Suit: TV show demeans voodoo

An advocacy group for African religions contends that the Sci Fi Channel series degrades the religion.

A Philadelphia-based advocacy group for African religions yesterday sued Universal Studios and producers for cable's Sci Fi Channel, contending that a forthcoming "reality series" demeans and misrepresents the voodoo religion.

The federal lawsuit filed by the National African Religion Congress Inc. against Universal Studios Inc., USA Cable Entertainment, and House of Eleven Productions seeks a court order requiring the producers of Mad Mad House to change their advertising and programming.

"People already have negative feelings about this religion without a program like this exacerbating things," said George Ware, president of the five-year-old congress. The congress claims 4,500 members representing such religions as Akan, the Orisa Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago, Ifa, Santeria-Yoruba, voodoo, Candomble and Lucumi, including 500 in the tristate Philadelphia area.

In promotions in print and on cable, Sci Fi describes Mad Mad House, premiering March 4, as a reality series in which "10 everyday people" move into a house run by "five genuine practitioners of alternative lifestyles."

The "Alts" - a vampire, Wiccan, naturist, voodoo priestess and modern primitive - put their 10 guests through "tolerance testing activities," one promotion says, and then vote weekly to decide who is banished and who ultimately wins a $100,000 prize.

The lawsuit contends that the program's voodoo priestess, Iya Ta'Shia Asanti, is actually a priestess of "Yemoja in the Ifa tradition," a faith of the Yoruba people of Africa.

Asanti does not dress as a voodoo priestess, the lawsuit continues, and a commercial showing participants being placed into a pit and covered with animal parts and entrails does not represent voodoo or Ifa.

A spokesman for producers Arthur Smith and Kent Weed in Los Angeles referred questions to Universal's offices for the Sci Fi Channel in New York. Kat Stein, a senior vice president for communications, said she could not comment on the suit before consulting with the channel's lawyers.

The lawsuit contends that producers reached an agreement with Asanti only after Gro Mambo Angela Novanyon, a recognized Haitian voodoo high priestess in Philadelphia who founded the congress, refused to participate in Mad Mad House.

The lawsuit asks for a federal judge to require the producers of Mad Mad House to properly identify Asanti as an Ifa, not a voodoo, priestess and prohibit them from "airing any episode... that falsely portrays any practice of African-based religions."

ONCE AGAIN HAITIAN PRESIDENT JOHN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE may be ousted by his citizens, who began a new rebellion against his tyrannical rule on February 5.

After Aristide was removed by a military coup in 1991, President Bill Clinton in 1994 sent 20,000 U.S. troops to Haiti to restore to power this former Roman Catholic Priest who once called Cuban dictator Fidel Castro his "greatest personal hero."

Aristide endorsed "necklacing" of the kind widely practiced in South Africa by Winnie Mandela. It consists of seizing a victim, forcing an automobile tire filled with gasoline down over their head and shoulders, and then setting the tire and gasoline on fire.

"What a beautiful tool!¿ It smells good. And wherever you go, you want to smell it," Aristide said of the necklacing of his critics on September 27, 1991, as witnessed and reported by Associated Press.

Note the above date. Despite knowing of Aristide¿s penchant for necklacing critics, and despite knowing that a CIA psychological profile had identified Aristide as "a psychopath," Clinton three years later put at risk 20,000 of America¿s most elite troops to remove the Haitian government in order to re-install this murdering psychopath Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President of Haiti.

Earlier in 1995, the defrocked priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide formally renounced his Roman Catholic faith and publicly announced that he was returning to the Voodoo faith of his ancestors.

In July 1995 Aristide held a Voodoo Congress at Haiti¿s National Palace. The 300 attendees included sorcerers and "bocors" (those who practice black magic), wrote Ruth, "including leaders of the dreaded ¿Bizango Cult,¿ which practices zombification and human sacrifice."

[Scientists have documented the use of poison from the Caribbean puffer fish by Haitian witch doctors as a way to simulate death and then, in smaller doses, to turn victims dug up from their graves into the "living dead," called zombies in Haiti¿s Voodoo tradition.]

Voodoo, Aristide said in his speech to congress attendees, is one of the "great religions of the world alongside Christianity, Islam and Judaism." He announced the funding of a national Voodoo temple, doubtless to be built with U.S. taxpayer aid dollars via the Clinton Administration.

One of Aristide¿s later objectives would be the shipping of Haitians to the United States, especially to Florida shores 600 miles away where they could embarrass the state¿s Republicans. Senator John F. Kerry (D.-Mass.) might have shared Aristide¿s motives when, in 1998, he co-sponsored a bill that resulted in amnesty for an estimated 125,000 Haitians who had been given "temporary asylum" before 1996 because they were fleeing the chaos, terror and poverty caused largely by Aristide.

In the United States, meanwhile, President Bill Clinton ordered the U.S. military to begin including witchcraft pagan chaplains to minister to the religious needs of our troops. Hillary Clinton, as observed by FBI agents, decorated her upstairs Christmas tree one year with sex and drug paraphernalia. She pressed the Postal Service to discontinue issuing Madonna and Child stamps around Christmastime.

Scientists have documented the use of poison from the Caribbean puffer fish by Haitian witch doctors as a way to simulate death and then, in smaller doses, to turn victims dug up from their graves into the "living dead," called zombies in Haiti¿s Voodoo tradition.]

I've read up on vodoun, candomble and santeria, and some of the more advanced aspects of vodoun are actually quite interesting. The use of 'zombies' by Bocors is one of the most interesting since their knowledge of poisons and toxocology is quite adept. The so called 'death curse' is another curiosity that sparked some interest some years back. Basically the Bocor places a curse on a person, and the person normally dies within hours or days.

A medical doctor tried to 'treat' one of the curse 'vicims' and noticed some rather interesting observations. For one the person had not been given any type of poison, nor envenomated. It was all based on belief ....the faith by the 'victim' that the curse was real and he would surely die. slowly the person's bodily functions started to cease,and by the end of the night the person allegedly died of a cardiac arrest. Yet the only reason for that was pure belief.

An interesting branch of science is 'psychoneuroimmunology' where they show the effect strong belief that something is true can have on the body. For example the case where it was announced in a football stadium that people should stop buying hotdogs due to potential unhygienic conditions, and people started retching and getting sick. however the moment it was announced it was all a mistake people 'miraculously' got better.

The mind sure is powerful!

Would vodoun work on you or me? No way, unless of course they use harmful ingredients like poisons and venoms in which case we would get sick (check out the zombie effect on the web ....i knew this website that showed the whole process and it is quite interesting. A similar thing, this time in south Africa, is the Tkoloshe, where an 'unclean child' ...read twin ....in ancient times would be raise by a witchdoctor, and by the use of splints and twisting the arms and legs over the years gradually deformed until the poor kid looked horrid by age 10. The kid would then be given a strong hallucigenic and sent to kill an enemy with its barehands, and the strategy almost always worked! Imagine some demonic looking imp dropping on your from the roof of your hut, looking as if it was regurgitated by the ninth level of hades! Now imagine if you are superstitious!). Anyways the zombie thing is quite effective too, especially once the whole village sees the person is dead, rigor mortis and all (due to the venom , but the people obviously think ol' tom is dead). Now imagine Jane Haitian walking home from the river, and seeing Ol'Tom moaning and walking towards her?

Before the scientists found out about the Puffer fish venom even they were astounded at first. Now imagine a superstitious Haitian?

I once heard of this case where a Bocor and a Houngan (a houngan is the opposite of the bocor ....the houngan practices 'white' magic while the bocor delve into the darker aspects). Several 'Ol'Toms' woke up that week LOL.

Anyways, interesting.

In this particular case i expect that the voudoun practioners unhappy with the show will not try to 'spook' the show's producers, but will instead focus on the fake priestess. Now, i think the fake priestess actually believes in voudoun/ifa/cadomble/santeria/whatever, hence that would be the best target for them. Although the show is already taped, i still would not want to be her. Fake or not i do not want any dead-looking guys tossing beheaded goats through my back porch! The stench must be unbearable.

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