Cults & Deliverance: The Truth about Voodoo, Obeah & Santeria {WATCH}
I’ve been wanting to post some documentaries about Voodoo for some time. Voodoo, Santeria, Obeah, Hoodoo, Rootworking, Mojo, etc., outside of some ancillary differences, at their core, they’re the same. It’s just a question of the people group and the preferred mask of choice. Why would I want to do a post on Voodoo? Because it is prevalent. Prevalent and followed by poverty, death, and destruction. Voodoo very literally deceives people, then drags them to Hell.
Mysteries and Secrets of Voodoo, Santeria, and Obeah describes Voodoo as such:
There are significant differences between the mysterious syncretized religions in the group that contains Santeria, Voodoo, Obeah, and similar faiths. Voodoo has several variant spellings - including Vodou, Vudun, Vodoun, and Vodun - depending on the language of the culture where it is recognized. The most familiar form of the word, Voodoo, is the one used frequently in the New Orleans area of the U.S.A. Vodou is the name employed in Haiti. Vudun, Vodoun, and Vudon are the variants used by worshipers in Brazil. Vodun is also an old Fon word that simply means spirit.
However it is spelled, Voodoo can be thought of as traditionally West African - like Santeria. The heart of Voodoo’s religious, theological, metaphysical, and philosophical thinking is close to the core of most world religions: an attempt to understand and explain the universe and the vast forces within it, to control or influence those forces, and to influence human thought and behaviour.
Witchcraft, Idolatry & the Curse
Throughout Scripture, witchcraft and idolatry are always tied to a curse. God views all witchcraft as an abomination. See what Scripture says.
But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
….The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. (Deuteronomy 28:15, 20-24)
‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep My Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord….
‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,
I also will do this to you:
I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.
And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies.
Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
I will break the pride of your power;
I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.
And your strength shall be spent in vain;
for your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. (Leviticus 26:1-2, 14-20)
There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you. (Deuteronomy 18:10-14)
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry…. Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? (I Corinthians 10:14, 18-22)
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)
God takes idolatry personally. He is indeed a jealous God. When Egypt insulted Him by enslaving His people and their steep traditions of idolatry, the Word says He personally declared war against their gods.
“For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.” (Exodus 12:12)
For the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had killed among them. Also on their gods the Lord had executed judgments. (Numbers 33:4)
When you call upon false gods, be they the god of Death & Destruction or another, you call down upon yourself death and destruction. And while we could debate for days whether or not the natural disasters which have taken place in various places were judgments of God versus the wrath of demon-gods, we know that they are (more than likely) the result of Voodoo worship.
The God of Death & Destruction
Well besides the fact that if you follow my blog, you know that I love exposing false doctrines and cults for the glory of God, New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 and they are the 1st world’s top location for Voodoo. Then in 2010, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, Haiti being the Caribbean seat of Voodoo. And Benin, the birthplace of Voodoo, (along with Togo and Ghana) was hit with heavy rain and flooding in 2015 resulting in “278 schools were flooded and more than 50,000 houses were destroyed leaving 150,000 people without shelter. The 2010 floods ruined 128,000 hectares of crops and farmland and an estimated 12,000 metric tons of food stocks were lost because of destroyed storage facilities,” (FloodList.com). And I believe that just this past week, Hurricane Matthew - the very image of Death & Destruction - also headed for Florida where in Miami, resides, the second most popular seat of Voodoo in this nation after New Orleans.
This is the confirmed, undoctored image of Hurricane Matthew.
But what that mocking devil Matthew did not count on, or rather what he thought he could destroy, was the watchmen on the wall in Miami who, by the power of God, told that devil to leave them untouched. And you know what? He had no choice but to listen.
Look at that image. Again, I truly believe it to be the image of Death & Destruction. In his sermon “I Am Not Crazy,” Bishop Tudor Bismark made a summation about the Haitian earthquake of 2010 that, in short, stated after paying homage to the god of Death in their annual Voodoo festival, that the god of Death paid them back - with death - in the form of the earthquake which killed 300,000+ people. Pat Robertson would likely agree with this statement as he declared the earthquake to be a result of Haiti’s “pact with the devil.” And who could blame them since National Geographic called Haiti’s earthquake, “the strongest earthquake to hit the region in more than two centuries”?
Look at that image. You know what it reminds me of? The Day of the Dead skeleton decorations. The mocking smile, the brilliant colours, and Matthew scheduled to hit just 24 days before the Day of the Dead (October 31). If Voodoo is anything, it is the glorification of death.
Hurricane Matthew image vs. Day of the Dead Mexican sugar skull makeup rendering. Notice the striking similarities.
Voodoo & Santeria Candles
As a Florida resident, signs of Voodoo are common. Just this past weekend in Miami, we saw a Latino man riding down the street in front of us with his staff secured to his moped. I could see the tiny skull plainly from where I sat. First time for everything, folks.
It’s also very common to see Voodoo/Santeria candles sold in the Publix and Winn Dixie stores right alongside the Glade, Febreze, and Air Wick products. Now, growing up as an Evangelical Christian with a half-Haitian, half-Irish father who had no choice but to be raised as a Catholic and later converted, I wouldn’t have touched the saint-clad candles anyway. I saw them on previous trips to Miami, but didn’t know what they actually were. Not until I watched some documentaries on Voodoo in recent years did I actually know what they were.
DoktorSnake.com states, “Candles have always been part of voodoo magic. They’re used in rituals and ceremonies and in spell casting. In voodoo it is customary to take candles to ceremonies to honor your favored lwa (spirit) or patron saint.”
One documentary I saw focusing on New Orleans’ brand of Voodoo showed practitioners who openly state they don’t see much difference between the candle usage in Voodoo and the candle usage in Catholicism. In fact, they don’t think there’s much difference between the two religions at all.
Voodoo candles are often divided by colours. See below.
- RED: Love, sex, passion, affection, physical vitality.
- GREEN: Money, gambling luck, business, regular work, good crops.
- WHITE: Spiritual blessings, purity, healing, rest.
- BLACK: Repelling, dark thoughts, sorrow, freedom from evil.
- PURPLE: Mastery, power, ambition, control, command.
- ORANGE: Change of plans, opening the way, prophetic dreams.
- YELLOW: Devotion, prayer, money (gold), cheerfulness, attraction.
- LIGHT BLUE: Peace, harmony, joy, kind intentions.
- DARK BLUE: Moodiness, depression, unfortunate circumstances.
- BROWN: Court Cases, neutrality.
- PINK: Attraction, romance, clean living.
- RED & BLACK (reversible): To return evil to the sender.
(Source: DoktorSnake.com. See fuller definitions here.)
Candles are also labeled by saints, each of which was once a cover for the Voodoo gods during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the U.S. and Caribbean. Just ask Catholics invoke different saints for different petitions, so Voodoo believers do the same with their Loa (Voodoo gods).
Documentaries
But I’ve rambled enough. As LeVar Burton said, "Don’t have to take my word for it." Listen and learn all about Voodoo from the mouths of practitioners and believers themselves.
Stay tuned for my next post: Witchcraft & Deliverance Chronicles: Apostle Ivory Hopkins (Ministry)!
SEE ALSO:
