and look around while asleep. It was always scary because sometimes the voices she heard would tell her to attack staff and other times she would be just fine. The staff always wondered if she was possessed but the senior staff decided it was simply schizophrenia (though I still am not sure if some "disorders" have spiritual explanations (or if spiritual matters have clinical explanations).  Either way it was the same look and a look you don't forget.

Possession is a main aspect of Voodoo.  The Voodoo gods or Orishas are asked to possess those who practice the religion.

A voodoo ceremony
This area is very similar to the natural springs we saw.



For more on Voodoo check out my Background on Voodoo and Voodoo Basics posts.

Haiti Journal Entry: Voodoo

Alter

After my class last semester, I was excited to learn more about voodoo in the community of Thomazeau and throughout Haiti. There were a variety of opportunities to learn about this fascinating religion.  Some of these opportunities included talking with local pastors about their experiences with those who practice voodoo as well as those who were members of the church, in the past. Those currently practicing were not as willing to communicate with us.  This may have been because of the language barrier and the fact that the man that took my friend and I around to look at these temples was not that confident in his English.  he could read and speak wonderfully but asking questions was difficult because he didn't understand as much as he could speak.

We were able to see one of the main temples as well as a voodoo altar. It was fascinating to see in more detail much of what I had learned from my class last semester.  At times this alter (above) would have images on the back wall and the cloth bags would be filled with offerings and taken to the temple.  The temple is the room with the pole in the center (left).  There are two rooms on each side of this building (right).  The rooms are where some specific ceremonies take place.  I will need to reread about what ceremonies would take place in those rooms, though I think they might be used for isolation.  This part of the conversation did not translate from English to Creole and back very well.

Voodoo Dolls and binging ceremonies

Later in the week we went to visit the natural springs which were full of evidence of voodoo ritual and practice. The springs consisted of voodoo dolls and remnants of other Voodoo ceremonies. The majority of the voodoo dolls we saw were used to bind people, either to the country or to someone else. The man telling us about this tree where individuals were bound, met his wife because she had bound him to her. Though his words needed to be translated, his facial expressions and intensity of his experience did not.

I am not sure what this was but was told it was "voodoo"

As we were leaving Haiti we met a man, named Juan, in the airport. He grew up in Haiti, but currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He talked to us about some of his experiences growing up in a voodoo home. He had been bound to the ceremonies and his family who practice voodoo. He remembered running and hiding in friend’s house but still being scared of the spirits. When he was finally old enough to make his own decisions he had accepted Jesus and was a Christian. When he told some of his family members, they tried to bind him to Haiti but he was able to escape because, as he said, “Jesus could now protect him, and Jesus was stronger than the demons,” that were being used to bind him.

This trip was an interesting contrast to the much more academic approach I had experienced in my class on the religions of the African Diaspora.  My class was excellent and gave me a deep understanding of what those who practice Voodoo believe and the history of the religion and Haiti, but the class did not allow me to fully understand the power of the Vooddo spirits from a Christian perspective.  The trip certainly did help me to gain this understanding.

Artwork inspired by Haiti

Haiti Journal Entry: My Class and Backgrond on Voodoo

Voodoo Alter on the back of a house

I took a couple African American and Religious Studies courses last semester that related directly to my time spent in Haiti.  The one class focused on religions such as Voodoo, Santeria, Candomble, Revival Zion, and the Black Church in America.  We began the class by looking at Yoruba tradition.  Then spent one week looking at the history of a given area that Africans were moved to, through the slave trade.  Then we transitioned into how the spirituality of those from Africa morphed into what it is today through both the mixing of religions and cultures (typically European Catholic and African Yoruba).  Haiti was the first place that we focused on and voodoo was a religion that we spent an extra week studying. 

The class gave me a basic academic understanding of the religions, ceremonies and the importance of spirituality to those who dispersed because of the African Diaspora.  My time in Haiti helped to solidify the information from the class and see some of the details I read about.  My trip to Haiti took the religion of voodoo from the realm of the academic world to the realm of the very real spiritual world.  The trip also helped me to understand spiritual warfare (from a  Christian perspective) in a much deeper way.  Some of the conversations with those who used to be in the voodoo church and with those who work closely with its members helped me to see that there is an extreme power associated with Voodoo that is completely real.  I will post more about these conversations in future posts...

Voodoo Temple

Here is a past post on Candomble.  Candomble (in Brazil) is not the same as Voodoo but there are some similarities especially when it comes to the use of dance and the importance of the spirit.

If you are interested in learning more, our main book for the class was Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora.  This book does not look at the history of the countries or the slave trade as close as we did in the class.  This book covers the details of the ceremonies, the view on community, and the way that the spirit interacts with the individual.