Occultism - Santeria
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before May 16, 2016
unlimitedsun 3 years ago
Afredo prabhu,
Well, I shall share just as an entertainment value:
This group; and they were a particular ethic group of the Sonrai, more towards the North of Mali, and not originally from the city per se would gather in at least a dozen of them and have at it from dusk till dinner time, once a week on a weekend night.
It is the kind of exposures that can mark a child, at least it did me. Parents were not to know that we were going to watch such things, ever. I still have very vivid memories of it.
So they would dance in circle at that singular rhythm of ten te tegre te, ten te tegre te for a long while, by the time the drum rhythm accelerated they had already started to exhibit signs of trance. They would act as possessed by a particular spirit.
We understood that each person has his or her own spirit, and some are fiercer than others, so depending on the individual they would perform different feats with complete abandon. Because of the commotion and the constant hurling of the crowd of on lookers it was hard to observe closely. They became frightening when the “spirit awoke” as it was called. They ran, jumped, threw themselves across the floor in the yard, foamed from the mouth, eyes wild, bled themselves …
In the end they would be completely exhausted, and collapse. By then we had taken off from fear and also to be back home for dinner. We understood that this was their religion/ belief and that you could be converted. So of course they were doing something wrong not being proper Muslims. We didn’t know what their objectives where. People kept their distance from them.
I recall that one of them, by the name of Adjebai was blind but could walk to and back from the location of the “dance of the Djins” by himself eyes closed, so he was a true mystery to us.
I have during one of my visits as an adult, after some eye opening of my own participated even as a guest to very similar ceremonies, to do with awakening/ quickening the spirit into a state trance. My personal participation in the dance at a popular and renowned female healer “spirit Setou” (djine Setou) did not yield into trance in spite of my willingness to autosuggest into it, but of course a onetime curiosity thing is farfetched.
In her case the goal was well established, she was a healer of mental illness and was managing a small community of such individuals. My understanding is that Djine Setou as a socio-occult psychiatrist could address the spirit of others in attendance when she herself got in trance, by her own power or that of her deity(ies) of affinity. So most nights the crowd gathers for the session, and many participate in the rhythm of the djumfaa, a super sized djembe drums beat by skilled male arms and the “Dji dunu”, large calabashes over turned over large containers of water beat with a handful of bamboo straws by dedicated females as the preferred instrument of the djins.
Be it a Yoruba God-dess of any element even in Santeria, or a regional African pantheon of deities of some social functions or so innumerable and invariably repressed our human bonds with the beyond; as a born Cuban and an astute spiritualist these manifestations of the energies that link us to consciousness are I am sure familiar to you.
Alfredo 3 years ago
Surya Ji!
Very interesting, thanks for sharing this story. I can hear the "ten te tegre te" in my ears.
I guess this is the same principle used by the dancing derviches.
And yes, I am familiar with Santeria, as you rightly guessed.
The room in the house I grew up in Havana faced the apartment of "Nena". She was a descendant of black African slaves and a Santeria priestess. I often observed without her permission the elaborate preparations for a session.
First, Nena cleared the house of spirits for hours, using an "alpaca" branch and cigar smoke. The ceremony itself was conducted in Yoruba, and she was the center of it, other people surrounding her. Apparently she was possessed at one point, and started talking and using the "caracoles" (little sea conchs that I sold to her myself), to foresee and cure.
The whole ceremony was very Nigerian, as well as all the gods that came from that African country with them: Chango, the big honcho, and then Obatala, Eleggua, and Yemaya.
unlimitedsun 3 years ago
Ah yes, the whirling dervishes, too bad there is so little information out there on it. Ultimately, once has to attend for long before you are allowed to whirl, it makes for a tight system.
I attended a local in the Village, Lower Manhattan for months and in the end we only did some other types of dances, really nice; and other stuff straight from the heart, much in-line with the illustrious Rumi way. I had such a nice time, but I was out for the real stuff.
