#1050: (No subject specified) Answer to David Young (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Moibibi@aol.com

Thank you for the courage you have shown, David.
It appears that some people have turned intelligence into irrationalities and 
abnormal behaviors. It has become fashionable to choose to set lies and 
untruths as the standards for success and acceptance in society as a whole. 
In fact the forces of  irrationality have such a firm groundings that 
malevolence has become good. Nowadays, the art of deceit is promoted as a 
good doctrine when dishonesty is attached to success and money. Surely we 
cannot deny that many among us truly believe that lying and reckless 
unprincipled behavior is good. Few are those who don't believe that immoral 
behavior is good if it brings self satisfaction, money or an enviable 
position. 
I am certain that Hougan Max Beauvoir was never met by his antagonists, even 
by our generous host Mr. Bob Corbett wrote the following:
"Max Beauvoir, his key connection in Haiti for making all these contacts, 
does not at all seem a reliable contact to me. Beauvoir's representing 
himself as an important Voodoo leader during the period of Duvalier's fall, 
was evidence of his unreliability. To the best of my understanding Beauvoir 
-- certainly a houngan -- was mainly occupied in running show voodoo in his 
night spot for tourists, and not doing religious Voodoo for the people and 
lwa". 
(Comments about Wade Davis book: The Serpent and the Rainbow by Bob Corbett 
Oct. 1987).

Ms. Grey, in her unswerving effort to devalorize Hougan Max Beauvoir and 
Vodoun in general, takes great pleasure quoting Ms. Willens, great publicist 
and apologist for Mr. Aristide, who would have erroneously written than 
Hougan Max Beauvoir claimed to cure AIDS. 

Hougan Max Beauvoir is respected by his peers. By having a public ceremony 
every night until 1986, he, like his sister Mathilda in Paris, has paved the 
road which leads all foreigners to all hounfò in Haiti to day, for a better 
understanding of our religion and our culture. He has opened the doors to his 
detractors and I would understand that to be a subject of debate even though 
I have never heard any Hougan nor Mambo in Haiti disapprove of his actions. 
Are Vodoungs allowed to judge us?

I do not deny the right of Ms. Grey of taking her followers to be initiated 
in Haiti, since she obviously cannot do it herself. If she wants to believe 
that it is through initiation that our respected clergy makes a living, I 
just wish her good luck. Incomprehension, greed and may be the forces of our 
time may have obviously been her motivating forces but I don't believe that 
setting  lies and untruths could ever be a standard for success.

Bebe Pierre Louis