Voodoo & The “Elementals”

January 15, 1953

ABOUT VOODOO

More about Voodoo has been written in the year just past by Marcus Bach who won his doctorate in creative writing and dramatic art, and who teaches in the School of Religion at the University of Iowa. Dr. Bach specializes in investigating and reporting the “little-known religious groups of America,” and has now added the Voodoo of Haiti to his list. Part of his research was aided by a grant or fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, so he has been able to cover his chosen field rather well.

About two years ago Dr. Bach dropped in to call on me and to find out whether or not Huna and the HRA represented a “faith” and a cult organization worth writing up and including in his book, then in the writing THEY HAVE FOUND A FAITH. I explained that we were a research and experimental group and not at all in the class with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Father-Divine’s “kingdoms,” Psychiana, Unity and others of the same stripe. Some time later I was much pleased when HRA Mrs. Walter Grimm sent me a copy of the book. It was very interesting and the clay feet were not stressed greatly when the several founders were discussed. Dr. Bach feels that whenever there is found a faith by which people can live, and which fills their needs, that faith is worthwhile regardless of what it is or who invented or assembled it.

In his new book on Voodoo, STRANGE ALTARS, published by Bobbs-Merrill and sold through book stores at around $3 I imagine (I have a library copy before me as I write), Dr. Bach tells in his usual sympathetic and understanding way of the Voodoo faith in Haiti, and of the first-hand experiences of himself and his wife in trying to probe Voodoo as deeply as possible. To him it is not black magic and evil superstition with sex orgies, zombies and latent terrors.

In recent Bulletins we have been discussing the good spirits as well as the evil “eating companion” kind, so it is a happy coincidence to have his book come to hand at this time. Dr. Bach, unlike the general run of writers on religion and psychological subjects – when they hold chairs in Universities – dares say what he feels and what he thinks, even at the risk of being branded “unscientific.” In his first book he calmly relates that, as a boy, he attended a meeting with his father to see a tent evangelist demonstrate his much advertised ability to walk on water. A large tank was used. It contained three feet of water. The preacher took two or three steps, his feet sinking into the water only a fraction of an inch. Then, as the audience began to shout excitedly, the demonstration failed and he sank into the water in the normal way. With that brace start, it is hard to doubt that he would hold back when it came to reporting anything less difficult either to believe or to explain, providing he witnessed it.

A man from Utah, Doc Reser, long resident in Haiti and a full initiate into the Voodoo lore, being himself a priest or houngan, and one who had gone through the kanzo initiation in which fire-immunity is gained and demonstrated as a form of fire baptism, acted as intermediary between Dr. Bach and the local Voodoo priests and their people. Many Voodoo ceremonies were observed and much was told of their meaning by Reser. The account makes entertaining reading as well as informative reading.

Voodoo, as described by Dr. Bach, (and by other writers before him) contains elements of Christianity, especially Catholicism. In addition, it includes ancient African religious ideas and rites which revolve around a strange system of worship of and association with loa or a peculiar super-spirit type of entity.The loa are described by Dr. Bach as on a par with the saints of the Catholic Church. One, a female spirit, duplicates the Virgin Mary in almost all respects in so far as character is concerned. There are a large number of these loa, male and female, all named, all thought to rule over particular things, and all formerly known and invoked in different parts of Africa before arriving in Haiti with early slaves.

The thing that impressed Dr. Bach was the fact that when the loa were properly invoked with chants, drummings, ritual observances, special drawings with flour and meal on temple floors (slightly like our Indian sand-paintings), sacrifices of chickens, goats etc, etc, etc, they entered the body of the priest or priestess or of some worshiper and spoke and acted through them. In one session (page 185) the loa Ogoun Badgri, famous because he gives advice and knowledge, took possession of a woman, caused her to drink “generous quantities” of rum, and then danced, made predictions and pretended that he was the mightiest of the loa. Others who were not priestesses, were obsessed by other loa spirits and carried on through them. A special interest to Dr. Bach, as well as to us of the HRA, attached itself to the case of a mother and daughter, both of whom were obsessed at the same time, and, with the spirits seemingly in complete possession, quarrelled violently. Doc Reser explained that there was hidden animosity between mother and daughter, perhaps subconscious hatred, and that this was brought to the surface by the loa and the whole matter aired. The quarrel ended suddenly with the mother and daughter embracing and showing signs of having come to a proper and loving understanding. The reader is given the hint that in this way, the loa cleared away the complexed hatreds and so aided the pair.

Another incident (pages 104-5) was related as told by Doc Reser. It seemed that, when he was in charge of a hospital of sorts for the insane, Reser had developed the ability to determine almost at a glance which of the many accepted loa was obsessing an insane patient – that is, in cases which he recognized as falling into the obsessional classifications. A young woman, who was violent, was seen to be obsessed by the loa Ogoun, and, as such spirits could be talked with, and even reasoned with to bring them around to a more kindly attitude, Reser confronted the woman, poured out a ceremonial libation of water before her and offered a cigar. She accepted it and also a light. Ogoun was then asked why he was “riding” the victim.  A conversation followed in which the loa said that he would release the woman only when given food which she owed him. (It was not explained why she owed him food.) Reser promptly bought food, including a red rooster and a bottle of rum. He had it all prepared ritually before the woman. Ogoun accepted the offering, ate, and the victim promptly became normal.

Another young woman was, under slightly different circumstances, found to be obsessed by the loa Kaifu, whose job it is to be guardian of all cross roads. In a conversation with him he accused the victim of having stolen a chicken that belonged to him and of having torn his red robe and having made away with his 54¢. He was punishing her. Doc Reser promised to see that she restored the stolen articles. The spirit departed, the patient fell asleep, to awaken later fully recovered.

Fire-walking and general immunity was observed and carefully reported to Dr. Bach (page 33) by Doc Reser. A girl named Apela, who was about sixteen years of age, was a key figure in a ceremony undertaken to “bind for a period of seventeen years” an evil loa Marinette, who belonged to the Petro group of spirits and who had been blamed for some time for the disappearance of goats or pigs or for the loss by death of a child – for bad luck of all kinds, including the burning down of a house. Logs were burned to make the usual bed of coals, the girl, Apela, became possessed and took seven slow shuffling steps through the coals. Others became possessed and joined her, usually taking seven steps and ten leaving the bed of coals. None of the performers was burned. As in India, the fire-walkers were struck severe blows on the back with a whip after treading the coals, but no pain was felt. It was agreed by all that the evil loa, Marinette, had obsessed Apela, (although one is left to wonder why an evil loa would take part in her own “binding”) and, when the proper time had come, the evil one was “finally” persuaded to accept and eat food, this acceptance indicating that she was promising to be “bound” or to go away from the district for the next seventeen years.

Very little was said by Dr. Bach about healing those who were ill except to note the fact that the natives were experts in the use of herbs and plants as remedies and that spirits were thought to play a large part in this use of medicines. Doc Reser had become famous and much loved for his medical aid over and above what the simpler remedies could offer. On the other hand, the use of the Voodoo rites to prevent illness or misfortune were many, varied and of great importance. Children were baptised in the Voodoo manner at Christmas time to prevent illness for the following year. Many charms were made up and used for the same protective purpose, and there were also evil charms and spells which were used and which had to be countered by appropriate magical operations.

The exact standing of the loa spirits in relation to the average level of intelligence and power of humans, seems not to be well understood. That they have power to furnish fire-immunity and to cause other changes in the natural working of physical forces seems proven well enough. However, the same thing may be said of the spirit “guides” met in modern Spiritualism and psychical research. In Fiji, HRA George Sandwith watched the worship of a spirit thought to be god-like and much higher than the human level, with the same type of phenomena being produced.

One may trace the growth of religion and psychic knowledge from the belief in simple lesser spirits, good and evil alike, through the belief in more powerful spirits, also good and evil. The higher the advance in this direction, the higher the ideals seem to reach, and in the most evolved systems, we have the Aumukua, with each of us supplied with one. In this progression we pass from the loa or general over-spirit worship, guidance and contact, to the stage in which each of us recognizes that he has an individual Aumukua which is a step above the loa in evolution, wisdom, and certainly, in goodness. Above the Aumukua we place an Ultimate God which is too far above and beyond us for individual contact unless the Aumukua can understand the vaster things and work upward into them in our behalf.

In the Voodoo healing of insanity, as in the cases mentioned, one may well ask whether the trouble was actual obsession or was, in reality, the obsession of a guilt complex. If the loa are above and beyond men in other ways, it seems very strange that they would stoop to petty revenge and to the performance of unkind and evil deeds.

On the other hand, we know full well that men are no better after death than while in the flesh. Many are pretenders and posers here. Why should they not be on the spirit side of life if given the opportunity to pose as lesser gods or loa? Just how spirits make contact with entities of the Aumukua level, and how they may produce fire-immunity, we still cannot say. We know that in psychical research the spirits who seem to be just men or women like ourselves, often are able to produce materialization, fire-immunity, apports and so on and so forth, and with little ability to tell how they do this. For this reason we may be safe to decide that the loa are similar spirit men and women, in contact likewise with entities which they cannot easily understand, even when working with them, and not a whit superior to the living in evolution, knowledge or morals. One fine day we, the living, may also learn to contact and work with the nature spirits of fire or air or water (or it may be just with our own Aumukuas, if all are of the same level of growth) and to get them to use the mana we present in the production of phenomena of all kinds.

It is difficult to decide whether Voodoo represents a group of related spiritistic cults which never evolved as far as Huna in knowledge or practice, or whether all or part of Huna was once known but later lost by degrees. Some things in Voodoo remind one very strongly of the decadent and much contaminated Huna found in Hawaii fifty years ago. Huna presented a mass of jumbled material which was sorted into real and spurious only when it was found that the real Huna had been secreted in the roots of the words used to describe the elements of Huna. As the Voodoo of Haiti seems to be handled only through the Creole mixture of languages in which the African or true Voodoo words are few and not likely to furnish a clear picture of the original lore, as did the Hawaiian in the case of Huna. Later on we will have, in the original and in English translation, some of the Voodoo rites written in a strange set of mixed glyphs and alphabet structures reproducing what seems to be closest to the Gulla language of Africa. One of the HRAs is at work trying to get and study this material for us.

A strange element in the modern Voodoo is the use of symbolic things to represent the powerful loa which are invoked in the rites. One is reminded of the great Serpent Mound in the central part of the United States, left there by some people long gone. One also thinks serpent raised of the brazen serpent, raised, before the eyes of the Children of Israel. In Voodoo, one of the greatest of the loa beings is Damballa, whose symbol is a great red serpent. The worshipers can imagine the Damballa serpent appearing to coil around the central post in the crude shed temples where the ceremonies are performed. The veve or symbolic flour painting made on the floor must include, for Damballa, certain representations of serpents – and no mistake can be made in the picture lest the magic of the invocation fail. The Navajo Indian sand paintings also have their symbols and one of the important ones depicts the rattle snake.

In Voodoo there is something called pierre loa, Dr. Bach tells us. It may be a stone, usually a water-smoothed one, into which a loa may enter, or to which it may attach itself in some way so that it can be called upon with ease by the owner of the stone. Doc Reser had such a stone. It had “spoken” to him at the time he had found it, and he carried it in his pocket. In Polynesia, kahunas used similar small smooth stones in ritual magic, placing one at each of the four corners of a mat upon which a sick person was stretched while being treated, The stones, so far as I have been able to learn, were used to hold a heavy charge of mana and, because of the mana, were instrumental in keeping evil spirits at a distance. The ancient Polynesian tribes which settled eventually in New Zealand were said to have carried with them a green-stone carved in the shape of a pigeon, and to have set it on the top of a hill at times, there to consult it as a source of oracular advice or prophetic guidance. The legends seem to assign no particular spirit or god to the task of speaking through the stone, however. In modern Africa, Seabrook reported, the native magicians often used the skull of a dead individual instead of such things as stones, invoking the spirit to cause it to return and remain in the skull while answering the questions put to it – often answering in what we call “direct voice” in psychical research or Spiritualistic circles.

SUBHUMAN LEVELS OF LIVING SPIRITS

Subhuman levels of living spirits must not be overlooked as possible factors in our effort to run down all the angles related to “eating companion” evil or good spirits, (if any can be called good or beneficial when they influence us) or related to normal human spirits, human spirits whose Aunihipili and Auhane are accidentally separated at death (or before death in illness or ancient and powerful human spirits of the loa class (if these turn out to be what they seem to be).

Valid and detailed information concerning the “Little People” or “elementals” is hard to find. Theosophy does not substantiate the information given by Theosophists on the subject, and some of this information is contradictory. Folklore covering fairies and the like cannot be trusted. The legends of the Polynesians are not a good source of definite information although the Menehunes, under various names, come in for a part in many tales of the magical buildings of stone walls to enclose fish ponds, etc, etc.

The Menehune tribe was said to live in the Islands before the arrival of the Polynesians. They were small and invisible, but could materialize and make themselves seen. They worked in the darkness of night, often at the behest of human friends, and had to finish their stone cutting and wall building in a single night. They were always rewarded for the magical works which they performed, usually with gifts of food.

First, we know in a general way that such “Little People” have been reported as seen, psychically or in the flesh, the world over. Secondly, if we accept the possibility that they are real, we must admit. that the stories told of them agree in so many ways that there is strong reason to believe that (1) the legends have spread around the world from a common source, or (2) that the peculiarities and activities universally assigned to them must be actual.

Using our word-study method (which has proven so successful in getting at the hidden or Huna meanings) we can look into such words in the Polynesian as can be found covering the “Little People.” I find none of the tribal names given in the dictionaries, but in Andersen’s MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE POLYNESIANS, there are a number of the old legends retold and discussed. He gives as alternate names, Mana`hune, which gives us the general meaning of “poor in mana,” and Mana`hua, giving, “to cause mana to flow or to make a seed with mana.” A third name is Maka`hua and from this we can get “to cause the head or eye – symbol of the fountain – to flow or do something with a seed.”

The word or name Mana`hune, mentioned above, gives two other meanings with possible Huna significance. The meaning already set down as “poor in mana” would fit the “eating companion” type of spirits who steal mana from the living and stay close to them, often forcing upon them their own thoughts and impulses to do evil. The root word hune also means, in Hawaiian, “to tease, to persevere in entreating one do act in a certain way, and to be trickish in order to entrap one or to deceive or to play a trick as a lark.” These meanings would fit the concept of the “eating companions” and their activities, as we now begin to understand them, very well.  In the Samoan and other dialects, Tregear gives the meaning of hune as “the core of the bread-fruit,” also the harvesting of food. In the Polynesian version of the story of the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit eaten by Adam and Eve was from the breadfruit tree, and the word for this tree furnishes the Huna symbol for the “eating companion” evil spirits, signifying the fact that the “original sin” was that of harboring these spirits and being influenced by them. The symbol is given twice, the second time in the “serpent” who did the tempting.

The root word hua has other meanings than those of “seed” and “flow.” An evil-minded man who became an evil lesser god (loa?) in Maori legends, was named “Hua.” He ruled the tides, and this may have been a secret statement concerning the mana (water or tide in symbols of Huna) stolen or used for evil purposes by evil spirits. Other meanings (14 are listed) are “power,” indicating the strength of the spirits perhaps, and “to frustrate or overturn,” which would apply descriptively well to what the evil spirits do to the living.  A less distinct meaning suggests that the spirits are related in some way, and their attachment to their victims or hosts may be indicated in the Tongan meaning which is “a thread” or “a string, as a bow string” – suggesting the aka cord that might attach them to the aka of the living (and also suggesting the possibility that if this aka cord could be broken, the spirits could be driven away so that they could not find their way back. One is reminded of the old custom of passing a red hot poker around on all sides of a corpse to sever the “silver cord” and free the spirit so that it could go on to other realms and be no longer earth-bound.).

“To commence to recite a prayer” is a meaning of hua found in the island of Mangareva. This meaning calls attention to the presentation, by means of prayer, of the cluster of thought-forms in their united aka or invisible “seed” state symbolically. The prayer “seed” is “planted” in the Aumukua. When we meet the idea of “seed” so strongly set forth as in Mana`hua for “Little People” and probably for the “eating companion” evil spirits, we cannot miss the hint that these spirits cause trouble by “planting” the thought-form “seeds” of their desires, hates, fears, illnesses, etc, in our minds so that we accept them and react to them as to our own thoughts and memories.

In the Maori, with the causative whakaj, we have still one more important meaning suggested. It is that of “recite” or “pronounce,” and may well indicate the “voices” which are heard so often by those afflicted with what we are coming to realize are actually evil spirits.

PETER, THE SPIRIT “GUIDE” of Arnold Clare of England, gives the best description of the “Little People” which I have been able to find. (See page 126 in Harry Edward’s book, THE MEDIUMSHIP OF ARNOLD CLARE, 9/6, Rider & Co., 47 Princes Gate, London, S.W. 7, England. A very excellent book to own and study.) In discussing the healing and other phenomena caused at seances by spirit guides or controls (working with a circle and through a medium), Peter said that the “Little People” or elementals, who  are not yet evolved to be humans, were often present and used to produce certain results. In healing, they were able to help to make changes in bone structures because bones are mineral very largely, and minerals are easily handled by the elementals. These “nature spirits” were said to lack completely moral character as we know it. “They are neither essentially bad nor good. They are ever ready to obey the direction of the human mind where there is close kinship between the mind of a man or woman and themselves. They are able to manipulate the natural ethers with the utmost ease, producing natural things such as stone, flowers and all things like that. (As in apports also, in which they were said to assist.)  “They stand between animal and man in the scale of evolution. The one goal they desire to attain is the human form complete. (!) In the seance room, as far as physical phenomena are concerned, their services are very necessary. (Apporting, materialization etc.) In fact, no work could be achieved without their aid in producing solid objects brought from a distance.” They are always under the control of the Guide, with whom they are closely allied. “They love to disport themselves by simple antics such as causing things to move, and invariably their presence is betrayed by the aimless moving of objects within the vicinity of the medium, that is, more or less, movements without a definite purpose. They are subject to discipline, but that is only in relation to their normal work which ranges from the geological realm up to all the activities of nature, including (work with) flowers and insects; they are even associated with the air you breathe, and the water that you drink.

“That is why I have said seance-room work is a natural religion, a primitive religion of mankind. To sum it all up, you might say they are the soul of nature. As man himself has many complex parts, so has the soul of nature many parts working together to accomplish something far too immense for the ordinary mind to grasp.

“They (the “nature spirits”) are not allowed to wander aimlessly in space, but are directed by superior intelligences who press them into service according to their capabilities, with only one purpose in view, development and progress along the road of the whole realm of nature, to keep it in step and in tune with the whole life and scheme of creation whilst working ever towards the perfect plan ordained by God.”

Considering what the spirit, Peter, had to say, we might conclude that these “nature spirits” could possibly be “eating companions” of a kind. They are said to desire to become humans, but no indication was given that they would act as obsessing entities to try to accomplish this end. All in all, it would seem safer at this point in our general research to look upon the “eating companions” as of the human level, and perhaps, at times these may be either Aunihipili entities lost from their Auhanes, or Auhanes cut off from their own Aunihipilis. In either case, the influence of such part-entities would make for anything but logical and good actions, thoughts or emotions.

We of the HRA, being dedicated to research and experimentation, are in the fortunate position of not having to arrive at definite and sweeping conclusions. However, we do need to gather and to share and to digest information along the lines which we elect to follow from time to time. This is your research as well as mine, remember, and your opinions are just as important as mine, no matter whether we agree or not. What can YOU add to the research into the possible verity and nature of the “evil spirits” and possible methods of getting rid of them?

HUNA DIRECTORY ADDITIONS AND CHANGES:

No. 10 The name and address of this good HRA is to be changed. She has married and is now, MRS. HERBERT R. DAVIS, P.O. Box 195, West Point, Calif. (This is a very pleasant change to report.)

No. 64 Dr. and Mrs. John Horning, 1411 E. 21st Ave., Vancouver 12, B.C., Canada. They are advanced students, Spiritualists, and deeply interested in all phases of HRA work. Would like to know other Canadian HRAs, especially any in their vicinity.

THE EIDETIC FOUNDATION (P.O. Box 345, Fairhope, Ala.,) has kindly sent in for review and examination their second mimeo book of “NEXOLOGY” lessons. (These are available to all who wish to study with them by mail, in groups or by going to live at the Foundation.) I am continually surprised and pleased to see how cleverly “Nexology” gets along without the concept of either the Aunihipili or the complex. What we call a complex is to them something by way of a bad way of thinking and reacting into which one has fallen, and which, when one revalues his past, section by section, can be set right. We would say “rationalized.” If one leans toward an interest in such things as Dianetics, here is something taught in delightfully simple English without a multitude of coined terms and confusions. Good straight advice to help one see where he falls short of a high norm in being a human being.

THAT VACATION OF MINE (as I cut this stencil on January 6th) seems about to materialize. I will finish this Bulletin and perhaps mail it from some town in Arizona. I may see a flying saucer, who can tell? Be back about Jan. 15. Skip a Bulletin.
MFL