Where You Find Vodou

You ain’t gonna find it—the real deal, not the mummery one does for tourists and the curious—in a clean, well kept, well maintained space.

There’s a lot of reasons for that, but the one I think about the most is very simple: we like to avoid spiritual things if we can. A clean, comfortable place is a place where we can be easily distracted from anything spiritual. A clean comfortable place where we have internet and phone access, and we can easily not have to think about anything difficult at all.

Spiritual things are, at the least, uncomfortable. They’re often downright difficult. Why would anyone bother with anything spiritual when they could watch videos, play games, talk to friends and strangers, or otherwise be doing something fun in a comfortable place?

If you’re looking for vodou, look for it where people are going through it. Where people are uncomfortable, where the coverage is spotty, the weather is hot or hostile, and the meals are sporadic. People are a lot more receptive the spiritual when the physical world is disappointing them.