I thought I would present some of my other writings here, as a way of sharing. I am planning a book on the more esoteric elements of Haitian Vodou as I see them. This is not common thinking in Haiti, nor is it common practice. Rather, it is my own version and ideas of situations and scenarios as I have experienced them. I make no claim as these being authentic Vodou. This is my own musing, present here for your entertainment and thought. Any and all comments are welcome.
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Oversouls, Egregores and Contacts in Vodou
Of the many services I have
attended in Haiti and here
in the US,
the most compelling feature I witnessed were possession states. Contrary to popular belief, possession is a
rare and beautiful event. The Lwa descend
to their partners in graceful turns, speaking with an eloquence that belies the
horse’s education and giving out far more than just simplistic blessings. They also give the gifts of unconditional
love, stunning charitable statements and highly sophisticated theological
treatise. Such wonders made me realize
there was a strong current beneath the surface of possession that up to now has
been subsumed by the more apparent ‘cause celebre’ of the actual state of
possession. Writers spend a lot of time
remarking on the look of the horse, the manner in which they fall to the
ground, their physical condition. In
other words, the act of possession takes center stage, while the real or deeper
cause of possession is being overlooked.
This apparent oversight gave me the
inclination to try and analyze the reactions I was witnessing. I did not want to retreat into
para-psychological explanations for the meaning of my experiences. I am an Adept of the Occult Sciences. Surely, I could find a better way of
explaining the mystical nature of things, than a scientific one! It was while I was talking to a Haitian friend
about their annual family feeding in Saint that I was finally handed the key to
the mystery.
A Ritual of Food for the Gods
Saint Marc is part of the
Artibnonite Valley on the Western side of the island, and like all of Haiti,
has its own brand of Vodou due to the particular nation of Africans that
settled the area. Called the Arcadian
Coastline, some of the bloodiest battles for freedom were raged on these
shores. The people who finally settled
in Saint Marc are a shining example of independence, familial bonding and
creative life styles. The coast is lined with bustling businesses, large family
friendly hotels and the marchands (market
ladies) who sell the best peanut brittle on the island.
Here one also finds families
serving “djabs” as well as Lwa, and houmforts being led by bokors, who are
basically ‘oungan djakouts’ –
non-lineage priests who lead the yearly round of family obligations on the
family’s bitsaymon or ancestral land.
When a big ritual service is called for, the family hires a Oungan Ginen
to come sing the Priye and lead the services. But the daily round of services falls to the
family bokor, who knows the intimate spirits of the lakou and keeps them happy.
My friend’s aunt is the family
priest, a Manbo whose job is to keep the family’s obligations intact, and take
care of business as best she can solo. Tanté is beholden to feed the
family’s spirits annually. Such an
undertaking is a big and expensive event.
Every able bodied and employed family member is asked to contribute
money to the feeding, the rituals and the hiring of a priest for the Priye to
be sung properly. Last year, my friend
was asked to provide a substantial amount of money to the cause. When we talked, he was concerned that the
request for funds was out of the ordinary to the actual event. He also revealed that the aunt had already
fed these spirits the year before, and yet, she continued to experience bad
luck, ill health and general malaise.
The aunt was convinced the feeding had not gone well and was asking
everyone to repeat the ceremonies the following year, in order to appease the
spirits. Her sons, daughters, nieces and
nephews, already under the strain of families, schools and work challenges,
were not happy at the unending stream of things required to complete the
service. Adding to the upheaval was the
request for more money when everyone had already donated the year before. People were frankly put out at the request,
and folks were backing away from the responsibilities. My friend was not happy either.
What, he asked me, was happening?
Why are the same spirits still hungry, when they had just received their
feeding recently? And having been fed, why were they allowing the aunt to be
harmed again and again? I shook my head
at the time, but later, as I thought about it, I realized there was a much larger
concept in action, one that would drive everyone under its influence to do what
was necessary to keep the peace on the Lakou.
The Egregore of the family Lwa was
in play, driven locally here in America
by the Oversoul the aunt shared with her immediately family (including my
friend). This energetic construct was
keeping everyone in a heighten state of emotions. Those emotions were feeding the Oversoul,
which in turn was agitating the family, creating a self-destructive loop of
emotion with dire consequences for everyone involved. Let’s talk about this concept and see if it
does not give us a clear way of defining the work of being servitors who are in
balance with our spirits.
Oversoul: A Definition
Oversouls are a way of saying that when
two people came together whether physically, socially, emotionally or even just
spiritually, they make "magic".
That magic can generate itself from many sources. It can arise in the form of a combined
personality that is shared by friends who dress similarly or finish one another’s
sentences. It is seen in a mission
statement of business partners that is expressed through the relationships
built upon the statement. The numinous awe
of a shared religious experience amongst congregants is a very common example
of Oversoul. It can even have a physical
outcome such as the child of lovers. In all cases, it is the combined emotions
of the two people involved that dictate the kind of Oversoul achieved by the
union.
One need not look hard to find an
Oversoul in action. Oversouls demonstrate
their presence through a variety of patterns, such as finishing one another's
sentences, dressing alike, thinking alike, liking the same things, or being
drawn to the same things. This is not to
say that two people become twins - there will always be differences. But there are more similarities than
differences. And those similarities are
what become defined as an Oversoul.
An Oversoul is the natural event
resulting in two energies coming together.
For instance, two people, in any arrangement of relationship (friends,
family, lovers), share an Oversoul. If
those two people bring a child into this arrangement, then those two and the
child will share an Oversoul. You don’t
need to be married, and the child doesn’t have to be born of the couple. Simply living together and making a life
together is the power behind the birth of the Oversoul.
Families often share an Oversoul that can have far reaching results. If an Oversoul is something that is shared by
two or more people, then a Family Oversoul is a deeper bond that mere pairing
can create. You share this Oversoul with
your mother and father, as well as your siblings. This Oversoul is the family vibe that runs
through you all. It descends from your grandparents
Oversoul or even further back, giving you a piece of their relationship with
which you begin your own.
Since Oversouls are created as a
product of the emotion between two or more people, we can say that they are the
outer expression of the inner feelings these people hold for one another. It is the over-arching emotion that brings
this concept into being. The Oversoul is
not independent of the people who give rise to it. The Oversoul only exists so long as the
people empowering it are together and in a state of emotion that feeds the
Oversoul.
Oversouls also reflect the great
rule of the Occult world – As Above, So Below.
Healthy Oversouls are a reflection of the people who give them their
power. Happy, healthy, balanced people
generate happy, healthy, balanced energy, which in turn results in an Oversoul
that reflects that all that good energy back to those people. To repeat a well-worn adage, As Above, So
Below.
Extrapolating along this line, you
can begin to understand how working with people who do good things out in the
world, who are balanced in their lives, can give rise to a powerful, balanced
energy source, which in turn can enliven and sustain you or your group for a
long time. And that sustenance can last
for many generations.
Oversouls exist over time as well
as space. The love bond between two people
can resonate down through families or social groups for generations. Loving parents give rise to loving children,
who seek out the same in their own lives.
Great families carry this bond for generations. Think of the Kennedys or the Rockefellers as
examples of generational Oversouls. We still react strongly to photos of John
or Bobby Kennedy when they appear.
Despite the gossip surrounding these men, they carried strong, powerful
Oversouls from their families that continue to influence and effect us even to
this day. Think not? Then think back over the death of JFK Jr, and
how we as a nation mourned along with his sister and family. The Kennedy Oversoul is still echoing over
us, effecting and emoting energy to us all.
As long as there are Kennedys alive,
then their Oversoul will continue to flourish, feeding and sustaining its human
counterparts for many years to come.
That story leads me to another
point which is that love is not the only driving force behind Oversouls. Although we are most often aware of and react
to an Oversoul at happy, love filled events (like weddings or baptisms), Oversouls
can be empowered by any method of energy involving emotions. Think
of any couple you know who fights constantly, yet stays together. That's the Oversoul at work. It's not good emotion per se; its emotion and the energy inherent
in that emotion that creates and feeds the Oversoul.
We don't like to see sick
Oversouls, yet we are as deeply affected by them as we are by healthy
ones. Sick Oversouls are often the most
powerful kind. The anger and jealousy that
fuel a sick Oversoul can rage for years.
Its one reason folks sometimes stay in relationships too long - the
Oversoul is being fed by the unhealthy emotions of the couple. And again, this Oversoul also follows the “as
above, so below” rule. Sick Oversouls reflect
down in unhealthy ways to their creators.
People who share a sick Oversoul are often tired, confused, tearful,
ill. They reflect the Oversoul’s
condition just as easily as the Oversoul is fed by them. This self-feeding loop is a strong measure of
how powerful an Oversoul can be.
One example would be parents
fighting, bickering and never being happy. In occult terms, we would say that
these people share a very ill Oversoul.
They fight over things like money or a nosey in-law. For example, the issue of a Jane Doe’s
dislike of her mother-in-law is sickening the very core of her marriage. This illness spreads through the Oversoul,
tainting everything it touches, from the fights that Jane’s children (siblings)
engage in, to the issues that strain Jane’s children’s own marriages, to even Jane’s
grandchildren (who incidentally, are the most easily touched by this). The same reason behind working with good
people who keep their word and follow through on their decisions is also at
play within a family's Oversoul. If
people cannot keep their peace, if there continues to be strife and stress in
the family, then one need only step away
long enough to see that an ill Oversoul sickens everyone. “Choose wisely,” as
the knight in the Indian Jones’ Grail movie said. Choose your words, your gestures, your
emotions and thoughts wisely, and that is doubly true for families.
To put this analogy into Vodou
terms, I would venture a guess to say that many of the inherited ‘djabs’ in Haiti are ill Oversouls
that are still resonating down through the lives of families for
generations. Emotion is a strong bond,
one that can take years to dissipate from the family tree. An angry parent, a dissident child, a
stubborn relative can all have profound repercussions for ages within a given
family. This is because once you are
involved with an Oversoul, it tends to stick around. And this is another key
piece to working with this paradigm. Oversouls
can resonate for ages, so long as any of the original emotion is present, in any
capacity, in any person operating under the Oversoul’s auspice.
Let’s return for a moment to my
friend’s aunt, Tanté. Living alone in Haiti
is a trial for even the staunchest person. The country is not suited to older single
females making their way in the world. Fresh
water has to be carried in to the house; food shopping is done at the local
markets an hour or more away. It’s a
hard life, for even a healthy person with no physical impairments. Tanté is not a healthy woman. Diabetes and a host of other ailments common
to all of us who age plague her. To make
life even harder, her children live here in the U.S. There is no immediate family present on the lakou (family compound) to help her with
her daily needs. One could make the argument that the rigors of living on the lakou, the annual feeding issues and the
seeming lack of support from the family has given rise to a difficult
Oversoul. This Oversoul is fed by the
emotions of the Aunt and the family, and continues to effect everyone in the
family, via its tainted, sorrowful energies.
It is sometimes easier to say “The devil made me do it”, than to admit
you are doing it to yourself. Hence, the
nature of “djabs” or devils in Haiti
can sometimes be ascribed to ill family Oversouls. But there is another paradigm that can also
become habitual.
I received sad news yesterday. A dear friend died unexpectedly. She was 74 but you'd never know it. With her red hair, sharp glasses and amazing sense of style, Judy-pudy (as I called her) always challenged me to look great at anytime, and of course, at her age. I never quite made the grade, but she didn't care. And now...I have her shoes to fill. She left behind a husband of 59 years (and yes, she married him at 15 and stayed married, how about that!), two wonderful daughters who I have known forever and two lovely grandchildren. I was shocked when I got the call. You think it won't ever happen but it does. It is a strange place to stand. Her daughters are scared of living without her. They feel adrift, cut off from the known safety of their mother. I know this feeling. No matter how far afield I roamed, I always knew, like Dorothy, there was no place like home. But when my parents crossed the veil 6 months apart, I was suddenly adrift, cast off from the safety of their presence and left to my own devices. I wasn't ready to be a grown up. But are any of us? Last night, as we sipped wine with her family, we shared stories of my friend. We cried, we laughed and we reminisced. It was all good, but there was that strange miasma hanging over us. The sense that we were alone in the world in a way we never had been before.
