Urban Voodoo by Jason Black and Christopher Hyatt.

It is an interesting book and gives a couple of interesting ideas that can be experimented with even outside voodoo. And it is always quite interesting to read descriptions of other peoples’ personal experience with witchcraft or divination techniques. The book also educated me about the discrimination of colour people that used to exist in USA or maybe even still exist when it comes to encountering very similar occult practices. For example: authors point out that jews never needed permission to carry blood sacrifices to get kosher food, where as people of colour use to be arrested by police for that and reported on the news for their “satanic” practises.

 

However, when authors try to explain and promote voodoo, a lot of their explanations and arguments luck logic. They say it is a religion/practice about life that encourage and serve normal human desires and recognises that people need money/means to live and helps with that. They say it is powerful and good at helping with that. Then they say that mostly poor people practice voodoo. And when those people get wealthier they betray their roots and switch to christianity (btw, I like to point out here that I am NOT promoting christianity here, I am against all women-hating religions in general). So if voodoo is that powerful, then why its practitioners are poor? And when they are not poor why they are not sticking to it? I see the society pressure and discrimination, but I don’t see power in that. The authors claim that people who explore magic for spiritual development are simply afraid of real power. Authors portray them as losers who settled for low paid jobs so they can practice their hobbies. Then they describe the poorness of people who practice voodoo (in urban life) as a virtue, because they are not into consumerism and are close to nature.

 

Then one of authors interviewed the prostitutes who practice voodoo (the voodoo priestess refused to meet him :)). They use voodoo to get sexual explotators pay more money (for example: by anointing a doll with his semen) and punish violent ones. The book portrays these women as wise and strong, who know powerful voodoo secrets. Again, I don’t see much ability or power, or logic for that matter. If it is that good, why don’t they use it to get safer and better paying jobs in the first place. The authors did, btw.

 

I understand that authors probably tried to avoid critique of the voodoo practising community because they are white males who entered a world dominated by black people. It is visible from their description of their experience that they were often pointed at their skin colour. Because of that, I sense, they are used to treading on eggshells and lost a bit of objectivity and clarity. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and found it interesting and entertaining to read as well as learned a lot of new things, as it was the only book I ever read about voodoo so far.