Vodou Culture 101: The Path
US majority culture and Abrahamic religions, with their obsession with rules and guidelines, love the idea that there is only one right way to do anything. Either adherence to the rules of Christianity or you go to hell. Either adherence to the rules of Islam or you to go to Jahannam. Either adherence to the rules of Judaism or you go to Gehenna. Each tends to view the other as misguided and everyone outside Abrahamic religions as shades of evil, from misguided to malicious.
This is not how vodou views the concept of religion and the relationship of religion to living. In vodou cultures, there is explicitly the idea that getting to alignment with the divine takes a variety of forms: as many forms as it needs to, in the infinite creativity of the divine, its helpers, and the human imagination. People select onto paths, that is religious systems which have their own requirements, as they need to in any particular life. You’ll cycle through as many as you need to, in order to learn whatever lessons you need to learn.
The divine knows how many paths there are or will be, and the divine’s helpers can reach you wherever you go, in whatever path you happen to be in. There’s little to worry about in terms of whether people have “the truth”—they’ll have it eventually no matter what they do, in some life. While vodouizans can and do comment on other paths (as I have been) and on this path, many of us don’t worry about whether vodou is perceived as ‘real’ or ‘right’, other than to be aware of how we’re perceived and take precautions.
Christians have a tendency in the islands to violently persecute vodouizans and to reward that persecution with food in impoverished communities, so we do have to know what they’re thinking. They’re also the majority religion here in the US, which rewards paying attention.
I don’t, at least at this point, worry about whether anyone else is doing vodou right. The spirits and experience will sort it, or they’ll be back to try again in another life. I might comment on it if you’re one of mine, but that’s in the context of the practices of my home temple and the extent of my authority. There is no ex cathedra in vodou and I’m not particularly interested in being the pope.
We get to fuck up as individuals. Nobody can learn our lessons for us.
This does not mean it’s not annoying to watch people do things that incur the same consequences over and over. It does mean that, for me, I need to step back on occasion and remember that the scale here is eternity.
Vodou cultures do, however, view their path as being a bit more direct than other paths. This is partially because vodou encourages taking on lessons directly, with the explicit goal of mastering the lesson with the help of more experienced elders. Getting help from elders tends to make learning faster and can make it less painful, in the long run.
We also employ magic to help. Priests and spiritual workers tend to be witches, magicians, sorcerers if you like: we bend the rules a bit for people.
But fundamentally, vodouizans don’t recruit. There’s no reward for bringing in new people, and in fact it results in a lot of work (if you are being ethical.)
We leave recruiting to the spirits. You here if you meant to be here and you’ll find us if you need us.
