Filan - Vodou love magic a practical guide to love, sex, and relationships

This book is dedicated to my wife, partner, longtime collaborator,and best friend, Kathy Latzoni (Mambo Zetwal Kleye),who has shown me love is the greatest magic of all.

Introduction

WHEN I BEGAN WRITING The Haitian Vodou Handbook, I wanted to focus on Vodou as a religion. I hoped that readers would experience Vodou as a direct connection to the Divine, not as a set of magic tricks. Those who were only interested in learning how to cast spells were missing the point, I thought. But in time I came to realize that I was the one who had missed the point.

Vodouisants (practitioners of Vodou) do not grovel in supplication before the lwa (spirits). Rather, we work with them. We ask the lwa to protect us and grant us success and happiness. In exchange for that support we provide the spirits with offerings ranging from candles to enormous, costly ceremonies and parties. Our relationship is a mutually beneficial transaction. Asking the lwa to do something on your behalf is not selfishness or cultural exploitation; its the way most Haitians interact with their spirits. Not everybody wants to become a Houngan or Mambo (priest or priestess of Vodou, respectively). Nor does everybody need to approach the lwa with that level of commitment. The lwa are often happy with a simple candle or thank-you offering in exchange for their help.

And when people come to the lwa requesting help, more often than not the problem concerns love. Hence this book.

Vodou Love Magic is intended for everyone who would like a more satisfying love lifein other words, just about all of us! Ive included spells that can help singles become multiples, spells that can help partners reclaim the passion they once had, and spells that can help the brokenhearted heal from past injuries and move on. I cannot guarantee you that this book will bring back your lost partner or make you irresistible to prospective dates and mates. But I can promise that when you are finished, you will know something about the lwa and about that crazy little thing called love. What you do with that knowledge is up to you.

For that, you see, is another secret of the lwa: Vodou is not something that you study, but something that you do. Books are no substitute for actually talking to the spirits and making their acquaintance. All that I or any other writer can do is provide you with a map and a compass; it is up to you to make the journey. These spells are dead words. It is up to you to bring the magic to life.

May God, the ancestors, and the lwa bless us all and look after us.

Part One

Magic, Love, and Relationships

Understanding Magic

MASS MEDIA MAGIC HAPPENS in a twinkling of an eye (or, if youre Samantha from Bewitched, in the twitching of a nose). The witch who knows the proper arcane words and cryptic gestures need not worry about the laws of physics or consensus reality. Annoying door-to-door salesmen can be transformed into much less repellent toads; oncoming ninjas can be stopped with a well-timed lightning bolt from a wand or fingertip. Harry Potter and his Hogwarts friends, Gandalf dispensing advice and kicking Balrog butt, Mickey Mouse battling the army of brooms he brought to lifeall these and more are part of our collective mythology.

By now youve undoubtedly internalized this model. Youve seen it played out thousands of times on TV, at the movies, or in video games. And you probably (hopefully!) know that this bears little resemblance to the actual practice of magic. But what you know in your head and what you feel in your bones and expect in your heart may be very different things. If you want to work real magic, you first should take a look at how special effects have colored your hopes and expectations.

You know that Hollywood magic is not realbut can you put aside this disbelief for your spellwork? Can you light your candle or prepare your bath without thinking This is all a big game of lets pretend; of course magic only happens in fiction? If not, you can hardly be surprised when you get little in the way of results. Expect your magic to be psychodrama or a symbol of intention and more often than not it will fulfill your expectations. Leave yourself open to a quiet miracle (or even a loud one), and you have a much better chance of getting it.

Admittedly, this can be easier said than done. Were children of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, naturally skeptical of the supernatural and miraculous. Our culture has a considerable prejudice against magic. Those who believe in spellwork are scorned as superstitious or gullible, even delusional. Simply by purchasing this book, or others like it, you have shown a great deal of courage. You have set yourself apart from most of your peers, from those who would not believe even if they saw.

The best way to overcome the hurdle of disbelief is continued practice. As you work with the lwa, youll find they soon make their presence unmistakably clear. (As a Houngan of my acquaintance once explained, this is how they send you their bill and let you know that theyve fulfilled your request and now expect the payment you agreed upon earlier.) Once you have a few Vodou success stories under your belt, doubt will be the least of your worries!

(Of course, this may lead you to yet another hurdle: fear. Many people enjoy the aesthetics of magic and spellcraft, and are quite happy with viewing their rituals as entertainment. The idea that there might be Someone or Something Out There answering their call fills them with terror. There is no shame in this. Getting your reality tunnel warped is an unsettling experience at best, and when dealing with magic a little bit of fear can help ensure a good deal of caution.)

But Hollywood magic may have instilled other even more detrimental and insidious ideas. You may expect that magic works like, well, magic: that it can change your life and your world without any other effort on your part. Instead of using spellwork as one part of a campaign to attain goals, you might use magic as an end in itself. The aspiring wizard sits at home casting prosperity spells without perusing the want ads, or love spells without making any effort to win the desired partner. When the results prove less than spectacular, he may decide that theres nothing to this stuff after all. Alternately, the magician-tobe may decide the problem lies with the system of magic he or she is using. Cursing the time wasted on phony baloney, he or she goes off yet again in search of what Raven Kaldera has called the Great Barbie Who Gives You Stuff.

We can learn to overcome many of our misconceptions by studying cultures that still take magic seriously. Vodouisants dont see magicians as gray-bearded Gandalfs or sparkly Fairy Godmothers. Instead, we consider them skilled professionals, people who practice their craft on a regular basis and who have attained some degree of knowledge and practical experience. They dont just study magic or read about it: they do it. In many cases, they are successful enough to do it for a living, sometimes a lucrative one. For them, magic isnt something out of a fairy tale; its a day job.

This may seem a strange way of thinking; indeed, many will find it distasteful. To them magic should be something sacred, set apart from the concerns of the marketplace and untainted by filthy lucre. But there are many benefits to learning from professionals. When your livelihood depends on your success in your trade, you have every incentive to become skilled at it. (We should also note that cultures that pay their magicians show their belief in magics power. Are we worried about con artists using fake spells to fleece the gullible? Or is our disbelief so entrenched that we assume anyone who sells magic must be perpetrating a fraud?)