Found My Kente Today

I just unpacked my Kenti (a huge aprox 12 yard long, antique 200+ year old robe that belonged to an African chief’s witch doctor) it was badly damaged in the flood of 2006, so I put it away until I had time to repair it. I used to wear it all the time, it’s one of the things that used to really freak people out and get them pointing the “she’s a witch” finger at me. Anyways, I’m going to spend the week repairing it.

I bought it at an antique store years ago, for only $275. They were selling it as a blanket!!! OMG! They had no idea what it was!!!! These things are super, super rare, and museums pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a hold of one. It’s worth a fortune, but I’ll never sell it.

I believe it came from Yoroba. Judging from the cloth, weaving, and colors, I think it was made in the late 1700′s to early 1800′s. Somewhere between 1780 – 1840 -ish. It’s so very “voodoo”, I love it.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

<!–
amazon_prw_id = “V20070822/US/spacedock13-20/8100/cb2ec468-f833-4c8e-875f-9c73abbe33ac”; amazon_prw_width = “728″; amazon_prw_height = “90″;//–>

Found My Kente Today

I just unpacked my Kenti (a huge aprox 12 yard long, antique 200+ year old robe that belonged to an African chief’s witch doctor) it was badly damaged in the flood of 2006, so I put it away until I had time to repair it. I used to wear it all the time, it’s one of the things that used to really freak people out and get them pointing the “she’s a witch” finger at me. Anyways, I’m going to spend the week repairing it.

I bought it at an antique store years ago, for only $275. They were selling it as a blanket!!! OMG! They had no idea what it was!!!! These things are super, super rare, and museums pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a hold of one. It’s worth a fortune, but I’ll never sell it.

I believe it came from Yoroba. Judging from the cloth, weaving, and colors, I think it was made in the late 1700′s to early 1800′s. Somewhere between 1780 – 1840 -ish. It’s so very “voodoo”, I love it.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

<!–
amazon_prw_id = “V20070822/US/spacedock13-20/8100/cb2ec468-f833-4c8e-875f-9c73abbe33ac”; amazon_prw_width = “728″; amazon_prw_height = “90″;//–>

Not Witch — Voodoo — ???

My search to find out why fellow church members call me a witch and set out to destroy my property, demolish my home, kill my pets, and force me out onto the streets, continues (see previous post for more info if you are reading this post first.)

As you may or may not know, I’m one of the Angels on Squidoo, which means I spend a lot of time on Squidoo, not only building my own web pages, but also moderating & promoting the activities of other page builders. My job is to look for spam and get it off Squidoo’s home page, while looking for non-spam and getting it out in front of others. It’s a very time consuming “job” but I love it, and it has opened my way to finding thousands of wonderful web pages written by thousands of wonderful page builders, whom I other wise might not have found. Well, today is such a day.

I personally know several of the local Squidoo lensmasters offline and we get together to talk every few days. One of them was mentioning that she had found a lens she liked, but forgot to bookmark it, and a few days later was unable to go back to it to finish reading it, because she did not know the name of the lens, nor did she know the name of the lensmaster. Me being a Squid-Angel, meant that there was a pretty good chance I knew the lens title, so she started describing it to me. Well, I did not know the lens itself, but from her description, I was pretty posatve I knew who the lensmaster was. I told her I thought it must be one of VoodooMama’s lenses and that I’d look it up and let her know.

Well, last night, which zipping around Squidoo blessing lenses, I suddenly remembers I was supposed to be looking for that lens URL for my friend, and so I headed on over to VoodooMama’s list of lenses and sure enough, there it was. I sent the URL on to my friend, but than I went back to VoodooMama’s lenses and started reading them. I had seen her lenses in passing several times, but it seemed that whenever I had found one of her lenses I was always late for something and had to log off and leave the house, than never got back to reading what she had written, because by the time I’d log in again, I’d be thinking about something else (yes, my scattered brain mind had a very short attention span and I can switch from one topic to the next “at alarming speeds” or so I’ve been told on several occasions.)

Well, since I didn’t have anything planned for this morning, I decided to head back to VoodooMam’s list and spend a few hours reading her lenses. And that’s when it dawned on me – I think I know why the members at church persist in calling me a witch and went all hysterical and violent.

Okay, lets explain a few things.

Online, I talk about a lot of my hobbies, usually though I only talk about those hobbies which make an income, because I’m usually advising others on how to use the hobby to make an income. As such, almost every one online knows that I am a writer/author and an artist/painter. Due to the nature of the constant questions about my clothes and my constantly being puzzled as to why I’m always being questioned about my cloths, has resulted in my asking people online if they thought my clothes were strange too, and thus most people online are also aware that I am a fashion designer who recreates patterns from 1300-1600 eras and sews them up and wears them every day. I am thus often mistaken for a CosPlayer, and Anichronist, or a Life Actor as a result.

Here’s what you don’t know, unless you know me personally because I never talk about it online:

I’m a doll maker. I make a lot of dolls, including poppets of various sorts — poppets = dream dolls, worry dolls, healing dolls, etc, or in other words, I make what is more commonly as Voodoo Dolls.

I am well versed in the use of color, crystals, stones, plants, herbs, etc, due to the fact that I spent about 7 or 8 years studying Feng Shui and Crystal Healing.

All corners of my land and home are hung with various bags, bundles, mirrors, ect. which use color and crystal theory to harmonize and protect.

I am an expert embroiderer. I took up embroidery at age 6 and never stopped. I use my embroidery skills to create Indian medicine bags, dolls/poppets, and color patches (similar to quilt patches).

I live at one with nature and though my verbal skills with humans and human language is terribly limited, I can speak “bantam” very fluently and can talk to most every bird (and cat) that enters our yard. This results in my always being surrounded by wild birds and feral/stray cats which just gather in my garden and than never leave.

Both of my grandmothers were half Indian, one Cherokee and the other Kickapoo. The Kickapoo one was widely regarded as a “weather witch” and many people were terrified of her apparent ability to change and control the weather. She too, had a way with animals much like my own. She was a vegan Seventh Day Adventist and lived a semi-Amish life style. Much of the things I know, I learned from her. Like me, she lived 24-7-365 in muumuus and kimono and prairie dresses. I inherited her wardrobe when she died, and what cloths I now wear that I did not make myself, were once hers. Her name was Eva Viola Atwater, and in her own circles, esp in Maine and Hawaii, she was quite famous.

Okay, end of explanation, moving on . . .

So I’m reading one of VoodooMama’s lenses and I’m thinking . . . “Really? THAT’s Voodoo?” She a Voodoo . . . uhm . . . something, I don’t know the proper titles, but she’s a Voodoo something or other in any case. I get done reading the first lens and go on to the next. She’s not telling me anything new, I already know how to make these dolls and how to sew them out of certain colors for certain reasons and how to put certain crystals in certain dolls, etc, etc. I already know how to make and use these little bags (which she refers to as mojos and gri-gris, though I know them as medicine bags). I know how to use the sticks and water “magic” because it’s all in the Old Testament, that’s how Jacob turned all the white cows spotted. I know all about the whole what goes around comes around law of energy, that results in you never needing to “curse” a person because any harm they do you will fall back upon them 70×7 (Jesus said it in the Bible, so I know it’s true.) She says 3 fold return not 70×7 like Jesus said. . . . The list of things just goes on and on, with her explaining the nature and rituals and magic of Voodoo, and 20 or so lenses later, I’m looking at this and saying to myself: “That’s not Voodoo, that’s Hebrew Gnosticism. Everything she’s saying is Voodoo, can be found in the Bible. It’s all the things practiced by the Old Testament Prophets, the Magi, and Jesus Himself!”

Okay, time for another explanation: I’m EXTREMELY well versed in the Bible. At age 8, I was pulled out of public school and enrolled in the ORIGINAL Christian Liberty Academy (CLASS)(which is VERY different than the Christian Liberty Academy of today). Originally CLASS was run by a headstrong Calvinist preacher who spent most of his time in shoot outs with the government and was in and out of prison throughout most of the 1970′s and 1980′s due to his extremely radical views on Satan’s control of the government and public schools. He founded CLASS basically to raise up an army of Super Christians to follow in his footsteps. He was killed under questionable circumstances about 20 years ago, and after his death, CLASS underwent some major changes. CLASS today, is just your average ordinary private Christian School. Gone are the days of outspoken rebellion against America, and the overtly Calvinist text books.

Back when I was first enrolled in CLASS and the rebellion was on going, it was required that before any student did anything else, that they must read the Bible cover to cover and write a report of EACH chapter of each book of the entire Bible. Once that was completed we had to read Calvin’s Concordance, and reread the Bible using the concordance as a guide, and write a report on each chapter of the concordance. This all had to be done with in the first 3 months of enrollment, so that I would have time to next read The McGuffies 4th Reader, and than, start my text book studies. In addition to the 5 days of text book studies, I also had to do daily one hour Bible studies, and 4 hours of Bible studies on Sunday (not including Sunday School attendance I did through the Mormon church!) I was 9 years old. The superintendent of the Old Orchard Beach schools, looked at my required workload through CLASS and said that I was “a 4th grader doing college studies”, he was than farther amazed when he returned three month later, to find that I was not only keeping up with the work load, but that I was ahead and taking on extra work via Book of Mormon studies and writing 12 book 4 page reports per year. In Grammar and Composition, I had to digram 100 sentences per day, 6 days a week, every day, every year, as well as being required to write at least one letter of protest to the government each month. (This is how I got started writing letters of protest to Proctor & Gamble, I asked CLASS for permission to write to P&G instead and the request was approved). The Old Orchard Beach super was flabbergasted at the work load. He said that the work I was doing was more advanced than anything he had ever done himself even in college.

That was just 4th grade. This process repeated itself each year, until I reached 10th grade, my last year at CLASS and the year of the reierment of CLASS’s outspoken controversial Calvinist preacher turned school headmaster. In 10th grade everything changed, and suddenly I went from mountains of Biblical studies, to almost secular textbooks, which through in a few Bible quotes to make them sound Christian. I was devastated. I was not able to adjust from the mountains of written work and homework studies to just simple text book question and answer fill in the blank and be bored out of my mind studies. I wrote a request to CLASS asking to finish my last two years using the same program I had used my entire school life, but they said they had changed their system and that if I could not use the new system of study than I could not graduate. From 4th grade to 9th grade I was a straight A+ (all of my work had been graded by the headmasters at CLASS in Illinois). In 10th grade my grades plummited to C- . The murder of my best friend that same year (1991) and the court trials that followed, did not help my grades any either. Depression and a morbid fear of humans set in, and I after the court trails, I stopped talking. CLASS’s new headmaster (a former public school teacher) was now sending letters threatening to flunk me if my grades did not improve. I wrote back telling them that I had never used this new system before and had absolutely no idea how to do any of the work they were giving me, again requested that I be allowed to finish using the old system. They wrote back, saying that the old system was an outdated style that had not been used anywhere since the 1700′s and that CLASS was required to enforce the use of government approved textbooks from now on. I requested some sort of instruction as to how to use the new system and was told, that I simple read each chapter of the text book, and than answer the questions in the back, with 15 word or less sentences.

The 15 word or less sentences was killing me. Since 4th grade I had never written an answer with less than 4 sheets of paper. I had no idea how to write a complete answer in less than 4 pages let alone 15 words. I continued to write the 4 page answers for each question, even though my answers were longer than the chapters in the texts books. I was chided again and told they had no choice but to flunk me if I didn’t stop writing a composition for ever question in the textbooks.

Worst of all, was the cutting of classes, namely Bible Studies. Since 4th grade, CLASS’s system had required Bible first and last every day. An hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, 7 days a week . . . extra hours on Sunday. And it was not just reading the Bible . . . it was writing theories, compositions, and thesis on each chapter of every book, every single year. Suddenly it was gone. I asked CLASS why. They said that there had been hundreds of complaints from parents, saying that their children were not able to do the workload of the rigorous Bible Studies; that for years CLASS’s founder had ignored their complaints saying that they were not true patriots of Christ if they complained of too much Bible Studies; but now that he was no longer headmaster, his command no longer controlled the school, and the new headmasters felt it was in the children’s best interest if the Bible Study class was dropped and replaced with a text book version which summarized the basic Bible stories. I requested to finish my last years with the same system I had grown up with. They said it was gone and none of the CLASS students would ever use it again. I was devastated, and that’s when my problems really got going.

I tried as best as I could to read the Bible text book and answer it’s questions, but by this time I had read the King James Version of the Bible cover to cover, writing reports about each chapter, a sum total of 7 times. For extra work, I had done the same thing twice with The Book of Mormon and had started doing it with the Doctrines & Covenants and The Book of Josephus but never finished those two. I had also done the same thing with each of 16 other translations of the Bible (Amplified, NKJ, NLB, etc.). Now I was 15 years old and I had been handed a text book which summarized the Bible and I was supposed to fill in the blanks in the workbook. This lasted about 3 chapters before I flipped out, went into a roaring rage (my former headmaster would have been very proud — I learned from the Master!) and instead of answering the questions in the textbook, I wrote up a 12 page report about all the errors, mistakes, and mistranslations I had found in the textbook, and sent that back to CLASS headquarters instead of the answers to the questions. Needless to say, that was the last thing I did in school as I was not allowed to finish my 10th grade class and refused admittance into CLASS’s 11th and 12th grades. I was too much like CLASS’s founder Dr. Paul Lindstrom. Though they were proud of his “good” achievements, they wanted to erase all memory of his radical rebellion, and students who followed in his footsteps too closely(as I had done) were not tolerated under the new leadership of the school.

Okay, so now you know, what I mean when I say I am very well versed in the Bible. I know the Bible inside out and in 16 different translations. I loved the book of Daniel, I loved the stories of the Magi. I was very curious to see if all the “magic tricks” used by the prophets of the Old Testament really worked. I refused to believe that dancing a certain way by certain moon fazes, while holding certain types of twigs, really worked, unless I had first tried them out myself, and so, I at about 12 years old, set out to doing all of the weird little rituals and magic spells used by Moses, Daniel, Jacob, Abraham, Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, and all the rest. And that’s how I learned about making all these medicine bags, and using certain crystals and herbs for certain things – from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. When I tell you I’m a super strict Mormon who lives the old ways – well, Joseph Smith had all the stones and crystals and herbs too, and that’s how he talked to God. . . granted you’ll have to find church history books published (by the LDS church) prior to 1978 if you want to find out any of the old church history and the un-photo shopped photos of Smith, Young, and the Navoo Saloon, your best bet is books published by the church in the late 1800′s, though these are extraordinarily rare and hard to track down.

But anyways, back to VoodooMama’s lenses. I was reading her lenses about the things they do in Voodoo (which is a break off of the Catholic church btw . . . yes Voodoo’s ARE Christians and NOT pagan witches) and suddenly it occurred to me, that Voodoo is what they call someone who practices the rituals of Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Danial, and Jesus as they were written in the Bible.

Well, next thing I know I’m one Google and I’m searching for info on comparing witches to Voodoo, because one of the more common things for my fellow Mormons to accuse me of, in addition to witch, is being a “Voodoo witchdoctor”.

Ahhh! Now we are getting somewhere. Apparently, they are accusing me of being a witch because I live by the Bible and do the same things the old prophets did, but that the only Christians today who continue to do these things are members of the Voodoo religion, and they are mistakingly referring to me as a witch, because they believe that a witch and a voodoo witchdoctor is in fact the same thing and for some odd reason voodoo witchdoctors are the only people who follow the words of the Bible as they are written, rather that trying to interpret meanings into the words.

So I suppose, the question now at hand is no longer “Am I a witch, like my accusers say?”, but rather, “Am I a Voodoo witchdoctor?” because it seems very likely that I am on some “unofficial” compacity, seeing how I do everything a Voodoo witchdoctor does.

But that brings up another question: Does that mean they did the things they did out of religious prejudice, and if so, isn’t that a federal crime?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

<!–
amazon_prw_id = “V20070822/US/spacedock13-20/8100/cb2ec468-f833-4c8e-875f-9c73abbe33ac”; amazon_prw_width = “728″; amazon_prw_height = “90″;//–>

Not Witch — Voodoo — ???

My search to find out why fellow church members call me a witch and set out to destroy my property, demolish my home, kill my pets, and force me out onto the streets, continues (see previous post for more info if you are reading this post first.)

As you may or may not know, I’m one of the Angels on Squidoo, which means I spend a lot of time on Squidoo, not only building my own web pages, but also moderating & promoting the activities of other page builders. My job is to look for spam and get it off Squidoo’s home page, while looking for non-spam and getting it out in front of others. It’s a very time consuming “job” but I love it, and it has opened my way to finding thousands of wonderful web pages written by thousands of wonderful page builders, whom I other wise might not have found. Well, today is such a day.

I personally know several of the local Squidoo lensmasters offline and we get together to talk every few days. One of them was mentioning that she had found a lens she liked, but forgot to bookmark it, and a few days later was unable to go back to it to finish reading it, because she did not know the name of the lens, nor did she know the name of the lensmaster. Me being a Squid-Angel, meant that there was a pretty good chance I knew the lens title, so she started describing it to me. Well, I did not know the lens itself, but from her description, I was pretty posatve I knew who the lensmaster was. I told her I thought it must be one of VoodooMama’s lenses and that I’d look it up and let her know.

Well, last night, which zipping around Squidoo blessing lenses, I suddenly remembers I was supposed to be looking for that lens URL for my friend, and so I headed on over to VoodooMama’s list of lenses and sure enough, there it was. I sent the URL on to my friend, but than I went back to VoodooMama’s lenses and started reading them. I had seen her lenses in passing several times, but it seemed that whenever I had found one of her lenses I was always late for something and had to log off and leave the house, than never got back to reading what she had written, because by the time I’d log in again, I’d be thinking about something else (yes, my scattered brain mind had a very short attention span and I can switch from one topic to the next “at alarming speeds” or so I’ve been told on several occasions.)

Well, since I didn’t have anything planned for this morning, I decided to head back to VoodooMam’s list and spend a few hours reading her lenses. And that’s when it dawned on me – I think I know why the members at church persist in calling me a witch and went all hysterical and violent.

Okay, lets explain a few things.

Online, I talk about a lot of my hobbies, usually though I only talk about those hobbies which make an income, because I’m usually advising others on how to use the hobby to make an income. As such, almost every one online knows that I am a writer/author and an artist/painter. Due to the nature of the constant questions about my clothes and my constantly being puzzled as to why I’m always being questioned about my cloths, has resulted in my asking people online if they thought my clothes were strange too, and thus most people online are also aware that I am a fashion designer who recreates patterns from 1300-1600 eras and sews them up and wears them every day. I am thus often mistaken for a CosPlayer, and Anichronist, or a Life Actor as a result.

Here’s what you don’t know, unless you know me personally because I never talk about it online:

I’m a doll maker. I make a lot of dolls, including poppets of various sorts — poppets = dream dolls, worry dolls, healing dolls, etc, or in other words, I make what is more commonly as Voodoo Dolls.

I am well versed in the use of color, crystals, stones, plants, herbs, etc, due to the fact that I spent about 7 or 8 years studying Feng Shui and Crystal Healing.

All corners of my land and home are hung with various bags, bundles, mirrors, ect. which use color and crystal theory to harmonize and protect.

I am an expert embroiderer. I took up embroidery at age 6 and never stopped. I use my embroidery skills to create Indian medicine bags, dolls/poppets, and color patches (similar to quilt patches).

I live at one with nature and though my verbal skills with humans and human language is terribly limited, I can speak “bantam” very fluently and can talk to most every bird (and cat) that enters our yard. This results in my always being surrounded by wild birds and feral/stray cats which just gather in my garden and than never leave.

Both of my grandmothers were half Indian, one Cherokee and the other Kickapoo. The Kickapoo one was widely regarded as a “weather witch” and many people were terrified of her apparent ability to change and control the weather. She too, had a way with animals much like my own. She was a vegan Seventh Day Adventist and lived a semi-Amish life style. Much of the things I know, I learned from her. Like me, she lived 24-7-365 in muumuus and kimono and prairie dresses. I inherited her wardrobe when she died, and what cloths I now wear that I did not make myself, were once hers. Her name was Eva Viola Atwater, and in her own circles, esp in Maine and Hawaii, she was quite famous.

Okay, end of explanation, moving on . . .

So I’m reading one of VoodooMama’s lenses and I’m thinking . . . “Really? THAT’s Voodoo?” She a Voodoo . . . uhm . . . something, I don’t know the proper titles, but she’s a Voodoo something or other in any case. I get done reading the first lens and go on to the next. She’s not telling me anything new, I already know how to make these dolls and how to sew them out of certain colors for certain reasons and how to put certain crystals in certain dolls, etc, etc. I already know how to make and use these little bags (which she refers to as mojos and gri-gris, though I know them as medicine bags). I know how to use the sticks and water “magic” because it’s all in the Old Testament, that’s how Jacob turned all the white cows spotted. I know all about the whole what goes around comes around law of energy, that results in you never needing to “curse” a person because any harm they do you will fall back upon them 70×7 (Jesus said it in the Bible, so I know it’s true.) She says 3 fold return not 70×7 like Jesus said. . . . The list of things just goes on and on, with her explaining the nature and rituals and magic of Voodoo, and 20 or so lenses later, I’m looking at this and saying to myself: “That’s not Voodoo, that’s Hebrew Gnosticism. Everything she’s saying is Voodoo, can be found in the Bible. It’s all the things practiced by the Old Testament Prophets, the Magi, and Jesus Himself!”

Okay, time for another explanation: I’m EXTREMELY well versed in the Bible. At age 8, I was pulled out of public school and enrolled in the ORIGINAL Christian Liberty Academy (CLASS)(which is VERY different than the Christian Liberty Academy of today). Originally CLASS was run by a headstrong Calvinist preacher who spent most of his time in shoot outs with the government and was in and out of prison throughout most of the 1970′s and 1980′s due to his extremely radical views on Satan’s control of the government and public schools. He founded CLASS basically to raise up an army of Super Christians to follow in his footsteps. He was killed under questionable circumstances about 20 years ago, and after his death, CLASS underwent some major changes. CLASS today, is just your average ordinary private Christian School. Gone are the days of outspoken rebellion against America, and the overtly Calvinist text books.

Back when I was first enrolled in CLASS and the rebellion was on going, it was required that before any student did anything else, that they must read the Bible cover to cover and write a report of EACH chapter of each book of the entire Bible. Once that was completed we had to read Calvin’s Concordance, and reread the Bible using the concordance as a guide, and write a report on each chapter of the concordance. This all had to be done with in the first 3 months of enrollment, so that I would have time to next read The McGuffies 4th Reader, and than, start my text book studies. In addition to the 5 days of text book studies, I also had to do daily one hour Bible studies, and 4 hours of Bible studies on Sunday (not including Sunday School attendance I did through the Mormon church!) I was 9 years old. The superintendent of the Old Orchard Beach schools, looked at my required workload through CLASS and said that I was “a 4th grader doing college studies”, he was than farther amazed when he returned three month later, to find that I was not only keeping up with the work load, but that I was ahead and taking on extra work via Book of Mormon studies and writing 12 book 4 page reports per year. In Grammar and Composition, I had to digram 100 sentences per day, 6 days a week, every day, every year, as well as being required to write at least one letter of protest to the government each month. (This is how I got started writing letters of protest to Proctor & Gamble, I asked CLASS for permission to write to P&G instead and the request was approved). The Old Orchard Beach super was flabbergasted at the work load. He said that the work I was doing was more advanced than anything he had ever done himself even in college.

That was just 4th grade. This process repeated itself each year, until I reached 10th grade, my last year at CLASS and the year of the reierment of CLASS’s outspoken controversial Calvinist preacher turned school headmaster. In 10th grade everything changed, and suddenly I went from mountains of Biblical studies, to almost secular textbooks, which through in a few Bible quotes to make them sound Christian. I was devastated. I was not able to adjust from the mountains of written work and homework studies to just simple text book question and answer fill in the blank and be bored out of my mind studies. I wrote a request to CLASS asking to finish my last two years using the same program I had used my entire school life, but they said they had changed their system and that if I could not use the new system of study than I could not graduate. From 4th grade to 9th grade I was a straight A+ (all of my work had been graded by the headmasters at CLASS in Illinois). In 10th grade my grades plummited to C- . The murder of my best friend that same year (1991) and the court trials that followed, did not help my grades any either. Depression and a morbid fear of humans set in, and I after the court trails, I stopped talking. CLASS’s new headmaster (a former public school teacher) was now sending letters threatening to flunk me if my grades did not improve. I wrote back telling them that I had never used this new system before and had absolutely no idea how to do any of the work they were giving me, again requested that I be allowed to finish using the old system. They wrote back, saying that the old system was an outdated style that had not been used anywhere since the 1700′s and that CLASS was required to enforce the use of government approved textbooks from now on. I requested some sort of instruction as to how to use the new system and was told, that I simple read each chapter of the text book, and than answer the questions in the back, with 15 word or less sentences.

The 15 word or less sentences was killing me. Since 4th grade I had never written an answer with less than 4 sheets of paper. I had no idea how to write a complete answer in less than 4 pages let alone 15 words. I continued to write the 4 page answers for each question, even though my answers were longer than the chapters in the texts books. I was chided again and told they had no choice but to flunk me if I didn’t stop writing a composition for ever question in the textbooks.

Worst of all, was the cutting of classes, namely Bible Studies. Since 4th grade, CLASS’s system had required Bible first and last every day. An hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, 7 days a week . . . extra hours on Sunday. And it was not just reading the Bible . . . it was writing theories, compositions, and thesis on each chapter of every book, every single year. Suddenly it was gone. I asked CLASS why. They said that there had been hundreds of complaints from parents, saying that their children were not able to do the workload of the rigorous Bible Studies; that for years CLASS’s founder had ignored their complaints saying that they were not true patriots of Christ if they complained of too much Bible Studies; but now that he was no longer headmaster, his command no longer controlled the school, and the new headmasters felt it was in the children’s best interest if the Bible Study class was dropped and replaced with a text book version which summarized the basic Bible stories. I requested to finish my last years with the same system I had grown up with. They said it was gone and none of the CLASS students would ever use it again. I was devastated, and that’s when my problems really got going.

I tried as best as I could to read the Bible text book and answer it’s questions, but by this time I had read the King James Version of the Bible cover to cover, writing reports about each chapter, a sum total of 7 times. For extra work, I had done the same thing twice with The Book of Mormon and had started doing it with the Doctrines & Covenants and The Book of Josephus but never finished those two. I had also done the same thing with each of 16 other translations of the Bible (Amplified, NKJ, NLB, etc.). Now I was 15 years old and I had been handed a text book which summarized the Bible and I was supposed to fill in the blanks in the workbook. This lasted about 3 chapters before I flipped out, went into a roaring rage (my former headmaster would have been very proud — I learned from the Master!) and instead of answering the questions in the textbook, I wrote up a 12 page report about all the errors, mistakes, and mistranslations I had found in the textbook, and sent that back to CLASS headquarters instead of the answers to the questions. Needless to say, that was the last thing I did in school as I was not allowed to finish my 10th grade class and refused admittance into CLASS’s 11th and 12th grades. I was too much like CLASS’s founder Dr. Paul Lindstrom. Though they were proud of his “good” achievements, they wanted to erase all memory of his radical rebellion, and students who followed in his footsteps too closely(as I had done) were not tolerated under the new leadership of the school.

Okay, so now you know, what I mean when I say I am very well versed in the Bible. I know the Bible inside out and in 16 different translations. I loved the book of Daniel, I loved the stories of the Magi. I was very curious to see if all the “magic tricks” used by the prophets of the Old Testament really worked. I refused to believe that dancing a certain way by certain moon fazes, while holding certain types of twigs, really worked, unless I had first tried them out myself, and so, I at about 12 years old, set out to doing all of the weird little rituals and magic spells used by Moses, Daniel, Jacob, Abraham, Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, and all the rest. And that’s how I learned about making all these medicine bags, and using certain crystals and herbs for certain things – from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. When I tell you I’m a super strict Mormon who lives the old ways – well, Joseph Smith had all the stones and crystals and herbs too, and that’s how he talked to God. . . granted you’ll have to find church history books published (by the LDS church) prior to 1978 if you want to find out any of the old church history and the un-photo shopped photos of Smith, Young, and the Navoo Saloon, your best bet is books published by the church in the late 1800′s, though these are extraordinarily rare and hard to track down.

But anyways, back to VoodooMama’s lenses. I was reading her lenses about the things they do in Voodoo (which is a break off of the Catholic church btw . . . yes Voodoo’s ARE Christians and NOT pagan witches) and suddenly it occurred to me, that Voodoo is what they call someone who practices the rituals of Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Danial, and Jesus as they were written in the Bible.

Well, next thing I know I’m one Google and I’m searching for info on comparing witches to Voodoo, because one of the more common things for my fellow Mormons to accuse me of, in addition to witch, is being a “Voodoo witchdoctor”.

Ahhh! Now we are getting somewhere. Apparently, they are accusing me of being a witch because I live by the Bible and do the same things the old prophets did, but that the only Christians today who continue to do these things are members of the Voodoo religion, and they are mistakingly referring to me as a witch, because they believe that a witch and a voodoo witchdoctor is in fact the same thing and for some odd reason voodoo witchdoctors are the only people who follow the words of the Bible as they are written, rather that trying to interpret meanings into the words.

So I suppose, the question now at hand is no longer “Am I a witch, like my accusers say?”, but rather, “Am I a Voodoo witchdoctor?” because it seems very likely that I am on some “unofficial” compacity, seeing how I do everything a Voodoo witchdoctor does.

But that brings up another question: Does that mean they did the things they did out of religious prejudice, and if so, isn’t that a federal crime?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

<!–
amazon_prw_id = “V20070822/US/spacedock13-20/8100/cb2ec468-f833-4c8e-875f-9c73abbe33ac”; amazon_prw_width = “728″; amazon_prw_height = “90″;//–>

Not Witch — Voodoo — ???

My search to find out why fellow church members call me a witch and set out to destroy my property, demolish my home, kill my pets, and force me out onto the streets, continues (see previous post for more info if you are reading this post first.)

As you may or may not know, I’m one of the Angels on Squidoo, which means I spend a lot of time on Squidoo, not only building my own web pages, but also moderating & promoting the activities of other page builders. My job is to look for spam and get it off Squidoo’s home page, while looking for non-spam and getting it out in front of others. It’s a very time consuming “job” but I love it, and it has opened my way to finding thousands of wonderful web pages written by thousands of wonderful page builders, whom I other wise might not have found. Well, today is such a day.

I personally know several of the local Squidoo lensmasters offline and we get together to talk every few days. One of them was mentioning that she had found a lens she liked, but forgot to bookmark it, and a few days later was unable to go back to it to finish reading it, because she did not know the name of the lens, nor did she know the name of the lensmaster. Me being a Squid-Angel, meant that there was a pretty good chance I knew the lens title, so she started describing it to me. Well, I did not know the lens itself, but from her description, I was pretty posatve I knew who the lensmaster was. I told her I thought it must be one of VoodooMama’s lenses and that I’d look it up and let her know.

Well, last night, which zipping around Squidoo blessing lenses, I suddenly remembers I was supposed to be looking for that lens URL for my friend, and so I headed on over to VoodooMama’s list of lenses and sure enough, there it was. I sent the URL on to my friend, but than I went back to VoodooMama’s lenses and started reading them. I had seen her lenses in passing several times, but it seemed that whenever I had found one of her lenses I was always late for something and had to log off and leave the house, than never got back to reading what she had written, because by the time I’d log in again, I’d be thinking about something else (yes, my scattered brain mind had a very short attention span and I can switch from one topic to the next “at alarming speeds” or so I’ve been told on several occasions.)

Well, since I didn’t have anything planned for this morning, I decided to head back to VoodooMam’s list and spend a few hours reading her lenses. And that’s when it dawned on me – I think I know why the members at church persist in calling me a witch and went all hysterical and violent.

Okay, lets explain a few things.

Online, I talk about a lot of my hobbies, usually though I only talk about those hobbies which make an income, because I’m usually advising others on how to use the hobby to make an income. As such, almost every one online knows that I am a writer/author and an artist/painter. Due to the nature of the constant questions about my clothes and my constantly being puzzled as to why I’m always being questioned about my cloths, has resulted in my asking people online if they thought my clothes were strange too, and thus most people online are also aware that I am a fashion designer who recreates patterns from 1300-1600 eras and sews them up and wears them every day. I am thus often mistaken for a CosPlayer, and Anichronist, or a Life Actor as a result.

Here’s what you don’t know, unless you know me personally because I never talk about it online:

I’m a doll maker. I make a lot of dolls, including poppets of various sorts — poppets = dream dolls, worry dolls, healing dolls, etc, or in other words, I make what is more commonly as Voodoo Dolls.

I am well versed in the use of color, crystals, stones, plants, herbs, etc, due to the fact that I spent about 7 or 8 years studying Feng Shui and Crystal Healing.

All corners of my land and home are hung with various bags, bundles, mirrors, ect. which use color and crystal theory to harmonize and protect.

I am an expert embroiderer. I took up embroidery at age 6 and never stopped. I use my embroidery skills to create Indian medicine bags, dolls/poppets, and color patches (similar to quilt patches).

I live at one with nature and though my verbal skills with humans and human language is terribly limited, I can speak “bantam” very fluently and can talk to most every bird (and cat) that enters our yard. This results in my always being surrounded by wild birds and feral/stray cats which just gather in my garden and than never leave.

Both of my grandmothers were half Indian, one Cherokee and the other Kickapoo. The Kickapoo one was widely regarded as a “weather witch” and many people were terrified of her apparent ability to change and control the weather. She too, had a way with animals much like my own. She was a vegan Seventh Day Adventist and lived a semi-Amish life style. Much of the things I know, I learned from her. Like me, she lived 24-7-365 in muumuus and kimono and prairie dresses. I inherited her wardrobe when she died, and what cloths I now wear that I did not make myself, were once hers. Her name was Eva Viola Atwater, and in her own circles, esp in Maine and Hawaii, she was quite famous.

Okay, end of explanation, moving on . . .

So I’m reading one of VoodooMama’s lenses and I’m thinking . . . “Really? THAT’s Voodoo?” She a Voodoo . . . uhm . . . something, I don’t know the proper titles, but she’s a Voodoo something or other in any case. I get done reading the first lens and go on to the next. She’s not telling me anything new, I already know how to make these dolls and how to sew them out of certain colors for certain reasons and how to put certain crystals in certain dolls, etc, etc. I already know how to make and use these little bags (which she refers to as mojos and gri-gris, though I know them as medicine bags). I know how to use the sticks and water “magic” because it’s all in the Old Testament, that’s how Jacob turned all the white cows spotted. I know all about the whole what goes around comes around law of energy, that results in you never needing to “curse” a person because any harm they do you will fall back upon them 70×7 (Jesus said it in the Bible, so I know it’s true.) She says 3 fold return not 70×7 like Jesus said. . . . The list of things just goes on and on, with her explaining the nature and rituals and magic of Voodoo, and 20 or so lenses later, I’m looking at this and saying to myself: “That’s not Voodoo, that’s Hebrew Gnosticism. Everything she’s saying is Voodoo, can be found in the Bible. It’s all the things practiced by the Old Testament Prophets, the Magi, and Jesus Himself!”

Okay, time for another explanation: I’m EXTREMELY well versed in the Bible. At age 8, I was pulled out of public school and enrolled in the ORIGINAL Christian Liberty Academy (CLASS)(which is VERY different than the Christian Liberty Academy of today). Originally CLASS was run by a headstrong Calvinist preacher who spent most of his time in shoot outs with the government and was in and out of prison throughout most of the 1970′s and 1980′s due to his extremely radical views on Satan’s control of the government and public schools. He founded CLASS basically to raise up an army of Super Christians to follow in his footsteps. He was killed under questionable circumstances about 20 years ago, and after his death, CLASS underwent some major changes. CLASS today, is just your average ordinary private Christian School. Gone are the days of outspoken rebellion against America, and the overtly Calvinist text books.

Back when I was first enrolled in CLASS and the rebellion was on going, it was required that before any student did anything else, that they must read the Bible cover to cover and write a report of EACH chapter of each book of the entire Bible. Once that was completed we had to read Calvin’s Concordance, and reread the Bible using the concordance as a guide, and write a report on each chapter of the concordance. This all had to be done with in the first 3 months of enrollment, so that I would have time to next read The McGuffies 4th Reader, and than, start my text book studies. In addition to the 5 days of text book studies, I also had to do daily one hour Bible studies, and 4 hours of Bible studies on Sunday (not including Sunday School attendance I did through the Mormon church!) I was 9 years old. The superintendent of the Old Orchard Beach schools, looked at my required workload through CLASS and said that I was “a 4th grader doing college studies”, he was than farther amazed when he returned three month later, to find that I was not only keeping up with the work load, but that I was ahead and taking on extra work via Book of Mormon studies and writing 12 book 4 page reports per year. In Grammar and Composition, I had to digram 100 sentences per day, 6 days a week, every day, every year, as well as being required to write at least one letter of protest to the government each month. (This is how I got started writing letters of protest to Proctor & Gamble, I asked CLASS for permission to write to P&G instead and the request was approved). The Old Orchard Beach super was flabbergasted at the work load. He said that the work I was doing was more advanced than anything he had ever done himself even in college.

That was just 4th grade. This process repeated itself each year, until I reached 10th grade, my last year at CLASS and the year of the reierment of CLASS’s outspoken controversial Calvinist preacher turned school headmaster. In 10th grade everything changed, and suddenly I went from mountains of Biblical studies, to almost secular textbooks, which through in a few Bible quotes to make them sound Christian. I was devastated. I was not able to adjust from the mountains of written work and homework studies to just simple text book question and answer fill in the blank and be bored out of my mind studies. I wrote a request to CLASS asking to finish my last two years using the same program I had used my entire school life, but they said they had changed their system and that if I could not use the new system of study than I could not graduate. From 4th grade to 9th grade I was a straight A+ (all of my work had been graded by the headmasters at CLASS in Illinois). In 10th grade my grades plummited to C- . The murder of my best friend that same year (1991) and the court trials that followed, did not help my grades any either. Depression and a morbid fear of humans set in, and I after the court trails, I stopped talking. CLASS’s new headmaster (a former public school teacher) was now sending letters threatening to flunk me if my grades did not improve. I wrote back telling them that I had never used this new system before and had absolutely no idea how to do any of the work they were giving me, again requested that I be allowed to finish using the old system. They wrote back, saying that the old system was an outdated style that had not been used anywhere since the 1700′s and that CLASS was required to enforce the use of government approved textbooks from now on. I requested some sort of instruction as to how to use the new system and was told, that I simple read each chapter of the text book, and than answer the questions in the back, with 15 word or less sentences.

The 15 word or less sentences was killing me. Since 4th grade I had never written an answer with less than 4 sheets of paper. I had no idea how to write a complete answer in less than 4 pages let alone 15 words. I continued to write the 4 page answers for each question, even though my answers were longer than the chapters in the texts books. I was chided again and told they had no choice but to flunk me if I didn’t stop writing a composition for ever question in the textbooks.

Worst of all, was the cutting of classes, namely Bible Studies. Since 4th grade, CLASS’s system had required Bible first and last every day. An hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, 7 days a week . . . extra hours on Sunday. And it was not just reading the Bible . . . it was writing theories, compositions, and thesis on each chapter of every book, every single year. Suddenly it was gone. I asked CLASS why. They said that there had been hundreds of complaints from parents, saying that their children were not able to do the workload of the rigorous Bible Studies; that for years CLASS’s founder had ignored their complaints saying that they were not true patriots of Christ if they complained of too much Bible Studies; but now that he was no longer headmaster, his command no longer controlled the school, and the new headmasters felt it was in the children’s best interest if the Bible Study class was dropped and replaced with a text book version which summarized the basic Bible stories. I requested to finish my last years with the same system I had grown up with. They said it was gone and none of the CLASS students would ever use it again. I was devastated, and that’s when my problems really got going.

I tried as best as I could to read the Bible text book and answer it’s questions, but by this time I had read the King James Version of the Bible cover to cover, writing reports about each chapter, a sum total of 7 times. For extra work, I had done the same thing twice with The Book of Mormon and had started doing it with the Doctrines & Covenants and The Book of Josephus but never finished those two. I had also done the same thing with each of 16 other translations of the Bible (Amplified, NKJ, NLB, etc.). Now I was 15 years old and I had been handed a text book which summarized the Bible and I was supposed to fill in the blanks in the workbook. This lasted about 3 chapters before I flipped out, went into a roaring rage (my former headmaster would have been very proud — I learned from the Master!) and instead of answering the questions in the textbook, I wrote up a 12 page report about all the errors, mistakes, and mistranslations I had found in the textbook, and sent that back to CLASS headquarters instead of the answers to the questions. Needless to say, that was the last thing I did in school as I was not allowed to finish my 10th grade class and refused admittance into CLASS’s 11th and 12th grades. I was too much like CLASS’s founder Dr. Paul Lindstrom. Though they were proud of his “good” achievements, they wanted to erase all memory of his radical rebellion, and students who followed in his footsteps too closely(as I had done) were not tolerated under the new leadership of the school.

Okay, so now you know, what I mean when I say I am very well versed in the Bible. I know the Bible inside out and in 16 different translations. I loved the book of Daniel, I loved the stories of the Magi. I was very curious to see if all the “magic tricks” used by the prophets of the Old Testament really worked. I refused to believe that dancing a certain way by certain moon fazes, while holding certain types of twigs, really worked, unless I had first tried them out myself, and so, I at about 12 years old, set out to doing all of the weird little rituals and magic spells used by Moses, Daniel, Jacob, Abraham, Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, and all the rest. And that’s how I learned about making all these medicine bags, and using certain crystals and herbs for certain things – from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. When I tell you I’m a super strict Mormon who lives the old ways – well, Joseph Smith had all the stones and crystals and herbs too, and that’s how he talked to God. . . granted you’ll have to find church history books published (by the LDS church) prior to 1978 if you want to find out any of the old church history and the un-photo shopped photos of Smith, Young, and the Navoo Saloon, your best bet is books published by the church in the late 1800′s, though these are extraordinarily rare and hard to track down.

But anyways, back to VoodooMama’s lenses. I was reading her lenses about the things they do in Voodoo (which is a break off of the Catholic church btw . . . yes Voodoo’s ARE Christians and NOT pagan witches) and suddenly it occurred to me, that Voodoo is what they call someone who practices the rituals of Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Danial, and Jesus as they were written in the Bible.

Well, next thing I know I’m one Google and I’m searching for info on comparing witches to Voodoo, because one of the more common things for my fellow Mormons to accuse me of, in addition to witch, is being a “Voodoo witchdoctor”.

Ahhh! Now we are getting somewhere. Apparently, they are accusing me of being a witch because I live by the Bible and do the same things the old prophets did, but that the only Christians today who continue to do these things are members of the Voodoo religion, and they are mistakingly referring to me as a witch, because they believe that a witch and a voodoo witchdoctor is in fact the same thing and for some odd reason voodoo witchdoctors are the only people who follow the words of the Bible as they are written, rather that trying to interpret meanings into the words.

So I suppose, the question now at hand is no longer “Am I a witch, like my accusers say?”, but rather, “Am I a Voodoo witchdoctor?” because it seems very likely that I am on some “unofficial” compacity, seeing how I do everything a Voodoo witchdoctor does.

But that brings up another question: Does that mean they did the things they did out of religious prejudice, and if so, isn’t that a federal crime?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

>Not Witch — Voodoo — ???

>

My search to find out why fellow church members call me a witch and set out to destroy my property, demolish my home, kill my pets, and force me out onto the streets, continues (see previous post for more info if you are reading this post first.)

As you may or may not know, I’m one of the Angels on Squidoo, which means I spend a lot of time on Squidoo, not only building my own web pages, but also moderating & promoting the activities of other page builders. My job is to look for spam and get it off Squidoo’s home page, while looking for non-spam and getting it out in front of others. It’s a very time consuming “job” but I love it, and it has opened my way to finding thousands of wonderful web pages written by thousands of wonderful page builders, whom I other wise might not have found. Well, today is such a day.

I personally know several of the local Squidoo lensmasters offline and we get together to talk every few days. One of them was mentioning that she had found a lens she liked, but forgot to bookmark it, and a few days later was unable to go back to it to finish reading it, because she did not know the name of the lens, nor did she know the name of the lensmaster. Me being a Squid-Angel, meant that there was a pretty good chance I knew the lens title, so she started describing it to me. Well, I did not know the lens itself, but from her description, I was pretty posatve I knew who the lensmaster was. I told her I thought it must be one of VoodooMama’s lenses and that I’d look it up and let her know.

Well, last night, which zipping around Squidoo blessing lenses, I suddenly remembers I was supposed to be looking for that lens URL for my friend, and so I headed on over to VoodooMama’s list of lenses and sure enough, there it was. I sent the URL on to my friend, but than I went back to VoodooMama’s lenses and started reading them. I had seen her lenses in passing several times, but it seemed that whenever I had found one of her lenses I was always late for something and had to log off and leave the house, than never got back to reading what she had written, because by the time I’d log in again, I’d be thinking about something else (yes, my scattered brain mind had a very short attention span and I can switch from one topic to the next “at alarming speeds” or so I’ve been told on several occasions.)

Well, since I didn’t have anything planned for this morning, I decided to head back to VoodooMam’s list and spend a few hours reading her lenses. And that’s when it dawned on me – I think I know why the members at church persist in calling me a witch and went all hysterical and violent.

Okay, lets explain a few things.

Online, I talk about a lot of my hobbies, usually though I only talk about those hobbies which make an income, because I’m usually advising others on how to use the hobby to make an income. As such, almost every one online knows that I am a writer/author and an artist/painter. Due to the nature of the constant questions about my clothes and my constantly being puzzled as to why I’m always being questioned about my cloths, has resulted in my asking people online if they thought my clothes were strange too, and thus most people online are also aware that I am a fashion designer who recreates patterns from 1300-1600 eras and sews them up and wears them every day. I am thus often mistaken for a CosPlayer, and Anichronist, or a Life Actor as a result.

Here’s what you don’t know, unless you know me personally because I never talk about it online:

I’m a doll maker. I make a lot of dolls, including poppets of various sorts — poppets = dream dolls, worry dolls, healing dolls, etc, or in other words, I make what is more commonly as Voodoo Dolls.

I am well versed in the use of color, crystals, stones, plants, herbs, etc, due to the fact that I spent about 7 or 8 years studying Feng Shui and Crystal Healing.

All corners of my land and home are hung with various bags, bundles, mirrors, ect. which use color and crystal theory to harmonize and protect.

I am an expert embroiderer. I took up embroidery at age 6 and never stopped. I use my embroidery skills to create Indian medicine bags, dolls/poppets, and color patches (similar to quilt patches).

I live at one with nature and though my verbal skills with humans and human language is terribly limited, I can speak “bantam” very fluently and can talk to most every bird (and cat) that enters our yard. This results in my always being surrounded by wild birds and feral/stray cats which just gather in my garden and than never leave.

Both of my grandmothers were half Indian, one Cherokee and the other Kickapoo. The Kickapoo one was widely regarded as a “weather witch” and many people were terrified of her apparent ability to change and control the weather. She too, had a way with animals much like my own. She was a vegan Seventh Day Adventist and lived a semi-Amish life style. Much of the things I know, I learned from her. Like me, she lived 24-7-365 in muumuus and kimono and prairie dresses. I inherited her wardrobe when she died, and what cloths I now wear that I did not make myself, were once hers. Her name was Eva Viola Atwater, and in her own circles, esp in Maine and Hawaii, she was quite famous.

Okay, end of explanation, moving on . . .

So I’m reading one of VoodooMama’s lenses and I’m thinking . . . “Really? THAT’s Voodoo?” She a Voodoo . . . uhm . . . something, I don’t know the proper titles, but she’s a Voodoo something or other in any case. I get done reading the first lens and go on to the next. She’s not telling me anything new, I already know how to make these dolls and how to sew them out of certain colors for certain reasons and how to put certain crystals in certain dolls, etc, etc. I already know how to make and use these little bags (which she refers to as mojos and gri-gris, though I know them as medicine bags). I know how to use the sticks and water “magic” because it’s all in the Old Testament, that’s how Jacob turned all the white cows spotted. I know all about the whole what goes around comes around law of energy, that results in you never needing to “curse” a person because any harm they do you will fall back upon them 70×7 (Jesus said it in the Bible, so I know it’s true.) She says 3 fold return not 70×7 like Jesus said. . . . The list of things just goes on and on, with her explaining the nature and rituals and magic of Voodoo, and 20 or so lenses later, I’m looking at this and saying to myself: “That’s not Voodoo, that’s Hebrew Gnosticism. Everything she’s saying is Voodoo, can be found in the Bible. It’s all the things practiced by the Old Testament Prophets, the Magi, and Jesus Himself!”

Okay, time for another explanation: I’m EXTREMELY well versed in the Bible. At age 8, I was pulled out of public school and enrolled in the ORIGINAL Christian Liberty Academy (CLASS)(which is VERY different than the Christian Liberty Academy of today). Originally CLASS was run by a headstrong Calvinist preacher who spent most of his time in shoot outs with the government and was in and out of prison throughout most of the 1970′s and 1980′s due to his extremely radical views on Satan’s control of the government and public schools. He founded CLASS basically to raise up an army of Super Christians to follow in his footsteps. He was killed under questionable circumstances about 20 years ago, and after his death, CLASS underwent some major changes. CLASS today, is just your average ordinary private Christian School. Gone are the days of outspoken rebellion against America, and the overtly Calvinist text books.

Back when I was first enrolled in CLASS and the rebellion was on going, it was required that before any student did anything else, that they must read the Bible cover to cover and write a report of EACH chapter of each book of the entire Bible. Once that was completed we had to read Calvin’s Concordance, and reread the Bible using the concordance as a guide, and write a report on each chapter of the concordance. This all had to be done with in the first 3 months of enrollment, so that I would have time to next read The McGuffies 4th Reader, and than, start my text book studies. In addition to the 5 days of text book studies, I also had to do daily one hour Bible studies, and 4 hours of Bible studies on Sunday (not including Sunday School attendance I did through the Mormon church!) I was 9 years old. The superintendent of the Old Orchard Beach schools, looked at my required workload through CLASS and said that I was “a 4th grader doing college studies”, he was than farther amazed when he returned three month later, to find that I was not only keeping up with the work load, but that I was ahead and taking on extra work via Book of Mormon studies and writing 12 book 4 page reports per year. In Grammar and Composition, I had to digram 100 sentences per day, 6 days a week, every day, every year, as well as being required to write at least one letter of protest to the government each month. (This is how I got started writing letters of protest to Proctor & Gamble, I asked CLASS for permission to write to P&G instead and the request was approved). The Old Orchard Beach super was flabbergasted at the work load. He said that the work I was doing was more advanced than anything he had ever done himself even in college.

That was just 4th grade. This process repeated itself each year, until I reached 10th grade, my last year at CLASS and the year of the reierment of CLASS’s outspoken controversial Calvinist preacher turned school headmaster. In 10th grade everything changed, and suddenly I went from mountains of Biblical studies, to almost secular textbooks, which through in a few Bible quotes to make them sound Christian. I was devastated. I was not able to adjust from the mountains of written work and homework studies to just simple text book question and answer fill in the blank and be bored out of my mind studies. I wrote a request to CLASS asking to finish my last two years using the same program I had used my entire school life, but they said they had changed their system and that if I could not use the new system of study than I could not graduate. From 4th grade to 9th grade I was a straight A+ (all of my work had been graded by the headmasters at CLASS in Illinois). In 10th grade my grades plummited to C- . The murder of my best friend that same year (1991) and the court trials that followed, did not help my grades any either. Depression and a morbid fear of humans set in, and I after the court trails, I stopped talking. CLASS’s new headmaster (a former public school teacher) was now sending letters threatening to flunk me if my grades did not improve. I wrote back telling them that I had never used this new system before and had absolutely no idea how to do any of the work they were giving me, again requested that I be allowed to finish using the old system. They wrote back, saying that the old system was an outdated style that had not been used anywhere since the 1700′s and that CLASS was required to enforce the use of government approved textbooks from now on. I requested some sort of instruction as to how to use the new system and was told, that I simple read each chapter of the text book, and than answer the questions in the back, with 15 word or less sentences.

The 15 word or less sentences was killing me. Since 4th grade I had never written an answer with less than 4 sheets of paper. I had no idea how to write a complete answer in less than 4 pages let alone 15 words. I continued to write the 4 page answers for each question, even though my answers were longer than the chapters in the texts books. I was chided again and told they had no choice but to flunk me if I didn’t stop writing a composition for ever question in the textbooks.

Worst of all, was the cutting of classes, namely Bible Studies. Since 4th grade, CLASS’s system had required Bible first and last every day. An hour in the morning, an hour in the evening, 7 days a week . . . extra hours on Sunday. And it was not just reading the Bible . . . it was writing theories, compositions, and thesis on each chapter of every book, every single year. Suddenly it was gone. I asked CLASS why. They said that there had been hundreds of complaints from parents, saying that their children were not able to do the workload of the rigorous Bible Studies; that for years CLASS’s founder had ignored their complaints saying that they were not true patriots of Christ if they complained of too much Bible Studies; but now that he was no longer headmaster, his command no longer controlled the school, and the new headmasters felt it was in the children’s best interest if the Bible Study class was dropped and replaced with a text book version which summarized the basic Bible stories. I requested to finish my last years with the same system I had grown up with. They said it was gone and none of the CLASS students would ever use it again. I was devastated, and that’s when my problems really got going.

I tried as best as I could to read the Bible text book and answer it’s questions, but by this time I had read the King James Version of the Bible cover to cover, writing reports about each chapter, a sum total of 7 times. For extra work, I had done the same thing twice with The Book of Mormon and had started doing it with the Doctrines & Covenants and The Book of Josephus but never finished those two. I had also done the same thing with each of 16 other translations of the Bible (Amplified, NKJ, NLB, etc.). Now I was 15 years old and I had been handed a text book which summarized the Bible and I was supposed to fill in the blanks in the workbook. This lasted about 3 chapters before I flipped out, went into a roaring rage (my former headmaster would have been very proud — I learned from the Master!) and instead of answering the questions in the textbook, I wrote up a 12 page report about all the errors, mistakes, and mistranslations I had found in the textbook, and sent that back to CLASS headquarters instead of the answers to the questions. Needless to say, that was the last thing I did in school as I was not allowed to finish my 10th grade class and refused admittance into CLASS’s 11th and 12th grades. I was too much like CLASS’s founder Dr. Paul Lindstrom. Though they were proud of his “good” achievements, they wanted to erase all memory of his radical rebellion, and students who followed in his footsteps too closely(as I had done) were not tolerated under the new leadership of the school.

Okay, so now you know, what I mean when I say I am very well versed in the Bible. I know the Bible inside out and in 16 different translations. I loved the book of Daniel, I loved the stories of the Magi. I was very curious to see if all the “magic tricks” used by the prophets of the Old Testament really worked. I refused to believe that dancing a certain way by certain moon fazes, while holding certain types of twigs, really worked, unless I had first tried them out myself, and so, I at about 12 years old, set out to doing all of the weird little rituals and magic spells used by Moses, Daniel, Jacob, Abraham, Enoch, Elijah, Jesus, and all the rest. And that’s how I learned about making all these medicine bags, and using certain crystals and herbs for certain things – from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. When I tell you I’m a super strict Mormon who lives the old ways – well, Joseph Smith had all the stones and crystals and herbs too, and that’s how he talked to God. . . granted you’ll have to find church history books published (by the LDS church) prior to 1978 if you want to find out any of the old church history and the un-photo shopped photos of Smith, Young, and the Navoo Saloon, your best bet is books published by the church in the late 1800′s, though these are extraordinarily rare and hard to track down.

But anyways, back to VoodooMama’s lenses. I was reading her lenses about the things they do in Voodoo (which is a break off of the Catholic church btw . . . yes Voodoo’s ARE Christians and NOT pagan witches) and suddenly it occurred to me, that Voodoo is what they call someone who practices the rituals of Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Danial, and Jesus as they were written in the Bible.

Well, next thing I know I’m one Google and I’m searching for info on comparing witches to Voodoo, because one of the more common things for my fellow Mormons to accuse me of, in addition to witch, is being a “Voodoo witchdoctor”.

Ahhh! Now we are getting somewhere. Apparently, they are accusing me of being a witch because I live by the Bible and do the same things the old prophets did, but that the only Christians today who continue to do these things are members of the Voodoo religion, and they are mistakingly referring to me as a witch, because they believe that a witch and a voodoo witchdoctor is in fact the same thing and for some odd reason voodoo witchdoctors are the only people who follow the words of the Bible as they are written, rather that trying to interpret meanings into the words.

So I suppose, the question now at hand is no longer “Am I a witch, like my accusers say?”, but rather, “Am I a Voodoo witchdoctor?” because it seems very likely that I am on some “unofficial” compacity, seeing how I do everything a Voodoo witchdoctor does.

But that brings up another question: Does that mean they did the things they did out of religious prejudice, and if so, isn’t that a federal crime?

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

Shamans, Medicain Men, and Witch Doctors

Shamans, Medicain Men, and Witch Doctors:

What are they, who are they, and can you be one too?

What is a Shaman? When you hear the word Shaman, what picture comes to your mind. Close this book, close your eyes and imagine that you have just ment a world famous Shaman. What picture comes to your mind? What does he/she look like? Read on:

When one thinks of a Shaman most often, people see images of a Hollywood-created fat and ancient toothless, white-haired “Sioux” American Indian Medican Man chieftain wearing his feathered headress, smoking his peacepipe, and danceing and chanting around a bonfire in full warpaint. This largely fictional image was created by simple minded Hollywood designers attempting to glorify their movie scripts, and while loosely based on several differant beliefs of several differant Native American Tribes (or Lamanites and Neiphites as they preffered to call themselves before the white men invaded the land),it in no way engulfs the rich and true discription of a real live Shaman or the work that they do. Shamans can be described in countless many ways, and are found in many cultures of nearly every country, they are not, as commonly believed, exclusive to the Native Americans.The countries that are most famous for their Shaman Mystics include China, Austrailia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, India, the tribes of Africa, South America, and of course the Native American Indian Tribes. Although each culture has their own differances and variations, they all mantain the same, almost identical, simalarities. Of all of the common traits, the most common simalarity found in all cultures seems to be the Shaman’s close connection with nature,espiecialy with animals and birds. Shamans seem to live at one with nature and they rarely live amoung the tribe or village, rather living almost hermit-like in the forest, jungle, desert, or on rocky sea coast cliffs-they are often solitary, liveing alone with little contact with other humanes, save those that periodicly come to them for help, healing, and spiritual advise-wild animals don’t fear them and are often easily tamed by them-in some instances injured animals travle great distances to come to the Shaman for help-(Shamans with this kind of exteem “magnatism” are quite rare and generanly very spiritual-the animals know they have nothing to fear from this gentle, kindhearted, peacful Shaman and will trust the Shaman but continue to fear all other humans.) Healing is another common thread in each and every Shaman, no matter want the culture-they often have a vast knowlegde of herbs, roots, plants, fruits, nuts, berries, and spices-they know what to eat to settle an upset stomach or what to drink to calm a fever-people often travle great distances to seek the Shaman’s healing advice, to buy potions, or to be cured. Crystal or gemstone healing comes directly from the ancient Shamans, who first discovered that certain stones give off a magnetic energy that effects the health of those who touch the stone. Shamans belive in healing the “whole” body, not only the physical, but the emotional, and spiritual bodies as well. Music, drum rythems, and wild “dancing into a frenzy” in common amoung all Shamans. They are deeply affected by sounds and music-which is often used to help them enter into Dreamtime or to help them during a healing ritual. Fragrances also have a deep effect on the Shaman. Aromatheropy and incense burning in one form or another is usualy done to induss healing or invoke visions,this is a practice that has been passed down for centuries. Shamans are often the tribe’s spiritual leader as well-this is because they are able to communicate with the spirit world-often seeing visions, dreaming dreams, and speaking with animals who are the messangers from the Great Spirit. Journeys to “dreamtime” and “vision quests” are always a requirement for Shamans of all cultures before the tribe will accept them as a spiritual leader and Shaman….In short a Shaman is a person (man or woman) who communicates with the spirit world, speaks to the people on the behalf of the Great Spirit (regardless of the name they choose to call “It”),lives in close contact with nature, and is a “natural” healer or medicain-man/woman, they are healers of the “whole” body including the physical, emotional, and spiritual. They may or may not interperet the dreams of the people and they usualy,but not always live alone, some distance from the nearist village-this solitude alows them to meditate deeper and longer, undistracted and undisturbed, in order to recieve more contact with the spirit world.

What is a Medican Man/Woman? Like the Shaman, the Medicain Man is usualy thought of as Native American, old and fat and smoking a pipe. Like the Shaman, the Medicain Man can be found in many cultures, and is often found in villages and tribes that also have a Shaman. The Medicain Man is exactly what the name immplys-a person who heals the body-they are a doctor, often well versed in both healing techniechs and the human anatomy and biology as well. They  heal useing “natural” methods, such as herbs, diet, touch (massage), aromatheropy, crystals, mental immagry, dance, and music. You may find a few modern-day Medicain Men who have added surgery to their list of skills, but this is not common. The role of Medicain Man and Shaman are often so simarlar that there is realy not much differance between them at all, however the Medicain Man isn’t usualy a spiritual leader-although some are, but they are always very spiritual people and often communicate with spirits; they also often, but not always have a deep connection with animals-espsecialy birds, who they often veiw as sacred messangers for the spirit world. Medicain Men also differ from Shamans in that they usualy live within the tribe or village-and unlike the solitary Shaman, they are often married and have a family of their own….In otherwords a Medicain Man is basicly your good reliable old fashioned country doctor, who is a very spiritual person.

And now comes the big question: What is a Witch Doctor? Oh boy! Here is where the Hollywood mythology really runs wild in the minds of people today. Shamans and Medicain Men are okay and Witches are even becoming acceptable, but Witch Doctors! No, not the evil Witch Doctors. Witch Doctors are an evil taboo in the eyes of the “civilized” world today. Evil Voodooism! Evil Zombie makers! Evil headhunters! Cannibals! Baby killers! Evil spellcasters. Evil enchanters. Run and hide-protect yourself from the evil eye. Shock, Gasp,  Arrgghhhhh!…..Oh the terror, oh the horror-condem, drive out, and kill all Witch Doctors!……Hey-wait a minute, aren’t we like actually living in the 21st  century or are we still back in the Dark Ages? Get real will you! What is a Witch Doctor really like? Why does the word Witch Doctor strike such fear into the hearts of men? The answer is quite simple and I can tell you in just one word: Hollywood. Yes, were Witch Doctors are concerned, Hollywood is the only real evil. Hollywood has sucsessfuly convinced the world that a Witch Doctor is an evil Satan-worshipping, baby sacrificeing, cannibalistic, headhunter-out to steal your soul, stick pins in a doll that looks like you, and turn the entire world into race of mindless zombies. No wonder people run in terror at the meer mention of a Witch Doctor! So lets just forget everything the movies tell us for awhile and look at the real life of a real Witch Doctor…..

There are generally two types of Witch Doctors. Voodoo (Houdoo) Witch Doctors and Tribal (Aboriginal) Witch Doctors: 

A Tribal Witch Doctor is a Medicain Man who in addition to being a Medicain Man also practices exorcim or driving out evil spirits, ghosts, and demons and removeing curses cast by Witches (thus we get the name Witch Doctor, which means lieraly, “one who cures a Witch‘s spell“). Tribal Witch Doctors live in the remote tribes of Africa, South America, Austrailia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and other remote places. Tribal Witch Doctors have never seen or ever heard of a Voodoo Doll-in fact they have never even heard the word Voodoo before at all. Most of them have never even seen a white-man and probably wouldn’t believe that such a strange creature even existed outside of the wild imaginations of a few of the tribe’s young hunters. Tribal Witch Doctors are an isolated rare few-there is relatively little information about their true exhistacne-mostly because they live in tribes deep in the darkest most impenatrable rain forests-and by the time white men are able to locate the loction of their well hidden villages-the entire race well probably be extict-it is estimated that only a few hundred are still alive today. Only one race of Tribal Witch Doctor is also a canniable or headhunter and that is the Witch Doctors of the Jale` (pronouced: haul-lee) and the Witckachee tribes of a remote valley in the Highlands of the island called Papua New Guinea, just South of Japan and North of Australia. It should be noted that these two tribes are a nearly extint dieing race with less than one hundred people world-wide, it is esimated that by 2025 they well be gone entirely-this is were the distruction of a rain forest has it’s most devistating results-the extinction of an entire race of humans-lost forever because of white man’s greed and uncontrollable lust for the destruction of the land. These are the world’s last cannible/headhunter tribes-less than one hundred people, when their jungle home is gone-they well be gone too. If they won’t stop the clear cutting to save the animals, they should at least stop to save the humans…..

……..But wait a minute? Aren’t the Voodoo Witch Doctors the ones that live in the savage jungles? Aren’t the Voodoo’s the ones who eat people?? Aren’t the Voodoos the ones who dance around in grass skirts and strange masks? No. Only in Hollywood will you find Voodoo Witch Doctors liveing in the jungle. Voodoo Witch Doctors never have and probably never well live in the wild jungles of any country. And in fact Voodoos are rarely found outside of the American contaninte. Shocked? Most people are. Only in Hollywood do Voodoos wear grass skirts and masks-real Voodoo Witch Doctors do in fact dress “differant”, but  their clothen usualy consistes of long robes, caftans, capes, head wraps, and other clothen that would usualy be described as “Gypsy”, Turkish, Indian (Pungabi not Native American),or “mudcloth”.

……Actualy, Voodooism is a fairly new Christian religion, that was started in the early 1700′s by the African slaves on the Southern plantations, and is based on the  teachings of the Catholic Preists who, out of pity, visited the plaintations to try to “save” the lost souls of the slaves. Voodoo has it’s roots firmly planted in ancient Egyptian, Ethiopian, and other African religions with a strong mixture of Catholic, Baptist, and other Christian religions… 

…What!?…..Wait a minute…Voodoos are Christians?!?…..No, that can’t be right! How can that be? The movies always say that Voodoo’s are evil, they hate Jesus, they murder Christians! Voodoos are Satan worshippers, aren’t they? Movies show Voodoos hanging Christians on crosses to mock Jesus! My pastor says that Voodoos are Satan worshipers-they can’t be Christians! Can they?.…

…Hhmmmm….. let’s see…..well, now, what do you know-Hollywood lied! Who would have guessed Hollywood would actualy tell a lie!…… Hey, guess what? Your pastor lied too! Yes! That’s right Voodoo is a Christian religion-not only is it Christian-it’s a form of Catholic-the ORIGINAL Christian religion (even though the Catholic Church refuses to admit it that Voodoos are Catholic- most Voodoo churches won‘t accept you as a member if you weren‘t first baptized in the Catholic church! And it‘s nearly impossible to become a Hogan or a Mambo if you aren‘t first ordained a Catholic priest, monk , or nun! Surprised? Did you know that all candles used in a Voodoo ceremony, musty first be blest by a Catholic priest, and contray to popular belief, there are just as mant white-skinned Voodoos as there are black-skinned ones.).

So… What is the typical life of a real Voodoo Witch Doctor like? First off, only the most devoted Christians, ever presue Voodoo, so you will have to expect them to be along the lines of a fanatic Christian (a dead-hard fan of Jesus the Christ). He (or she) will rise up with the sun and greet the day with a prayer-to….oh my ,look at that…they actualy pray to …who would have guessed….. they pray to Jesus! They also somtimes pray to the Virgin Mary mother of Christ, any one of the great arch-angles( Gabriel, Michael, etc.),or any one of several Christian Saints-and as there are several thousnd Christain Saints and a a couple of hundred Catholic Saints, the Voodoo Witch Doctor has the option of praying to a differant Saint each and every hour of each and every day for the rest of their life if they want to!. This will be followed by a bath in Holy Water, (this is water that has been blessed and annointed with special oils),under the shadow of a cross-often a rosary hung in a window. Breakfeast is cooked and eaten-no meat of course, since most Voodoo Witch Doctors are vegetarians because they believe in harming none-after eating they sit in front of their personal alter (the home of every Voodoo Witch Doctor contains at least one alter or shrine dedicated to Christ-were they burn franckensice and myrr and other incence) and meditatae or pray to Jesus, which they may continue to do for several hours or until the next client arrives at their house seeking their help., (more on that later).A Voodoo Witch Doctor’s personal alter or shrine may include any of the following things-icons (gold plated pictures of Jesus, Mary, angels, or Saints), candles, insence, crystals, prayer beads( often this well include a Catholic Rosary),carved statues (usualy of Jesus), items to be prayed over (usualy problems, sicknesses, etc, written on slips of paper and kept in a wooden box), and any other item that the Witch Doctor finds helpful in promoting peacful meditation and prayer. The alter is often drapped with a velvet cloth-usualy red, blue, or purple( colors often associated with Jesus).When in prayer the Witch Doctor will often wear a veil,  long flowing, hooded robes or a hooded cape-symboles of their reverance and humble service to Jesus-by shrouding the body one does not put themselves above the Master (Jesus)-female Witch Doctors often pray with their head covered-usualy with a headwrap or veil. (It is rare to see a Voodoo without their head covered-members, preists, Hougans, Mambos, Borkas, and Witch Doctors all wear some form of covering over their heads)..After the prayer and meditation session in over, the Witch Doctor goes about his/her daily bussiness. This usualy includes alot of manual labor as Witch Doctors often live in the country, (there are city dwelling Witch Doctors, but these are usualy very limited as to what they are able to do) working the land and making it grow-they are often simple farmers and gardeners. Voodoo Witch Doctors are very simarlar to Green Witches in that they often have a garden in which they grow various herbs, fruits, flowers, vegetables, berries, nuts, and spices-all the ingrediants that they will later use to make medicain bags, mo-jos, potions, ointments, lotions, linaments, teas, elixers, oils, and poppets( Voodoo dolls),as well as the food to feed their family. Many Witch Doctors have a small “doctor’s office” beside their house, and it is not uncommon for them to have a small shop in which they sell herbs, tea, spices. fruits, vegetables, crystals, candles, beads, alter supplies, incensse, carved fetish stones, magick potions, robes, veils, caftans, capes, shells, jewelry, headwraps, perfumes, medicain bags, and “ready-made” poppets (Voodoo Dolls).The Witch Doctor is totaly self-suficiant and lives in a style that vaugly resembles that of the ancient Native Americans. Food is another aspect of the Witch Doctor’s life-they often use “prescribed diets” to heal their chients.  Their lives are simalar to that of the Kitchen Witch-busily working away in the kitchen hour after hour-most all Voodoos love to cook and pride themselves in their kitchen skills-they were single handedly responcable for the creation of “Cajan Cooking” and many “Southern Style” meals. Like all other Voodoos the Witch Doctor loves to cook and often uses their cooking skills to help their clients. Music is another thing that you well find when you find a Voodoo Witch Doctor. You will often see the Voodoo Witch Doctor singing happly in their garden-or singing happily in their kitchen-or signing happily at their alter-or just walking along the roadside-you guessed it-singing happily, skipping and dancing along. Voodooism is a music filled religion-Voodoos are simply busting with music and their Witch Doctors are no exception. Many of them play instraments-drums and brass being amoung the most common. They often have instrumental music playing full blast in the house so that they can here it outside. And just as much as Voodoos love music, they love to dance-don’t be surprised if you see the Voodoo Witch Doctor dancing up a storm on his/her front lawn-for no reason at all other then to release the happy joy that is bubbleing and busting inside of them. Group gatherings and wild frenzed dancing around monstrous bonfires,to the tunes of drums, cymbols, bells, tamborins, brass saxaphones, and trumpets while all the members chant in rythem, is a common sight in a Voodoo village, usualy with the Witch Doctor and the High Hougan leading them on. The Witch Doctor’s day continues on just as it started-prayer, music, song,and dance; working in their gardens and kitchens, selling items to tourists, and carrieing out the requests of clinents. They pray before every meal,and sometimes afterwards too,they pray before bed and they often sing and dance in the moonlight, imagining themselves as gloriouse birds in flight, soaring high above the clouds with the Nzambie (angles or spirit beings).They goes to sleep at night with a song in their heart and a prayer on their lips.

Like Shamans, Voodoo Witch Doctors are at one with nature-most especialy birds and plants. Birds are of major importance to the Voodoos as they are a symbol of happiness, joy, and freedom. Birds are common joyful symbols for Voodoos for birds and their happy bubbly songs and free-flowing flight embody the true spirit of Voodooism-the freedom of the soul from bodily imprissionment-and the song that is inside of us all regardless of the circumstances in which we live. (Remember that this is a religion started by slaves who where chained, beaten, raped, starved, worked to exhaustion, and tortured every single day for their entire lives-they loved the stories told to them of the home land by their mothers-they loved the Bible stories of hope and faith read to them by the Catholic priests-they quickly learned to trust the gentle Catholic nuns who gave them herbs and teas to ease their pain-they anctiously waited for the next Curcit Preacher or missionary who read stories of Jesus’ love-they sang to forget their pain-they dreamed of the day when Jesus would return to set them free, and soon a new religion was born: Houdoo (later called Voodoo). The Witch Doctor listened carefuly to the words of the Preists and missionaries they quickly learned to read the Bible-they memorized prayers and songs-they payed careful attention to the healing techniques of the Nuns-they vistied local Witches to learn even more healing techniques-when the doctors came they paid carful attention to their methods-and what resulted was what is today known as the Witch Doctor. The Voodoos relyed on their Witch Doctor to heal them of the wounds inflicted by their evil task masters, provide spiritual advise, and to curse the masters as punishment for their sins against their brothers and sisters of color-the Bible was usualy the only thing that the Witch Doctor had ever learned to read-so he/she would recite it to the “worker” slaves at night, under the cover of darkness and the risk of exicution should the master find out- Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Job, and Jesus the Christ are the major “heroes” in the Voodoo faith-they all stood up against slavery and promoted freedom in one form or another.) (*just a quick note here: although Voodoo  and Voodoo Witch Doctors had their beginings in the black slaves of the South, does not mean that all Voodoos and  all Witch Doctors are either black or from the South, just as not all Shaman are Native Americans-Voodoos and Voodoo Witch Doctors-like all other religions-are of all races and colors.) Considering all of these things the Witch Doctor, doesn’t sound so bad, does he/she? The Witch Doctor was of major importance to their people, they like the Shaman of other cultures, were healers and spiritual leaders-but there was one notable differance-one thing that makes the Witch Doctors stand out from all other types of Shaman-one thing that makes the world run in fear at the sight of the Voodoo Witch Doctor: Poppets-those famous little pieces of cloth commonly known as the Voodoo Doll…..

…So what is a Voodoo doll anyways? How can one little doll strike so much fear in the hearts of men? Well for one thing, unlike most spells, curses, and hexes that scientists can not prove to be effective-Voodoo Dolls have a long history of quick, painful, and sometimes deadly effects. Fact is-they work, and even scientists who can’t prove a Witch’s spell to be real, stand back in speachless  ough at the inexplicable effectivness of a Voodoo Doll. Let’s take a look at at the life of a Voodoo Witch Doctor again…

…So there he/she is kneeling before the alter freverantly praying to Jesus, thanking Him for their life-their freedom-their health-their family-and everything they have-hour after hour-somtimes day after day-fasting from food and sleep-this is Witch Doctor-a very spiritual,very strong willed, very loyal, very stuborn, very persistant, and very, very devoted person-becoming like Jesus is their ultimate goal-in all of the Christian world there is none more devoted to Christ than the Voodoo Witch Doctor. The Witch Doctor is deep in spiritual meditation,when a client comes to the door,seeking the Witch Doctor’s help.Unlike most other types of Witches,Shaman and Medicain Men,the Witch Doctor has no need to “prepare” themselves to work for the client-they don’t send they client away telling them to make an appointment for a few days from now,the Witch Doctor isn’t playing “Wizard of Oz”-he/she has already prepared-they stay in tune to their prayers to Jesus and pray daily-hourly-all day long-they are always ready at a moment’s notice to help a client.The client’s request may vary from finding a lost cat,to lifting a curse off of their sheep,from healing a sick hen to restoring the life to a dead child,from making a love potion to sending a curse against an enemy.The requests come in all forms for all things and no one is ever turned away(although not all requests are answered in the way the client had hoped)-the Voodoo Witch Doctor trys to help everyone that arives at his/her doorstep seeking help.Like the Shaman,the Witch Doctor uses herbs and spices, prayers and crystals,diet and touch,but with a twist that freaks out most people today-they also use Poppets or Mojos-a.k.a. Voodoo Dolls.The Witch Doctor mixes the herbs,blesses the oils,annoints the crystals,writes down three copies of a blessing/affermation/curse and then takes all of these items(but only one of the three papers)and sews them up inside of a small fabric doll,that is than given to the client.The second copy of the blessing/affermation/curse is giving to the client with the instruction for the client to hold the doll while reciting the words written on the paper over and over again until they believe it in their heart and can recite it from memory-to do this repetadly until the desired effect is acomplished and then to take the doll and the paper and bury them in the earth,prayering and thanking Jesus for answering their prayers.Meanwhile the Witch Doctor takes the third piece of paper and places it on their alter along with other client “letters”,and prayers over it individualy reading each paper and prayer to Jesus,Mary, arch-angles,and/or saints-mostly to Jesus though-asking for Him to carry out the request on the paper and thanking Him beforhand for the succsesful result…..Hey what about sticking the doll full of pins and needles and stuufing it with broken glass?I know,you’re still thinking about Holltwood movies.There are many things that can be done with Voodoo Dolls,and many things you can fill them with,and you can use them for.Yes,there are times when they are “stuck full of pins”,but this is usualy done to “open the arua” to allow healing energies to enter in and negative energys to exit out.Yes,there are times when a curse is requested,and pins are used then too,to cause pain to the resipiant of the curse(this is quite dangerouse and rarly done as it often results in death)-but this is only done in rare instances-when the life,health,or saftey of the client is in immedate danger and no other alternative is avalable.Most times(and often much to the disappiontment of the client who had their heart set on revenge)a restoration of peace is recommended by the Witch Doctor to the client,as perferable to sending a curse,and a “spell” to restore peace and love is given to the client instead of sending a curse to the enemy-a curse out of sheer revenge and hate is never, ever preformed no matter how much money the client offers to pay the Witch Doctor,and most Witch Doctors are able to desern the diferance between sheer terror with fear of one’s safty and pure hatred and revenge torward an enemy..There is one more thing that makes the Witch Doctor stand out from the rest of the Shamans and Medicain Men…Exorcism….

A Witch Doctor gets it’s name from two things-one they are a doctor-they heal the body,they heal the mind, they heal the soul,they heal the arua,they heal the spirit-and two;they are a Witch,right?..Wrong! Yes,they are a Witch,but that is not why they are caled “Witch” Doctors.The title originates from the fact that a Witch Doctor also cures you from Witches.If you have been cursed by a Witch you go to a Witch Doctor to get the curse removed-if your land has been hexed by a Witch you go to a Witch Doctor to get the hex lifted-if you suspect that you,your family,your child,your pet,or your house is vexed by an evil spirit,ghost,poltergiest,demon,etc.-you go to the Witch Doctor to get it exorcised or driven out.This is the ultamate reason for seeking a Witch Doctor’s help.Many Witches,Shaman,Christians,and others do not believe in exorcism,because they do not believe in ghosts or demons,etc.,even when the clients believe in them.When someone seeks an exorcism the are usualy limited to one of two choices;a Catholic priest who specializses in exorcism(they are becoming increasingly rare) or a Voodoo Witch Doctor;there are a few Witches,Shaman,and others who will also practice exorcism,but these are realativly rare and a scattered few.As the years go by,even Voodoo Witch Doctors who practice exorcisms are becomeing less and less,this is because of a simple lack of demand for exocrcists today. 

And that is an overveiw of Shaman,Medicain Men,and Witch Doctors.As a general rule all three are pretty much the same thing:very spiritual people who’s goal in life is to heal others,but they each have their own unique differances and within each of these three groups you will find countless variations dependeing on the individual’s cultural background,religious upbringing,spiritual beliefs,and personal life experiances.Each and every Shaman, Medicain Man,and Witch Doctor is a unique individual and may or may not be exactly the same as described here and that is to be expected,but this is a general summery of all of them lumped together as one group to explain to you who they are and what they do,and to give you a better understanding of what these people are trying to acomplish and an attempt to put an end once and for all to the “evil” reputation that hollywood has attempted,quite succsesfully,to give them. 

Wait…….you forgot somthing……What about zombies?….You forgot to tell us about Voodoo Witch Doctors making zombies!All  right,so you want to hear about zombies,well that’s aother thing that Hollywood got wrong.Yes,there are Voodoos who “make zombies”,but they are not Witch Doctors.Witch Doctors veiw the soul as a sacred thing,they know that when the spirit leaves the body,it goes on the the next level.They know that we are not earthbound,and belive that we have jioned the birds and are now joyousely singing and soaring high above the clouds,flying like birds,but without wings-they view it as mean,selfish,and cruel to raise the dead and create a zombie or to even want to do such a thing-the spirit has escaped the imprisoinment of it’s physical body,why would they want to bring it back?No only in hollywood do Witch Doctors create zombies.So where does the zombie story come from?…Borkas.What is a Borka?It is a Hougan turned evil.Think of “Star Wars” and the up and rising Jedi Knight who has a great future ahead of him,but than his mother is murdered and hatred begins to fill his entire being,thoughts of revenge fill his soul,and he thinks about getting revenge so much that he eventualy becomes just as evil as the man who murdered his mother,and that evil continues to grow inside of him until he becomes the most evil and most powerful of all of the Dark Jedi Knights-Darth Vader himself.Much of the “Star Wars” myth is based on the Voodoo religion,wither it was intened to be that way or not,I don’t know.In Voodoo one gathers up the energy-life-force that surronds each and every one of us and you become one of many differant things,depending on your spiritual level and ability to acsess the energy.Witch Doctors are only one of these,they use the energy to heal and help others-they are like the Jedi Masters-Yoda for instance-they are the spiritual leaders trying to lead others to the right path in lfe.Then there are the Hougans,powerful high priests-almost wizard-like in their methods-they are like the Jedi Warriors-Obi-Wan for instance,and finaly there are the Borkas-powerful Hougans who through greed and the desire for power have become practitioners of Black Magick corupted by thoughts of villanery-they are like the Jedis who turned to “The Dark Side”-Darth Vader for instance.

So what about zombies?Voodoos believe in quick burials-the same day,often before sunset,that leaves only a few hours to prepare the dead.Mistakes get made in such short time spans.Today with the rise of morden doctors and hospitals and a better knowlegde of variouse illnesses,zombies are quite rare.However…in the early days of Voodoo(and even right up into the 1970′s)zombies were relativly common.The reason for this is that scientists today believe that before the 1950′s,as many as 75% of all people who were ever buried in the entire history of the human race,were buried alive-that is they were not dead.Now this was not a maliciouse intent to be sure,just ignorance and lack of knowlegde.Things like comas,heart-attacks,epilptic trances,and other things that caused uncosciousness had not yet been discovered.In other words before the 1950′s if you had a fainting spell that lasted for more than a few minutes you were immediately pronouced dead and buried-and I do mean immediately-refridgeration hadn’t been invented yet and a dead body starts to rot almost immediatly-in a few hours you wouldn’t smell very good and since gas masks haddn’t been invented yet either it was of the utmost importance that you were in the ground in four hours or less.It is a very common documented fact that family crypts and tombs have been opened to inter a new body,only to discover that the last body-now a skelaton,lay in a heap by the door that was covered with claw marks where the “dead” person had awoken in the coffin,got out only to find themselves locked inside of a stone crypt and died of a combination of hysteria and starvation,tearing their hand to shreads in a final desperate attempt to escape….And oh the poor people who did escape-they would have been better off dieing in the tomb-escapes from the tomb were believed to be the “undead” or “zombies”,and they were captured by prophesional “vampire killers” and tortored mercilessly,and ultimatly deaded by having their heart cut out and burned.Those foolish people should have been rejiosing that their loved one wasn’t realy dead,but buried alive-instead they thought they were monsters and killed them….The Romainians respected the “undead” to the piont that they left all coffins above ground and unnailed in hopes that the dead would rise-this was a common practice in Transylvania-one that inspired Brahms Strocker to mix this practice with England’s fear of the undead-and resulted in creating the modern-day myth of vampires.However you want to know about zombies not vampires.In the beginning,the Borkas intetions were probably good-a kind hearted Borka probably realized that a loved one had been buried alive and “miracuously raised”them befor the eyes of the village.However like everything else,greed and corruption soon took over.Borkas became the plantation owners friend-raising the dead as “zombies” to sell back to the slave owners.It was cheeper to hire a Borka to raise “dead” slaves than it was to go out and purchase a new slave-a good strong hard working slave was very exspensive and getting more expensive each and every day-as the Civil War drew nearer a single slave could cost a whole year’s pay,yet a Borka would settle for his “freedom” and a small shed to live in,and was content to live off the family’s scraps-alot of pay for a slave who was born a slave and didn’t know what true freedom realy was-and practicaly no expessses at all for the slave owner-zombies became very popular,and terror struck the hearts of the slaves.The first Voodoos of the 1700′s brought with them from Africa stories of the Nzambie-a spirit creature that lives inside of every human,and is released from the physical body after death grants it it’s freedom and allows it to fly with the birds.The Nzambie are simarlar to some Christians’ belief that humans become angles when they die.These stories of the Nzambie was passed down from mother to child and a constant reminder that some day they would be free once again.They,like everyone else at that time,did not understand that many of their loved ones were being buried alive,so when the Borkas begane to “raise the dead”,and sell them to the slave owners,horrific tales of the gentle Nzambies being captured by the Borkas and  forced into eternal imprissionment inside of it’s former physical body,never again to be released and set free,begane to circulate.These “recaptured” Nzambies were called Zombies-spirit beings cursed by the Borkas and trapped for all etrnaty inside of a prison-that was once it’s human body-and is simalar to a ghost.As time went by other stories brought from Africa began to mix with the Zombie tales:the heart,for instance,has long been cosidered sacred to the Africa people-a belief that can be traced all the way back to the ancient Egyptians,who passed their beliefs to the Ethiopians,who father pased them on down along the Nile river until somhow it reached the souther coasts of Africa,were most of the slaves were captured from.The heart was considered so sacred that it was removed from the body and buried seperately,in the earth,while the rest of the body was burned,the ashes used to make a healing potion,and the skeleton proudly put on display in a sort of ancestrial alter-like shrine.(Some tribes believe that eating the heart passes the person’s knowledge,and strength on to you.)Stories of this ritual came to the South with the slaves,but the practicwe itself died out-until the rise of the Zombie creating Borka.In order to prevent the Borka from capturing the Nzambie the dead one’s family cut out the heart,blessed it and buried it in the ground,seperate from the body.This of course prevented the dead from riseing as it  insured that the dead really were dead and killed anyone that was about to be buried alive-of course they had no way of knowing that the person wasn’t realy dead and that that was the real reason the Borka was able to “bring them back” as a Zombie.

Now to take the horror of being turned into a Zombie one step farther-removing the hearts of the dead worked-it worked too well,plantation owners lost faith in the Borkas,and began making them working slaves again. Borkas had to find a new way to raise the dead-they needed a way to make Zombies out of live people-and they did-and some still do today.Some of the most evil darkest Borkas began to disguise themselves as travleing Witch Doctors-pretendeing to heal people-mixing up stange potions for people to drink-potions made of posionous mushrooms,posion arrows(frogs),posion spiders,and the deadly puffer fish-potions that resulted in massive seizerures and a trance that mimiced death-potions that they could easily cure because only they knew what was wrong and how to fix it-they were doctors at their worst-malpractice suites big time,but people were easily fooled-the person “died” and was immediatly buried before sunset(the Borka had to time the spell just right),the slaves would bury the “dead” and after dark the Borka would dig up the “Zombie” give it the remady and take it back with him to his plantiation and sell it to his master.This is the Zombie of the horror movie fame-the potion of toxic posions would have a devistating effect on the brain-killing the ability of “free”thought and free will-a vegetable-an empty brain-but for some odd reason a totaly healthy body otherwise and a very strong worker-as with all drug overdoses,the skin of the Zombie took on a strange palor and the eyes a clouded glassed over star of death.There was a twist to these “new” Zombies though-although they worked fror the plantation owner-they had to live with the Borka.No one realy knows for sure the reason for this,but it is speculated that the effects of the potion would eventualy wear off,requireing the Borka to keep a close watch on the Zombie and be close by to “remedicate” it as nessacary.

Now you may have noticed that I mentined that Borkas still make their “posion endused” Zombies today,you are probably wondering why,since the slave trade died out years ago…Borkas have found new buyers for their Zombies as well as new sorces for their bodies-the government.No not the United States luckaly,but the local tribal and village government of South America-most notably  in Hati.Today Borkas are justice workers,restorers of the peace-if you can call it that.There are criminals-thieves,murderers,etc.everywhere-more than the governments can handle-and there are very few prisons-so,unrepentant repeat offenders are handed over to the local Borka-who dishes out capital punishment by turning the criminal into a Zombie-and setting them to work around the village,but never far from the Borka’s ever watchful eye.This is truely a case of truth being stranger than fiction.

So,yes,Zombies are real,but not in the way that Hollywood would like you to believe,and you don’t have to fear that a Witch Doctor would turn you into one-Witch Doctors don’t do that-Borkas do.And unless you are a criminal and you plans to visit Hati,you don’t have to be afriad of becomeing a Zombie at all,unless of course you are slowly turning yourself into a Zombie anyways by taking drugs-remember the Borka creates his Zombies by drugging them,and then keeping them drugged out of their minds-and it is quite common for Zopmbies to die from overdoses of the Borka’s drugs. When you use drugs and somone remarks to you-”Boy you look like a Zombie”-they aren’t kidding-you don’t just look like one-you realy are one-because that’s what a Zombie is-someone who is drugged so far out of their mind that they have no controll over their own body and are left to the mercy of others.

_

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

Shamans, Medicain Men, and Witch Doctors

Shamans, Medicain Men, and Witch Doctors:

What are they, who are they, and can you be one too?

What is a Shaman? When you hear the word Shaman, what picture comes to your mind. Close this book, close your eyes and imagine that you have just ment a world famous Shaman. What picture comes to your mind? What does he/she look like? Read on:

When one thinks of a Shaman most often, people see images of a Hollywood-created fat and ancient toothless, white-haired “Sioux” American Indian Medican Man chieftain wearing his feathered headress, smoking his peacepipe, and danceing and chanting around a bonfire in full warpaint. This largely fictional image was created by simple minded Hollywood designers attempting to glorify their movie scripts, and while loosely based on several differant beliefs of several differant Native American Tribes (or Lamanites and Neiphites as they preffered to call themselves before the white men invaded the land),it in no way engulfs the rich and true discription of a real live Shaman or the work that they do. Shamans can be described in countless many ways, and are found in many cultures of nearly every country, they are not, as commonly believed, exclusive to the Native Americans.The countries that are most famous for their Shaman Mystics include China, Austrailia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, India, the tribes of Africa, South America, and of course the Native American Indian Tribes. Although each culture has their own differances and variations, they all mantain the same, almost identical, simalarities. Of all of the common traits, the most common simalarity found in all cultures seems to be the Shaman’s close connection with nature,espiecialy with animals and birds. Shamans seem to live at one with nature and they rarely live amoung the tribe or village, rather living almost hermit-like in the forest, jungle, desert, or on rocky sea coast cliffs-they are often solitary, liveing alone with little contact with other humanes, save those that periodicly come to them for help, healing, and spiritual advise-wild animals don’t fear them and are often easily tamed by them-in some instances injured animals travle great distances to come to the Shaman for help-(Shamans with this kind of exteem “magnatism” are quite rare and generanly very spiritual-the animals know they have nothing to fear from this gentle, kindhearted, peacful Shaman and will trust the Shaman but continue to fear all other humans.) Healing is another common thread in each and every Shaman, no matter want the culture-they often have a vast knowlegde of herbs, roots, plants, fruits, nuts, berries, and spices-they know what to eat to settle an upset stomach or what to drink to calm a fever-people often travle great distances to seek the Shaman’s healing advice, to buy potions, or to be cured. Crystal or gemstone healing comes directly from the ancient Shamans, who first discovered that certain stones give off a magnetic energy that effects the health of those who touch the stone. Shamans belive in healing the “whole” body, not only the physical, but the emotional, and spiritual bodies as well. Music, drum rythems, and wild “dancing into a frenzy” in common amoung all Shamans. They are deeply affected by sounds and music-which is often used to help them enter into Dreamtime or to help them during a healing ritual. Fragrances also have a deep effect on the Shaman. Aromatheropy and incense burning in one form or another is usualy done to induss healing or invoke visions,this is a practice that has been passed down for centuries. Shamans are often the tribe’s spiritual leader as well-this is because they are able to communicate with the spirit world-often seeing visions, dreaming dreams, and speaking with animals who are the messangers from the Great Spirit. Journeys to “dreamtime” and “vision quests” are always a requirement for Shamans of all cultures before the tribe will accept them as a spiritual leader and Shaman….In short a Shaman is a person (man or woman) who communicates with the spirit world, speaks to the people on the behalf of the Great Spirit (regardless of the name they choose to call “It”),lives in close contact with nature, and is a “natural” healer or medicain-man/woman, they are healers of the “whole” body including the physical, emotional, and spiritual. They may or may not interperet the dreams of the people and they usualy,but not always live alone, some distance from the nearist village-this solitude alows them to meditate deeper and longer, undistracted and undisturbed, in order to recieve more contact with the spirit world.

What is a Medican Man/Woman? Like the Shaman, the Medicain Man is usualy thought of as Native American, old and fat and smoking a pipe. Like the Shaman, the Medicain Man can be found in many cultures, and is often found in villages and tribes that also have a Shaman. The Medicain Man is exactly what the name immplys-a person who heals the body-they are a doctor, often well versed in both healing techniechs and the human anatomy and biology as well. They  heal useing “natural” methods, such as herbs, diet, touch (massage), aromatheropy, crystals, mental immagry, dance, and music. You may find a few modern-day Medicain Men who have added surgery to their list of skills, but this is not common. The role of Medicain Man and Shaman are often so simarlar that there is realy not much differance between them at all, however the Medicain Man isn’t usualy a spiritual leader-although some are, but they are always very spiritual people and often communicate with spirits; they also often, but not always have a deep connection with animals-espsecialy birds, who they often veiw as sacred messangers for the spirit world. Medicain Men also differ from Shamans in that they usualy live within the tribe or village-and unlike the solitary Shaman, they are often married and have a family of their own….In otherwords a Medicain Man is basicly your good reliable old fashioned country doctor, who is a very spiritual person.

And now comes the big question: What is a Witch Doctor? Oh boy! Here is where the Hollywood mythology really runs wild in the minds of people today. Shamans and Medicain Men are okay and Witches are even becoming acceptable, but Witch Doctors! No, not the evil Witch Doctors. Witch Doctors are an evil taboo in the eyes of the “civilized” world today. Evil Voodooism! Evil Zombie makers! Evil headhunters! Cannibals! Baby killers! Evil spellcasters. Evil enchanters. Run and hide-protect yourself from the evil eye. Shock, Gasp,  Arrgghhhhh!…..Oh the terror, oh the horror-condem, drive out, and kill all Witch Doctors!……Hey-wait a minute, aren’t we like actually living in the 21st  century or are we still back in the Dark Ages? Get real will you! What is a Witch Doctor really like? Why does the word Witch Doctor strike such fear into the hearts of men? The answer is quite simple and I can tell you in just one word: Hollywood. Yes, were Witch Doctors are concerned, Hollywood is the only real evil. Hollywood has sucsessfuly convinced the world that a Witch Doctor is an evil Satan-worshipping, baby sacrificeing, cannibalistic, headhunter-out to steal your soul, stick pins in a doll that looks like you, and turn the entire world into race of mindless zombies. No wonder people run in terror at the meer mention of a Witch Doctor! So lets just forget everything the movies tell us for awhile and look at the real life of a real Witch Doctor…..

There are generally two types of Witch Doctors. Voodoo (Houdoo) Witch Doctors and Tribal (Aboriginal) Witch Doctors: 

A Tribal Witch Doctor is a Medicain Man who in addition to being a Medicain Man also practices exorcim or driving out evil spirits, ghosts, and demons and removeing curses cast by Witches (thus we get the name Witch Doctor, which means lieraly, “one who cures a Witch‘s spell“). Tribal Witch Doctors live in the remote tribes of Africa, South America, Austrailia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and other remote places. Tribal Witch Doctors have never seen or ever heard of a Voodoo Doll-in fact they have never even heard the word Voodoo before at all. Most of them have never even seen a white-man and probably wouldn’t believe that such a strange creature even existed outside of the wild imaginations of a few of the tribe’s young hunters. Tribal Witch Doctors are an isolated rare few-there is relatively little information about their true exhistacne-mostly because they live in tribes deep in the darkest most impenatrable rain forests-and by the time white men are able to locate the loction of their well hidden villages-the entire race well probably be extict-it is estimated that only a few hundred are still alive today. Only one race of Tribal Witch Doctor is also a canniable or headhunter and that is the Witch Doctors of the Jale` (pronouced: haul-lee) and the Witckachee tribes of a remote valley in the Highlands of the island called Papua New Guinea, just South of Japan and North of Australia. It should be noted that these two tribes are a nearly extint dieing race with less than one hundred people world-wide, it is esimated that by 2025 they well be gone entirely-this is were the distruction of a rain forest has it’s most devistating results-the extinction of an entire race of humans-lost forever because of white man’s greed and uncontrollable lust for the destruction of the land. These are the world’s last cannible/headhunter tribes-less than one hundred people, when their jungle home is gone-they well be gone too. If they won’t stop the clear cutting to save the animals, they should at least stop to save the humans…..

……..But wait a minute? Aren’t the Voodoo Witch Doctors the ones that live in the savage jungles? Aren’t the Voodoo’s the ones who eat people?? Aren’t the Voodoos the ones who dance around in grass skirts and strange masks? No. Only in Hollywood will you find Voodoo Witch Doctors liveing in the jungle. Voodoo Witch Doctors never have and probably never well live in the wild jungles of any country. And in fact Voodoos are rarely found outside of the American contaninte. Shocked? Most people are. Only in Hollywood do Voodoos wear grass skirts and masks-real Voodoo Witch Doctors do in fact dress “differant”, but  their clothen usualy consistes of long robes, caftans, capes, head wraps, and other clothen that would usualy be described as “Gypsy”, Turkish, Indian (Pungabi not Native American),or “mudcloth”.

……Actualy, Voodooism is a fairly new Christian religion, that was started in the early 1700′s by the African slaves on the Southern plantations, and is based on the  teachings of the Catholic Preists who, out of pity, visited the plaintations to try to “save” the lost souls of the slaves. Voodoo has it’s roots firmly planted in ancient Egyptian, Ethiopian, and other African religions with a strong mixture of Catholic, Baptist, and other Christian religions… 

…What!?…..Wait a minute…Voodoos are Christians?!?…..No, that can’t be right! How can that be? The movies always say that Voodoo’s are evil, they hate Jesus, they murder Christians! Voodoos are Satan worshippers, aren’t they? Movies show Voodoos hanging Christians on crosses to mock Jesus! My pastor says that Voodoos are Satan worshipers-they can’t be Christians! Can they?.…

…Hhmmmm….. let’s see…..well, now, what do you know-Hollywood lied! Who would have guessed Hollywood would actualy tell a lie!…… Hey, guess what? Your pastor lied too! Yes! That’s right Voodoo is a Christian religion-not only is it Christian-it’s a form of Catholic-the ORIGINAL Christian religion (even though the Catholic Church refuses to admit it that Voodoos are Catholic- most Voodoo churches won‘t accept you as a member if you weren‘t first baptized in the Catholic church! And it‘s nearly impossible to become a Hogan or a Mambo if you aren‘t first ordained a Catholic priest, monk , or nun! Surprised? Did you know that all candles used in a Voodoo ceremony, musty first be blest by a Catholic priest, and contray to popular belief, there are just as mant white-skinned Voodoos as there are black-skinned ones.).

So… What is the typical life of a real Voodoo Witch Doctor like? First off, only the most devoted Christians, ever presue Voodoo, so you will have to expect them to be along the lines of a fanatic Christian (a dead-hard fan of Jesus the Christ). He (or she) will rise up with the sun and greet the day with a prayer-to….oh my ,look at that…they actualy pray to …who would have guessed….. they pray to Jesus! They also somtimes pray to the Virgin Mary mother of Christ, any one of the great arch-angles( Gabriel, Michael, etc.),or any one of several Christian Saints-and as there are several thousnd Christain Saints and a a couple of hundred Catholic Saints, the Voodoo Witch Doctor has the option of praying to a differant Saint each and every hour of each and every day for the rest of their life if they want to!. This will be followed by a bath in Holy Water, (this is water that has been blessed and annointed with special oils),under the shadow of a cross-often a rosary hung in a window. Breakfeast is cooked and eaten-no meat of course, since most Voodoo Witch Doctors are vegetarians because they believe in harming none-after eating they sit in front of their personal alter (the home of every Voodoo Witch Doctor contains at least one alter or shrine dedicated to Christ-were they burn franckensice and myrr and other incence) and meditatae or pray to Jesus, which they may continue to do for several hours or until the next client arrives at their house seeking their help., (more on that later).A Voodoo Witch Doctor’s personal alter or shrine may include any of the following things-icons (gold plated pictures of Jesus, Mary, angels, or Saints), candles, insence, crystals, prayer beads( often this well include a Catholic Rosary),carved statues (usualy of Jesus), items to be prayed over (usualy problems, sicknesses, etc, written on slips of paper and kept in a wooden box), and any other item that the Witch Doctor finds helpful in promoting peacful meditation and prayer. The alter is often drapped with a velvet cloth-usualy red, blue, or purple( colors often associated with Jesus).When in prayer the Witch Doctor will often wear a veil,  long flowing, hooded robes or a hooded cape-symboles of their reverance and humble service to Jesus-by shrouding the body one does not put themselves above the Master (Jesus)-female Witch Doctors often pray with their head covered-usualy with a headwrap or veil. (It is rare to see a Voodoo without their head covered-members, preists, Hougans, Mambos, Borkas, and Witch Doctors all wear some form of covering over their heads)..After the prayer and meditation session in over, the Witch Doctor goes about his/her daily bussiness. This usualy includes alot of manual labor as Witch Doctors often live in the country, (there are city dwelling Witch Doctors, but these are usualy very limited as to what they are able to do) working the land and making it grow-they are often simple farmers and gardeners. Voodoo Witch Doctors are very simarlar to Green Witches in that they often have a garden in which they grow various herbs, fruits, flowers, vegetables, berries, nuts, and spices-all the ingrediants that they will later use to make medicain bags, mo-jos, potions, ointments, lotions, linaments, teas, elixers, oils, and poppets( Voodoo dolls),as well as the food to feed their family. Many Witch Doctors have a small “doctor’s office” beside their house, and it is not uncommon for them to have a small shop in which they sell herbs, tea, spices. fruits, vegetables, crystals, candles, beads, alter supplies, incensse, carved fetish stones, magick potions, robes, veils, caftans, capes, shells, jewelry, headwraps, perfumes, medicain bags, and “ready-made” poppets (Voodoo Dolls).The Witch Doctor is totaly self-suficiant and lives in a style that vaugly resembles that of the ancient Native Americans. Food is another aspect of the Witch Doctor’s life-they often use “prescribed diets” to heal their chients.  Their lives are simalar to that of the Kitchen Witch-busily working away in the kitchen hour after hour-most all Voodoos love to cook and pride themselves in their kitchen skills-they were single handedly responcable for the creation of “Cajan Cooking” and many “Southern Style” meals. Like all other Voodoos the Witch Doctor loves to cook and often uses their cooking skills to help their clients. Music is another thing that you well find when you find a Voodoo Witch Doctor. You will often see the Voodoo Witch Doctor singing happly in their garden-or singing happily in their kitchen-or signing happily at their alter-or just walking along the roadside-you guessed it-singing happily, skipping and dancing along. Voodooism is a music filled religion-Voodoos are simply busting with music and their Witch Doctors are no exception. Many of them play instraments-drums and brass being amoung the most common. They often have instrumental music playing full blast in the house so that they can here it outside. And just as much as Voodoos love music, they love to dance-don’t be surprised if you see the Voodoo Witch Doctor dancing up a storm on his/her front lawn-for no reason at all other then to release the happy joy that is bubbleing and busting inside of them. Group gatherings and wild frenzed dancing around monstrous bonfires,to the tunes of drums, cymbols, bells, tamborins, brass saxaphones, and trumpets while all the members chant in rythem, is a common sight in a Voodoo village, usualy with the Witch Doctor and the High Hougan leading them on. The Witch Doctor’s day continues on just as it started-prayer, music, song,and dance; working in their gardens and kitchens, selling items to tourists, and carrieing out the requests of clinents. They pray before every meal,and sometimes afterwards too,they pray before bed and they often sing and dance in the moonlight, imagining themselves as gloriouse birds in flight, soaring high above the clouds with the Nzambie (angles or spirit beings).They goes to sleep at night with a song in their heart and a prayer on their lips.

Like Shamans, Voodoo Witch Doctors are at one with nature-most especialy birds and plants. Birds are of major importance to the Voodoos as they are a symbol of happiness, joy, and freedom. Birds are common joyful symbols for Voodoos for birds and their happy bubbly songs and free-flowing flight embody the true spirit of Voodooism-the freedom of the soul from bodily imprissionment-and the song that is inside of us all regardless of the circumstances in which we live. (Remember that this is a religion started by slaves who where chained, beaten, raped, starved, worked to exhaustion, and tortured every single day for their entire lives-they loved the stories told to them of the home land by their mothers-they loved the Bible stories of hope and faith read to them by the Catholic priests-they quickly learned to trust the gentle Catholic nuns who gave them herbs and teas to ease their pain-they anctiously waited for the next Curcit Preacher or missionary who read stories of Jesus’ love-they sang to forget their pain-they dreamed of the day when Jesus would return to set them free, and soon a new religion was born: Houdoo (later called Voodoo). The Witch Doctor listened carefuly to the words of the Preists and missionaries they quickly learned to read the Bible-they memorized prayers and songs-they payed careful attention to the healing techniques of the Nuns-they vistied local Witches to learn even more healing techniques-when the doctors came they paid carful attention to their methods-and what resulted was what is today known as the Witch Doctor. The Voodoos relyed on their Witch Doctor to heal them of the wounds inflicted by their evil task masters, provide spiritual advise, and to curse the masters as punishment for their sins against their brothers and sisters of color-the Bible was usualy the only thing that the Witch Doctor had ever learned to read-so he/she would recite it to the “worker” slaves at night, under the cover of darkness and the risk of exicution should the master find out- Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Job, and Jesus the Christ are the major “heroes” in the Voodoo faith-they all stood up against slavery and promoted freedom in one form or another.) (*just a quick note here: although Voodoo  and Voodoo Witch Doctors had their beginings in the black slaves of the South, does not mean that all Voodoos and  all Witch Doctors are either black or from the South, just as not all Shaman are Native Americans-Voodoos and Voodoo Witch Doctors-like all other religions-are of all races and colors.) Considering all of these things the Witch Doctor, doesn’t sound so bad, does he/she? The Witch Doctor was of major importance to their people, they like the Shaman of other cultures, were healers and spiritual leaders-but there was one notable differance-one thing that makes the Witch Doctors stand out from all other types of Shaman-one thing that makes the world run in fear at the sight of the Voodoo Witch Doctor: Poppets-those famous little pieces of cloth commonly known as the Voodoo Doll…..

…So what is a Voodoo doll anyways? How can one little doll strike so much fear in the hearts of men? Well for one thing, unlike most spells, curses, and hexes that scientists can not prove to be effective-Voodoo Dolls have a long history of quick, painful, and sometimes deadly effects. Fact is-they work, and even scientists who can’t prove a Witch’s spell to be real, stand back in speachless  ough at the inexplicable effectivness of a Voodoo Doll. Let’s take a look at at the life of a Voodoo Witch Doctor again…

…So there he/she is kneeling before the alter freverantly praying to Jesus, thanking Him for their life-their freedom-their health-their family-and everything they have-hour after hour-somtimes day after day-fasting from food and sleep-this is Witch Doctor-a very spiritual,very strong willed, very loyal, very stuborn, very persistant, and very, very devoted person-becoming like Jesus is their ultimate goal-in all of the Christian world there is none more devoted to Christ than the Voodoo Witch Doctor. The Witch Doctor is deep in spiritual meditation,when a client comes to the door,seeking the Witch Doctor’s help.Unlike most other types of Witches,Shaman and Medicain Men,the Witch Doctor has no need to “prepare” themselves to work for the client-they don’t send they client away telling them to make an appointment for a few days from now,the Witch Doctor isn’t playing “Wizard of Oz”-he/she has already prepared-they stay in tune to their prayers to Jesus and pray daily-hourly-all day long-they are always ready at a moment’s notice to help a client.The client’s request may vary from finding a lost cat,to lifting a curse off of their sheep,from healing a sick hen to restoring the life to a dead child,from making a love potion to sending a curse against an enemy.The requests come in all forms for all things and no one is ever turned away(although not all requests are answered in the way the client had hoped)-the Voodoo Witch Doctor trys to help everyone that arives at his/her doorstep seeking help.Like the Shaman,the Witch Doctor uses herbs and spices, prayers and crystals,diet and touch,but with a twist that freaks out most people today-they also use Poppets or Mojos-a.k.a. Voodoo Dolls.The Witch Doctor mixes the herbs,blesses the oils,annoints the crystals,writes down three copies of a blessing/affermation/curse and then takes all of these items(but only one of the three papers)and sews them up inside of a small fabric doll,that is than given to the client.The second copy of the blessing/affermation/curse is giving to the client with the instruction for the client to hold the doll while reciting the words written on the paper over and over again until they believe it in their heart and can recite it from memory-to do this repetadly until the desired effect is acomplished and then to take the doll and the paper and bury them in the earth,prayering and thanking Jesus for answering their prayers.Meanwhile the Witch Doctor takes the third piece of paper and places it on their alter along with other client “letters”,and prayers over it individualy reading each paper and prayer to Jesus,Mary, arch-angles,and/or saints-mostly to Jesus though-asking for Him to carry out the request on the paper and thanking Him beforhand for the succsesful result…..Hey what about sticking the doll full of pins and needles and stuufing it with broken glass?I know,you’re still thinking about Holltwood movies.There are many things that can be done with Voodoo Dolls,and many things you can fill them with,and you can use them for.Yes,there are times when they are “stuck full of pins”,but this is usualy done to “open the arua” to allow healing energies to enter in and negative energys to exit out.Yes,there are times when a curse is requested,and pins are used then too,to cause pain to the resipiant of the curse(this is quite dangerouse and rarly done as it often results in death)-but this is only done in rare instances-when the life,health,or saftey of the client is in immedate danger and no other alternative is avalable.Most times(and often much to the disappiontment of the client who had their heart set on revenge)a restoration of peace is recommended by the Witch Doctor to the client,as perferable to sending a curse,and a “spell” to restore peace and love is given to the client instead of sending a curse to the enemy-a curse out of sheer revenge and hate is never, ever preformed no matter how much money the client offers to pay the Witch Doctor,and most Witch Doctors are able to desern the diferance between sheer terror with fear of one’s safty and pure hatred and revenge torward an enemy..There is one more thing that makes the Witch Doctor stand out from the rest of the Shamans and Medicain Men…Exorcism….

A Witch Doctor gets it’s name from two things-one they are a doctor-they heal the body,they heal the mind, they heal the soul,they heal the arua,they heal the spirit-and two;they are a Witch,right?..Wrong! Yes,they are a Witch,but that is not why they are caled “Witch” Doctors.The title originates from the fact that a Witch Doctor also cures you from Witches.If you have been cursed by a Witch you go to a Witch Doctor to get the curse removed-if your land has been hexed by a Witch you go to a Witch Doctor to get the hex lifted-if you suspect that you,your family,your child,your pet,or your house is vexed by an evil spirit,ghost,poltergiest,demon,etc.-you go to the Witch Doctor to get it exorcised or driven out.This is the ultamate reason for seeking a Witch Doctor’s help.Many Witches,Shaman,Christians,and others do not believe in exorcism,because they do not believe in ghosts or demons,etc.,even when the clients believe in them.When someone seeks an exorcism the are usualy limited to one of two choices;a Catholic priest who specializses in exorcism(they are becoming increasingly rare) or a Voodoo Witch Doctor;there are a few Witches,Shaman,and others who will also practice exorcism,but these are realativly rare and a scattered few.As the years go by,even Voodoo Witch Doctors who practice exorcisms are becomeing less and less,this is because of a simple lack of demand for exocrcists today. 

And that is an overveiw of Shaman,Medicain Men,and Witch Doctors.As a general rule all three are pretty much the same thing:very spiritual people who’s goal in life is to heal others,but they each have their own unique differances and within each of these three groups you will find countless variations dependeing on the individual’s cultural background,religious upbringing,spiritual beliefs,and personal life experiances.Each and every Shaman, Medicain Man,and Witch Doctor is a unique individual and may or may not be exactly the same as described here and that is to be expected,but this is a general summery of all of them lumped together as one group to explain to you who they are and what they do,and to give you a better understanding of what these people are trying to acomplish and an attempt to put an end once and for all to the “evil” reputation that hollywood has attempted,quite succsesfully,to give them. 

Wait…….you forgot somthing……What about zombies?….You forgot to tell us about Voodoo Witch Doctors making zombies!All  right,so you want to hear about zombies,well that’s aother thing that Hollywood got wrong.Yes,there are Voodoos who “make zombies”,but they are not Witch Doctors.Witch Doctors veiw the soul as a sacred thing,they know that when the spirit leaves the body,it goes on the the next level.They know that we are not earthbound,and belive that we have jioned the birds and are now joyousely singing and soaring high above the clouds,flying like birds,but without wings-they view it as mean,selfish,and cruel to raise the dead and create a zombie or to even want to do such a thing-the spirit has escaped the imprisoinment of it’s physical body,why would they want to bring it back?No only in hollywood do Witch Doctors create zombies.So where does the zombie story come from?…Borkas.What is a Borka?It is a Hougan turned evil.Think of “Star Wars” and the up and rising Jedi Knight who has a great future ahead of him,but than his mother is murdered and hatred begins to fill his entire being,thoughts of revenge fill his soul,and he thinks about getting revenge so much that he eventualy becomes just as evil as the man who murdered his mother,and that evil continues to grow inside of him until he becomes the most evil and most powerful of all of the Dark Jedi Knights-Darth Vader himself.Much of the “Star Wars” myth is based on the Voodoo religion,wither it was intened to be that way or not,I don’t know.In Voodoo one gathers up the energy-life-force that surronds each and every one of us and you become one of many differant things,depending on your spiritual level and ability to acsess the energy.Witch Doctors are only one of these,they use the energy to heal and help others-they are like the Jedi Masters-Yoda for instance-they are the spiritual leaders trying to lead others to the right path in lfe.Then there are the Hougans,powerful high priests-almost wizard-like in their methods-they are like the Jedi Warriors-Obi-Wan for instance,and finaly there are the Borkas-powerful Hougans who through greed and the desire for power have become practitioners of Black Magick corupted by thoughts of villanery-they are like the Jedis who turned to “The Dark Side”-Darth Vader for instance.

So what about zombies?Voodoos believe in quick burials-the same day,often before sunset,that leaves only a few hours to prepare the dead.Mistakes get made in such short time spans.Today with the rise of morden doctors and hospitals and a better knowlegde of variouse illnesses,zombies are quite rare.However…in the early days of Voodoo(and even right up into the 1970′s)zombies were relativly common.The reason for this is that scientists today believe that before the 1950′s,as many as 75% of all people who were ever buried in the entire history of the human race,were buried alive-that is they were not dead.Now this was not a maliciouse intent to be sure,just ignorance and lack of knowlegde.Things like comas,heart-attacks,epilptic trances,and other things that caused uncosciousness had not yet been discovered.In other words before the 1950′s if you had a fainting spell that lasted for more than a few minutes you were immediately pronouced dead and buried-and I do mean immediately-refridgeration hadn’t been invented yet and a dead body starts to rot almost immediatly-in a few hours you wouldn’t smell very good and since gas masks haddn’t been invented yet either it was of the utmost importance that you were in the ground in four hours or less.It is a very common documented fact that family crypts and tombs have been opened to inter a new body,only to discover that the last body-now a skelaton,lay in a heap by the door that was covered with claw marks where the “dead” person had awoken in the coffin,got out only to find themselves locked inside of a stone crypt and died of a combination of hysteria and starvation,tearing their hand to shreads in a final desperate attempt to escape….And oh the poor people who did escape-they would have been better off dieing in the tomb-escapes from the tomb were believed to be the “undead” or “zombies”,and they were captured by prophesional “vampire killers” and tortored mercilessly,and ultimatly deaded by having their heart cut out and burned.Those foolish people should have been rejiosing that their loved one wasn’t realy dead,but buried alive-instead they thought they were monsters and killed them….The Romainians respected the “undead” to the piont that they left all coffins above ground and unnailed in hopes that the dead would rise-this was a common practice in Transylvania-one that inspired Brahms Strocker to mix this practice with England’s fear of the undead-and resulted in creating the modern-day myth of vampires.However you want to know about zombies not vampires.In the beginning,the Borkas intetions were probably good-a kind hearted Borka probably realized that a loved one had been buried alive and “miracuously raised”them befor the eyes of the village.However like everything else,greed and corruption soon took over.Borkas became the plantation owners friend-raising the dead as “zombies” to sell back to the slave owners.It was cheeper to hire a Borka to raise “dead” slaves than it was to go out and purchase a new slave-a good strong hard working slave was very exspensive and getting more expensive each and every day-as the Civil War drew nearer a single slave could cost a whole year’s pay,yet a Borka would settle for his “freedom” and a small shed to live in,and was content to live off the family’s scraps-alot of pay for a slave who was born a slave and didn’t know what true freedom realy was-and practicaly no expessses at all for the slave owner-zombies became very popular,and terror struck the hearts of the slaves.The first Voodoos of the 1700′s brought with them from Africa stories of the Nzambie-a spirit creature that lives inside of every human,and is released from the physical body after death grants it it’s freedom and allows it to fly with the birds.The Nzambie are simarlar to some Christians’ belief that humans become angles when they die.These stories of the Nzambie was passed down from mother to child and a constant reminder that some day they would be free once again.They,like everyone else at that time,did not understand that many of their loved ones were being buried alive,so when the Borkas begane to “raise the dead”,and sell them to the slave owners,horrific tales of the gentle Nzambies being captured by the Borkas and  forced into eternal imprissionment inside of it’s former physical body,never again to be released and set free,begane to circulate.These “recaptured” Nzambies were called Zombies-spirit beings cursed by the Borkas and trapped for all etrnaty inside of a prison-that was once it’s human body-and is simalar to a ghost.As time went by other stories brought from Africa began to mix with the Zombie tales:the heart,for instance,has long been cosidered sacred to the Africa people-a belief that can be traced all the way back to the ancient Egyptians,who passed their beliefs to the Ethiopians,who father pased them on down along the Nile river until somhow it reached the souther coasts of Africa,were most of the slaves were captured from.The heart was considered so sacred that it was removed from the body and buried seperately,in the earth,while the rest of the body was burned,the ashes used to make a healing potion,and the skeleton proudly put on display in a sort of ancestrial alter-like shrine.(Some tribes believe that eating the heart passes the person’s knowledge,and strength on to you.)Stories of this ritual came to the South with the slaves,but the practicwe itself died out-until the rise of the Zombie creating Borka.In order to prevent the Borka from capturing the Nzambie the dead one’s family cut out the heart,blessed it and buried it in the ground,seperate from the body.This of course prevented the dead from riseing as it  insured that the dead really were dead and killed anyone that was about to be buried alive-of course they had no way of knowing that the person wasn’t realy dead and that that was the real reason the Borka was able to “bring them back” as a Zombie.

Now to take the horror of being turned into a Zombie one step farther-removing the hearts of the dead worked-it worked too well,plantation owners lost faith in the Borkas,and began making them working slaves again. Borkas had to find a new way to raise the dead-they needed a way to make Zombies out of live people-and they did-and some still do today.Some of the most evil darkest Borkas began to disguise themselves as travleing Witch Doctors-pretendeing to heal people-mixing up stange potions for people to drink-potions made of posionous mushrooms,posion arrows(frogs),posion spiders,and the deadly puffer fish-potions that resulted in massive seizerures and a trance that mimiced death-potions that they could easily cure because only they knew what was wrong and how to fix it-they were doctors at their worst-malpractice suites big time,but people were easily fooled-the person “died” and was immediatly buried before sunset(the Borka had to time the spell just right),the slaves would bury the “dead” and after dark the Borka would dig up the “Zombie” give it the remady and take it back with him to his plantiation and sell it to his master.This is the Zombie of the horror movie fame-the potion of toxic posions would have a devistating effect on the brain-killing the ability of “free”thought and free will-a vegetable-an empty brain-but for some odd reason a totaly healthy body otherwise and a very strong worker-as with all drug overdoses,the skin of the Zombie took on a strange palor and the eyes a clouded glassed over star of death.There was a twist to these “new” Zombies though-although they worked fror the plantation owner-they had to live with the Borka.No one realy knows for sure the reason for this,but it is speculated that the effects of the potion would eventualy wear off,requireing the Borka to keep a close watch on the Zombie and be close by to “remedicate” it as nessacary.

Now you may have noticed that I mentined that Borkas still make their “posion endused” Zombies today,you are probably wondering why,since the slave trade died out years ago…Borkas have found new buyers for their Zombies as well as new sorces for their bodies-the government.No not the United States luckaly,but the local tribal and village government of South America-most notably  in Hati.Today Borkas are justice workers,restorers of the peace-if you can call it that.There are criminals-thieves,murderers,etc.everywhere-more than the governments can handle-and there are very few prisons-so,unrepentant repeat offenders are handed over to the local Borka-who dishes out capital punishment by turning the criminal into a Zombie-and setting them to work around the village,but never far from the Borka’s ever watchful eye.This is truely a case of truth being stranger than fiction.

So,yes,Zombies are real,but not in the way that Hollywood would like you to believe,and you don’t have to fear that a Witch Doctor would turn you into one-Witch Doctors don’t do that-Borkas do.And unless you are a criminal and you plans to visit Hati,you don’t have to be afriad of becomeing a Zombie at all,unless of course you are slowly turning yourself into a Zombie anyways by taking drugs-remember the Borka creates his Zombies by drugging them,and then keeping them drugged out of their minds-and it is quite common for Zopmbies to die from overdoses of the Borka’s drugs. When you use drugs and somone remarks to you-”Boy you look like a Zombie”-they aren’t kidding-you don’t just look like one-you realy are one-because that’s what a Zombie is-someone who is drugged so far out of their mind that they have no controll over their own body and are left to the mercy of others.

_

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

Making and Useing Voodoo Dolls

Vodun Poppets:

Making and Useing Voodoo Dolls.

When you think of Voodoo what is the first thing that comes to mind? If you’re like most people your answer will be Witch Doctors,Zombies,and Voodoo Dolls, right?Okay,so,what do you know about them?Your answer will probably be something like this: Witch Doctors use Voodoo Dolls to put curses on people,and after the person dies he uses the Voodoo Doll to turn them into zombies;Right?Wrong-that only happens in Hollywood.Could you just put all those rediculouse movies out of your head once and for all?We are in the real world you know! Witch Doctors I have explained in another chapter along with Zombies,so now I shall focus on Vodun Poppets or Voodoo Dolls,as Hollywood calls them.In this chapter I will explain the uses of Vodun Poppets;including,how to use them,when to use them,and how to make differant types.At the end of this chapter you will find a full-size tracable pattern,with instructions for sewing your own Vodun Poppets,as well as a tracable pattern for a paper one.

Vodun Poppets are a particular specialty of mine,I have been useing them with great success for many years now,and believe it or not I actualy know very little of their actual history.Actualy I saw a horror movie about a Voodoo Witch Woman who used Voodoo Dolls,when I was 3 years old,.I don’t remember the movie except,that I tryed it a few months later and it worked-I hadn’t really thought it would,but it did!I have been using Voodoo Dolls ever since,without ever stopping to find out how others use them,how they were actualy supposed to be used.When I was a teenager I did study Vodun slightly,enough to learn that the proper name was Vodun Poppets.Today I use drawings more often then actual fabric dolls,simply because they are easier to make.

Many Witches today,suprisinly,share the opinians of the rest of the world and stear clear of Voodoo Dolls,veiwing them as a thing of evil or an invention of Satan(are these the same Witches who earlier professed not to believe in Satan and the powers of evil,saying that such things are only a Christian superstition?).The few Witches who do use them are ashamed to use the words Voodoo Doll and prefere instead to call them Love Poppets,Medicine Dolls,Dream Poppets,Herb Dolls,Potporii Poppets,and several other variouse names that seem to be popping up lately.I have heard many a Witch go into leangthy conversation defensivly explaining that the dolls they make are NOT Voodoo Dolls,but rather “good” dolls that can be used for healing and binding love to you.I’ve got news for you Honey-a Voodoo Doll is still a Voodoo doll no matter what you try to change it’s name too or how you try to explain away how you make your dolls differantly from the way a Witch Doctor,Hougan,or Mambo makes theirs.Contray to what the movies would have you believe a Witch Doctor’s Voodoo Dolls are used mostly for the good and benifit of mankind and rarely are they used elsewise.Vodun Poppets(as they were originaly called) are very powerful and work very quickly.Dolls that you make yourself are much more powerful than those made by someone else for you;and dolls made by a profesional Voodoo Witch Doctor are also extreemly powerful,however professional Witch Doctor’s are relativly rare and very few people in today’s lazy society  have the inteligance to thread a needle,let alone sew a doll,so most people opt to buy a factory manufactured kit,that includes a doll made of polyester fabric,stuufed with polyester fiberfill,sewn by a robotic machine,and then they wonder why it doesn’t “work”.The reason for this is that the dolls themselves are not nessacraly very powerful-synsetic fabrics have little if any natural “powers”-so when you get a manufactered kit,you are relying entirely on your own mental powers(postive immaging)and are recieving no help from the doll what so ever;this can work and sometimes does,but only if you have very powerful mental control and few people do.Most of the doll’s power comes from the person who made it and the herbs and gemstones they they placed inside of it.The dolls are energied by several aspects of making them-first of all the fabric you use affects them;natural fabrics contain the liveing energy of the plant/animal that created them-try to use 100% cotton,linen,silk,hemp,burlap,or wool-synsetic facbrics have no “natural”energy of their own.Secondly they are effected by the internal stuffings as well-what you fill the doll with is the most important part of making a Voodoo Doll-those manufactured dolls that come in “Voodoo Kits” are stuffed with synsetic polyester fiber-making them nearly powerless.The most powerful dolls are the ones that are stuffed with herbs,spices,oils, crystals,gemstones,a wooden cross,Holy Water,and a paper that you handwrote telling what you what the doll to acomplish.(Don’t let the cross and Holy Water surprise you too much-Voodoos are after all Christians-they are prehaps the most faithful and devoted followers Jesus has ever had.Voodoo is actualy a breakoff of the Catholic Church and are actualy Catholic Christians and not Protasent Christians-although the Holy Catholic Church of Rome or the Roman Catholics refuse to acknowledge Voodoos or any other form of Catholicism as a “real” Catholic.)(The Holy Roman Church,a.k.a. The Holy Catholic Church of Rome is the “offical” Catholic Church of the brutal Middle Age Witch-hunting fame-today there are several differant types of “Catholic” Churches none of which are recognize by The Church of Rome[you know the one with the Pope in the Vatican and all the fancy robed preists.]))The most important thing of all is that the doll be hand sewed either by you or by a Witch Doctor knowledgable in the making of these dolls.Before making the doll (or having it made) write on a blank(unlined) paper why you want the doll,what you want it to do,and how you want it to work,(you or )the Witch Dotor will than create a “chant” espesialy for you and the doll-this chant will have never been used by anyone else befor and will only ever be used by you (and the Witch Doctor) for this particular doll and never used again for any other doll.While the doll is being hand sewed (never use a sewing machine) repeat this chant for each and every stich you make(the Witch Doctor will do this if you prefere).Your words contain a powerful energy-words are more powerful than anything else in the universe-your words will energize the doll –this is the doll’s great souce of power.It is very important that the words for the chant are choosing very carfully because it is these words that the doll will act upon.It will do exactly what it is told–so be sure that you make no mistake in carefuly wording this chant-careless wording could prove disassterous-even deadly.Remember it is nearly impossible to break a spell that has been made useing a Voodoo Doll-and even distorying the doll itself will have no effect on it’s power.

If done properly this is the most powerful spell you will ever undertake-don’t go into it lightly-this is not a game-not a cute “harmless prank”-and never ever use one to “play a joke”on anyone,for any reason,at all-ever!It is strongly recommended that anyone not highly experianced in spell casting try this-rather find a professional Witch Doctor to make the doll for you.Another important thing to remember is that once you have used the doll for something-you can never use it for something else-you have to make a new doll each and every time you want to use one.It well have had much of your own mental and emotional energy put into them and which well have been absorbed by the air around the doll,which sends it on the wind to it’s recipiate.The power of your words can not be overstated.This energy,once created can never be eraesed; the doll will continue to absorb and send the energy that was created by your words for the rest of all eternity-millions and millions of years(This is why diamonds are so deadly-they do the same thing, gaining more power as the years go by-the Hope Diamond is a perfect example of the power of words-what started as a spell to prevent theives in a temple,went on to kill over a dozen differant owners of the stone-which now rests in peace in Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Instatute being displayed for all the world to see and share-as the curse had fortold-for only one to own it out of greed would bring death.).

 Anything that you make yourself is more powerful than something that you buy –candles are an example of this;all candles give off powerful fire and air energy,but a candle you’ve made yourself,is much,much more powerful because it has also added your energy to it’s own.As you take the time, the energy,and the effort to make the Voodoo Doll,you energizie it with your own living energy,thus it becomes a very powerful tool; the more emotional you are about the reason you are makeing it,the more energy the doll aborbs,thus the more powerful and quicker acting it becomes.Be careful of making poppets when you are angery,though.Anger has the strange ability of making the doll emensly powerful-even dangerously so.My own mental energy is such that when I am angered,I do not need a poppet at all,I merely think about a poppet and that is enough for the poppet to work-others have noticed that they are able to do the same thing.In actuality it is your own mind that is carring out the work of the poppets,the poppets act as something for you to focus on,that is why it is so important that you make the doll by hand,hand sewing everysingle stitch,chanting as you sewing,totlaly focusing your mind on one thing and one thing only-the doll and what it is to acomplish.Personaly,I view the dolls as the best way to expand upon your mental powers until you are telapathicly able to control the energy force that flows around you without a focus..(Or as they would say on Star Wars:”May the Force be with you”.George Lucas got his idea for “the Force” from the scientific studies that proved that everyone’s body is surronded by a powerful energy force field,commonly called “the Aura”,”the Chakras”,”the Tao”,”the Chi”,or by Christians “a Halo of God’s love”.Yes,that means you realy can have “the Force be with you” and you don’t have to be a “Jedi Knight” to do it!So,why don’t more people do it you ask?That’s easy–how often do people meditate?Not just think about something,but realy,truely,deeply meditate to the point that they feel like they have left their body and are now floating in another,place or time? Not many!For one thing it’s not easy for such restless creatures as humans to stop and rest,most people don’t even get enough sleep,let alone make any attempt to rest,so you know they certanly aren’t getting enough meditation,and that it why they are unable to tap into the energy force field that surrounds each and every one of us.)It is this energy force feild that makes many Witches,Wizards,psychics, and most especialy the Anceint Hebrew Prophets,Shaman,Witch Doctors,Saints, Houngans,and Mambos so very powerful,It is also what made people in the Bible like Jacob-Isreal,Joseph, Moses,Elijah,Elisha,Danial, Jesus,Peter,and Paul so very powerful,uninvincesable men.(Keep in mind too that,Hebrew men such as these where well versed in the Kahbala,and all of them had a deep personal undieing,unshakable faith in their Creator and Lord.)Most people,however have great dificulty focusing on a force field that they can’t see,this is where the Vodun Poppets come in;they give you something to look at,something to think about,somthing to focus on,somthing to represent a person or thing that you can’t see right now and therefor most look at this doll in order to chanale your energy from you to it and from it to the person that it represents.This gives you the much needed practice of meditating,focusing your mind,and chanaling your energy elsewhere.

Healing with crystals and meditation can be greatly enhacned by useing Voodoo Dolls.Working with simple Vodun Poppets is good for beginners,who are just starting out with healing and for those who would like to learn how to use rock divination to chanal the crystal’s healing energy force field from the rock and into to another person,or animal.(It was a method simalar to this that Edgar Cacye used to heal people)Healing is one aspect,however where poppets do not always work;the reason for this is because when someone is ill their mental energy becomes defencive and protective,and begins to repell and deflect all energy comming torwards it,both the good and the bad.So while the person may not nessacarily get any worse,they also aren’t getting any better.This is also why when you are ill you feel so physicaly drained;your body is putting out so much defencive energy trying to protect you that it ends up exhausting you and stopping you from getting the good energies as well,causeing an even greater need for rest.This poses as a problem because it is then up to the indevidual to try to control their own energy,to try to relax the force field that is around them,and to also try to see or immagine that the healer is sending them good,healing energy which they must see and believe that they themselves are reciveing.If they don’t believe that they are recieving the healing energies they will never get healed.It is important to understand that just as Jesus said-your faith healed you-not I. Like Jesus,you as a healer are directing your positve healing energies to that person,but also like Jesus,you are not responcible for healing that person-they healed themselves,by their faith in you,which allowed them to shut down their negative devencive energies and open up and accept all of the healling energies.It is your job as a healer to convince the patient that they well actualy get well-they musty first believe that they are being healed before they will be healed.This is why some people die from common “curable” illnesses that shouldn’t have killed them,while others get miracuaosly healed from illnesses that are deemed uncurable.As you can see,healing is a very complicated two-way deal.On the one hand the healer must be totaly focused on sending good healing energy,and on the other side the patiant must be focusing all of their energy on “opening up” and recieving the healing energy.It is often difficult for the patient to see the healing energy as they are rarely trained to do such things.This is where a “Double Poppet” comes in handy. To make a double poppet,first of all you make two identical Voodoo Dolls,then you give one to the patient explaining that they are to focus on that doll,imagineing that the doll is giving off a warm glowing yellow light that is moveing away from the doll and is swirling around the room and filling the patient with it’s warm healing glow,then you show the patient the other doll telling them that you are going to keep it with you,and that you are going to be focusing on filling this doll with lots of good healing energy, and that these two dolls are like satilites:your doll will be absorbing healthy energy and then sending it to their doll,which will recieve it and in turn send this energy to the pateint.This is a very  effective way of healing patenints,and is a common practice for Witch Doctors-it is in fact the reason for which most dolls are made-contray to what Hollywood would have you believe.

Well now that you have a general idea of what Voodoo Dolls are let’s get on with the art of making them. To begin with,think about why you want to use a Voodoo Doll.A list of spells,hexs, curses,cures,and other uses follows to give you a better idea.(I am currently writting a grimoire on the art of being a Witch Doctor,which includes a much detailed section devoted entirely to making and useing  Voodoo Dolls,you can refer to this book if you would like more ideas or if you plan to move on to the field of a “professional” Witch Doctor.This is after all my area of expertise.)Once you have determined what you will use the doll for,write a affermation/chant-makeing two copies of it-make it short,simple,and to the point. Useing the pattern and intructions at the end of this chapter,make your doll-reciting your chant as you sew. After you have completed sewing-fill the doll,either useing one of the combinations listed here or a custom combination of your own.(To make your own combinations,please refer to any of the following lists found throughout this book:Flowers,Herbs,Incense,Gemstones,or Colors.) Be sure to put one copy of the “chant/ affermation” into the doll as well.When you have finished filling the doll,close up the opening and embelish as you best see fit.Now you finished making your Voodoo Doll.Now it’s time to use it…….

To make your doll,you will need:

        fabric–try to use 100% naturaul fiber,such as cotton,linen,silk,hemp,burlap,or wool–you can use fabic dyed to match the “color” of your spell,but fabrics that are left their natural color seem to work better–I use unbleached cotton muslin  or  natural (undyed) 14 ct..Aida cloth (100% cotton-cross-stitch fabric)

       embroidery floss in the color specified in your spell–I prefer DMC floss as they are 100% cotton, silky smooth and come in 437 colors,all of which are readily available at all large national and small local craft stores,most mail order craft catalogs,and at Walmart stores–if you use a lot of it you can become a dealer a buy it bulk from the nearly 200 year old company(a small family bussiness in France).All colors given in these spell list the corisponding DMC floss color and lot number so that you can match you spells exactly 

       filling–this may include herbs,oils,gemstones,crystals,or anything else.—if your doll is large or you don’t have much to fill it with,you can ad polyester,cotton,or wool fiberfill as well,or better yet-if available-sawdust or wood shavings(cedar chips for hamster bedding works very well and is available at most pet stores-cedar is a very fragrant wood and helps to promote healing and excorsisms).

        any embelishments that you want to ad-the doll does not need clothes,but you can make a simple rode for it if you feel uncomfortable with a naked doll-most people do;you can also add things such as jewerly,a lock of hair or clothen form the person whom the doll is for,or a photo of that person

         a large eyed sewing needle–I use those .79c 5 paks of crewel or tapestry needles from Walmart but I know of Witch Doctors that will only use needles made of pure silver or pure gold (these handcrafted needles usualy come from Germany,are very expensive-$5.00 or more each needle-and are very delicate-they break easily and thus do not have a long shelf life-you’ll have to buy a new one for every two or three dolls you make) 

Some important things to remember when working with Voodoo Dolls:

The left side of the body is for recieving energy and the right side of the body is for sending energy. Always put a face on the doll so that you will know which side is left and which side is right.

To stop healing energy from draining out of your patient,take severel clean new safty pins and pin them to the doll all along the right seamline-this sybolises the closeing of the right side of the aura to stop healing energy from escaping the patiant.

To open a blocked arua that does not allow healing energy to enter,take several clean new yellow headed quilting pins and poke them into the doll along the left side seam of the body,going straight in though the front layer of fabric and straight out the back-be sure that the piont goes out the back of the doll and does not stay inside of it(use a thinly stuffed doll for this and very long pins).This symbolizes poking wholes into the aura,opening blockages in it and allowing healing energies to enter into the paitiant.

To cause pain-use red headed pins and a fattly stuffed doll,stabbing it all over with the pins being sure that no pionts poke though to the outside.(any color head will work-red causes a burning “fire” that makes the pain worse) –This should only be done when a life(yours or someone elses) is in immedeate danger of physical harm.  

To reflect a curse(or any other form of evil thought or action) back to it’s sender–very carefully break a mirror to form large shards about 4″ in leangth,and 2″ wide at the base tapering to a fine piont at the top-you need not be exact-most mirrors when dropped on the floor will break into peices shaped as such automaticly and will not need to be cut-(I prefer antique pink glass mirrors myself -as I have a case of these that got broken when an old house was torn down-however these are the only pink glass mirrors I have ever seen)- place the mirror inside of the doll along with the other fillings.

To bind or banish a curse or other evil thought,gossip,or action–use a black cord(thread,string,ribbon, whatever)and tie it around the doll–it is useualy tied around the waist as a belt or fashoined into a noose and tied around the neck.

To prevent a curse(evil thought,sickness,etc) from returning–use a red cord,same as the black.

To drive out sickness use a yellow cord–same as the black.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.

Making and Useing Voodoo Dolls

Vodun Poppets:

Making and Useing Voodoo Dolls.

When you think of Voodoo what is the first thing that comes to mind? If you’re like most people your answer will be Witch Doctors,Zombies,and Voodoo Dolls, right?Okay,so,what do you know about them?Your answer will probably be something like this: Witch Doctors use Voodoo Dolls to put curses on people,and after the person dies he uses the Voodoo Doll to turn them into zombies;Right?Wrong-that only happens in Hollywood.Could you just put all those rediculouse movies out of your head once and for all?We are in the real world you know! Witch Doctors I have explained in another chapter along with Zombies,so now I shall focus on Vodun Poppets or Voodoo Dolls,as Hollywood calls them.In this chapter I will explain the uses of Vodun Poppets;including,how to use them,when to use them,and how to make differant types.At the end of this chapter you will find a full-size tracable pattern,with instructions for sewing your own Vodun Poppets,as well as a tracable pattern for a paper one.

Vodun Poppets are a particular specialty of mine,I have been useing them with great success for many years now,and believe it or not I actualy know very little of their actual history.Actualy I saw a horror movie about a Voodoo Witch Woman who used Voodoo Dolls,when I was 3 years old,.I don’t remember the movie except,that I tryed it a few months later and it worked-I hadn’t really thought it would,but it did!I have been using Voodoo Dolls ever since,without ever stopping to find out how others use them,how they were actualy supposed to be used.When I was a teenager I did study Vodun slightly,enough to learn that the proper name was Vodun Poppets.Today I use drawings more often then actual fabric dolls,simply because they are easier to make.

Many Witches today,suprisinly,share the opinians of the rest of the world and stear clear of Voodoo Dolls,veiwing them as a thing of evil or an invention of Satan(are these the same Witches who earlier professed not to believe in Satan and the powers of evil,saying that such things are only a Christian superstition?).The few Witches who do use them are ashamed to use the words Voodoo Doll and prefere instead to call them Love Poppets,Medicine Dolls,Dream Poppets,Herb Dolls,Potporii Poppets,and several other variouse names that seem to be popping up lately.I have heard many a Witch go into leangthy conversation defensivly explaining that the dolls they make are NOT Voodoo Dolls,but rather “good” dolls that can be used for healing and binding love to you.I’ve got news for you Honey-a Voodoo Doll is still a Voodoo doll no matter what you try to change it’s name too or how you try to explain away how you make your dolls differantly from the way a Witch Doctor,Hougan,or Mambo makes theirs.Contray to what the movies would have you believe a Witch Doctor’s Voodoo Dolls are used mostly for the good and benifit of mankind and rarely are they used elsewise.Vodun Poppets(as they were originaly called) are very powerful and work very quickly.Dolls that you make yourself are much more powerful than those made by someone else for you;and dolls made by a profesional Voodoo Witch Doctor are also extreemly powerful,however professional Witch Doctor’s are relativly rare and very few people in today’s lazy society  have the inteligance to thread a needle,let alone sew a doll,so most people opt to buy a factory manufactured kit,that includes a doll made of polyester fabric,stuufed with polyester fiberfill,sewn by a robotic machine,and then they wonder why it doesn’t “work”.The reason for this is that the dolls themselves are not nessacraly very powerful-synsetic fabrics have little if any natural “powers”-so when you get a manufactered kit,you are relying entirely on your own mental powers(postive immaging)and are recieving no help from the doll what so ever;this can work and sometimes does,but only if you have very powerful mental control and few people do.Most of the doll’s power comes from the person who made it and the herbs and gemstones they they placed inside of it.The dolls are energied by several aspects of making them-first of all the fabric you use affects them;natural fabrics contain the liveing energy of the plant/animal that created them-try to use 100% cotton,linen,silk,hemp,burlap,or wool-synsetic facbrics have no “natural”energy of their own.Secondly they are effected by the internal stuffings as well-what you fill the doll with is the most important part of making a Voodoo Doll-those manufactured dolls that come in “Voodoo Kits” are stuffed with synsetic polyester fiber-making them nearly powerless.The most powerful dolls are the ones that are stuffed with herbs,spices,oils, crystals,gemstones,a wooden cross,Holy Water,and a paper that you handwrote telling what you what the doll to acomplish.(Don’t let the cross and Holy Water surprise you too much-Voodoos are after all Christians-they are prehaps the most faithful and devoted followers Jesus has ever had.Voodoo is actualy a breakoff of the Catholic Church and are actualy Catholic Christians and not Protasent Christians-although the Holy Catholic Church of Rome or the Roman Catholics refuse to acknowledge Voodoos or any other form of Catholicism as a “real” Catholic.)(The Holy Roman Church,a.k.a. The Holy Catholic Church of Rome is the “offical” Catholic Church of the brutal Middle Age Witch-hunting fame-today there are several differant types of “Catholic” Churches none of which are recognize by The Church of Rome[you know the one with the Pope in the Vatican and all the fancy robed preists.]))The most important thing of all is that the doll be hand sewed either by you or by a Witch Doctor knowledgable in the making of these dolls.Before making the doll (or having it made) write on a blank(unlined) paper why you want the doll,what you want it to do,and how you want it to work,(you or )the Witch Dotor will than create a “chant” espesialy for you and the doll-this chant will have never been used by anyone else befor and will only ever be used by you (and the Witch Doctor) for this particular doll and never used again for any other doll.While the doll is being hand sewed (never use a sewing machine) repeat this chant for each and every stich you make(the Witch Doctor will do this if you prefere).Your words contain a powerful energy-words are more powerful than anything else in the universe-your words will energize the doll –this is the doll’s great souce of power.It is very important that the words for the chant are choosing very carfully because it is these words that the doll will act upon.It will do exactly what it is told–so be sure that you make no mistake in carefuly wording this chant-careless wording could prove disassterous-even deadly.Remember it is nearly impossible to break a spell that has been made useing a Voodoo Doll-and even distorying the doll itself will have no effect on it’s power.

If done properly this is the most powerful spell you will ever undertake-don’t go into it lightly-this is not a game-not a cute “harmless prank”-and never ever use one to “play a joke”on anyone,for any reason,at all-ever!It is strongly recommended that anyone not highly experianced in spell casting try this-rather find a professional Witch Doctor to make the doll for you.Another important thing to remember is that once you have used the doll for something-you can never use it for something else-you have to make a new doll each and every time you want to use one.It well have had much of your own mental and emotional energy put into them and which well have been absorbed by the air around the doll,which sends it on the wind to it’s recipiate.The power of your words can not be overstated.This energy,once created can never be eraesed; the doll will continue to absorb and send the energy that was created by your words for the rest of all eternity-millions and millions of years(This is why diamonds are so deadly-they do the same thing, gaining more power as the years go by-the Hope Diamond is a perfect example of the power of words-what started as a spell to prevent theives in a temple,went on to kill over a dozen differant owners of the stone-which now rests in peace in Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Instatute being displayed for all the world to see and share-as the curse had fortold-for only one to own it out of greed would bring death.).

 Anything that you make yourself is more powerful than something that you buy –candles are an example of this;all candles give off powerful fire and air energy,but a candle you’ve made yourself,is much,much more powerful because it has also added your energy to it’s own.As you take the time, the energy,and the effort to make the Voodoo Doll,you energizie it with your own living energy,thus it becomes a very powerful tool; the more emotional you are about the reason you are makeing it,the more energy the doll aborbs,thus the more powerful and quicker acting it becomes.Be careful of making poppets when you are angery,though.Anger has the strange ability of making the doll emensly powerful-even dangerously so.My own mental energy is such that when I am angered,I do not need a poppet at all,I merely think about a poppet and that is enough for the poppet to work-others have noticed that they are able to do the same thing.In actuality it is your own mind that is carring out the work of the poppets,the poppets act as something for you to focus on,that is why it is so important that you make the doll by hand,hand sewing everysingle stitch,chanting as you sewing,totlaly focusing your mind on one thing and one thing only-the doll and what it is to acomplish.Personaly,I view the dolls as the best way to expand upon your mental powers until you are telapathicly able to control the energy force that flows around you without a focus..(Or as they would say on Star Wars:”May the Force be with you”.George Lucas got his idea for “the Force” from the scientific studies that proved that everyone’s body is surronded by a powerful energy force field,commonly called “the Aura”,”the Chakras”,”the Tao”,”the Chi”,or by Christians “a Halo of God’s love”.Yes,that means you realy can have “the Force be with you” and you don’t have to be a “Jedi Knight” to do it!So,why don’t more people do it you ask?That’s easy–how often do people meditate?Not just think about something,but realy,truely,deeply meditate to the point that they feel like they have left their body and are now floating in another,place or time? Not many!For one thing it’s not easy for such restless creatures as humans to stop and rest,most people don’t even get enough sleep,let alone make any attempt to rest,so you know they certanly aren’t getting enough meditation,and that it why they are unable to tap into the energy force field that surrounds each and every one of us.)It is this energy force feild that makes many Witches,Wizards,psychics, and most especialy the Anceint Hebrew Prophets,Shaman,Witch Doctors,Saints, Houngans,and Mambos so very powerful,It is also what made people in the Bible like Jacob-Isreal,Joseph, Moses,Elijah,Elisha,Danial, Jesus,Peter,and Paul so very powerful,uninvincesable men.(Keep in mind too that,Hebrew men such as these where well versed in the Kahbala,and all of them had a deep personal undieing,unshakable faith in their Creator and Lord.)Most people,however have great dificulty focusing on a force field that they can’t see,this is where the Vodun Poppets come in;they give you something to look at,something to think about,somthing to focus on,somthing to represent a person or thing that you can’t see right now and therefor most look at this doll in order to chanale your energy from you to it and from it to the person that it represents.This gives you the much needed practice of meditating,focusing your mind,and chanaling your energy elsewhere.

Healing with crystals and meditation can be greatly enhacned by useing Voodoo Dolls.Working with simple Vodun Poppets is good for beginners,who are just starting out with healing and for those who would like to learn how to use rock divination to chanal the crystal’s healing energy force field from the rock and into to another person,or animal.(It was a method simalar to this that Edgar Cacye used to heal people)Healing is one aspect,however where poppets do not always work;the reason for this is because when someone is ill their mental energy becomes defencive and protective,and begins to repell and deflect all energy comming torwards it,both the good and the bad.So while the person may not nessacarily get any worse,they also aren’t getting any better.This is also why when you are ill you feel so physicaly drained;your body is putting out so much defencive energy trying to protect you that it ends up exhausting you and stopping you from getting the good energies as well,causeing an even greater need for rest.This poses as a problem because it is then up to the indevidual to try to control their own energy,to try to relax the force field that is around them,and to also try to see or immagine that the healer is sending them good,healing energy which they must see and believe that they themselves are reciveing.If they don’t believe that they are recieving the healing energies they will never get healed.It is important to understand that just as Jesus said-your faith healed you-not I. Like Jesus,you as a healer are directing your positve healing energies to that person,but also like Jesus,you are not responcible for healing that person-they healed themselves,by their faith in you,which allowed them to shut down their negative devencive energies and open up and accept all of the healling energies.It is your job as a healer to convince the patient that they well actualy get well-they musty first believe that they are being healed before they will be healed.This is why some people die from common “curable” illnesses that shouldn’t have killed them,while others get miracuaosly healed from illnesses that are deemed uncurable.As you can see,healing is a very complicated two-way deal.On the one hand the healer must be totaly focused on sending good healing energy,and on the other side the patiant must be focusing all of their energy on “opening up” and recieving the healing energy.It is often difficult for the patient to see the healing energy as they are rarely trained to do such things.This is where a “Double Poppet” comes in handy. To make a double poppet,first of all you make two identical Voodoo Dolls,then you give one to the patient explaining that they are to focus on that doll,imagineing that the doll is giving off a warm glowing yellow light that is moveing away from the doll and is swirling around the room and filling the patient with it’s warm healing glow,then you show the patient the other doll telling them that you are going to keep it with you,and that you are going to be focusing on filling this doll with lots of good healing energy, and that these two dolls are like satilites:your doll will be absorbing healthy energy and then sending it to their doll,which will recieve it and in turn send this energy to the pateint.This is a very  effective way of healing patenints,and is a common practice for Witch Doctors-it is in fact the reason for which most dolls are made-contray to what Hollywood would have you believe.

Well now that you have a general idea of what Voodoo Dolls are let’s get on with the art of making them. To begin with,think about why you want to use a Voodoo Doll.A list of spells,hexs, curses,cures,and other uses follows to give you a better idea.(I am currently writting a grimoire on the art of being a Witch Doctor,which includes a much detailed section devoted entirely to making and useing  Voodoo Dolls,you can refer to this book if you would like more ideas or if you plan to move on to the field of a “professional” Witch Doctor.This is after all my area of expertise.)Once you have determined what you will use the doll for,write a affermation/chant-makeing two copies of it-make it short,simple,and to the point. Useing the pattern and intructions at the end of this chapter,make your doll-reciting your chant as you sew. After you have completed sewing-fill the doll,either useing one of the combinations listed here or a custom combination of your own.(To make your own combinations,please refer to any of the following lists found throughout this book:Flowers,Herbs,Incense,Gemstones,or Colors.) Be sure to put one copy of the “chant/ affermation” into the doll as well.When you have finished filling the doll,close up the opening and embelish as you best see fit.Now you finished making your Voodoo Doll.Now it’s time to use it…….

To make your doll,you will need:

        fabric–try to use 100% naturaul fiber,such as cotton,linen,silk,hemp,burlap,or wool–you can use fabic dyed to match the “color” of your spell,but fabrics that are left their natural color seem to work better–I use unbleached cotton muslin  or  natural (undyed) 14 ct..Aida cloth (100% cotton-cross-stitch fabric)

       embroidery floss in the color specified in your spell–I prefer DMC floss as they are 100% cotton, silky smooth and come in 437 colors,all of which are readily available at all large national and small local craft stores,most mail order craft catalogs,and at Walmart stores–if you use a lot of it you can become a dealer a buy it bulk from the nearly 200 year old company(a small family bussiness in France).All colors given in these spell list the corisponding DMC floss color and lot number so that you can match you spells exactly 

       filling–this may include herbs,oils,gemstones,crystals,or anything else.—if your doll is large or you don’t have much to fill it with,you can ad polyester,cotton,or wool fiberfill as well,or better yet-if available-sawdust or wood shavings(cedar chips for hamster bedding works very well and is available at most pet stores-cedar is a very fragrant wood and helps to promote healing and excorsisms).

        any embelishments that you want to ad-the doll does not need clothes,but you can make a simple rode for it if you feel uncomfortable with a naked doll-most people do;you can also add things such as jewerly,a lock of hair or clothen form the person whom the doll is for,or a photo of that person

         a large eyed sewing needle–I use those .79c 5 paks of crewel or tapestry needles from Walmart but I know of Witch Doctors that will only use needles made of pure silver or pure gold (these handcrafted needles usualy come from Germany,are very expensive-$5.00 or more each needle-and are very delicate-they break easily and thus do not have a long shelf life-you’ll have to buy a new one for every two or three dolls you make) 

Some important things to remember when working with Voodoo Dolls:

The left side of the body is for recieving energy and the right side of the body is for sending energy. Always put a face on the doll so that you will know which side is left and which side is right.

To stop healing energy from draining out of your patient,take severel clean new safty pins and pin them to the doll all along the right seamline-this sybolises the closeing of the right side of the aura to stop healing energy from escaping the patiant.

To open a blocked arua that does not allow healing energy to enter,take several clean new yellow headed quilting pins and poke them into the doll along the left side seam of the body,going straight in though the front layer of fabric and straight out the back-be sure that the piont goes out the back of the doll and does not stay inside of it(use a thinly stuffed doll for this and very long pins).This symbolizes poking wholes into the aura,opening blockages in it and allowing healing energies to enter into the paitiant.

To cause pain-use red headed pins and a fattly stuffed doll,stabbing it all over with the pins being sure that no pionts poke though to the outside.(any color head will work-red causes a burning “fire” that makes the pain worse) –This should only be done when a life(yours or someone elses) is in immedeate danger of physical harm.  

To reflect a curse(or any other form of evil thought or action) back to it’s sender–very carefully break a mirror to form large shards about 4″ in leangth,and 2″ wide at the base tapering to a fine piont at the top-you need not be exact-most mirrors when dropped on the floor will break into peices shaped as such automaticly and will not need to be cut-(I prefer antique pink glass mirrors myself -as I have a case of these that got broken when an old house was torn down-however these are the only pink glass mirrors I have ever seen)- place the mirror inside of the doll along with the other fillings.

To bind or banish a curse or other evil thought,gossip,or action–use a black cord(thread,string,ribbon, whatever)and tie it around the doll–it is useualy tied around the waist as a belt or fashoined into a noose and tied around the neck.

To prevent a curse(evil thought,sickness,etc) from returning–use a red cord,same as the black.

To drive out sickness use a yellow cord–same as the black.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
.
.

.