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Liber XXXIV · Vodou & Hoodoo

Liber XXXIV · Vodou & Hoodoo

Spirit Possession in Vodou and Afro-Atlantic Religions

Spirit possession in Vodou, Santería, Candomblé and Vodun: what devotees mean by being 'mounted', how it unfolds in ritual, and how scholars explain it.

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Spirit possession is the moment in Vodou, Santería, Candomblé and West African Vodun when a spirit is believed to take over a devotee's body, so that the community can see, hear and speak with it directly. Practitioners describe it as a spirit "mounting" or "riding" a person, who becomes its "horse"; the spirit dances, eats, gives advice and blessings, and then departs, usually leaving the medium with little or no memory of what happened.

What Spirit Possession Means in Vodou and Its Sister Religions§

The religions that grew from West and Central African traditions in the Atlantic world share a basic conviction: the spirits are not remote. They live close to the human community, have personalities, preferences and histories, and want to be fed, praised and consulted. Possession is the most direct form of that relationship. In a ceremony a spirit arrives in the body of a devotee and, for a time, the person's own personality steps aside. The spirit greets the congregation, dances, comforts the sick and gives counsel.

Devotees speak less of a person "going into trance" than of a spirit "coming down" or "taking its horse"; the focus is on the visitor. In Haitian Vodou, the spirits are the lwa, servants of a distant creator, Bondye (see The Lwa of Haitian Vodou). In Cuban Santería they are the orishas, in Brazilian Candomblé the orixás, and in Benin and Togo the vodun. Spirits of the dead can also possess, especially in Cuban Palo, Brazilian Umbanda and Haitian ceremonies for the Gede.

For practitioners, possession is a gift and a responsibility, not a spectacle: it proves the spirits are present and gives ordinary people direct access to divine advice. It is also a main reason these religions have been misunderstood (see What Is Voodoo?).

Horses and Riders: The Language of Possession§

The most widespread image is that of a horse and its rider. In Haitian Creole a possessed person is the chwal (horse) of the lwa, and one says that the lwa monte (mounts) him or her. Because the horse is not the speaker, a lwa will often refer to the medium in the third person. Zora Neale Hurston's 1938 book Tell My Horse takes its title from this habit of the Gede spirits.

Haitian theology explains the experience through its model of the person, which includes two spiritual components often called the gwo bonnanj (big good angel), the personal consciousness and life-force, and the ti bonnanj (little good angel), associated with conscience and individual character. Accounts differ on details, but ethnographers such as Alfred Métraux and Maya Deren reported the common explanation that during possession the lwa displaces the gwo bonnanj, which is why the horse remembers nothing. Each initiate also has a mèt tèt, the "master of the head", the lwa who most closely owns and protects that person and who is most likely to ride them.

Similar vocabulary appears across the Afro-Atlantic world. In Cuban Santería an initiate may be called the caballo (horse) of the orisha, and devotees say the saint "has come down" or "mounted". In Candomblé, devotees speak of virar no santo, "turning into the saint", and Umbanda uses the more Spiritist word incorporação, "incorporation". In Fon and Ewe Vodun, the deity is said to come onto the head of its devotee, the vodunsi or "wife of the vodun". The head, in all of these systems, is the seat where spirit and person meet.

How Possession Unfolds in Ceremony§

Possession rarely happens out of nowhere. A Haitian Vodou ceremony moves through a fixed order of songs and salutes. It begins with prayers and Catholic litanies, then salutes Legba, the guardian of the gate, and proceeds through the spirits in sequence, each with its songs and drum rhythms. The rhythms and songs in effect invite a particular spirit, so possession tends to follow the order of the ceremony.

The arrival is often dramatic. The devotee may stagger or be thrown about while others steady them, before the body settles into the spirit's characteristic posture. Ogou stands as a soldier and calls for his machete and red scarf; Danbala, the serpent, may slide on the ground and climb the central post; Ezili Freda moves with the refinement of a wealthy lady and asks for perfume and jewellery; Legba arrives as a lame old man with a cane. Assistants then dress the horse in the spirit's colours and give it the objects it asks for. The spirit greets the priests, dances, takes its favourite offerings and speaks with people one by one.

When the spirit departs, the horse may collapse briefly or seem dazed, and is helped to rest. Afterwards, the community tells the person what the spirit said and did. In Candomblé, an orixá's departure may be followed by a gentler, child-like state called erê, in which the initiate behaves playfully before returning to ordinary consciousness.

Who becomes possessed§

Not everyone is expected to receive the spirits. Candomblé houses have initiates, the ekedi (women) and ogã (men), who never enter possession and instead care for the possessed or drum. In Haiti, senior priests often guide a ceremony without being ridden. Possession of an uninitiated visitor is generally read as a spirit calling that person to serve it.

Possession Across the Afro-Atlantic: Haiti, Cuba, Brazil and Benin§

Although the vocabulary is shared, each tradition gives possession its own shape.

  • West African Vodun. Among the Fon and Ewe of Benin and Togo, devotees are trained in convents where they learn the songs, dances and language of their deity before emerging to dance publicly. Possession is a regular part of public festivals, as described in West African Vodun.
  • Haitian Vodou. Rada, Petwo and Gede spirits each possess in their own style, from the cool dignity of the Rada lwa to the heat of Petwo spirits and the bawdy humour of the Gede (see The Gede and Fèt Gede).
  • Cuban Santería (Lucumí). In the tambor, a drumming feast for the orishas played on consecrated batá drums, an orisha may mount an initiate who is then dressed and gives advice. Only those properly prepared are expected to be ridden by their tutelary orisha; see Santería and the Orishas.
  • Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda. In Candomblé the orixá usually does not speak; it dances, embraces devotees and receives homage in elaborate costume. In Umbanda, by contrast, spirits such as caboclos and pretos-velhos talk at length and offer personal consultations, a difference explored in Candomblé and Umbanda.

Umbanda absorbed the mediumship of French Spiritism, which emphasised communication with spirits of the dead, while Candomblé preserved a Yoruba-derived emphasis on the orixá as a force of nature to be embodied rather than consulted. For the Spiritist background, see Allan Kardec and Spiritism.

Initiation, Training and the Ethics of Possession§

Practitioners insist that possession must be learned and governed, since a spirit arriving in an untrained person can be violent. Initiation is understood partly as preparing the head: in Haiti the rites of lave tèt (head washing) and kanzo settle the lwa in the initiate; in Santería and Candomblé the initiation called "making the saint" seats the orisha or orixá on the initiate's head. After initiation, possession is expected to be more orderly and more closely tied to the person's own guardian spirit.

Communities also judge authenticity. Deren, Karen McCarthy Brown and others describe how congregations test whether a manifestation is genuine, for example by the spirit's knowledge, its proper songs and gestures, or by feats that the ordinary person could not perform. Feigned possession is recognised and criticised, and priests use rattles, bells and songs to control the order of arrivals or to send away a spirit that comes at the wrong time.

Devotees speak of exhaustion and of the demands that spirits make on their lives, yet many describe possession as an honour and as the core of their relationship with the spirits who protect them.

How Scholars Have Explained Possession§

Western observers long described possession as hysteria, fraud or madness. In the 1940s the Haitian psychiatrist Louis Mars argued that possession in Vodou was a culturally patterned state and not a symptom of mental illness, a view that came to dominate later work. Alfred Métraux, in Voodoo in Haiti, compared ceremonies to a kind of sacred theatre in which spirits play well-known roles, without denying devotees' sincerity. Maya Deren wrote in Divine Horsemen of her own experience of being ridden.

Anthropologists then examined possession comparatively. Erika Bourguignon's cross-cultural surveys in the 1960s and 1970s found institutionalised altered states in the great majority of the societies sampled, with possession beliefs especially common in Africa. I. M. Lewis, in Ecstatic Religion (1971), argued that possession often gives a voice to people at the margins, such as women and the poor, allowing them to make demands through spirits that they could not make in their own names. Karen McCarthy Brown's Mama Lola showed how the spirits of a Haitian priestess in Brooklyn helped her family work through tensions of migration and gender.

More recent scholars, including J. Lorand Matory and the contributors to Spirited Things (2014), have questioned whether the English word "possession", shaped by Christian ideas of demons, fits these religions at all. They stress that devotees experience the spirits as partners in an ongoing exchange.

Frequently asked questions§

What does it mean when a lwa "mounts" someone?§

It means that a lwa has taken possession of a devotee, called its chwal (horse). The spirit speaks and acts through the person, who usually remembers little afterwards.

Is spirit possession in Vodou dangerous?§

Practitioners say it can be dangerous for untrained people, which is why initiation, experienced priests and assistants are considered essential. In ceremony, others watch over the possessed person, steady them and help them rest after the spirit leaves.

Do the spirits possess everyone at a ceremony?§

No. Many participants are never possessed, and some ritual roles, such as the ekedi in Candomblé, are held by people who do not enter possession. Possession usually comes to initiates, especially those whose guardian spirit is being honoured.

Is possession the same as Spiritualist mediumship?§

They overlap but differ. Spiritualist and Spiritist mediums usually transmit messages from the dead, often while seated, whereas Afro-Atlantic possession typically involves deities or great spirits who dance, eat and act in the community. Umbanda combines both traditions.

Sources and further reading§