Vodou Culture 101: Approaching a Priest

Based on what I’ve been reading in forums, it’s probably a good idea to talk about how to approach a priest or spiritual worker respectfully. This is not at all like going to the store and picking something up, nor is it like hiring a contractor. What we do is an unusual skill, and often requires a lot more out of us than getting you a manufactured item off a shelf or coming to your house and adding an addition. Moreover, everything we do requires us to create an individual treatment plan, which typically means we’re talking to you several times to get history and background. The work we do for you might take months, in the case of certain kinds of healing, or might take as little as a few hours, not including the years it took to learn how to do it.

The apprenticeship for this sort of work is grueling. Graduate school was easier. While the profession does not command a lot of respect in the US majority culture, it does in cultures more familiar with what it means to be a priest or a magical worker.

The first step you might take to approach a priest (or magical worker) is to do research on them. Not only do we specialize, but it is expected that the communities we serve should be the first place people go to find out about us. Because community might mean people in multiple countries right now, this typically means we post testimonials from clients on our sites, or on social media. It leaves a record and allows people who might never meet the communities we serve in person to get a sense of us. It’s easier if you happen to be local, which allows you to attend parties or events and talk to people or get your own sense of our communities. You will want to know something about us before you approach us.

The second step you might take to approach a priest (or magical worker) is to learn something of Caribbean culture. Sounds daunting, but it helps people to know something of what they want or what it is they’re asking for before they attempt to apply a Harry Potter book to a priest in a completely different culture. There’s a wealth of information on Caribbean culture on the internet, including this series.

The third step you might take to approach a priest (or magical worker) is to relax your expectations. It cannot be helped that, if you’re approaching vodou from the outside, you likely are approaching it from the point of view of either fantasy novels and movies, or some mix of unrealistic expectations around what it looks like. Plenty of people make their money putting on shows for tourists in costumes that do not at all resemble what someone would be wearing to do work or attend a party. Each worker or priest does things slightly differently of course, but how it’s done matters less than getting a result, which itself relies on god and nature complying—every one of us has a failure rate because sometimes shit happens no matter what you do.

We will do our best. There is professional pride and ethics in spiritual work, and we hold each other accountable. So do the spirits.

The last step you might take is to be respectful of the profession. For US majority culture members, this is a lot to ask. Some of them believe we’re scam artists, some believe we’re satanists, some believe we’re just evil. Some believe we’re generally ignorant or uneducated, or that we exclusively prey on the poor or feeble minded. I tend to find that most ironic when I’m spending months working on someone’s healing for a flat fee that in no way reflects the amount of labor involved.

US majority cultures also tend to have a poor concept of the kind of lifetime commitment this involves, which is comparable to taking vows in the Catholic church. We literally give up our lives to be priests or spiritual workers. We do not live where we want, we do not associate with whom we want, we do not eat or sleep as we want. We give money, clothing, possessions away. There’s little in our lives that isn’t impacted by that commitment, and while many of us are forced to run what we do as a business thanks to US tax law and its bias toward Abrahamic religions, many of us also do a lot for people that we don’t get paid for.

If nothing else, respect the willingness to commit and to sacrifice. No one is chosen to be a priest who does not have the capacity to do what is needed for their community. It’s a hard role.

We tend to allow people to approach us—if you’ve taken all the previous steps, you have to take a last step. You contact us. We typically don’t contact you. There’s a lot of reasons for that, among them that we’re so often accused of scamming people. It’s also because vodou does not recruit. The fact that you’ve contacted us means that you are opting into the conversation, whether its just a consultation where we interpret a dream, or spiritual work, or a lesson where we help you figure out what’s happening in your life. We prefer you to opt in or opt out if it makes you happy. We’re just not going to chase people down.

Call us if you need us.