What is Voodoo.Is it Bad.Is it true that its Black magic.?

Answer 1

The term Vodou (Vodu or Vudu in Benin and Togo; also Vodon, Vodoun, Voudou, or other phonetically equivalent spellings. In Haiti; Vudu (an Ewe word, also used in the Dominican Republic) is by some individuals applied to the branches of a West African ancestral religious tradition. It is important to note that the word Voodoo is the most common and known usage in American and popular culture, and is viewed as a pejorative by the Afro-Diaspora practicing communities. However, the different spellings of this term can be explained as follows:

The word Voodoo is used to describe the Afro-creole tradition of New Orleans, Vodou is used to describe the Haitian Vodou Tradition, while Vudon and Vodun and Vodoun are used to describe the deities honoured in the Brazilian Jeje (Ewe) nation of Candomble as well as West African Vodoun, and in the African diaspora. When the word Vodou/Vodoun is capitalized, it denotes the Religion proper. When the word is used in small caps, it denotes the actual deities honored in each respective tradition.

Its roots are varied and include the Fon, Mina, Kabye, Ewe, and Yoruba peoples of West Africa, from western Nigeria to eastern Ghana. In Benin, Vodun is the national religion, followed by around 80 percent of the population, or some 4.5 million people.[citation needed] The word Vodún (Vodoun Vudu) is the Fon-Ewe word for spirit. Vodou in Haiti is highly influenced by Central African traditions. The Kongo rites, also known in the north of Haiti as Lemba (originally practiced among the Bakongo) and is as widespread as the West African elements. The Vodoun religion was suppressed during slavery and Reconstruction in the United States, but maintained most of its West African elements.

Until recently, many assumed that the mixture of such traditions with Catholicism occurred in the New World. There is significant evidence that the model for such syncretism can be found in the religious practices of the Kongo Empire.[citation needed]

Haitian Vodouisants believe, in accordance with widespread African tradition, that there is one God who is the creator of all, referred to as Bondyè (from the French “Bon Dieu” or “Good God”). Bondyè is distinguished from the God of the whites in a dramatic speech by the houngan Boukman at Bwa Kayiman, but is often considered the same God of other religions, such as Christianity and Islam. Bondyè is distant from his/her/its creation though, and so it is the spirits or the mysteries, saints, or angels that the Vodouisant turns to for help, as well as to the ancestors. The Vodouisant worships God, and serves the spirits, who are treated with honor and respect as elder members of a household might be. There are said to be twenty-one nations or "nanchons" of spirits, also sometimes called lwa-yo. Some of the more important nations of lwa are the Rada (corresponding to the Gbe-speaking ethnic groups in the modern-day republics of Benin, Nigeria, and Togo); the Nago (synonymous with the Yoruba-speaking ethnicities in Nigeria, the Republic of Benin, and Togo); and the numerous West-Central African ethnicities united under the ethnonym Kongo. The spirits also come in families that all share a surname, like Ogou, or Ezili, or Azaka or Ghede. For instance, Ezili is a family, Ezili Dantor and Ezili Freda are two individual spirits in that family. The Ogou family are soldiers, the Ezili govern the feminine spheres of life, the Azaka govern agriculture, the Ghede govern the sphere of death and fertility. In Dominican Vodou, there is also an Agua Dulce or Sweet Waters family, which encompasses all Amerindian spirits. There are literally hundreds of lwa. Well known individual lwa include Danbala Wedo, Papa Legba Atibon, and Agwe Tawoyo.

In Haitian Vodou, spirits are divided according to their nature in roughly two categories, whether they are hot or cool. Cool spirits fall under the Rada category, and hot spirits fall under the Petwo category. Rada spirits are familial and congenial, while Petwo spirits are more combative and restless. Both can be dangerous if angry or upset, and despite claims to the contrary, neither is good or evil in relation to the other.

Everyone is said to have spirits, and each person is considered to have a special relationship with one particular spirit who is said to own their head, however each person may have many lwa, and the one that owns their head, or the met tet, may or may not be the most active spirit in a person's life in Haitian belief.

In serving the spirits, the Vodouisant seeks to achieve harmony with his/her own individual nature and the world around them, manifested as personal power and resourcefulness in dealing with life. Part of this harmony is membership in and maintaining relationships within the context of family and community. A Vodou house or society is organized on the metaphor of an extended family, and initiates are the children of their initiators, with the sense of hierarchy and mutual obligation that implies.

Most Vodouisants are not initiated, referred to as being bosal; it is not a requirement to be an initiate in order to serve one's spirits. There are clergy in Haitian Vodou whose responsibility it is to preserve the rituals and songs and maintain the relationship between the spirits and the community as a whole (though some of this is the responsibility of the whole community as well). They are entrusted with leading the service of all of the spirits of their lineage. Priests are referred to as houngans and priestesses as manbos. Below the houngans and manbos are the hounsis, who are initiates who act as assistants during ceremonies and who are dedicated to their own personal mysteries. One does not serve just any lwa but only the ones they have according to one's destiny or nature. Which spirits a person has may be revealed at a ceremony, in a reading, or in a dream. However, all Vodouisants also serve the spirits of their own blood ancestors, and this important aspect of Vodou practice is often glossed over or minimized in importance by commentators who do not understand the significance of it. The ancestor cult is in fact the basis of Vodou religion, and many lwa like Agasou (formerly a king of Dahomey) for example are in fact ancestors who are said to have been raised up to divinity.

Possession in Haitian vodou is described as god seizing a horse (the human being) who is ridden, sometimes to exhaustion or death.

Public relations-wise, Vodou has come to be associated in the popular mind with such phenomena as zombies and voodoo dolls. While there is ethnobotanical evidence relating to zombie creation, it is a minor phenomenon within rural Haitian culture and not a part of the Vodou religion as such. Such things fall under the auspices of the bokor or sorcerer rather than the priest of the Lwa Gine.

The practice of sticking pins in voodoo dolls has history in healing teachings as identifying pressure points. How it became known as a method of cursing an individual by some followers of what has come to be called New Orleans Voodoo, which is a local variant of hoodoo, is a mystery. Some speculate that it was one of many ways of self defense by instilling fear in slave owners. This practice is not unique to New Orleans voodoo, however, and has as much basis in European-based magical devices such as the poppet and the nkisi or bocio of West and Central Africa. They are in fact power objects, what in Haiti would be referred to as pwen, rather than magical surrogates for an intended target of sorcery whether for boon or for bane. Such voodoo dolls are not a feature of Haitian religion, although dolls intended for tourists may be found in the Iron Market in Port au Prince. The practice became closely associated with the Vodou religions in the public mind through the vehicle of horror movies. In fact, voodoo always gets a bad rap in movies with possibly the only exception being the film London Voodoo where voodoo is shown as a force for good.

There is a practice in Haiti of nailing crude poppets with a discarded shoe on trees near the cemetery to act as messengers to the otherworld, which is very different in function from how poppets are portrayed as being used by voodoo worshippers in popular media and imagination, ie. for purposes of sympathetic magic towards another person. Another use of dolls in authentic Vodou practice is the incorporation of plastic doll babies in altars and objects used to represent or honor the spirits, or in pwen, which recalls the aforementioned use of bocio and nkisi figures in Africa. One Haitian artist particularly known for his unusual sacred constructions using doll parts is Pierrot Barra of Port au Prince.

Answer 2

Yes. it is a really bad black magic.
They use a doll with a part of another-person-you-hate's body (eg.hair/nail) plus particular spell on it so you can hurt that person via the doll.

Answer 3

Not bad, really. I suppose it can be black. They say Christians make the best voodoo practicioners. Why don't you go to the religion section and talk to one yourself?

Answer 4

Voodoo is a religion. No it is not 'Bad' nor is it 'Black Magic'

Answer 5

its actually a religion and there are both good and bad sides to it. you can do bad stuff to someone or use it to help ppl.

Answer 6

eh i think its a bunch of crap