Do YOU Need Voodoo?
Can't score a date? Passed over again at work? Maybe a voodoo or vaudou session can help you, says High Vaudou Priest Neite Decimus.
How does a vaudou priest work?
"In vaudou, we transform energy. I’m looking in the person’s energy bank to see what needs to be done to boost his/ her energy up. People come to see me for different reasons. For example, if person cannot do any positive thing, he/she needs to find out what’s wrong."
What is a vaudou session?
"In a reading session, a typical card reading has some similarities with a tarot reading, but if we see something wrong we could help fix it before it is too late. If a person feels he/she has a curse on him we check it out; if that is true we work to take it out. Remember, every human being is different"
Haitian Pride
Neite is involved with various causes in the Haitian community. One organization he’s particularly impressed with is Asosiyasyon Fanm Ayisyen nan Boston (AFAB), the Association of Haitian Women in Boston. “They do wonderful things to help women,” he says. Make that many wonderful things to help women. For almost 20 years, AFAB has organized a grassroots effort to empower low-income Haitian women and their children who are often held back by economic hardships, lack of education, or outdated social traditions. AFAB programs range from housing advocacy and anti–domestic-violence efforts to adult ESL and literacy classes and several youth-development groups.
As with many community organizations, AFAB relies heavily on volunteers for many of its programs, such as after-school tutoring and mentoring, food-pantry services, and adult education. And while many of its activities take place at the AFAB community center in Dorchester, the group also holds workshops and other presentations throughout the area, from Cambridge and Somerville all the way down to Brockton.
Asosiyasyon Fanm Ayisyen nan Boston
330 Fuller Street
Dorchester, MA
(617) 287-0096
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Whoopi Woo Hoo!
Neite says just about every depiction of voodoo in Hollywood movies is way off. “It’s almost laughable,” he says. So who’s the one actress who correctly converses with the afterlife? Whoopi Goldberg in her Oscar-winning turn in 1990’s Ghost. “The way they talk to spirits in this movie? That is the way it is,” Neite says. “This movie gets it right.” Now if only Whoopi could conjure up a little magic to help us forget Eddie ...
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A Legume A Day…
The options for Haitian-food lovers in Boston have blossomed in recent years, but Neite points to one as his stand-out favorite: Bon Appetit in Dorchester Center. If you want affordable, authentic Haitian delights around the clock — Bon Appetit serves breakfast starting at 9 a.m. and stays open until 11 p.m. — Neite says this is the place to go. “The legumes are really good,” he notes. “The special traditional food from Haiti, you can find here. It’s the only place I have found that serves it.”
Bon Appetit Restaurant
1132 Blue Hill Ave
Dorchester Center, MA
(617) 825-5544
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Voodoo Love
Voodoo. It's fun to say! Say this: VooDooYouDoVooDooDoYou. But not too much because if you say it too much maybe a voodoo priest will think you are mocking him and then it won’t be so fun because he might turn you into a chicken and chop your head off.
Oh, come on. What cheese-ball horror-flick have you been watching? Voodoo is not like that at all, says Neite Decimus, and he should know. He’s a high priest of voodoo, or vaudou, the proper spelling and the west African word for “spirit”. Vaudou is about energy, good energy, says Neite. Rooted in ancient Africa, vaudou is considered one of the world’s oldest religions. In Neite’s family, it is one of the oldest professions: His father, grandfather and great great grandfather were all high priests in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. As a child, Neite watched his dad concoct herbal potions to heal his patients of aches and pains. Impressive, Neite thought, but not for him. He wanted to become a lawyer.
But things happened to Neite. When he was 10, Neite dreamed that he would be burned in a terrible fire in his kitchen while cooking. And then it happened, all of his dream’s details, clear and awful, came to life. Just a coincidence, Neite said to himself.
But in vaudou, there are no coincidences. There is only destiny.
Neite continued with his law plans. He moved to Massachusetts to study anthropology at Bridgewater State University. Then, he had another dream. You must follow your destiny. It was his grandfather, his dead grandfather...no more coincidences. He studied vaudou in earnest. Yes, Neite read the lore of burying people alive, animal sacrifice and poking dolls to break evil curses. But vaudou is really not so gruesomely exotic. It shares much with other religions—a supreme deity, for instance, and spirits to link mortals with the divine—and, he discovered, even with scientific theories about a mind-body connection. We all possess the power, he believes, to turn the negative into positive. And, like his forefathers, Neite believes it is his calling to be a high priest of vaudou.
But he also believes his ideas for healing can only be understood if they are told within the context of modern medicine. To do that, Neite is earning his master’s in psychotherapy, and reaching out to the medical community to discuss alternative medicines using herbs and roots. Patients come to see Neite at his Brockton office when they suffer from physical pain or face obstacles in their personal lives. Although his techniques of reading cards or making organic medicines are steeped in vaudou tradition, he says his message is universal. What you think counts, Neite says. Sometimes it means listening to a dream. |
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