Human development through vodoun

An African-based religion particularly prevalent in Haiti, with a complex system of deities, voodoo has came to be associated with any African-derived American ritual involving magic and spirit possession. It is based on the worship of gods, deities and ancestral spirits with the grafting-on of Catholic saints deriving from the Christian religion which slave masters sought to impose. Although one supreme being or God is recognized, he is thought too remote to be approached directly in worship. Instead, lesser gods and ancestral spirits – loa – are worshipped, these not being omnipotent but each having particular characteristics, whether peaceable or violent, kind or vindictive. Pleasing the gods brings their favour on the devotee. Dhanbhalah-Wedo – the serpent is the oldest ancestor, creator of earth, water, stars and planets. Legba – (the sprinkler of water or an old man with a crutch) consolidates the mysteries as a personification of ritual waters. Others are Aida-Wedo – the wife of Dnabhalah-Wedo, a personification of the rainbow or, as Maîtresse Erzulie, moon wife of Legba the sun. Legba is also severally identified with St Peter, Christ, and the patron of sorcery, Maître Carrefour. Main rites are rada, which emphasizes the gentler side of the gods and follows traditional African patterns, and petro or pethro, which originates in more violent ceremonies developed in the Caribbean, emphasizing death and vengeance.

According to vodoun, every human is an assembly of five parts. The physical body (corps cadavre) functions through its spirit (n'âme), which dissipates as energy when the body dies. Each person also has a star of destiny in heaven (z'étoile). There are two "souls", both able to survive independent of the body: the big good angel (gros bon ange)  part of the life force which comes into the person when he or she is conceived, maintains the body alive and returns to the reservoir of life force at death, to be used again; and the little good angel (ti bon ange) the experiencer of dreams, the repository of the person's knowledge and experience, and that component susceptible to sorcery. It is the ti bon ange which, if it survives for seven days after the body's death without being captured by a sorcerer and made into a zombie astral, is ritually released from the flesh by a priest. It remains in dark waters for a year and a day, after which the deceased person's family raises it as a spirit (esprit). The esprit is kept in a govi (container on the altar of the Vodoun temple) from whence it is released to live in trees and rocks until it is born again. After 16 lifetimes the spirit returns to Danbhalah-Wedo, part of the overall great cosmic energy.

All things, but especially trees, are seen as expressions of God and an extension of him, serving the loa. A person may come into communion with the loa when his or her body and mind are possessed by the loa or god through the intermediary of a priest (houngan) or priestess (mambo), the loa being called from the astral plane by a chorus of Vodoun members (hounsis) under the direction of a usually female leader (houghenikon). Such possession is also called the "hand of divine grace". The houngan or mambo is also healer, diviner and psychologist, and in this sense acts for the positive development of the devotee. However, he or she may also curse or enslave by practising sorcery – as a bokor, "serving the loa with both hands".