A Cult of Personality
A vodou society is considered a cult by most authorities: there are one or more charismatic central figures who manage a small community of people who have beliefs that many societies consider dangerous or weird. Vodou societies can also be authoritarian by definition, in that obedience is expected. However, unlike authoritarian regimes, there is no structured repercussion for not obeying. The incentive to obey is things in your life going well, not punishment, and vodouizan are always happy to get out of the way and let you learn.
In the process of healing and elevation, the senior priest/s will take the role of parents, doctors, and any additional role you need them to take, to let you heal. The people of a vodou society may have any kind of feelings about the senior priest/s, and will probably have just about any feeling about those senior priest/s as they work through healing and elevation. This can include feelings of intense attraction, hatred, or a adoration that verges on veneration, following the senior priest/s around and writing down everything they say or insisting that everything the senior priest/s do is intended to send a message.
A senior priest can’t pee without it being seen as an incisive personal comment on the person they were talking to.
People of the society may build themselves into various in and out groups, reflecting how they understand love, loyalty, and what they believe they share in their relationship to the senior priest/s. They will even engage each other in tests of loyalty, trying to protect their senior priest/s from people they suspect do not share their relationship to the senior priest/s. This sort of behavior reflects how they understand love, and ideally is a temporary stage in the process of healing, while they understand love as a scarce resource or something that might be taken from them at any time. The behavior is tolerated precisely because it is the best love those society members know how to give, and if that’s how they need to understand love, that’s how a senior priest and the spirits will meet them.
This is what distinguishes a vodou society from a cult of personality: the willingness of the senior priest and the spirits to meet people, and the temporary nature of in and out groups in the vodou society. The senior priest/s knows this is temporary, and gently pushes people past it, through the process of healing.
A godchild might be dependent on the godparent, but their relationship is intended to be continuous training for independence. A godparent is not rewarded by creating many dependents.
