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#2540: Dolls in Voodoo : A reply to Teshteh (fwd)
From: madison bell <mbell@goucher.edu>
well yeah, dolls are sometimes used in practical magic of Haitian
Vodou. the sticking of pins in the dolls is sort of a Hollywood Cliche and
Kathy Grey is right, I think, it derives from the practice of European
witches. Of course there is probably some conflation of the two...
About teshteh's specific episode.... You don't seem worried about it. So
don't be.
There is a concept that if you are sent a spiritual attack and your spirit
is stronger than that of the attacker then the attack will be deflected or
reflected from you to the attacker. The term for this event is choc en
retour. I have been on the receiving end of that a couple of times and...
suffice it to say I found it very convincing. And what's interesting is
that the response-- the boomerang shock-- was precisely to the measure of
the original attack, as if it had simply been cycled through the intended
target and returned to the sender. One finds very similar phenomena in
internal martial arts.
My guess if that if you are not guilty of anything connected to the story
you tell, you don't have a weak point for an attack and therefore you won't
be harmed. Still, I'd agree with your Haitian friends to this extent: next
time you see one of those things at the crossroad, don't open it. Don't
touch it. Just leave it alone.
If you assume the effect of magical attacks is entirely based on the power
of suggestion, then disbelief is a sufficient defense. I think there is
something to that attitude but I don't subscribe to it a hundred
percent. I once had a discussion with someone on this subject and the
example I used was: "if you grab hold of a live power line, how much will
your belief or disbelief in electricity affect whether or not you get
electrocuted?"
In other words, I am inclined to think this stuff is real. But what I
believe is that your own spiritual state is what either lays you open to
magical attack or protects you from it. To the extent that your intention
is clear, you are safe from such harm.
By the way, these ideas are my own, based on limited personal
experience. I don't pretend that they represent any orthodoxy.
msb