Working with the Lwa and the Hoodoo Spirits
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For the past couple of months I have tried to embrace a new paradigm out of sheer necessity to see some results. Ceremonial magick simply wasn't bringing about the results I've been looking for unless I was willing to fight with a goetic spirit repeatedly to get what I needed to happen, I knew that something was off I simply didn't know what. I had been flirting with the idea of working with the Voodoo spirits for some time and decided to give it a go.
In the Afro-based religions of Voodoo, Santeria, and Yoruba the first being that you must make contact with before working with anything else is Papa Legba (as he is know in Voodoo). So, I went about getting everything that I would need to get into contact with Papa Legba. I set an altar by my front door and began to do a ritual to welcome him into my home. I sprayed rum on the walkway leading to my front door, burned lots of tobacco, and blasted Yoruba Music on Pandora, as the ritual went on a presence began to fill the house. I lit some red and candles and let them burn down and as they did the magical feeling became even more intense. The little poppet I made seemed to come alive and a grandfatherly presence settled into the house. Weekly offerings of cassava bread, coffee, rum, and tobacco continually re-enforced my desire to have his presence and power around. One day, it became more than just a "presence" as Papa Legba started to talk to me and began giving me practical advice on my situation and things that needed to happen. I had some serious doubts about this until a friend of mine, who practices Santeria, was talking about what I had been up to to his Godmother and she fell into a trance and related the same information back to him! So, I sent him money to make an offering to their shrine to Legba, and I got a call a couple days later and got a new job! I rearranged my temple, under the instructions given to me in a dream by Papa Legba, and the force increased dramatically. Spirits began to present themselves to me wanting to work with me, and spirits that I was already working with became less troublesome. The obstructions in my life have literally crumbled at my feet in just the last week, and boy, was it surprising to learn what those obstructions were. My emotions are running freely for the first time in several years and my musical ability just keeps growing and growing in literally days (I haven't even picked up my guitar in almost 3 years, now I can put it down!). Not to mention the psychic channels have been opening up after being blocked for too long and an overwhelming force feels like it's pouring from my heart! Sorry for the rant, but what I am trying to relate is that these Afro-based religions are absolute powerhouses and deserve some serious investigation by ceremonial magicians. I mean shoot, I spend more time praying now than I ever have before and developing new out-of-the-box rituals to deepen the connections I've created. I wonder if Crowley had been introduced to Santeria or Voodoo properly I wonder how Book 4 would read... -
From my personal experience, the city I live in has a huge population of practitioners of these Afro/Island paths, and while they like you spending money in their stores- they seem to be very (rightfully so) careful about their practices, setting up lots of blocks, and blinds.
I also have found that the appetite of these paths to be voracious, and um.....particular.
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I'm currently going through David Beth's *Voudon Gnosis *(Fulgur edition) which deals with Vudu and the Lwa. It works off Bertiaux's lineage and African sorcery and it's very heavy stuff. Mayan Derren describes in The Divine Horsemen the ritual procedures in voudon by which dead ancestral spirits are remembered by the living and, if treated properly, may eventually become Lwa. This finds a correspondence in the family constellation therapy of Bert Hellinger which is inspired by, and draws upon, Zulu ancestral worship.