Mysteries and Secrets of Voodoo, Santeria, and Obeah

by Lionel

  Bremna Howells, medium and psychometrist.

  Quimbanda, on the other hand, while still belonging to what might be termed the spiritist group in general, has what some researchers think of as negative associations. The Umbandistas (followers of Umbanda) take a very positive view of the psychic world. They do not believe that any psychic entities are evil but acknowledge that some can be very mischievous. Umbandistas believe that these “naughty” or “mischievous” spirits need only to be re-educated. Quimbandistas, however, set out to exploit these mischievous ethereal entities and to take power from them for their own personal use — which makes it easy to understand why the Quimbandistas are sometimes referred to as witches, wizards, enchanters, or sorcerers employing black magic.

  The word Quimbanda came originally from the Angolan Kimbundu language, where it had the connotation of a seer, a prophet, a soothsayer, or a healer. Quimbanda rituals focus on necromancy — which can be defined as the practice of seeking advice and information from the spirits of the dead. The biblical Witch of Endor provides a prime example when she contacted the spirit of Samuel on behalf of King Saul, although the Book of Deuteronomy (Chapter 18, verses 9–12) warns against it. Ancient Persians, Chaldeans, Etrurians, and Babylonians all included necromancy in their belief systems. The Odyssey records how Odysseus visited Hades using a form of necromancy that Circe had revealed to him.

  Bringing together — as far as is possible — the principles of the various syncretized religions reveals a significant common core. The most ancient of their roots go back to very early African beliefs. There are also elements of ancient Babylonian, Chaldean, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman concepts. The idea of one supreme god is common to all of them, and this primal creator deity is assisted by numerous demigods and spiritual entities of various kinds, each with explicit powers and areas of responsibility. There are specific numbers, colours, and identifying items such as sacred stones that are associated with these individual Orishas and similar paranormal power-beings.

  One of the most challenging questions concerning the mystery of Santeria and similar syncretized belief systems is whether these paranormal entities have any real and objective existence. Belief systems tend to persist and expand where they produce psychological and sociological benefits for their adherents — irrespective of whether those belief systems are true or real in any objective scientific sense. One such motivational benefit in medieval Christendom, for example, was the avoidance of persecution, torture, and death for heresy. In tyrannous, totalitarian dictatorships, empowered by ruthless secret police and close surveil-lance, there are very powerful incentives to pay lip service to the dictator — irrespective of the validity of what the dictator proclaims.

  It can also be argued that belief systems tend to persist and expand where evidence does support — or may seem to support — their truth and reality. If enough people over enough time have witnessed phenomena involving the apparent intervention of Orishas and similar entities, belief in such beings will tend to persist and expand. It cannot be denied that such phenomena have been reported persistently over very long periods: but the question of their true causality remains open. It is very much to the credit of the mysterious syncretized religions that they encourage goodness, morality, and ethical behaviour. They also encourage spells, charms, talismans, enchantments, and various types of magic. Drumming and dancing feature prominently during the rituals and ceremonies, and there are altered states of consciousness and trance experiences that have something in common with hypnotism — either self-induced or induced by the priest or priestess.

  The power of the human mind, when properly focused and directed, is capable of achieving far more than is generally recognized. Evidence suggests that the release of mind-power is triggered at a subconscious or semiconscious level. Hypnotized subjects have been shown to be capable of remarkable feats that are not apparently achievable during their normal, conscious state. Is this one of the great secrets at the back of Santeria and similar religions?

  Wizards often possessed hypnotic powers.

  Chapter 7

  HYPNOTIC LITURGIES AND RITUALS

  Although modern scientific and medical hypnotherapy may be only two or three centuries old, hypnotism itself dates back for millennia. Ancient Egypt and classical Greece were aware of hypnotism, and it was certainly practised successfully in the Temples of Sleep used by the early Hindus. The ancient Sanskrit Law of Manu recognized different levels of hypnotically induced sleep in India millennia ago. Differences between ecstasy-sleep, dream-sleep, and waking-sleep were noted even in those early days.

  Although not named as such, some elements of hypnosis are indistinguishable from certain trancelike states induced during ancient religious ceremonies involving rhythmic drumming, chanting, or deep meditation.

  Paracelsus (allegedly 1493–1541, but he probably lived much longer) was an alchemist, a magician, a doctor of medicine, and, in the opinion of some researchers, possibly a time traveller as well! He discovered the usefulness of mercury as a means of allaying and ameliorating some of the symptoms of syphilis, and his innovative medical skills included stroking a patient’s body with a natural magnet — a lodestone. This stroking technique seems to have been closely allied to an early form of proto-hypnosis, in which healing suggestions accompanied the moving magnet. The stroking with a magnet technique was continued and developed by “The Great Irish Stroker,” whose real name was Valentine Greatrakes (1628–1682). He actually worked with the pioneering scientist Robert Boyle (1627–1691), who carefully noted Greatrakes’s method of magnetic stroking. The technique, as Boyle observed it, consisted of drawing the pain from the afflicted part towards the end of the limb and then out of the body altogether.

  Many years ago, we worked with a hypnotherapist named Louis Dorey who was also a skilled puppeteer. Louis’s technique was very similar to Greatrakes’s method. For example, he encouraged the patient to move a headache into an elbow or knee, along the limb and then out of the body altogether.

  Father Johann Joseph Gassner (1727–1779) was a Catholic priest at Klosterle and later at Pondorf, now part of Winklarn in Bavaria. He firmly believed that illness was caused by what he called demons, devils, and evil spirits. Working as an exorcist, Father Johann cured patients by a process that he believed involved driving out the evil spirits responsible for their illnesses. If his work is considered within the context of hypnotism and suggestion, however, it might be argued that his patients benefited from being told that the cause of their illness was being driven away.

  One of the most famous names in the history of hypnotism is Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815). He studied under Father Maximilian Hell (1720–1792), who, despite his surname, was a Jesuit. Maximilian’s healing methods consisted of applying magnetized steel plates to the patient’s body. In 1774, Mesmer gave one of his patients a dose of “medicine” that contained a significant quantity of iron. He then ran magnets over her body, and the patient described her strange feelings. She said it was as if tides, or streams, of fluid energy were running through her body and she reported that she felt much better for several hours afterwards.

  Mesmer was not convinced that the magnets were solely responsible for her improvement. He developed a theory of “animal magnetism” that involved healing power flowing from him to the patient. Later experts on hypnotism felt that processes other than what Mesmer called “animal magnetism” were the real causative factors.

  Armand-Marie-Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis of Puységur (1751– 1825), was an enthusiastic follower of Mesmer’s ideas and methods. His brother, Antoine-Hyacinthe, the Count of Chastenet, had taught him about mesmerism. One of their first patients was an employee named Victor Race who went into a state of what Puységur called “artificial somnambulism.” It was not until 1842 that James Braid referred to it by its familiar, contemporary name — hypnosis.

  As far back as 1785, however, Puységur was already teaching hypnotherapy — although he was still calling it animal
magnetism out of deference to his much-admired Mesmer. Part of Puységur’s course included the words “I believe that I have a power within myself … and my will is to exert it. The whole doctrine can be expressed in two words … believe and want… I believe that I have this power and I want to use it … on behalf of my fellows … If you also believe and want you will be able to do as much as I can do…”

  This pioneer hypnotist’s thinking has much in common with the fundamental ideas of Santeria, Voodoo, Obeah, and the other syncretized religions. If their magic and sorcery is to succeed, the priests, priestesses, and practitioners of Candomblé, Umbanda, and Quimbanda need to believe that the Orishas and other psychic entities exist and that they have the power to intervene in human life and the natural environment. The would-be workers of magic also need to believe in their own ability to communicate with the powerful psychic entities, to use them, and to be used by them. Just as the element of belief is an integral part of syncretistic religious magic, so is the element of wanting. The magicians and their clients want health, material prosperity, and success in love. Most of their magic is aimed towards these goals.

  Another pioneering hypnotist was a Scottish surgeon named James Esdaile (1808–1859). He worked in India where he performed more than two thousand operations using a form of hypnosis to anesthetize his patients while the surgical processes were being carried out.

  Not all medical experts and experienced practitioners of hypnosis would agree, but hypnosis can be defined as a state of increased suggestibility during which ideas and instructions become readily acceptable to the subconscious mind. Hypnosis can “cure” (eradicate and replace) long-established habits and attitudes that the patient wishes to change. Expressed in its most basic form, and focusing on the powers of practitioners of Obeah, Voodoo, Candomblé, and the other syncretized religions, hypnosis opens a ready channel of communication between the subconscious, conscious, and superconscious minds. Once that channel is open and fully established, the unfathomable powers of the subconscious and superconscious are accessible to our desires, ambitions, and aspirations. The sky becomes the limit.

  Examples of the power that mind can exert over matter include the amazing feats of Francisco Rodriguez, better known as Pipin Ferreras (Spanish nickname meaning “The Iron Man”), whose outstanding exploits were featured on co-author Lionel’s widely acclaimed TV series Fortean TV on UK Channel 4. Francisco, who was born in Cuba on January 1, 1962, had a degree of mind-over-body control that enabled him to get down to depths of over five hundred feet under free-diving conditions.

  On Sunday, July 15, 2007, Lewis Pugh, using mind-power alone, super-heated his body until he was sweating and then plunged into sub-zero water close to the North Pole and swam over half a mile.

  These examples of mind control to overcome water pressure and very low temperatures are outstanding, but the mind control exercised by a yoga master named Haridas in 1835 is even more sensational. The whole story was recorded in the Calcutta Medical Times for that year. Haridas, a fakir and advanced yoga practitioner, had developed his powers of mind over matter to a point where he claimed that he could be buried alive for a period of forty days.

  Preparations for Haridas’s feat included severing the muscles below his tongue so that it could be rolled back to seal off the airways in his throat. Prior to being buried alive, he went to great lengths to cleanse his alimentary canal. These purging techniques included swallowing ninety feet of linen bandage and then slowly regurgitating it. Haridas also sealed his nose and ears with wax as a precaution against predatory insects while he was underground. The doctors who were examining him found that his pulse was practically undetectable as he was placed inside a large chest that was then padlocked shut. The Maharaja of Lahore, who was a well-educated, thoughtful, and objective thinker, was in charge of the experiment and had the chest sealed with his own personal seal. It was then buried, and a wall was built around it. The Maharaja posted guards at the site and ordered barley to be sown over the fakir’s grave.

  On the fortieth day, the Maharaja and the other witnesses arrived at the site to reopen the grave. The barley plants had grown undisturbed. The chest was still sealed and padlocked. When it was opened, the fakir was in his original position and apparently lifeless. Sir Charles Wade, an unimpeachable witness, reported that Haridas looked like a corpse. His limbs seemed to be shrunken and rigid; his head rested on his shoulder. There was no detectable pulse. The doctors in attendance removed the wax from his ears and nose, extracted his tongue from the position where it was blocking his airways, and massaged him for several minutes. Then they reinflated his lungs using bellows: within an hour he was back to normal. The delighted Maharaja gave him a handful of diamonds.

  In the light of men such as Ferreras, Pugh, and Haridas, it is relevant to ask how much is known about the real power and function of the subconscious and superconscious minds. How close are their strange powers to what adherents of the mysterious syncretistic religions would speak of as magic and sorcery?

  Colin Wilson, in his outstandingly interesting foreword to the edition of the Necronomicon that George Hay edited so effectively, says this about the relationship of the superconscious, conscious, and subconscious minds: “Does it have an upstairs above the ground floor of consciousness as well as a garbage-littered basement beneath? … cases of remarkable genius seem to suggest that man possesses a ‘super-consciousness’ as well as an ‘unconscious’ mind … and it is equally alien to the everyday personality…”

  The subconscious is the reservoir of memories and the control room of habits — including those that are the products of addictions. Compulsive behaviours are also directed from the subconscious mind, and yet it is not without a simple sense of humour. A.P. Herbert (1890–1971) had a keenly perceptive insight into what a sense of humour really is. He is credited with describing it as the apperception of the juxtaposition of the incongruous. The subconscious mind is certainly crammed with enough incongruities to make a sense of humour essential for its survival. There is a childlike simplicity in the subconscious and there are occasions when even the most solemn psychologist would regard it as having a childlike capacity for play as well. There is nothing more pleasing to the subconscious than order, routine, and methodical processes. This seems to be associated with its next characteristic, which is repetition. When the conscious mind goes over the same things repeatedly, the subconscious mind absorbs them and makes them part of itself. This ties in closely with the repetition of liturgies and rituals, rhythmic chanting, music, and drumming patterns, which are integral components of Obeah and similar religions.

  There is another important aspect of the subconscious, which can be thought of as automatism. Once it has been programmed or conditioned, the subconscious mind responds swiftly and automatically in accordance with what it has learned. In this respect it behaves rather like a programmed computer. Hypnotism is the keyboard and mouse that enable the conscious mind — the computer operator — to input the commands and instructions that will make the computer function as required.

  A more complex approach to what links mind processes of the hypnotic type to the mysteries of the syncretistic religions is neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP. It goes a step further than basic hypnotism by suggestion that linguistics is involved in character changing and improvement of human performance. NLP considers that body, mind, and language interact to give an individual his or her perception of the environment. According to NLP theory, what a person thinks about the world will influence the way that he or she reacts to it. NLP theory also suggests that changed perceptions lead to changed behaviours, and one of the characteristic NLP techniques is referred to as “modelling.” In its most rudimentary form, this involves studying the behaviour and speech patterns of successful individuals, and then emulating them. It also involves studying their belief systems — particularly the ways in which they see themselves relative to the world around them. Modelling has been defined as “the study of excellence a
nd how to reproduce it.”

  The similarity of NLP theory to the processes that take place in syncretistic religions becomes distinct when the relationship of the Orishas and their worshippers is viewed as a form of what NLP calls modelling. Powerful spiritual entities are seen by their worshippers as possessing excellence in the NLP sense. Devout believers want to emulate their Orishas, their saints, and their gods in order to achieve that excellence for themselves.

  NLP also makes reference to the “meta-model,” which consists of language patterns and questions that are designed to help the NLP practitioner to widen his or her perception of the environment. Working with a meta-model is believed to help an individual to discover any restrictive, limiting thoughts he or she may have concerning the way that the environment is perceived: things like “I cannot do this because…” and “I cannot achieve this highly desirable goal because…” By finding these mental restrictions and inhibitions — what some writers refer to as a glass wall — the individual working with NLP is enabled to break through the obstacles and succeed. This meta-modelling technique also has its parallels within the syncretistic religions. An Obeah follower may begin by believing that certain goals and achievements are hopelessly out of reach. By its very nature, this restrictive thought makes those goals seem unattainable. Once the person can become at one with a powerful Orisha, however, the inhibitory, restrictive thoughts melt away and the Obeah worshipper breaks through the barriers that formerly separated him or her from the desired success and achievement.

  Another NLP technique is referred to as the “Milton model” because it is based on the work of Milton Erickson (1901–1980). Erickson was a brilliant pioneering psychiatrist who specialized in medical hypnosis and became the founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. Erickson believed that the subconscious mind was largely separate from the conscious mind and very different from it. In his view, it had its own awareness and its own interests. He regarded it as a place where solutions to problems were generated and he also saw it as a creative and positive entity.