Magic 201: Horses and Magic
Warning: do not attempt to learn magic on your own, and really don’t try to get possessed on your own. There are plenty of things out there which would happily use your body to hurt you badly, break the law, or cause damage to others. The spiritual world is full of liars, as well, and as we tell new vodouizan, lwa approach people according to some very specific methods so that they are more readily distinguished from the other things in the astral or spiritual planes. While it’s possible for the lwa to appear in slightly different ways, they are frequently quite careful to make their presence clear to the horse and anyone present with the skill and knowledge to identify them so that no one confuses them with other spiritual entities.
A magician is not necessarily a horse (a medium) of the spirits. It is not necessary to get possessed to do magic. One can have a relationship with the spirits which allows you to work with them for magical purposes without being able to be possessed by them. Some magicians are horses. Being a horse does not necessarily make you a better magician, but many magicians of power and authority are also horses.
Generally, a spirit is called into possession to do work that a magician cannot do alone. The spirit might come to give knowledge of techniques or the situation, or do things that the magician cannot, or handle something too dangerous for the magician to do without help. If a magical working is outside the force available to a magician, if it may cause the magician serious harm, or if it involves life and death, the working likely involves the aid of a spirit, whether in a possession or simply in attendance. The spirit cannot be harmed by the magic, nor can the spirit be truly in danger, unlike the magician.
Vodou priests are almost uniformly horses. Some may only be possessed when absolutely necessary, and others may be possessed much more frequently. Energetically, possession requires a great deal of force on the part of the horse. To be possessed with a clear expression of the spirit requires a ton of personal work—work on the character of the magician, healing work, and elevation work—any unhealed areas, any poorly elevated personality traits, etc, will prevent a clear expression of the spirit. The life of horses is typically characterized by an extraordinary amount of work, both to train and hone their capacities, but also on their character.
For that reason, any magician with the capacity to be a horse will also be required, if they intend to be effective and accurate, to do extensive work on their character and to hone their gifts. Calling a spirit to do something like a difficult healing when your character has issues is dangerous.
As per the trend in these entries, this sort of thing gets easier when you have a teacher.
