I live in an area (as does BigNeverMo) where the practice of Santería is widespread.
I sometimes see the fruits of the sacrifices to the Santeria gods on the railroad tracks not far from where I live: dead fowl on the tracks. The practitioners believe there is some mighty mojo in the combination of the sacrificed animal and iron (represented by the railroad tracks).
The criminal court building had a special crew just to clean up the creatures sacrificed by persons in an effort to appease the gods to let their relatives be found not guilty of criminal charges. Eventually, the court officials made a designated area specifically for this purpose.
Around town, you'll see men or women dressed entirely in white. They are santeros/santeras - priests or priestess - of Santería.
We truly live in a demon haunted world ... at least in South Florida.
we have a large population of Haitians here as well as Cubans... i never heard about the court thingy though,,,interesting! we have vultures downtown too!! or we used to!!
Ogun is represented by the train tracks. In parts of Florida it is hard to swing a dead chicken without hitting....a dead chicken. A little santeria humor.
It is a valid spiritual practice but the number of those who abuse the power and trust can be high. A good book is Living Santeria by Michael Mason, a curator at the Smithsonian who took up the practice.
It is about finding balance in one's path and aligning oneseldf with beneficial energies but that sometimes gets lost in the petty curse warfare. The media misrepresentation is chronic. The Ifa foundation of north America deals with the practice in a more stripped down way and removes a lot of the applied culteral stuff.
They don't kill animals to appease a god- It's for a favour and the payment is blood or a life sometimes. I'm not condoning or condemning it; As far as I understand, Santeria practioners do it humanely.
Back in my pagan days, i did look into the religion a little, but it wasn't for me.
Lindi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Killing animals to appease their god? Sounds like > a terrible religion. What kind of a god relishes > violence and death?
You read a lot about it in the Bible and it is a part of many religions . It is a protected right in the US.
Voodoo is different from Santeria. There is also Palo and root work, among others. They are based on African practices that spread when African slaves were taken to other countries.
Some of the practices are about control and others are about balance. There are good and bad people who practice them and those who are good do it to help people find balance and the right path. It is believed by making an offering to an energy that you are influencing things in positive mannner. I have experienced things that come under the category of a miracle. ...things that should be medically impossible. Other things that the coincidence was so small as to be near impossible.