Vodou 501: The Infinite Paths

The divine is infinitely generous. That generosity is precisely why there can be so many paths to the divine, and in vodou, why we do not condemn other people’s paths—we might have issues with their behavior or criticize how we are treated, but whatever spiritual journey they’re on is the one they need to be on. No matter how it looks to us, that is where they need to be.

There is no heresy in vodou because of that generosity. We have no orthodoxy, no inquisition, seek no social control, nor do we have the hierarchies and bureaucracies so often associated with religion. We have small, initiatory houses that rise and fall, live and die on the priests the spirits appoint to head those houses. The spirit picks who, where, when, and how. Sometimes those houses run in families or generations. Sometimes they are only here for the life of a single priest. We have no universal creed.

To every traveler on the path, the divine offers the same choice: what do your soul need?

One might need a stern god who punishes to teach a lesson about external control. One might need to believe there is no god, to grapple with personal responsibility. One might need to believe they only have one life, to understand the value of incarnation. Whatever they need, however they need to experience god and life, it is given to them.

All is provided for that soul in that life which that soul needs to learn.

That is the god I have to give—I have been asked how I know that, of all the all that god could be, the rationale of god is love. It’s a simple enough answer. God could be anything. The god I have to give, the splinter I can connect with, could be angry, or vengeful, or petty, or any number of other things. The door is left open for any version of god my soul needs, and any version of god which I can give as a priest.

And yet, I see the infinite paths, and know that they represent generosity. They are proof of a divinity which gives the whole of reality as a playground, for us to make whatever mess we need to make. The playground is staffed with lwa and spirit guides, with negative entities who teach by opposition and distraction, with ego who teaches the cost of obsession.

It is staggering. Path and path and path. Life and life and life. Chance after chance. Choice and choice.

Why? So that we can become one.

There is no generosity like it.