Voodoo

★2011 ★

African Theological Archministry

℅ Oyotunji African Yoruba Village
Box 51
Sheldon, SC 29941

In December 1973 a group of blacks from Harlem received national news coverage for their establishment of a "voodoo kingdom" in Beaufort County, South Carolina. The sacred village of Oyotunji is headed by King Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi I, born Walter Eugene King in 1928. King abandoned the Baptist Church of his family during his teens and began a search for the ancient gods of Africa. He traveled to Haiti in 1954 and discovered voodoo. Early in 1955, he travelled to Europe and North Africa and upon his return to the United States, he founded the Order of Damballah Hwedo Ancestor Priests. Then in 1959, he traveled to Cuba and was initiated in the Orisha-Vodu African priesthood by Afro-Cubans at Matanzas, Cuba. The Order of Damballah was superceded by the Shango Temple and in 1960 he incorporated the African Theological Archministry. The Shango Temple was renamed the Yoruba Temple.

In 1970 King Efuntola, as King became known, moved with most of the temple members to rural South Carolina where the Yoruba Village of Oyotunji was established. He began a complete reform of the Orisha-Vodu priesthood along Nigerian lines. In 1972 he traveled to Nigeria and was initiated into the Ifa priesthood. Upon his return he was proclaimed oba-king (Alashe) of Oyotunji. He opened the first Parliament of Oyotunji chiefs and landowners and founded the priests' council (Igbimolosha) in 1973. These two groups make the rules for the community. They attempt to adhere closely to African patterns.

Oyotunji has been modeled on a Nigerian village. A palace for the King and his wives (four in 1995) and children has been constructed. There are also several temples dedicated to the various deities. Only Yoruban is spoken before noon each day. He was invited to a convention of Orisha-Vodum priests at Ile-Ife, Nigeria, in 1981, and on June 5 was coronated by the King of Ife.

Yoruba Religion is considered to be the "rain forest version of the Ancient Egyptian Mystery System." It is the source for Afro-Cuban Santeria, but makes no attempt to equate its gods with Christian saints. The system is headed by Olorun, a universal energy without anthropomorphic characteristics. Olodumare, equated with Ifa, the god of destiny and divination, sets a destiny for everything in nature. It is Orishanla (Obatala)—the creator god who created the solid land mass and also the first earthlings. The pantheon also includes Eshu-Elegba, God of Luck, and the personification of the unpredictable element in life; Ogun, God of Iron—the violent element in life; Oshoun/osun/, Goddess of Sex and Beauty—the sensuous element in life; Shango, God of Lightening and Thunder—the political element in life. Practices of the Yoruba system include animal sacrifice, polygamy, ecstatic dancing, and the appeasement of the gods by various offerings. Worship centers upon the veneration of the deities. Worship is also directed toward ancestors, the closest level of spiritual forces to indviduals.

Membership: In 2002 there were 51 residents of Oyotunji, 55 affiliated centers in the United States, and it reported more than 10,000 members.

Educational Facilities: African Theological Archministry, Sheldon, South Carolina.

Yoruba Theological Archministry, Brooklyn, New York.

Remarks: King Efuntola had become a leader in the African Nationalist movement in the 1960s. Since moving to South Carolina, his village has become a pilgrimage site for many blacks, irrespective of their acceptance of his religious stance.

Sources:

Adefunmi, Baba Oseijeman. Ancestors of the Afro-Americans. Long Island City, NY: Aims of Modzawe, 1973.

Adefunmi I, Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu. Olorisha, A Guidebook into Yoruba Religion. Sheldon, SC: The Author, 1982

Canet, Carlos. Oyotunji. Miami, FL: Editorial AIP, n.d.

Hunt, Carl M. Oyotunji Village. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979.

Mason, John. Ebo Eje (Blood Sacrifice). New York: Yoruba Theological Archministry, 1981.

——. Sin Egun (Ancestor Worship). New York: Yoruba Theological Arch-ministry, 1981.

——. Usanyin. New York: Yoruba Theological Archministry, 1983.

——. Unje Fun Orisa (Food for the Gods). New York: Yoruba Theological Archministry, 1981.

Odunfonda I Adaramila. Obatala, The Yoruba God of Creation. Sheldon, SC: Great Benin Books, n.d.

★2012 ★

Afro-American Vodoun

Current address not obtained for this edition.

Occasionally, a leader of a voodoo group will allow an outsider (such as a reporter) to gain limited access to their organization. Such a leader was High Priestess Madam Arboo of Afro-American Vodoun. Madam Arboo was active in Harlem in the 1960s as leader of an Afro-American Vodoun group. Born in Georgia, Madam Arboo was reared in voodoo and migrated to New York City. As described in a lengthy article which is the only source of information about her, she described vodoun as an Afro-Christian cult centered on Damballah (the chief voodoo deity), the god of wisdom, personified as a serpent. As high priestess, she is his messenger. Her group differs from Haitian voodoo groups in that it has reduced the remainder of the pantheon to the position of sub-deities or spirits. Damballah is equated with the serpent that Moses elevated in the wilderness (Numbers 21:9).

Healing is a high priority of Vodoun and includes both psychic and psychological counseling and (where permitted) the dispensing of folk remedies such as rattlesnake oil. Worship is held on the evening of the new moon and is centered on ecstatic dance accompanied by flute and drum and led by the papaloi (priest) and mammaloi (priestess). The members, as they dance, enter trance-like states which become occasions for revelations and messages from the spirits. Elements of Christianity survive in the use of spirituals. The threefold way of Vodoun teaches faith, love, and joy as virtues. The pentagram (for females) and the star of David (for males) are major symbols. Animals carry symbolic power: the goat, fertility; the eagle, majesty; the turtle, caution; and the vulture is Damballah's sanitation department.

Membership: No direct contact has been established with Madame Arboo and the current status of her group is uncertain. Vodoun groups exist along the East coast and are organized into gatherings of from 15 to 20 persons.

Sources:

Arboo, Madam, as told to Harold Preece. "What 'Voodoo' Really Is." Exploring the Unknown 4, no. 6 (April 1964): 6-19.

★2013 ★

Chamber of Holy Voodoo

Current address not obtained for this edition.

The Chamber of Holy Voodoo emerged in the 1970s as a semi-public voodoo organization which offers to teach voodoo to students via correspondence. While the specific teachings are revealed only to students, the Chamber offers to introduce those who join to the world of Holy Spirits and to teach them how to invoke them for various purposes. After a basic course, students may prepare themselves for the priesthood and learn the secrets of healing, exorcism and the process of spirit possession. The Chamber also has a special section devoted to dealing with the problems of its members, the Room of Blessing, in which voodoo is used to assist individuals in overcoming obstacles and reaching goals. Marriage counseling is a particular concern.

Membership: Not reported.

★2014 ★

Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye

℅ Ernesto and Fernando Pichardo
3720 SW 108th Ave.
Miami, FL 33165

The Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye was founded in the early 1970s, and incorporated in 1974 in Miami, Florida, by Ernesto Pichardo, its president, and his brother Fernando Pichardo in an effort to provide a public center for the largely secretive Santeria religion. Santeria has emerged as a significant practice in the Cuban-American community of southern Florida since the arrival of the first refugees from the Cuban Revolution under Fidel Castro. The church existed in relative quiet for many years with its main public appearance being in a class Pichardo conducted at Miami-Dade Community College and in a series of cases in the city courts in which the church defended its members. However, in the mid-1980s, a decision was made to open a Santeria church with public services in the Miami suburb of Hialeah.

Santeria is based upon the worship of the orishas, African deities from the present country of Nigeria, which was brought to the Americas by the many slaves transported to America from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. In the Spanish colonies, such as Cuba, Nigerian religion took on a veneer of Roman Catholicism and many of the orishas identified with Catholic saints, and the resultant New World practice became known as the religion of the saints, i.e., Santeria. Worship in the religion is built around the possession of the priest/priestess and the believer by the orisha. During this time of possession the possessed person will take on the characteristic of the particular divinity. Integral to the worship of the deities, especially on special occasions such as a marriage ceremony, animals are sacrificed. This latter characteristic has made Santeria controversial in an otherwise very tolerant religious environment in Miami, New York, and Los Angeles, the three cities with the largest number of Santeria practitioners.

Shortly after announcing the opening of the church, the city of Hialeah passed four ordinances outlawing ritual animal sacrifice, ostensibly to protect residents from the spread of disease, to prevent cruelty to animals, and to prevent traumatizing any children who might witness the death of an animal. The case became the subject of a court battle that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1993 the court struck down the ordinance.

Membership: Not reported.

Periodicals: Newsletter.

Sources:

Resnick, Rosalind. "To One City, It's Cruelty. To Cultists, It's Religion." National Law Journal (September 11, 1989).

★2015 ★

Church of the Seven African Powers

PO Box 453336
Miami, FL 33245

The Church of the Seven African Powers is one of several churches founded during the 1980s through which the largely secretive Santeria community could reach out to the public at large, especially those who had become curious about it and wanted to experience it first hand. The church promotes the worship of the orishas, the African deities whose actions form the heart of the Santeria faith. The church offers a correspondence course for people wishing to become knowledgeable about the faith. Each lesson contains instructions for ebbos (spells) designed to aid the believer. The church also provides a means for seekers to come to Miami and to experience direct contact with the orishas through meetings with a Santeria priestess or priest.

Membership: In 2002 the church reported 100-200 members.

★2016 ★

First Church of Voodoo

Current address not obtained for this edition.

Robert W. Pelton, a free-lance journalist, made an extensive study of voodoo in the early 1970s, traveling around the United States visiting magicians, conjure men and women and voodoo practitioners. His research led to a number of books surveying the topic. He also decided to organize a voodoo church which began meeting in the home of Francis Torrance and Candy Torrance, a voodoo priest and priestess in North Knoxville, who taught a course in voodoo magic at the University of Tennessee evening school. The church was incorporated in Tennessee in 1973. The Church teachings combined elements of voodoo, conjureman (hoodoo), and Christianity. Ordination is available by mail.

Membership: Not reported.

Sources:

Pelton, Robert W. The Complete Book of Voodoo. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972.

——. Voodoo Charms and Talismans. New York: Drake Publishers, 1973.

——. Voodoo Secrets from A to Z. South Brunswick, NJ: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1973.

——. Voodoo Signs and Omens. South Brunswick, NJ: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1974.

★2017 ★

Religious Order of Witchcraft

(Defunct)

The Religious Order of Witchcraft was incorporated in 1972 in New Orleans, Louisiana, by Mary Oneida Toups, its high priestess. A housewife and mother, she began her magical career in 1969 in a Kabbalistic system. In 1970 she opened the Witches' Workshop (now the Witchcraft Shop), a magick/witchcraft/voodoo shop in the city. She continued her study in the ritual magick systems of Aleister Crowley and Israel Regardie and, in 1971, reached the point of mystical communion with her holy guardian angel. That communion led to the founding of the order. According to her textbook, Magick, High and Low, the order was focused in Kabbalistic magick with a strong emphasis on astrology, Egyptian mythology, and the Tarot. The members venerated the "God of the Witches" popularly known as the Goat of Mendes. They did not worship it, but rather what it symbolized: the magical light of universal intelligence always available to people when they learn how to use it, the belief that sacrifice must come before complete illumination, the balance between justice and mercy, eternal life, and the dual masculine-feminine nature of the body, among other things. Following her death, the Order disbanded. The Witchcraft Shop she operated in New Orleans continues under new management.

Sources:

Troups, Oneida. Magick, High and Low. Jefferson, LA: Hope Publications, 1975.

★2018 ★

Voodoo Spiritual Temple

828 N. Rampart St.
New Orleans, LA 70116

The Voodoo Spiritual Temple is an important center of voodoo located on the northern edge of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Its importance lies in its openness to people not of African lineage, especially visitors to New Orleans, and its willingness to introduce outsiders to the often secret world of voodoo (or voudou).

Voodoo originates from the French word Voudon, which can mean "the power," "that who is invisible," or "the creator of all things." Originating in Benin, West Africa, and the Congo, Central Africa, voodoo is an earth-based religion that honors the forces of nature and the universe as well as ancestral spirits that provide guidance in the present. During the slave trade, Africans taken from these regions kept alive their traditional spiritual practices despite attempts to destroy the spirits of those captured.

Since its introduction in the Western Hemisphere, Voodoo's opponents have depicted the religion as a sinister, even abominable, belief, and the Voodoo Spiritual Temple states that these characterizations are the result of misunderstanding as well as deliberate misconceptions on the part of writers, anthropologists, and scholars, as well as Hollywood producers.

Voodoo devotees believe in an Omnipresent Creator and the Loa or Orisha (forces or saints of the universe). The Loa act as intermediaries between the creator and the human world, comparable to saints in Catholicism. Loa interact with people and things to help create and maintain a spiritual balance.

The Temple was founded in 1990 by Priestess Miriam Chamani and her husband Priest Oswan Chamani (d. 1995). A native of Mississippi, Miriam experienced the power of mysterious forces since childhood, and was led to various spiritual orders, culminating in the attainment of vast spiritual and metaphysical knowledge while at the Angel All Nations Spiritual Church, where she was consecrated as a bishop in 1982. Oswan Chamani was born in Belize, Central America, where he studied voodoo (known as Obeah in Central America) under three teachers, two of which were African Diviners.

The address of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple's web site is http://www.gnofn.org/~voodoo/Welcome.html.

Membership: Not reported.

Periodicals: Voodoo Realist Newsletter.