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What's the deal with Voodoo? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is
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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you like your chair? I
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Speaker 1: hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in like
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Speaker 1: the last eight podcasts we've just complained at the beginning.
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Speaker 1: We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: instead of complaining as it is our usual way these days,
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Speaker 1: let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm gonna take
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Speaker 1: us back. You're ready, okay, chuck um. This is August,
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Speaker 1: little place that we now know of as Haiti, and
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Speaker 1: what's just happened is a slave uprising. Actually, what is
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Speaker 1: the only successful slave uprising in the world. Good for them? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's what I say. What happened was what happened was
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Speaker 1: in earlier in August of a group of slave leaders
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Speaker 1: and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway slaves who made
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Speaker 1: it to the hills, and we're basically staging guerrilla warfare
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Speaker 1: against um plantations and white colonists. They got together and
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Speaker 1: there was a ceremony that was performed in a place
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Speaker 1: called Alligator Woods or block came in. I've been there,
1:37
Speaker 1: have you really? Oh wow, Well we're about together now, right.
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Speaker 1: There's this voodoo ritual that took place, and all the
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Speaker 1: leaders basically pledged their support and dedication to this rebellion,
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Speaker 1: and a week later all hell brake slurs. Okay um
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Speaker 1: this thousands of slaves revolt. Uh, they or every white
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Speaker 1: person they can find. Apparently they paraded around from like
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Speaker 1: settlement to settlement with a white human baby impaled on
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Speaker 1: a steak I might draw the line there, but burned
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Speaker 1: every plantation they could find and just basically held a
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Speaker 1: slave uprising. You know. It's like you can only hold
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Speaker 1: somebody down for so long before they, you know, turn
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Speaker 1: on the human spirit wants to be free, exactly. Chuck uh.
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Speaker 1: And that's essentially what happened the the Haitian slaves rose up.
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Speaker 1: They were unsuccessful actually in but historians say this is
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Speaker 1: the point that started at all and by eighteen o
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Speaker 1: four Haitia was a free republic. Yeah. Um, But that
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Speaker 1: that meeting in the woods that started it. All, the
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Speaker 1: voodoo ceremony, that instance and other slave rebellions that were
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Speaker 1: kind of based around voodoo um kind of given the
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Speaker 1: religion a bad rap among whites since then. It's kind
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Speaker 1: of weird to think of, but our conception of voodoo
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Speaker 1: is almost entirely hollywood ized, fictionalized um and fear based
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Speaker 1: based on this um kind of collective white distant memory
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Speaker 1: um of well, this is this is what you know.
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Speaker 1: Voodoo is, it's babies impaled on steaks. What happens when
3:34
Speaker 1: you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually, the um
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Speaker 1: that slave revoult the successful slave rebellion um is what
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Speaker 1: Pat Robertson was talking about famously after the Haiti earthquake
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Speaker 1: when he said, a long time ago, and people in
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Speaker 1: Haiti don't like to talk about it, but they made
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Speaker 1: a pact with the devil um to get the French out,
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Speaker 1: and they said, we'll give you our souls if uh
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Speaker 1: you'll get the itch out, and the French got out.
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Speaker 1: And so basically he was saying, you know, the it's
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Speaker 1: devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship, and the successful slave
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Speaker 1: rebellion is proof positive of it, and that's why the
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Speaker 1: earthquake happened in his opinion, And then Haiti. They were
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Speaker 1: probably like, who's this devil you keep talking about? We
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Speaker 1: don't believe in that, dude. This is gonna be a
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Speaker 1: lot of debunking going on today. Let's debunk dude. Let's
4:23
Speaker 1: start talking about voodoo. Okay, let's write now. Okay, Voodoo
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Speaker 1: is a religion. A lot of people think it's just
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Speaker 1: a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like who
4:35
Speaker 1: do which we'll get too later. But voodoo is an
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Speaker 1: actual religion. There is a there's one God. It's very
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Speaker 1: it depends on where you are. If you're talking voodoo
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Speaker 1: and um even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences. Yeah,
4:49
Speaker 1: because there's no definitive holy text. It's a normal tradition
4:54
Speaker 1: and it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like
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Speaker 1: a very personal um and it governs your day to
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Speaker 1: day life. And it um also has it's different, has
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Speaker 1: a different impact on every every person, right, Yes, it does. Yes. Uh,
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Speaker 1: So there's like I said, there's one supreme God, and
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Speaker 1: depending on where you are to be different name. Uh,
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Speaker 1: if you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover
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Speaker 1: like African and Haitian in parts, I would say won't you. Yeah, Okay,
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Speaker 1: so Haitian voodoo you're gonna call this supreme god Bandhi.
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Speaker 1: But in voodoo, you can't talk directly to the main God.
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Speaker 1: You have to go through one of these spirits called
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Speaker 1: the loa, right, And there are many loa now, all
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Speaker 1: have different functions, but it is hierarchical, it is, and
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Speaker 1: they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah, which it
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Speaker 1: turns out to be, and we'll get to that more
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Speaker 1: in detail. But that's a big, big part of voodoo,
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Speaker 1: is uh, the ancestry and dead people basically spirits of
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Speaker 1: the dead people. Right. And you're talking about comparing it
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Speaker 1: to say, Christianity or Judaism or something like that, it's
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Speaker 1: much it's much easier to compare um like a pagan
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Speaker 1: religion like voodoo, to a pagan religion like um Druidism, right,
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Speaker 1: than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism. Um.
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Speaker 1: Although there are some similarities there are, especially in Haitian voodoo,
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Speaker 1: but in African voodoo, um, it's it's much more difficult
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Speaker 1: to compare it. And so anthropologists still kind of put
6:25
Speaker 1: it in this um context of of ways. We can
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Speaker 1: understand like gods, but they're not gods. You can't like
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Speaker 1: to to voodoo practitioners. They're not gods. Their ancestral spirits.
6:37
Speaker 1: The spirit world is as real as this world. So
6:40
Speaker 1: we may hear their call them gods accidentally, but that's
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Speaker 1: that's just as close as we can come. You could
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Speaker 1: compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right, they
6:50
Speaker 1: have different personalities to represent different things, but it's kind
6:52
Speaker 1: of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of the
6:56
Speaker 1: natural experience are associated with different gods. Right, good point. Thanks. Uh.
7:02
Speaker 1: It's basically so white Christians can understand what we're talking about.
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Speaker 1: Um so uh, African and Haitian voodoo in in both
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Speaker 1: cases you have it's really not a bunch of evil
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Speaker 1: doing and and spells cast upon one another. It's mainly
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Speaker 1: used for for good and to be a better person.
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Speaker 1: In fact, you're you're counted on as a practice or
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Speaker 1: a voodoo to be a good community member and you know,
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Speaker 1: a stand up guy or gal. Right, yeah, and I
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Speaker 1: remember we said that it was a personal and subjective religion.
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Speaker 1: Um So, when you're practicing voodoo, when you are um uh,
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Speaker 1: interacting with it's say like a voodoo priest or priestess. Right, Um,
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Speaker 1: you're seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah,
7:50
Speaker 1: So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um
7:54
Speaker 1: evil aspect does exist bo bo um in afri Can tradition,
8:01
Speaker 1: right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of
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Speaker 1: African vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a
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Speaker 1: voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah, an African
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Speaker 1: voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo
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Speaker 1: priests this is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba. Um.
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Speaker 1: So the mamba and the ho gun are not charged
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Speaker 1: with um carrying out boat which is evil spells hexes
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Speaker 1: um basically magic that does harm right, right, And they
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Speaker 1: do use voodoo dolls, they do. Yeah, but um, this
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Speaker 1: is not to say and this is where it kind
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Speaker 1: of gets a little prickly like a little hinky um
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Speaker 1: where the voodoo priests and priests is may not actually
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Speaker 1: practice bow this black magic, but um, they're familiar with it,
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Speaker 1: they have a working knowledge of it. But so so
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Speaker 1: they can oppose people who practice boes You have to
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Speaker 1: understand something to fight it. That's the belief. They're right, right, sure, Okay,
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Speaker 1: So Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and
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Speaker 1: some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo.
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Speaker 1: All right, We're going to Africa. Are we in Haiti
9:12
Speaker 1: at this point? Let's do Africa first, Okay. I mean
9:15
Speaker 1: this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six
9:18
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It
9:20
Speaker 1: comes from the Fawn language, which was the kingdom of Fawn,
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Speaker 1: and that means sacred spirit or deity, right, and I
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Speaker 1: think it was like northwest northwest Africa. Northwest it's north
9:34
Speaker 1: central west Africa, so it's west Africa. We're talking. Ghana,
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Speaker 1: Bending and Togo are like the the areas where these
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Speaker 1: ancient kingdoms of Fawn and Congo, Congo with the k
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Speaker 1: um we're located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And I actually got a stat for you. Um, they
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Speaker 1: say that thirty million people in in Togo, Ghana and
9:57
Speaker 1: was it Benin Yeah, still practice vood you today And
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Speaker 1: just to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's
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Speaker 1: about double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow.
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Speaker 1: Is it really Yeah, well there, I mean stats very
10:10
Speaker 1: because depending on if you're like an active practice practitioner
10:13
Speaker 1: of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's about double so it ranks. It's also um an
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Speaker 1: official religion and beneath yeah, they say that of the
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Speaker 1: people of that country follow voodoo still, right, so this
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Speaker 1: is a an established religion. Um. But one of the
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Speaker 1: founding um or foundational tenants of voodoo is that you
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Speaker 1: can communicate with the spirits, and you communicate with the
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Speaker 1: spirits to find out, you know, what you should do
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Speaker 1: from them, then the almighty deity, yeah, the Supreme God
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Speaker 1: right there, the medium right um. One of the one
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Speaker 1: of the other founding tenants of voodoo is you communicate
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Speaker 1: with these people not in your head, not through prayer,
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Speaker 1: but by the the loa um actually possessing someone who
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Speaker 1: then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing?
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Speaker 1: Why you aren't you you know, UM spending more time
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Speaker 1: with your wife, things like that, right. Yeah, we said
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Speaker 1: that It's different in African and Haitian and all over
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Speaker 1: the world and in different time periods, but that's one
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Speaker 1: of the main through lines and all voodoo is possession, spirit, intrusion, possession. Right. Um.
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Speaker 1: The person who's being possessed at the time is known
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Speaker 1: as the horse, and the whatever loa is is possessing
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Speaker 1: him or her is known as the rider. Right. Yeah,
11:36
Speaker 1: that's in Haitian voodoo. How did I get ahead of us? No,
11:39
Speaker 1: that's right, we can, we can kind of jump around. Okay,
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Speaker 1: Well that's really one of the big bridges. Um. That's
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Speaker 1: really the bridge between Haitian voodoo and African voodoo. Right
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Speaker 1: is that spirit possession exists. That's how you find out
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Speaker 1: what you should do in your day to day life. Right. Um.
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Speaker 1: Back in Africa on the African side. Um, some other
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Speaker 1: commonalities between the two. Because again um, or maybe not again,
12:06
Speaker 1: but possibly the first time Haitian Haitian voodoo is African
12:11
Speaker 1: voodoo with creolized yes, right, yeah, so let's get back
12:17
Speaker 1: to talking about African voodoo. I did screw us up,
12:19
Speaker 1: and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to our fans. I'm so sorry, fans,
12:23
Speaker 1: Please forgive me. You never owe me an apology, buddy. Um.
12:26
Speaker 1: So the answer the ancestral spirits make up the lower right. Um.
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Speaker 1: You can take any object and consecrate it, and it
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Speaker 1: becomes a ritual sacred object, right, which is where the
12:38
Speaker 1: dolls come in, which, as you said, are not used
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Speaker 1: for um harm. Right. Well, they can be by the
12:44
Speaker 1: if you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you
12:47
Speaker 1: see in the movies, right or the Brady bunch Um
12:50
Speaker 1: during Yeah, um, the there's a lot of ceremonial dance. Um.
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Speaker 1: Spirits are in vogue through music, percussion, that kind of thing. Um.
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Speaker 1: I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there
13:08
Speaker 1: is a gatekeeper um. And his name in Haitian tradition
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Speaker 1: is papal Legba. Right, I love that name, yeah, Um.
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Speaker 1: And papal Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world
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Speaker 1: and the human world. Right. And he's invoked at the
13:24
Speaker 1: beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him
13:27
Speaker 1: to open the gate so you can start communicating at
13:29
Speaker 1: the low and some things can be people can be possessed. Right.
13:33
Speaker 1: And actually papal Legba is also a one of the
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Speaker 1: black men at the Crossroad, who um bears a striking
13:39
Speaker 1: resemblance to our friend masham Oh really yeah interesting. Yeah.
13:44
Speaker 1: The Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yet, right,
13:48
Speaker 1: we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if
13:50
Speaker 1: some of this sounds familiar, if you're thinking Papa Legba
13:54
Speaker 1: sounds sort of like St. Peter, and the crossroads sounds
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Speaker 1: sort of like the Christian cross there's a very good
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Speaker 1: reason for that. It's because, once again we go back
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Speaker 1: to our friend Christopher Columbus Hispaniola and the fact that
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Speaker 1: they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations.
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Speaker 1: They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was
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Speaker 1: Columbus said, no, no, no no, no, if you're going to
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Speaker 1: be a slave over here, that you have to be
14:20
Speaker 1: converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The
14:23
Speaker 1: French actually did that one go to be baptized, forced conversion.
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Speaker 1: So what they did was, in order to keep practicing voodoo,
14:32
Speaker 1: they incorporated and this or out. My mind was blown.
14:34
Speaker 1: I didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of
14:36
Speaker 1: Catholicism to kind of mask the fact that they were
14:40
Speaker 1: practicing voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's
14:44
Speaker 1: called syncretization. So Catholicism and voodoo working together right crazy.
14:50
Speaker 1: So even today, um, there a lot of the loa
14:55
Speaker 1: there well, there was a lot of ready um uh
15:00
Speaker 1: similarities between these ancestral spirits and Catholic saints. Right. So
15:06
Speaker 1: like St. Peter is associated with papal Legba because St.
15:09
Speaker 1: Peter's the guy who's outside the gates of heaven. Papal
15:12
Speaker 1: Legba is the gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they
15:15
Speaker 1: associate him with him. Um, there is a god who
15:19
Speaker 1: is um pretty powerful. He's a warrior protector god called
15:23
Speaker 1: Ogu and he's associated with St. James who was a
15:27
Speaker 1: warrior protector saint. So it's it wasn't It's not a
15:30
Speaker 1: leap all the time, but sometimes it's a stretch. Like St. Patrick,
15:34
Speaker 1: remember drove out the snakes from Ireland. He's associated with
15:38
Speaker 1: snakes in the Haitian tradition. Um. But yeah, so when
15:43
Speaker 1: you when you look at the underlying um tenants, the
15:48
Speaker 1: really overarching narrative of being able to communicate with spirits,
15:52
Speaker 1: invoking spirits through percussion, percussion, song, dance, I'm being possessed
15:57
Speaker 1: and objects being able to be consecrated it and and
16:01
Speaker 1: become sacred. Um. Then that's voodoo across the board. The
16:06
Speaker 1: voodoo were familiar with. Um, that's Haitian voodoo, which is
16:11
Speaker 1: kind of mixed up with Catholicism. Yeah. I said that.
16:15
Speaker 1: They even incorporated uh, Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah, crazy, Yeah,
16:21
Speaker 1: Tracy Wilson, Yeah she did. Um. So, Josh, you brought
16:25
Speaker 1: up rituals that they would perform to invoke the gods.
16:29
Speaker 1: And one of the tenants of voodoo is the gods
16:32
Speaker 1: will give you advice at all, but you've got to
16:33
Speaker 1: take care of the gods the spirits. And one way
16:37
Speaker 1: that you can do this is by animal sacrifice to
16:40
Speaker 1: appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah. Now this
16:43
Speaker 1: is um again. This is another ticklish aspect of voodoo,
16:46
Speaker 1: isn't it. You know? I mean this is like, oh,
16:48
Speaker 1: they sacrifice animals, They're they're evil. It's like, well, you
16:51
Speaker 1: got the sacrifice animals part, right, right, you know, well
16:55
Speaker 1: they used to sacrifice humans too, did they. Yeah, it's
16:58
Speaker 1: been like at least a hundred years since any of
17:01
Speaker 1: that's gone on in Africa. They say, huh so, Chuck,
17:04
Speaker 1: there's actually um with the animal sacrifices. Um. There there's
17:11
Speaker 1: actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process
17:14
Speaker 1: where so you're you're going to sacrifice a chicken, right, Um?
17:18
Speaker 1: And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated,
17:23
Speaker 1: and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if
17:26
Speaker 1: it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa
17:29
Speaker 1: has rejected that sacrifice, and the animal is set free.
17:33
Speaker 1: If it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. Apparently
17:39
Speaker 1: I guess they don't. But but it's not just chickens.
17:41
Speaker 1: I think this supplies to goats, pigs, whatever sacrifice, right, um.
17:46
Speaker 1: And so if it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead.
17:49
Speaker 1: If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat, it's slip.
17:51
Speaker 1: If it's a chicken, its neck is broken, but it's quick.
17:54
Speaker 1: It's a quick death. It's not you know, tortured or
17:57
Speaker 1: anything like that. The blood is mixed in this um
18:00
Speaker 1: calabash like a big chalice bowl, yeah um, with rum
18:06
Speaker 1: and syrup and salt, and then people will either take
18:10
Speaker 1: a sip or they'll they'll um make a cross on
18:14
Speaker 1: their crucifix on their head in blood. Right. So that's
18:17
Speaker 1: the blood sacrifice. That's where the blood sacrifice ritual stands today.
18:22
Speaker 1: Oh really they still do it that way because Haitians
18:24
Speaker 1: still practice voodoo like uh like right out in the open.
18:29
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's not some like Westerners might think it's
18:31
Speaker 1: like some weird hidden thing, but it's not like that
18:33
Speaker 1: at all. Uh. You also talked about UM when they
18:36
Speaker 1: invoke or when you're possessed. There's I know, there's a
18:39
Speaker 1: dance called the Dance of the hooded uh a gun
18:42
Speaker 1: gun And apparently what happens is when someone is like
18:46
Speaker 1: the spirit overtakes them and they're possessing and they're dancing around.
18:49
Speaker 1: If you touch them, you die, that's what they say.
18:54
Speaker 1: So you gotta like stand in the circle and witness
18:55
Speaker 1: all this and jump part. But you know they're running
18:57
Speaker 1: all over the place, so you gotta like, you know,
18:59
Speaker 1: keep distance and um. They're also if while you're possessed,
19:04
Speaker 1: you are impervious to pain, you can't be injured. Good point.
19:07
Speaker 1: And today I was reading an article from I think
19:10
Speaker 1: two thousand two or two thousand four UM, and this
19:14
Speaker 1: guy was talking about witnessing a a voodoo ritual in
19:18
Speaker 1: West Africa recently. And these guys were um were possessed
19:24
Speaker 1: by Ugu remember the warrior protector spirit um and they
19:28
Speaker 1: were cutting themselves with their knives, blood lighting UM and
19:32
Speaker 1: weren't wincing or anything like that, because apparently one aspect
19:35
Speaker 1: of it is like you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well,
19:39
Speaker 1: and since you brought that up, we should probably go
19:40
Speaker 1: ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some
19:45
Speaker 1: sort of evil, awful thing, right, in addition to the
19:48
Speaker 1: slave uprising, right, Yeah, exactly. One of the reasons you
19:51
Speaker 1: just mentioned was a lot of the there's a lot
19:54
Speaker 1: of self injury that goes on, like, yeah, and so
19:58
Speaker 1: Westerners see that and they think those people are crazy
20:01
Speaker 1: look at them. Well, not just that, but blood making
20:04
Speaker 1: a real appearance, anything dealing with death, the fact that
20:08
Speaker 1: they believe that death is like you know, not necessarily
20:10
Speaker 1: a bad thing, and that the spirits are are still
20:13
Speaker 1: living among us, guiding us. That's not where Westerners aren't
20:17
Speaker 1: typically down with that either. Now, Westerners don't have a
20:19
Speaker 1: stomach for real blood, which is why wine is used
20:23
Speaker 1: in place of it or is a metaphor for it.
20:25
Speaker 1: And like the Christian tradition, and death is something that
20:28
Speaker 1: we don't like to think about or talk about in
20:30
Speaker 1: the West either. Again, though in the voodoo tradition and
20:34
Speaker 1: in a lot of other traditions, um death is just
20:37
Speaker 1: a part of the natural order of things, and it's
20:40
Speaker 1: certainly not the end. I think in the West, it's
20:43
Speaker 1: kind of viewed even by the religious in some cases
20:47
Speaker 1: as the end, and we don't really like to think
20:49
Speaker 1: about that. You know. That's a good point. UM. The
20:52
Speaker 1: other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from nineteen fifteen
20:56
Speaker 1: to nineteen thirty five, the Marine Corps occupied Haiti and
21:00
Speaker 1: during this period there were a lot of books and
21:03
Speaker 1: movies all of a sudden being written about UH and
21:06
Speaker 1: portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy blood
21:10
Speaker 1: letting people, right, so those became really popular. One of
21:13
Speaker 1: them was called White Zombie. Around the same time it
21:19
Speaker 1: had spread UH to New Orleans and kind of who
21:22
Speaker 1: do became popular? Right. In the nineteenth century, there were
21:26
Speaker 1: two women named Marie La Vaux and Um. One was
21:29
Speaker 1: they were the most powerful women in UM in voodoo
21:34
Speaker 1: culture in the US UM and the one was the
21:39
Speaker 1: mom and the one was the daughter. Mom retired and died,
21:42
Speaker 1: the daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her UM.
21:46
Speaker 1: But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers
21:52
Speaker 1: split into factions, and one of the factions became who do,
21:56
Speaker 1: and you do became very powerful. And who do was
21:59
Speaker 1: a mix of bow black magic with voodoo or in
22:04
Speaker 1: the voodoo tradition, I guess. And so now we have
22:08
Speaker 1: who do and that is what most people think of
22:10
Speaker 1: when you think of voodoo in the US, you think
22:12
Speaker 1: of New Orleans. And then what we're actually thinking of
22:14
Speaker 1: is who do not voodoo? Something else, you know, like
22:19
Speaker 1: um chimmy chonga or something exactly. Um um. So these
22:23
Speaker 1: misconceptions still abound. Um. There was a paper in n
22:29
Speaker 1: four that apparently this physician who wrote it, a researcher
22:32
Speaker 1: who wrote it still takes flak four um. But it
22:36
Speaker 1: was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon do
22:40
Speaker 1: necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v
22:45
Speaker 1: during voodooistic rituals? But basically, do necrophiliacs who are into
22:52
Speaker 1: zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason
22:57
Speaker 1: for the spread of AIDS in Haiti? Well, actually there
23:02
Speaker 1: is a certain element of public health to what's going
23:06
Speaker 1: to say, that's like, that's one of the real concerns.
23:08
Speaker 1: It's not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um.
23:14
Speaker 1: Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that
23:16
Speaker 1: they freely bleed on one another and or sharing, you know,
23:20
Speaker 1: the blood of an animal sacrifice, people drinking that that
23:23
Speaker 1: that can be bad stuff. Yeah, so that's a real
23:25
Speaker 1: health concern. Um. Another really practical concern is a lot
23:29
Speaker 1: of and we fail to mention this the priests and
23:31
Speaker 1: priestess is one of their main gigs is to practice
23:34
Speaker 1: folk medicine on on the practitioners of voodoo. Right, because
23:38
Speaker 1: again we said everyday life, like voodoo's part of your
23:41
Speaker 1: everyday life if you were right here, And some of
23:43
Speaker 1: these folk practices kind of fly in the face of
23:45
Speaker 1: real medicine. So that's sort of a concern here and there.
23:48
Speaker 1: I think we should replace the word reel with Western metal. Yeah,
23:51
Speaker 1: you're right. Yeah, you're definitely right, because I believe in
23:54
Speaker 1: a lot of like Eastern medicine, I might look into
23:56
Speaker 1: voodoo might clear up my sinuses. Yeahsietic uh. And like
24:03
Speaker 1: we said, um, death is a big, big part of it.
24:06
Speaker 1: And just the culture of fear that it creates is
24:10
Speaker 1: something that is a big turn off for a lot
24:12
Speaker 1: of Well, it creates a culture of fear in the
24:15
Speaker 1: in the West, it is, but again, there's I think
24:18
Speaker 1: even informed, um educated people have misconceptions about voodoo because
24:25
Speaker 1: it's been harangued so long in this country that people
24:29
Speaker 1: in the US just really don't understand what what it
24:33
Speaker 1: is that's going on down there, and there's so many misunderstandings. Yeah,
24:39
Speaker 1: they see angel heart, but even beyond that, like even
24:42
Speaker 1: if even if you don't think it's who do you're
24:45
Speaker 1: You're like, okay, well they're turning people into zombies. We
24:47
Speaker 1: did the how zombies work thing and it's real down there. Um,
24:52
Speaker 1: but that's not voodoo. That's bo right, yeah, exactly. Um,
24:57
Speaker 1: So it's kind of it makes me um sad for voodoo.
25:01
Speaker 1: I guess a little sad for voodoo. It makes me
25:03
Speaker 1: sad for the Mamba's. Well, it's definitely um has a
25:06
Speaker 1: stigma about it, and until I read all about it,
25:09
Speaker 1: I probably fell into that same trap. But then you
25:12
Speaker 1: start realizing aside from like spiritual possession and a couple
25:15
Speaker 1: of the other things, like you know, it's not so
25:17
Speaker 1: different than other religions when you look at it, and
25:19
Speaker 1: I think Buddhist actually, I think there are times when
25:23
Speaker 1: Buddhism when there is spiritual possession going on there too Christianity. Now, yeah,
25:28
Speaker 1: there's a good example in this article of um spirit
25:33
Speaker 1: possession happening in the Buddhist tradition, right, Yeah, that's where
25:37
Speaker 1: I heard it. Yeah, all right, there was um in
25:40
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine. The Dalai Lama was Um speaking with
25:44
Speaker 1: an oracle that was possessed Um, and the oracle gave
25:48
Speaker 1: him advice on how to escape the Chinese Army successfully
25:54
Speaker 1: that spirit possession. But it's Buddhism and they don't sacrifice chickens, right,
26:00
Speaker 1: I think that that's kind of it. There's a lot
26:02
Speaker 1: of blood and death in voodoo and people are afraid
26:06
Speaker 1: of it, right, Um. But I read it or saw
26:09
Speaker 1: a thing on NPR today where one guy went down
26:12
Speaker 1: and spent some time with with the voodoo um practitioners,
26:15
Speaker 1: and I think Haiti and he said, maybe his Ira
26:20
Speaker 1: Glass people are crazy. That's more Woody Allen than Ira Glass. Um.
26:27
Speaker 1: But he basically like in the dark Side, even the
26:29
Speaker 1: bow to the concept of heaven and hell and Western religion,
26:33
Speaker 1: and he he said, quote, the whole point is to
26:35
Speaker 1: manifest the darkness so that goodness can overwhelm it. And
26:39
Speaker 1: it's the same in voodoo as it is in Christianity.
26:41
Speaker 1: And you know, actually I said that Christianity they don't
26:43
Speaker 1: believe in like possession at all. Not quite true. Oh yeah,
26:47
Speaker 1: some some like Southern Baptist and Pentecostal believe that the
26:52
Speaker 1: spirit can overtake you in such a way. So I
26:55
Speaker 1: was not quite right there. But again, think about how
26:57
Speaker 1: those people are looked at from the same people who
27:00
Speaker 1: look at voodoo as you know, unseemly. Yeah, good point.
27:06
Speaker 1: But what what's going on now though, is there's there's
27:08
Speaker 1: sort of an outright war from on Voodoo by missionaries
27:13
Speaker 1: still going there to convert them from what they say
27:16
Speaker 1: as a cult, right or associated with the devil. Well, yeah,
27:19
Speaker 1: they associated with Satan, which is ridiculous because nothing about
27:22
Speaker 1: voodoo has anything to do with Satan. I don't even
27:25
Speaker 1: believe it exists. Yeah, so this is Western Christians kind
27:29
Speaker 1: of just putting all their stuff on them, lots of
27:31
Speaker 1: hang ups. Yeah, we uh Anglo Saxon descendants really like
27:36
Speaker 1: to hang our hang ups on other people. Right, Yeah,
27:40
Speaker 1: let's let's stop that. Well I mentioned Angel Hart. We
27:42
Speaker 1: should mention the movies real quick. Angel Hart, great movie,
27:46
Speaker 1: Who do Surpent in the Rainbow? Great movie? But again
27:51
Speaker 1: that was Wade Davis, the anthropologist, and he's done a lot.
27:54
Speaker 1: That's who that was. Yeah, he's done well, it was
27:56
Speaker 1: bull Bill Pullman playing him. But um, he's done a lot.
28:00
Speaker 1: Actually to a cloud voodoo to continue these misconceptions rather
28:04
Speaker 1: than clear them up. Really yeah, but he's made a
28:07
Speaker 1: lot of money along the way. Good point. Uh, and
28:09
Speaker 1: then of course Live and Let Die. We like to
28:11
Speaker 1: talk about Bond that have some voodoo in that best
28:13
Speaker 1: Bond ever Roger Moore. God, it's so true. Roger Moore
28:19
Speaker 1: was awful. Dude, Dude, Roger Moore was great. I grew
28:22
Speaker 1: up with Roger Moore, so I like, like, I have
28:25
Speaker 1: a certain affinity for some of those films, some of
28:27
Speaker 1: his earlier ones. But it got to the point where
28:29
Speaker 1: it was just like a cartoon of himself. He was
28:34
Speaker 1: never the butt kicker like Conner he was, or the
28:37
Speaker 1: new guys know whatever, Dalton or who's the name of
28:40
Speaker 1: that Greig. All right, Well, if you want to learn
28:42
Speaker 1: more about James Bond and Voodoo, you can type James
28:46
Speaker 1: Bond and Voodoo into the handy search bar how stuff
28:49
Speaker 1: works dot Com. If doesn't work, which I can pretty
28:51
Speaker 1: much guarantee it won't just type voodoo try that one.
28:54
Speaker 1: And since I said handy search bar how stuff works
28:56
Speaker 1: dot Com, it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm gonna
29:01
Speaker 1: call this ghost prisons for reels? Did you read this
29:06
Speaker 1: one from will h Hey, guys, just thought I would
29:08
Speaker 1: drop a line about my interaction with your recent ghost
29:11
Speaker 1: prisons topic, which we have yet to get a lot
29:13
Speaker 1: of flag for. We've gotten zero flak. I'm ready for
29:17
Speaker 1: some flag to come, aren't way thought? Some way people
29:19
Speaker 1: stopped listening a long time ago. I have met on
29:22
Speaker 1: several occasions a man by the name of I'll go
29:26
Speaker 1: ahead and say his name, Mom do Habib, who was
29:28
Speaker 1: very prominent in the Australian media for being an Australian
29:31
Speaker 1: citizen held at Gitmo or Jitmo Gitmo Gitmo alright, because Kuantanamo,
29:38
Speaker 1: It's not Juantanamo Guantanamo. Through my conversations with him, it
29:44
Speaker 1: was clear that he had not only been tained at Clontanamo,
29:46
Speaker 1: but also was a subject to extraordinary rendition. He was
29:51
Speaker 1: captured by the US in Pakistan, sent to Egypt, where
29:54
Speaker 1: he was held for six months and tortured. The torture, however,
29:57
Speaker 1: was ineffective because of the misadministration of drugs by U
30:01
Speaker 1: S agents, which rendered him almost above feeling for most
30:05
Speaker 1: of the time, so like they doped him up so
30:07
Speaker 1: much he couldn't even feel the torture, basically almost as
30:11
Speaker 1: if he was under the power of the voodoo spell
30:14
Speaker 1: or under the power of morphine. After six months, he
30:18
Speaker 1: was dumped back in the Pantis Pakistan, before getting picked
30:22
Speaker 1: up again and taken to Gitmo. It was apparently common
30:25
Speaker 1: policy for the US to first torture then imprisoned in
30:29
Speaker 1: Guantanamo Bay in order to use the torture findings. However,
30:33
Speaker 1: mainly due to the tireless campaigning of his wife, he
30:36
Speaker 1: was released from Guantanamo and returned to OZ. However, judging
30:40
Speaker 1: from the times I have met him, the experience will
30:43
Speaker 1: never leave him. In regards to the tortured, I forgot
30:50
Speaker 1: all about it, but you want to come over for
30:51
Speaker 1: Bobby for a for a stubby. In regards to the
30:57
Speaker 1: perception that Obama is better in turn of this stuff,
31:00
Speaker 1: it is unfortunately not the case. Say that Gitmo has
31:04
Speaker 1: been replaced by a Bogram airbase in Afghanistan, a prison
31:07
Speaker 1: even further from the public eyes. Keep up the great work, guys,
31:10
Speaker 1: hopefus finds you in good health. There is no way
31:13
Speaker 1: to end that softly. It's gonna stop here and keep up.
31:17
Speaker 1: So that comes from Will and he says peace right
31:20
Speaker 1: on Will, Peace to you two, my friend. So, uh,
31:25
Speaker 1: what do you want to call for? Chuck? I don't know.
31:27
Speaker 1: It's something interesting. How about if you are a practitioner
31:32
Speaker 1: of voodoo. That is excellent, Chuck. We want to hear
31:35
Speaker 1: from you. Yes, please do let us know. Um, if
31:37
Speaker 1: you're a practitioner voodoo, we would love to hear from you.
31:40
Speaker 1: Let us know what's going on and what we got
31:42
Speaker 1: glaringly wrong or omitted because this one could like this
31:46
Speaker 1: one could use filling out. I think a little more.
31:47
Speaker 1: What are they called voodoours, voodoo practitioners, voodooists, voodooists? You
31:52
Speaker 1: know the line in placing styles? Now go do that
31:55
Speaker 1: voodoo that you do so well? Yes, late Harvey Corman. Yeah. Um.
32:00
Speaker 1: You can also follow us on Twitter, s Y s
32:02
Speaker 1: K podcast. We have a Facebook page that we like
32:05
Speaker 1: to hang out on sometimes. It's called uh stuff you
32:08
Speaker 1: should know. Website in parentheses and you can send us
32:12
Speaker 1: that email if you are into voodoo at stuff podcast
32:16
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com. For more on this
32:23
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works
32:25
Speaker 1: dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
32:29
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32:34
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32:37
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