Can White Folks Practice Vodou or The Curious Case of Katelyn Restin

I had been hearing about this for about a year but kept the young lady's name out my mouth because I really didn't know too much about it. But I know of a similar situation that I'd like to share.

Before my initiation I was in the Army and stationed in Augusta, GA where my wife and I hung pretty tight with other military occultists, pagans, and spiritually aligned, non traditional, distinctive faith individuals. There were lots of different paths there; Eclectic, Fey'ri, Asatru, Druidic, Satanic, Wicca, Chaotian, and some I still, after all these years, just don't know what the heck they were doing. My wife and I had been a member of this group for about a year and an occasion arrived where the possibility of a big working was being discussed. A discussion I was curiously not included in. Turns out that, at the original meeting the Fey'ri suggested I be excluded from the work because I was affiliated with Vodou(there's a world of difference between being within the temple and being outside of it) and it was the Asatru that dissented and later told me of the entire exchange. The other members opted to deliberate before declaring their loyalties one way or the other. At a social gathering the Asatru called the Fey'ri out on this in front of everyone. I still laugh at this to this day. See, I didn't care if they invited me to their little work or not. Even then I kept my spirits wet, I practiced my faith separate and apart from them and really looked to them for social connections because they were both service persons and non traditionalist. It's a very peculiar combination that not everyone can relate to. I digress. The Fey'ri's bigotry was exposed so I asked him what did he know about Vodou to have so negative an opinion. He said he had entered into a contract with Papa Legba. Y'all.... Why did I open mouth laughed in his face. Now I had no knowledge on it at the time but I knew he was lying. American Horror Story: Coven was what was poppin at the time. I guess he thought he knew what he needed to know.

It's a symptom of western culture, that if you see something you want, you take it and call the defender of that thing evil for barring your way. The Fey'ri had hoped I would fall into that trap, to justify his bigotry against me. Instead he and the group was educated about cosmogeneity, ancestral covenants, taboos and obligations, and the power of blood. In true form, I demurred from the work anyway, but I ended up looking like the sage that hasn't found his student yet, and the Fey'ri looked Bull Connor's gay great grandson.

See, the answer to the question, "can white folks practice vodou?" is it depends. How far back does the sect's or cult's ancestral roots reach?

The older traditions such as Mami Wata, Gorovodou, Mama Tchamba, Atikevodou, Orisha, Afa/Ifa and so on are less concerned about pigmentation and cultural identity than the observation of Se and the inheritance of covenants. There is animus towards particular individuals and groups but there are practices to ameliorate these relationships. Furthermore, the scope of these covenants reach back further than living languages. Simply stated, warring factions can (and often do) owe their existence to the same covenants, some of which can only be obeyed through reconciliation. White folks willing to turn their backs on western culture to submit to the ancestral covenants they're entitled to can indeed practice these traditions no matter how "black" folks might feel about it.

For traditional practices no older than the Kluvinyenye, the enslavement of the African people, the answer is almost universally a hard no. The ancestors in these traditions are furious with their oppressors and the spirits that walk with them bare only open animosity towards those oppressors' spirits. No one arriving with these spirits can expect a warm welcome among these traditions and white people claiming to practice these traditions are either exceptional allies of unknowable rarity, deceivers, or more likely the deceived.

And that brings us to my Fey'ri friend and Katelyn Restin. Now, I still don't know what actually happened to the girl but reliable sources suggest she tried to "summon" Papa Legba to hex someone but got the Baron instead. I didn't do the reading, but whoever she got didn't appreciate the audacity.

See, what both Katelyn and the Fey'ri failed to understand is that everything they know about Vodou comes from pop culture. Pop culture that villainized Vodou because it was born from the Kluvinyenye. I knew the Fey'ri was lying because he was too healthy and successful to have solicited the attention of a lwa without way more merit than his words demonstrated unless the lwa was setting him up for a BIG hurt, same with Katelyn I suspect.

The vodou aren't racist, but they've got long memories, consider parents and children as links in the same cosmogenic chain, a single being defined by a succession of births, deaths, and rebirths. Without tremendous work done by all parties involved, those relationships don't improve simply because an old manifestation dies and a new one is born unaware of what happened before. Until wrongs are righted and we are of a mood to forgive this conversation don't get better.

There's much to this, but the takeaway is simply this: Vodou is an open practice to all willing to put the Se before anything else, but most sects or cults are discriminatory based on various immutable elements, the most common of which is lineage and many Far Western cults consider racial identity as a discriminator to membership or advancement as well. Tread carefully.