Vodou Culture 101: The Spirits
Vodou assumes that the spiritual world—that is, the bits of existence which are not solid—is a fairly occupied place.
The souls of the dead, both positive and negative entities of various types, the lwa, and the divine itself all occupy that place. The spiritual world is packed and influences the physical world for positive and negative effect. A priest or spiritual worker can potentially contact many types of things in the spiritual world but the divine, which has better things to do than listen for contact from people. Individual capacities will vary. Some people have an easier time talking to the dead, for instance, than they do a positive entity.
No one gets to talk to everything.
When a vodouizan speaks of the spirits, they are typically speaking of lwa or various positive entities they work with or are otherwise associated with, typically because those spirits have been ‘assigned’ to them by the divine, to assist in their elevation. Having an entity associated with you does not make you a priest or spiritual worker. For most people, it simply means that they have a little more looking out for them. While pretty much everyone has dead associated with them and a guardian angel, not everyone who is interested has lwa associated with them in this life. Most people lack the necessary force (yet) to be able to ask for attention.
For those who have lwa associated with them and the necessary force or power to work with the spirits, the relationship gets a bit more detailed. Part of the job of a priest or spiritual worker is to establish working relationships with those entities which they are intended to work with in order to create effects in the physical world. The process of establishing those relationships takes some time, and much like any relationship, takes on the character that the people in the relationship give it. For some people, while they may have the force or power necessary to get the attention of the spirits, their character will only allow them to contact the spirits in a more negative form—they might be able to contact a lwa, but they might only be able to ‘speak’ to the most unelevated expression of that lwa.
Vodou is deeply neutral on the topic of good and evil, but not neutral on the topic of positive and negative, in part because all spirits have multiple ways they can be expressed. The more negative, the more selfish, destructive, or cruel the expression will be. The more positive, the more generous, generative, or kind the expression will be. A spirit, for instance, which is normally protective might express that protectiveness in the form of a generous concern for the welfare of others when positive, or may extract a particularly harsh payment for services when negative.
The spirits are neutral. You get from them what you show them you are willing to understand. If what you approach them with is suspicion, greed, and cruelty, expect to see it reflected back at you in how you are treated.
