Mysteries and Secrets of Voodoo, Santeria, and Obeah

by Lionel

  It is not possible entirely to ignore the remoter possibility that Santerian magical instrumentation has some role in providing the priest with power. Taking the parallel with ancient European witchcraft once again, instrumentation was a prominently visible part of the earliest Wicca ceremonial. The cauldrons with their strange (and often unsavoury) ingredients, broomsticks, charms, and talismans might have been power sources — however unlikely that seems to modern, empirical, scientific thought in the twenty-first century.

  This idea can be linked with the theory that emotional energy is capable of etching images into the fabric of buildings that are later reported to be haunted. The basic hypothesis is that powerful emotional energy will leave records of itself following bereavement, a murder, a battle, or some other major stimulus. The ghostly Roman legionaries processing through the cellar of the Treasurer’s House in York provide a well-known example. The images of English Civil War soldiers re-enacting the grim seventeenth-century battle at Edgehill provide another. If the instruments used by medieval witches in Europe were impregnated with psychic, emotional energy in this way, perhaps that energy could radiate out of the instrument — cauldron or broomstick — to reinforce the spells and incantations the Wiccans were employing.

  Is it not equally possible that the Santerian priest, using his wand, his precious stones, and his multicoloured robes, could draw forth from them some of the psychic energy recorded and stored inside them? The analogy of a rechargeable battery in a laptop computer or mobile phone helps to illustrate this instrumentation theory.

  When Mesmer and the other pioneers of what is now generally called hypnosis or suggestion referred to animal magnetism, they might well have been talking about something qualitatively different. Mesmer used the word animal because of its Latin root that meant “breath.” He believed that it was some sort of force or power that resided in all living bodies, human and animal alike. He also wanted to distinguish the strange force that he believed he had discovered from what were in his day being talked about as mineral magnetism, cosmic magnetism, and planetary magnetism.

  Helena Blavatsky, writing in Studies in Occultism (Sphere Books, 1974, but originally published in her own magazine, Lucifer, in 1887), was convinced that Phrygian Dactyls had used this mysterious power of animal magnetism millennia ago. These Dactyls were an archaic race associated with Cybele, the Great Mother. They had great skill as metalworkers and may even have been in Tolkien’s mind as the originals of those who forged the Rings of Power in Lord of the Rings. The three metalworking Dactyls of Mount Ida in Phrygia were Celmis the casting expert, Acmon the anvil, and Damnameneus the hammer. Another tradition had the Dactyls in the form of a human hand (in any case, dactyl means finger). Herakles (perhaps the first mention of the heroic Greek demigod?) was regarded as the thumb. The index finger was Aeonius, and his brothers, in order, were Epimedes, Jasius, and Idas.

  From this, it may be inferred that what Mesmer thought of millennia later as animal magnetism was transferable by using the healer’s hand to convey therapeutic power to the patients. What if Mesmer and his immediate disciples were right? What if — however remote the possibility — hypnotism and suggestion does not work only by empowering the patient’s subconscious and superconscious minds, but by invoking this mysterious power of animal magnetism and enabling it to flow from the mesmerist to the patient? Here then is yet another possible source of priestly power in the mysterious syncretistic religions like Santeria and Voodoo.

  Can the priest use what is conventionally understood in our twenty-first century as hypnotism and suggestion — undeniably powerful and effective things — and link them with what Mesmer believed he had discovered? The enigmatic Helena Blavatsky was a brilliantly intelligent mystic as well as an eccentric and controversial character. Her thoughts about the Phrygian Dactyls and their strange healing powers may have contained more than a grain or two of enigmatic truth. There is certainly a sense in which the Dactyls, shrouded as they are in myth and legend, have affinities with Loas and Orishas. Do the Santerian priests draw part of their power on some occasions from what Mesmer would have acknowledged to be animal magnetism? Was that same strange power known and used in Phrygia in ancient times?

  The more deeply research penetrates into the powers of the priests of Santeria and the other syncretistic mystery religions, the more links appear to connect them with ancient Egyptian magic and with European Wicca. The mystery of the Voodoo Damballah provides an example of such a link. Where Santeria refers to the intermediate deities — those between human beings and the One Supreme God — as Orishas, followers of Voodoo call them Loas. (The name can also be spelled Lwa and L’wha.)

  The Loas are very individualistic, perhaps even more so than the Santerian Orishas, and Damballah is regarded as the most important of the Voodoo Loas. He is at the core of much Voodoo magic, where he is seen as the serpent-god who devours his own tail. This symbolizes the concept of the “self turned inwards upon itself.”

  A wheel — like the traditional Wheel of Hecate — is used to represent Damballah, and Hecate herself provides another source of mystery and uncertainty. Best known today as a goddess of sorcery, Hecate was originally a deity of the wilderness and childbirth. In the famous old Chaldean Oracles that were edited in Alexandria, she was associated with a very strange, convoluted, spiral maze thought of as the labyrinth of knowledge. Hecate was credited with the power to lead humanity through this bewildering web of knowledge to the fire of life itself.

  Rider Haggard’s She (1886) is the story of an exceptionally beautiful and powerful woman who is apparently immortal, having bathed in the magical fire of life. Haggard had an extensive and detailed knowledge of Africa, including many of its mysterious ancient traditions, and it seems highly likely that his amazing protagonist, Ayesha (She-who-must-be-obeyed) was based on Hecate and the fire of life.

  Hecate’s circular knowledge-labyrinth is similar in many ways to the mysterious ring of Damballah. His symbol is complicated by its twelve spokes and three concentric circles. Each of the two inner rings takes the form of an ouroboros-type snake with its tail in its mouth. All of the spokes except one end with a serpent’s head looking outwards, like sentinels guarding some important fortress, where the secret knowledge is preserved. Right at the top of this complex circle design is a magic square containing representations of the moon in its various phases.

  This circular Damballah symbol with its protruding spokes is also connected with the spiked wheel associated with St. Catherine’s martyrdom, a factor that provides another possible nexus between the Loa-Orisha sub-deities and several of the traditional Christian saints.

  In some of the ancient African traditions, Damballah, as the primeval snake or serpent, is also reckoned to have a creative function, and the parallel with the serpent in Eden, the traditional site of creation, is difficult to avoid. In some other ancient traditions concerning Adam, his first wife was Lilith. She became a night-haunting screech owl demoness — the bitter enemy of young children sleeping on the flat roofs of houses in the Middle East. This transformation happened because the physical aspects of marriage so shocked and repelled her that she flew away from Adam in horror when he attempted to consummate their union. Happily, he and his second wife, Eve, were far more compatible! Like Adam in this variant tradition of the Eden story, Damballah also married twice — although, unlike Adam, both his partners (the rainbow serpent Ayida Weddo and Erzulie Freda) continue to stay happily with him.

  Serpent.

  In the Voodoo tradition, it is usually the power of Damballah, chief of the Loas, that enters the priest in charge of the ceremony and empowers him. A further important aspect of this Voodoo perspective on the syncretistic mystery religions is that very specific gifts are offered to the individual Loas who are thought to be in possession of the priest conducting the ceremony and of other worshippers. The term used for this possession is “riding.”

  The offering of the correct and specific gifts, while the ri
ding is taking place, is thought to increase the unification of the Loa and the worshipper, and, in the process, to augment and amplify the power available during the ceremony. Erzulie Freda, for example, is given beautiful fabrics, a comb, a hairbrush, jewels, and a mirror. Legba is presented with his traditional pipe, walking cane, and straw hat. Another very famous Loa, Baron Samedi, who was portrayed by Geoffrey Holder in the James Bond film Live and Let Die, is invariably given a cigar, sunglasses, and a top hat.

  Objective, unbiased observation of genuine Santerian ceremonies — or the valid ceremonies of any other syncretistic mystery religion of the Santerian type — leads to the conclusion that something unusual, powerful, and very interesting is taking place, and that the priest is central to whatever it is that is going on. He clearly appears to possess demonstrable power, and he seems to be using that power effectively. What is it, and where does it come from? The analysis is far from simple.

  It may be necessary to view the problem from the angle of those who feel the need for a powerful leader’s help. In times of crisis, those who feel in need of help and healing may exert a psycho-social vacuum that has to be filled by someone, somehow. When things are bad enough the longed-for hero appears: Moses leads his people out of slavery; Joshua leads them effectually in battle after battle; David kills Goliath; Horatius holds the bridge over the Tiber and saves Rome; Arthur and his chivalrous knights defend their people; Robin Hood and his merry men help the poor and oppressed. Just as air pressure, or hydraulic pressure, can produce physical results, so socio-psychological pressure can produce results. Is it the case that when enough people are crying out for a leader, their cries can somehow bring one forth? Is there a case to be made for the theory that a Santerian priest’s power is the result of his people’s awareness of a power vacuum? Economists would argue that demand can create supply, and, conversely, supply can create demand.

  Is it remotely possible that part of the priest’s power is derived from hypnotism, suggestion, or animal magnetism? He may have a highly charismatic personality: the combined product of nature and nurture. He could have unusually effective telepathic talents. It is possible that he is the focal point of a power that is projected by the group mind of the worshippers who are sharing the ceremony with him. There may be abnormal psychic powers stored in the instrumentation that he uses.

  There could well be a subtle combination of two or more — or even all — of these factors. It is not impossible for the Orishas, or Loas, whom the Santerian or Voodoo priest believes in, to enjoy some sort of real existence. If they, or other strange psychic forces and energies do exist, then some of the priests’ powers may emanate from them.

  Chapter 11

  THE POWERS OF THE PRIESTESS

  Although the general theories of priestly power in Santeria and the other syncretistic mystery religions apply to priestesses as well as to priests, there are certain specific aspects of power that apply exclusively to one gender or the other.

  Since time immemorial, a mother goddess associated with fertility has personified the earth itself and its harvests of land and sea.

  Variations of the nature and role of fertility goddesses occur in many of the oldest myths and legends of creation. There is an ancient Sumerian version, for example, in which Eve, best known from the Genesis account, turns up under the name of Ti, which means both “rib” and “mother of life” in ancient Sumerian. The Genesis version tells of Eve’s encounter with the serpent, her eating of the forbidden fruit, the punishment of all concerned, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. In this old Sumerian account, which predates the Genesis version, Enki is the partner of Ninhursaga, the mother goddess, and they live on an island called Dilmun in her vast paradise garden. Like Eden, the garden is free of death, violence, illness, and the aging process. It contains seven vitally important sacred fertility plants that Ninhursaga tends with loving care. Unfortunately, during her absence one day, Enki eats them: something of a parallel with Adam eating the forbidden fruit, but not an exact one. As Enki is male, and unable to give birth to the offspring of the sacred, fertile plants, the angry goddess leaves him to die. News of the problem reaches the senior gods in conclave, and they order Ninhursaga to save Enki’s life by producing the seven goddesses from various parts of his body. During this process Ti (alias Eve), “the mother of all,” comes from one of Enki’s ribs.

  Adam and Eve.

  Another mysterious, serpentine example can be found in the accounts of Shakti, the Indian goddess. She may be regarded as the life force behind all of creation. Even the other gods depend upon her. In some versions of the Shakti myth, she resides in every human body, but especially in women. She is envisaged as being serpent-like and occupying a position at the base of the spine. When religious contemplation and meditation waken this sleeping serpent, Shakti moves up the spine, reaches the top of the head, and enlightens the meditator, who is then freed from the endless circles of life and death.

  There seem to be strange connections linking the serpent form of Shakti, Eve’s conversation with the serpent in Eden, and Damballah’s serpent form and connections with creation. A combination of these factors may suggest that Eve’s willingness to talk to the serpent — and her possession of the necessary abnormal linguistic ability to do so — makes her something rather more than Adam’s companion and assistant. Analyzing the Eden narrative from an alternative perspective could identify Eve as a person with the courage and intellect to prefer reason and knowledge to unthinking obedience and unchallenged acceptance. Looking at her as possessing these strengths and virtues may also suggest that a Santerian priestess possesses similar distinctive qualities.

  James Frazer, Robert Graves, and Marija Gimbutas have all supported the theory that a goddess, whom Graves describes in depth in The White Goddess (1948), was one of the earliest and most influential deities in Europe from earliest times. She was regarded as being in charge of birth, death, and love, and was closely associated with the phases of the moon.

  It may be argued and conjectured, however, that ideas about this maternal female deity did not necessarily arise in Europe, nor were they by any means confined there. Frazer, Graves, and Gimbutas all suggested that the concept originated in the matriarchal societies of neolithic times, millennia ago, and had pre-Indo-European roots.

  Birth.

  Ancient Venus figure.

  The famous Venus of Willendorf and many similar figurines may be intended to represent this most ancient of mother goddesses. What is less easy to establish is a chain linking them through generations of similar mother goddesses — and ultimately to the roles of the Santerian and Voodoo priestesses today.

  Important early links in the chain are clearly visible in Sumerian mythology in the person of Ishtar, alias Inanna in Sumeria and Ninsun in Mesopotamia. The goddess appears again in Greece as Aphrodite and as the Canaanite Ashera. To the earliest Syrians, she was their beloved and revered Ashtart or Ashtarte.

  In prehistoric Ireland, she was worshipped by her Celtic followers as the mother goddess Danu. To the Norse peoples, it seems that she became Freya. Another interesting northern speculation is that the character in the Beowulf saga referred to as Grendel’s mother could have been a badly distorted, negative picture of an ancient mother goddess or prehistoric fertility goddess. The question immediately arises as to why the Beowulf legend makes her an evil, negative being. The traditional mother goddesses are benign, especially in their encouragement of physical love and fertility. Is Grendel’s mother a distorted projection of fierce, instinctive, maternal protection? This is the she-bear protecting — or avenging — her cub, and is there not just a trace of something laudable in it, although in the case of Grendel and his mother both she-bear and cub are anathema to human beings?

  Aegean and Anatolian peoples worshipped Cybele and Gaia, best known today through Lovelock’s controversial Gaia Hypothesis, suggesting the unification of everything in the biosphere. If such an entity really exists, and possesses self-aware
ness, it might well have taken on the role of a mother goddess in ancient times.

  The classical Greek pantheon included its fair share of earth mother goddesses, notably Demeter. Venus-Aphrodite, the radiantly beautiful love goddess of Greco-Roman theology, eventually became a mother goddess as well. She was credited with being the mother of Aeneas, who is regarded as the founding father of Rome (despite the wilder tradition of Romulus, Remus, and the she-wolf). By the start of the Christian era, and the savage Roman persecutions, Venus was referred to as genetrix, meaning “mother.”

  Ancient Siberians had a mother goddess, venerated by them as Umai, and there is an interesting linguistic connection here with an ancient Indian tradition that refers to Shiva’s consort, Parvati, as Uma. Can they be one and the same maternal deity, and, if they are, in which direction did that nomenclature travel? Relevant again here is the Hindu belief in their mother goddess Durga. Her cult is an exceptionally old one, going back at least to the Vedic period — and possibly long before that. She is also credited under other names with being the earth mother who gave birth to the gods themselves. There is another sense in which Hindu theologians understand all their female deities to be different faces, or different aspects, of this one great primeval mother goddess.

  There are groups of Christians who regard the Virgin Mary as a type of spiritual mother. In this sense, she is seen as a protector of human beings and a particularly caring and sympathetic member of the heavenly court who intercedes for them.