Yep, Still MORE on The Vodoun Gnostic Workbook

First: it appears that my blog was busily engaged in comment-swallowing for a bit. Apologies to Gordon and others whose words may have been lost in the aethyr.

Seshat's last comment: my reply follows.

Hi Kenaz,

Thanks for posting a reply to the reply

There are high priests in Benin Voudon, which of course is the cradle of all Voudon.

And as to accusing Bertiaux/VGs of being racist you then say you didn’t know CW was black because he didn’t have a “black name” LOL Now who’s the racist?

As a bisexual woman, I have no problem with nude gay wrestling, do you? …

I think enough has been said and normal service will be resuming on my blog.

Best wishes
Seshat

I had always heard the heads of Beninois temples called “Chiefs” rather than High Priests. But I’d also caution you that there are many major differences between Beninois and Haitian practices. (One friend of mine, a Houngan Asogwe who is currently doing field work in Benin, has noted that Benin Vodoun shares some spirit-names with Haitian Vodou but that Haitian practices have a much stronger Kongo slant than Beninois).

I never said Courtney Willis didn’t have a “black” name – I said that his name didn’t sound Haitian. (i.e. French – although you do have some Haitians with Polish and German last names thanks to interesting accidents of history). As I said, the question would not be “is CW black?” but “is CW Haitian?” If Mr. Willis is indeed Haitian, then my apologies.

As far as nude gay oil wrestling goes, I have no problems with it at all: I might even be inclined to participate if the participants were sufficiently attractive and all parties were using a water-based lubricant that didn’t break down latex But I have not yet run into any Haitian Vodou rituals that involve nude gay oil wrestling: neither have I seen any Afro-Atlantean time travel performed.

Again, I actually rather liked Bertiaux’s work as a Surrealist text and have found quite a few of his magical ideas to be profound and effective. I believe he had some experience with Haitian practices, and that he was a polymath who did extensive research in several fields (his comments on logical philosophy are excellent and suggest he is a very erudite man, for example). But I remain unconvinced that his OTOA/LCN has any kind of a direct, unbroken lineage to current or historical Haitian practices.