Book: Urban Voodoo A Beginner Guide To Afro Caribbean Magic by Jason Black
This book fills a long-standing need in the literature: Voodoo, Santeria, and Macumba as practiced today in cities throughout the Western world. It is not another history or sociological study, but a candid personal account by two who came to "the religion" from the outside. It includes descriptions of the phenomena triggered by Voodoo practice, divination techniques, spells and a method of self-initiation.No one owns the term "Voodoo" because it is a mixed set of beliefs and folks practices from an indigenous cultural place called Haiti. The African beliefs that made it with the slaves to Haiti were inter-mixed with the Native American Taino culture who lived there prior to the African slaves.
AND let's not forget that New Orleans Voodoo is mixed with RootWork, Conjuring, some Native American Shamanism, Appalachian folks practices, Deutch Pow-Wow, Catholicism and the Gods know what else! So why not stop with all the slanderous crap by screaming that it's not real Voodoo and realize your argument holds no weight? As Louis Martinae, author of New Orleans Voodoo Tarot book and a drummer for the Rampart Street Voodoo Temple in NO, LA, said, "Voodoo is inclusive not exclusive".
Hyatt and Black have done an excellent job with helping one to cut thru the miasma of theory to get you a lot of HOW-TO material. I personally have used the "Invocation to Eshu" on page 147 & invoked Exu Tranca-Ruas as explained on pages 152-153 as well as invoked Oshun as explained on pages 160-161 both with AWESOME results! My clients have been astounded at the level of work that this Exu has performed for them.
Since I am a Practitioner of Sorcery and a Spiritual Worker, I have many clients who I do RootWork and Conjure-Sorcery work for and often I've found that Exu Tranca-Ruas to be just the help they need to break thru blockages that are stopping up their lives.
Go ahead and argue what you will about the origins of Hyatt and Black's material but RESULTS speak loudest!
Voodoo-Sorcery is the realm of the Bokor the Vodu Sorcerer and NOT under the thumb of the Vodu Priesthood thus none of you have ANY right to point fingers and complain. And it doesn't matter if you're a Santero/a, Babalawo, Houngan, Manbo, whatever, you do NOT have any say about what Sorcerers do and don't do! I don't see any of you telling a RootWorker what is authentic or what isn't.
The fact is that this system works. It just upsets many of you that the author's came out of the closet to explain material that was "supposed" to be kept hidden. Well too bad. It's now out in the open. And besides, the majority of this material is mere "surface knowledge" anyway. The real deep stuff is still hidden because one has to do the work to uncover it for themselves. Spoon fed info from your god-parents is mere surface knowledge to help get you to a level where - IF you do the work - then you will uncover the Deeper Aspects of Spirituality, Magic and Occultism.
The book is great, but not for everyone. If you're looking for a scholarly work on Voodoo, you've come to the wrong place. If you're a Waldenbooks Wiccan, looking to absorb yet another pagan practice into the mishmash you call a religion, you, again, do not want this book. A better title for this book could have been Santeria for the Solitary Sorceror. This book is mainly focused a kind of solitary practice of santeria and a blend of afro-carribean spirituality. This book is not for fluffy bunny pagans. It does attack wiccan and other neo-pagan movement religions but ahh well...get over it...This book is for a person who seriously wished to persue an afro-carribean path and dosent want costly initiations and memberships in groups of people. If this is you then I reccomend the book.
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