As this is fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras winds down tonight with a furor of hedonistic excess, the focus here in the States is on Louisiana and New Orleans. One of the things that stands out to visitors of the old city is the prevalence of Voodoo in some sections of the city.
While some see the ritual practice as a joke, Voodoo is a serious practice of purposeful demonic possession. It can have many unexpected and unforseeen consequences to the novice observer as well as to the learned practitioner. It has been my experience when you ask a spirit to possess you, something will take up on the offer. Demonic forces live to harass, to degrade and to destroy humans. Moreso if they can make the said human thier host. Old church legend points to the disembodied half human half fallen angel hybrids of Genesis 6 as the source of demonic possession. Genesis 6:1-7 says,
"Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive" with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” NKJV
These hybrid beings of 'the sons of God' (Angelic beings, see Job 1:1-12) and 'daughters of men' are according to church tradition the nephilim or 'giants' as many English editions translate the word, Legend also tells that these hybrids died in the flood, but becuase of their celestial lineage their spirits lived on as earth bound entities who constantly searched for a body to inhabit once again. These abominations hate that thier human half cursed them to be wandering entities instead of the full celestial beings they longed to be, so thier one main focus is to cause as much harm to humanity as possible.
Practitioners of Voodoo, especially the Louisiana variety do believe in God, in fact there are many Catholic influences on the religion including Saint veneration through idols. Through music, dance, singing and use of snakes the practitioner contacts a spirit so the request of the practitioner or thier patron is granted. Common requests are for love, financial gain, cure for depression or illness or in some extreem cases a curse on an adversary. the adept practitioner allows the spirit to enter them and guide them, with the reward being the petition being granted. But many times these rituals can lead to disaster.
Jennifer Lee, journalist for 'Ranker' has a list of 7 real Voodoo rituals gone tragically wrong here: http://www.ranker.com/list/top-7-_real_-voodoo-gone-wrong-stories/jennifer-lee
These of course are the extreem examples, many times one can be harrassed or possessed by a spirit for a period of time and not even know it. Sudden personality changes, mood swings, depression can be manifest by spirit oppression. Many times a person involved in ritualistic spirit worship will do so to eleviate lonliness and depression and in the end find that they are far worse off than before.
So in this last day before Lent, while many let their hair down and revel in debauchery, there is yet a more diabolical side to the season of Mardi Gras. To some Fat Tuesday is literally the darkness before the dawn.
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