Obeah

Of all the Living Traditions, Obeah has remained the most elusive. Whilst Vodou and Santeria have had both academic and occult treatment in tomes widely available to the seeker, Obeah has stayed uncompromisingly rooted as a sorcerous tradition veiled in obscurity. In OBEAH: A SORCEROUS OSSUARY, Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold teases open this Caribbean mystery and reveals a crooked path into the hidden world of Papa Bones and Sasabonsam with a short monograph concerning the history of this incoherent cult and the ways in which power is bestowed upon and wielded by the Obeahman. The text includes the Kabalistic Banquette of Lemegeton, the Hypostasis of Abysina Clarissa and the Green Beasts, a Kabalistic Mass for Anima Sola Mayanet, a Call to Papa Bones, a Call to Spirit Guides, a Call to Anima Sola Abysina Clarissa, the Missale Ezekiel Sasabonson or the Conjuration of the Shadow-Self, and the Ritual Reptilica de Anansi, and offers insights into the Obeahman's special relationship with the spirits of wood, water, and bone.

In Obeah, Christ and Rastaman, Ivor Morrish sets out to chronicle the religious history of the Jamaican people. Drawing from a rich, complicated history, Morrish lays out the religious tapestry of Jamaica from its native origins, up through the slave trade and the introduction of Christianity, ending in the nineteenth century with the emergence of traditions that would later become associated with Rastafarianism. Morrish discusses Jamaica’s colonial past and culture post-slavery, dispelling myths around African savagery and barbarism that were still persistent around the time of the book’s original publication. He also explores the socio-political roots of Rastafarianism and its rise amongst the disenfranchised. Also included is a brief discussion of the immigrant experience of Jamaicans in England, showing how a deeply spiritual people deal with the secular materialism of their former imperial capital. Obeah, Christ and Rastaman is an intriguing artefact of early Afro-Caribbean Studies from a religious perspective. Morrish treats his subject matter with respect and dignity, facing the subjugation of the Jamaican people head on and considering their possible paths to salvation.

This collection looks at Caribbean religious history from the late 18th century to the present including obeah, vodou, santeria, candomble, and brujeria. The contributors examine how these religions have been affected by many forces including colonialism, law, race, gender, class, state power, media represenation, and the academy.

The secrets of Santeria, Voodoo and Obeah are among the oldest enigmas in the world. Their roots go back to pre-historic Africa - perhaps even beyond that. From the 16th century onwards, the slave trade brought these ancient mysteries to the West, where they blended strangely with traditional Christianity: the ancient African gods became identified with legendary saints. This integration of the two faiths slowly evolved to form the many varieties of Santeria, Obeah and Voudoun that are widely practiced throughout the world today. Their characteristic dancing and drumming seem able to invoke strange states of mind in which almost anything is possible. Even stories of zombies - the walking dead - still persist. Is there a rational explanation for them? Contemporary Voudoun priests, priestesses, magicians and enchanters use rare herbs and spices as well as charms, dolls and talismans to control the natural world in ways that science cannot always explain. Accounts of their inexplicable successes are examined in depth. Most intriguing of all are the claims that are made for their love philtres and aphrodisiacs. What powers do these old religions still possess?

In Obeah, Race and Racism, Eugenia O'Neal vividly discusses the tradition of African magic and witchcraft, traces its voyage across the Atlantic and its subsequent evolution on the plantations of the New World, and provides a detailed map of how English writers, poets and dramatists interpreted it for English audiences. The triangular trade in guns and baubles, enslaved Africans and gold, sugar and cotton was mirrored by a similar intellectual trade borne in the reports, accounts and stories that fed the perceptions and prejudices of everyone involved in the slave trade and no subject was more fascinating and disconcerting to Europeans than the religious beliefs of the people they had enslaved. Indeed, African magic made its own triangular voyage; starting from Africa, Obeah crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, then journeyed back across the ocean, in the form of traveller's narratives and plantation reports, to Great Britain where it was incorporated into the plots of scores of books and stories which went on to shape and form the world view of explorers and colonial officials in Britain's far-flung empire. O'Neal examines what British writers knew or thought they knew about Obeah and discusses how their perceptions of black people were shaped by their perceptions of Obeah. Translated or interpreted by racist writers as a devil-worshipping religion, Obeah came to symbolize the brutality, savagery and superstition in which blacks were thought to be immured by their very race. For many writers, black belief in Obeah proved black inferiority and justified both slavery and white colonial domination. The English reading public became generally convinced that Obeah was evil and that blacks were, at worst, devil worshippers or, at best, extremely stupid and credulous. And because books and stories on Obeah continued to promulgate either of the two prevailing perspectives, and sometimes both together until at least the 1950s, theories of black inferiority continue to hold sway in Great Britain today.

In 2011, Trinidad declared a state of emergency. This massive state intervention lasted for 108 days and led to the rounding up of over 7,000 people in areas the state deemed “crime hot spots.” The government justified this action and subsequent police violence on the grounds that these measures were restoring “the rule of law.” In this milieu of expanded policing powers, protests occasioned by police violence against lower-class black people have often garnered little sympathy. But in an improbable turn of events, six officers involved in the shooting of three young people were charged with murder at the height of the state of emergency. To explain this, the host of Crime Watch, the nation’s most popular television show, alleged that there must be a special power at work: obeah. From eighteenth-century slave rebellions to contemporary responses to police brutality, Caribbean methods of problem-solving “spiritual work” have been criminalized under the label of “obeah.” Connected to a justice-making force, obeah remains a crime in many parts of the anglophone Caribbean. In Experiments with Power, J. Brent Crosson addresses the complex question of what obeah is. Redescribing obeah as “science” and “experiments,” Caribbean spiritual workers unsettle the moral and racial foundations of Western categories of religion. Based on more than a decade of conversations with spiritual workers during and after the state of emergency, this book shows how the reframing of religious practice as an experiment with power transforms conceptions of religion and law in modern nation-states.

Looks at the history, beliefs, and practices of Santeria, Voodoo, and Obeah.