The Facts About Voodoo Practice and its works

Voodoo is much similar to Christianity in many ways

 

Voodoo is a religion that has been in existence for age, often seen as fetish and its practitioners respected out of fear of being charmed by them.
 At least some moves are being made to show how voodoo works and sometimes portrayed in a  negative light and voodoo dolls are being sold as gag gifts nowadays to divorcees.
A brief insight into the eerie but perhaps powerful practice has been compiled by AFK Insider.
Here are 10 things you didn’t know about the voodoo religion:

1. There are three different kinds:  There are three places where people still largely practice voodoo: West Africa, Haiti and Louisiana. Nearly 30 million people practice African voodoo today.Louisiana voodoo was brought in from West Africa, but was shaped mostly by Spanish and French settlers. Haitian voodoo finds its influences from the French and in Christianity.
2. It’s similar to Christianity in many ways: Louisiana and Haitian voodoo incorporate several Christian figures, traditions, images and beliefs and many of the main voodoo figures sound remarkably similar to Christian figures. Aido Wedo is a virgin, and the guardian gatekeeper Legba bares a striking resemblance to St. Peter. Some places that practice voodoo call the spirits by the same names as Catholic saints.
3. The pope condones it: The similarities between Christianity and voodoo are so undeniable, that Christianity does not reject voodoo in the least, and in many places, practitioners of both religions live happily side-by-side. Pope John Paul II even spoke about his respect for voodoo, and attended a voodoo ceremony in 1993.
4. Voodoo dolls aren’t only used for bad things:  In mainstream films you see possessors of the doll stabbing it with a pin, in the hopes that that pain will transfer to the person the doll represents. In actuality, the pin is used to attach items closely affiliated with the person in question—like a lock of hair or patch of clothing belonging to them—and other items are added like garlic, flower, petals, perfumes and more depending on what the possessor of the doll would like the voodoo spirits to do to the person in question.
5. Marie Laveau: Laveau is something of a priestess with plenty of rumor surrounding her name. Some believe she may have killed her first husband, but many go to her for counseling and even a haircut. Her job as a hairdresser gained her access to some very big figures in New Orleans, who she would get lots of information from on other big figures in the area. Many wondered, when something very bad or very good happened to a person in power, whether or not Laveau was behind it. One thing was for certain; Laveau was a wonderful philanthropist who did a lot of work with the homeless, the hungry and the sick.
6. Practitioners are not the ones in power: Contrary to popular belief, those who practice voodoo do not possess some enormous power. Rather, they’re servants to voodoo spirits. Voodoo priests and priestesses have to go through extensive training before they can even try to communicate with spirits.
7. It’s mostly used for healing: You might have believed voodoo was mostly used to harm people, but actually its main use is to heal. Most practitioners use voodoo to summon spirits to aid in the healing of the sick and the injured.
8. There isn’t ‘good’ voodoo and ‘bad’ voodoo: There isn’t “black” magic as you may have heard, and in contrast there isn’t “white” magic. In fact, when someone conjures a voodoo spirit for ill doing, that’s called red magic and that’s because when someone conjures an evil spirit and is possessed by it, their eyes allegedly turn red. Legitimate practitioners work to stop red magic.
9. The trio of powers: Another thing voodoo has in common with Christianity is three main figures; the single God who is an obscure but all-knowing presence, the loa, which are spirits that interact with people, and the people themselves.
10. Snakes: The reason you often see images of snakes in voodoo is because the religion believes Danballa, a serpent god, created earth out of his skin and coils. Danballa is a protector of the helpless, young children, the handicapped and the deformed and brings souls of the deceased to the afterlife.