Another disparity between the Loa and saints: Loa are not individual deities. Rather, they are spiritual beings — essential presences carrying out Bondye’s will and possessing intense power. An uninitiated human can’t just call upon the Loa and ask for help; the Loa need to possess human vessels in order to offer instructions, heal the sick, or pass messages along. This

spiritual power, however, can be overwhelming to a mortal, and it sometimes takes on violent forms: contortions, exertions, inhuman athletic feats, elemental manifestations, and other activities that would injure or destroy a human body without protection from the spirits.

Vodou is far more than simply a religious creed. In practice, it’s a personal experience that ties together the physical body and the immortal essence of the human soul and the divine spirit. This concept of tying things together comes through in vodou magic, which involves knots, vevès (patterns), and the binding and unbinding of soul-essence and physical forms (poppets, jars, bottles, bodies, and so forth). Communion with the Loa, then, involves tying the body of a devotee to the essence of a Loa… in Christian terms, the possession of the body of a human “horse” by the “rider” Loa spirit. A trained vodou priest or priestess can handle the Loa’s power, which is an extension of the infinite, astral power of Bondye. Uninitiated “horses” may easily be consumed by such communions. When the Loa take over a spiritual practitioner’s body, her mortal shell isn’t destroyed by it; the invested power, though, can react in frightening ways when such massive spiritual power is contained.

The training to become a spiritual practitioner of vodou often occurs along hereditary lines, with that training passed down from parent to child. Such an education starts after a Loa touches the student, choosing that person to be their worshipper. With proper training, education, and sensitivity, a student can directly engage directly with her Loa, eventually leading other followers in rituals based on the demands of the Loa in question.

Such rituals can be bloody, but the Loa understand that blood is necessary for life and is therefore to be celebrated, revered, and worshipped. Blood is not a scary thing — it is the water that allows life’s essence to flow. If a creature is to be sacrificed in a ritual, therefore, that sacrifice shows respect for the importance of life, death, and blood in the connective unit of existence in the mortal world. By honoring the Loa in such ways, vodou devotees also deal with past and present traumas, both cultural and personal. The blood ties everything together in a bright collaboration of life, death, and all things within and beyond both.