Exorcising My Demons In Haiti

Haitians spend much time driving away evil spirits. www.realworldimage.com

By candlelight, I sat down in a chair next to Silva. He seemed to be in some kind of trance, staring about the room wildly.

By Citizen Correspondent Norman Parker , Spain

Date Posted: 07/25/07

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The genesis of my Haiti story lay not so much in the fact that I was interested in voodoo per se, but more in that I was looking for a situation to put myself in that would freak out the average person. With Hallowe'en fast approaching, I figured that, of all the places not to be at midnight on that day, a voodoo ceremony in Haiti must rank at the top of the list. However, I did have a passing interest in voodoo for personal reasons.

Following the death of my girlfriend in front of a train several years previously, I had been subjected to a period of what I can only call haunting. There had been several very obvious poltergeist effects.

Subsequent to that, an old Jew, well versed in mysticism, whom I had met on just one occasion over a business deal, had warned a friend of mine to tell me that something was trying to take me over and that I should fight it. He had seemed a sensible old man, whom I had never seen before, nor was likely to see again. There was no reason for him to lie to me.

Last but not least, there was the small matter of the two lives I had taken. They do say that, when you die, you meet the spirits of all those you have wronged. So what of my own spirit? To have done those supremely evil acts, did that not have strong implications for the nature of my soul?

I knew that the priest/witch doctors of the voodoo religion were well versed in manipulating the spirit world. They also spent a lot of their time striving against evil spirits. Should I have such spirits in me, they would be just the people to ask what to do.

My first mistake had been in thinking that, for Haitians, it was Hallowe'en that they were celebrating. This is a very Westernised tradition, but, like so many other similar traditions, it is celebrated worldwide in other forms. Haitians specifically celebrate the Day of the Dead. There are numerous ceremonies in cemeteries all over the island with the biggest being in the sprawling central cemetery in the capital Port-au-Prince.

Voodoo has strong historical links with Catholicism.