Vodou Culture 101: Possession
Possession is the feature of vodou that elicits the most attention and the most negative reaction, followed by animal sacrifice. The US majority culture routinely produces movies about possession which call it demonic, equating it to a kind of infestation that permanently damages the person. In media, possessed people slaughter and corrupt other people. Families are torn apart, and people commit crimes and what the Abrahamic religions would refer to as blasphemies. It is, without any doubt, a negative event which leads to destruction.
Vodou views possession very differently: as a talent and skill which is intended to benefit the community. To be willing to be possessed is an act of service, much in the same way that cooking dinner for everyone is an act of service. Possession is a capacity that not everyone has, in the same way that being good at cooking dinner is not something everyone can do. It is not a common capacity. People who have that capacity have to train it for years to use it in a way that is useful to others, and it can be dangerous at first to them while they learn to control trance states.
In the Caribbean, new horses (a person who can be possessed) are not typically allowed to drive. Unexpectedly entering a trance state does not make for responsive driving.
Possession is the act of surrendering your body to another intelligence—often the lwa themselves, who come to engage the community. Typically, they come to provide messages, to listen to our complaints, or to give treatments of disease or illness. They come to help people increase their business, or manage their love lives, or deal with a bad boss.
They also come to comfort, because they know that belief in something intangible is difficult for people. They come into a body to hold someone accountable who is not listening to anything short of direct confrontation, or to simply hold them because they need to be able to touch something while they cry.
The capacity to be possessed is honored in vodou culture specifically because it is both the spirits love for us that motivates their willingness to come and the horse’s willingness to provide a venue for healing to the community, which is a kind of love in action. There is no part of possession which is not touched by love and willingness to serve.
You can see it best in the way the community members cradle the body of the horse as the intelligence leaves, gently holding them until the horse is capable of standing up and responding to their voices. Being possessed is hard on the body of the horse. It takes an enormous toll on their energy and leaves them physically sore and drained, in addition to having holes in their memory where the intelligence was in the body instead of them. It takes a moment for them to be back in their bodies.
The lwa do not leave any sort of negative or destructive infection in their wake. They might give a message that someone finds offensive, but that’s not considered destructive. Your feelings are not considered a reliable guide for what is helpful to you.
In vodou, possession is physical proof of the pervasive love of the divine. It is physical proof that the spiritual world interacts with the physical world, and that the spiritual world pays attention to the conditions of your life. It is a demonstration of divine intimacy.
