The Beginner’s Guide to… Voodoo
C4 Thursday 18 October at 11pm
In the final programme in this series of Beginner’s Guides, Samuel Preston, lead singer of The Ordinary Boys, embarks on a personal journey of discovery to challenge his resistance to religion and to delve into the world of Voodoo, ‘the black sheep of religion’.
Despite his cynicism about putting his faith in unproven ideas, Samuel Preston agrees to go in search of a Voodoo master who is prepared to initiate him in some of the rituals of this misunderstood religion. His journey takes him from his hometown of Brighton, via a Cuban Voodoo practitioner in Bristol, to the West African republic of Benin. What will Preston learn about one of the world's most mysterious religions, and what will he learn about himself in the course of his investigations?
Before travelling to Benin, Preston investigates how Voodoo is practised in the UK. His first port of call is Ross Heaven, a healer who learned his art in Haiti and who draws on Voodoo in his attempts to cure people of their ailments. Preston hasn't had a good night's sleep in over two years, so he challenges him to cure his insomnia. After the ritual, he doesn’t feel he knows any more about the religion than when he started, and nor can he detect any difference in his sleeping patterns.
Next, Preston meets an African priest, Dr Kola Abimbola. He explains the history that gave rise to Voodoo's sinister reputation. At the height of the slave trade, between 60% and 70% of those captured in Africa were brought to Benin before being exported abroad. The slave masters were uncomfortable with the strange religious rituals practised by their captives, and associated them with devil worship. This legacy remains today.
The truth is much more benign, according to Abimbola: Voodoo is a religion ‘where people are fundamentally interested in respecting and worshipping and honouring nature’. In Voodoo, he explains, there is one main god beneath whom there are a large number of deities, each associated with an element of nature. If you keep them happy they will look after you.
By now, both excited and apprehensive at the thought of visiting the only country in the world where Voodoo is the recognised national religion, Preston sets out for Benin. On a visit to the temple of Zakpata, Preston witnesses a healing ceremony conducted by the head priest. He sees a goat sacrificed and its blood poured on the shrine as an offering, to entice the deity to come down and take possession of one of the congregation. Preston is told that he needs to find out who his personal protective deity is, to prevent anything bad from happening.
With this in mind he travels to the town of Oida, the spiritual capital of Voodoo. This is the port through which 1.5 million slaves left African soil. He travels to a local village where a high priest acts as his spiritual adviser. An elaborate ceremony reveals Mamacita as Preston's guardian deity. This god of water is the very deity that Preston was attracted to when he visited Bristol. The spiritual adviser conducts a further ceremony on the beach, offering sweets, flowers, eggs, perfume, candles and alcohol to Mamacita in an attempt to join the deity and Preston forever.
The priest tells him that Mamacita will visit him on Fridays and that she is a jealous god, who will not want his wife around on ‘her’ day. Finally Preston takes the opportunity to ask his new guardian spirit some very personal questions. Mamacita is not very positive about how long his wife will stick around.
Back home in Brighton, Preston’s wife is predictably unimpressed, and is not prepared to move out of her side of the bed to make way for a Voodoo deity. Preston would like to believe in it all because he can see how happy Voodoo followers are, but that is not to be. He is sleeping better, though – but he puts that down to alcohol being a necessary element in the rituals.
