What Is Black Magic? A Traveller on Voodoo in West Africa

What is black magic, and what does it actually look like on the ground? In this conversation, a long-distance traveller who has crossed Africa and Europe describes the rituals he saw in West Africa, what felt wrong, and what felt familiar. He talks with a host who has spent two years learning about tantra. This is a conversation, so I have kept it as one.

Voodoo in Benin and Togo

Host: Have you taken part in any tribal ritual in Africa? They also do puja, don’t they?

Traveller: Yes, they do.

Host: Tell us about their worship.

Traveller: Black magic. I have seen it.

Host: You have seen it? Tell us.

Traveller: They make things like dolls. That is what is called voodoo. A voodoo doll is made in a particular way. Somewhere in Benin or Togo a whole market sits, where you can buy dead animals. You can take the dead body of anything, like an owl or a hawk.

Host: Which country is this?

Traveller: Benin, Togo. In West Africa. The origin of black magic is there, and close to it I also saw their process, how they do black magic.

Host: What is the process?

Traveller: Nothing special. They do a puja, draw a little blood and pour it over the offering. They have some steps much like the pujas we do. A bit like what our tantriks do.

Snakes, Nags and the Hindus of Ghana

Traveller: Then I went a bit further from there. There is a temple, a snake temple. Inside the whole temple there are only snakes. Once a year they are let loose. They eat rats and so on, go around the whole village and come back again. A real snake temple. We have Nag temples here too.

Host: Yes, the same.

Traveller: In Karnataka, the same.

Host: There is a Nag culture there as well. Did you see these similarities between Hinduism and African culture?

Traveller: Somewhere or other there is a match between the two. Besides that, there are conversions to Hinduism in Ghana. There is a community of black Hindus of about thirty to thirty-five thousand people.

Host: What are you saying!

Traveller: Exactly. There is a yogi named Yogi Ghananand, who came to India, took sannyas here, and then went back. Through him a fairly big community was formed in Ghana. Twenty-five to thirty thousand people, who are Hindu and black.

Host: Wow, I did not know this. I am hearing it for the first time in my life.

Traveller: Yes, Yogi Ghananand, that is his name. He has now left his body, but his followers still hold puja in the temple properly, better than we do. I went to that place.

Host: What did they say to you?

Traveller: They do aarti the way we do. They made me do the aarti with them, and said specially, “You have come from India.” I liked it very much.

Read more: [LINK: Ancient Black Magic Stories from Africa: Ninki Nanka, Part 1]

Host: You know, sir, through our show over the last two years, through Rajarshi Nandi sir, I have learned many things about tantra. Tantra is a very deep subject. There are many things in tantra, and nothing bad in it. It is just a way of looking, that these things happen in tantra. But the subject is very deep. When we do puja, that is also a tantra. The translation of tantra is technique. The puja we do, offering flowers, offering bhog, is also a technique. Whenever I have read about voodoo or African culture, I have always seen a similarity between the two.

Traveller: Absolutely, they are parallel, no doubt about it. There too, bhog is offered. Blood is offered as bhog, the bodies of dead animals are offered. Many things are offered. Cloth is offered too. Everything is there.

Ten Minutes at a Ceremony

Host: Have you sat in on a ritual?

Traveller: With them, yes, for ten minutes I sat to one side.

Host: What was happening?

Traveller: A patient had come to them. Patient, or you could say a devotee of theirs had come. They were doing a ceremony of sorts for him, their own system.

Host: What was the energy like?

Traveller: In the place where I was, I did not feel good. Not in Togo as a whole, but in the place where that ceremony was happening. The women there did not seem favourable to me, or something was off with me. I did not feel good energy inside me, the kind you feel from within.

Host: Did you fall ill?

Traveller: No, I did not fall ill, but for some days afterwards things were quite strange. I saw some things in dreams.

Host: No?

Host: And then?

Traveller: We do not even get dreams.

Host: Oh?

Traveller: We live our dreams.

Host: But what happened in the next two or three days?

Traveller: I do not know. I just felt a little restless inside myself.

Host: You were not calm?

Traveller: Yes, there was a little restlessness.

From West Africa to the World

Host: What are those countries like, Benin, Togo?

Traveller: Small countries. But there is a lot of black magic practice there. Not as much now. It still happens, but it has spread from there across the whole world. West Africa was the region of the slave trade. Slaves were taken from there to Europe and America, and the practice went with them. So it happens in Europe too, and black magic goes on in America. Everything has its origin there. I mean it spread downward.

Host: Have you travelled in Europe?

Traveller: I have travelled all over Europe.

Host: Did you like Europe?

Traveller: No. Because as tourists we go there for peace and for parties. I said no, no.

Host: I was thinking the same. Among the places you have seen in your life, Europe does not seem likely to meet your expectations.

Traveller: My viewers also do not enjoy it as much. The moment I came from Africa into Europe, people stopped watching. Because there you only see buildings every day. You go to Europe and for two or four days you look at buildings, two hundred years old. When I look at those buildings, in my view they look like murderers. Because they were all built by taking black people, our people, through the slave trade, imprisoning them and making them build them. They are nothing else.

Host: Yes, yes. Have you been to Scotland?

Traveller: Those are good. The islands are good.

Host: Ireland and Scotland?

Traveller: Ireland is good, but I could not travel the southern part of Ireland. I want to, if I ever get the chance.

Host: It is said there is a lot in Scotland and Ireland.

Traveller: Yes, in Italy too.

Host: In Italy there is a lot of totka, folk remedies and charms. Someone leaves something on the road and goes away. You call it totka.

Traveller: Like lemon and chilli.

Host: Lemon and chilli, or leaving a lamp burning and going. In Italy things like this happen a lot. In our culture the use of these things falls under tantra, and in their culture they are called witchcraft.

Traveller: Call it what they will. Witchcraft, wizardry. It happens more in Italy.

Host: Yes. In Europe there is a route that starts from the UK and goes to Rome. They call it something like the Via Francigena. It is very beautiful across Europe. That route alone I liked very much.

Host: How was Scotland?

Traveller: The Highlands are beautiful. Quiet. It was a bit hard for me, because there is a lot of wind there. The people there are good. The people of Scotland are better. In all of Britain, the original local British people survive only in the areas around Yorkshire, or in Scotland. All the rest has become multicultural.

Mountains, Travel and Gratitude

Host: Sir, not everyone will be able to travel by bicycle the way you do, most people will not. Still, I want to ask. If you had to give listeners three travel recommendations, three countries they must see in their lifetime, that changed your character, which three would they be?

Traveller: I will say one, Namibia, you should go. Second, you should see Japan at least once. And if you want to bring back forgotten hospitality, go once to Afghanistan.

Host: Wow! And three countries that one should not go to?

Traveller: There is no such place in the world where one should not go. A person has come into this world, and he should see every corner of it.

Host: Wow! This question is for you, not for the listeners. Of all the travel you have done in your life, which is the most beautiful place?

Traveller: Where I camped and sat for three days.

Host: Fuji.

Traveller: In front of Mount Fuji.

Host: Japan.

Traveller: Yes. It keeps my memories fresh. Whenever I think of it, sometimes with my eyes closed, positivity comes.

Host: Yes. Just as when you sit on the bank of Mother Ganga you feel the power of Ganga, and it is the same with any river. In the same way, many mountaineers have come on our show. They have said that every mountain has its own different energy.

Traveller: It does, it does.

Host: Annapurna, Mount Everest, each has its own energy.

Traveller: Look, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I carried my bicycle with me all the way to the top, and on summit day too I carried it on my back to the summit. Its energy never felt positive to me. Maybe it is because it is not really a mountain but a volcano. Maybe that is why. Otherwise a mountain takes me to a different level of energy.

Host: What did you feel on Kilimanjaro?

Traveller: It felt strange.

Host: Anger?

Traveller: Strange meaning my heart pounded, and there was tension there.

Host: Pounding, panic, restlessness, as if you should not have come here?

Traveller: Not that either. It could be. Brother, Everest, I climbed that, and got there. At high altitude, because I went to 5,800 metres above sea level, it could be because of that too. But positivity did not come. Brother, you go to make a summit, you reach the top, and then it comes to your mind, “Yes, I have done it.” That feeling did not come.

But before that place I had found something very sweet in my travels. Before that I was in Arusha, and before Arusha in Tanzania’s capital, Dar es Salaam, really. There I found a family, a family that is still a family to me today. A family took me in and joined me to them like a mother.

Host: Wow!

Traveller: In this way I have met many people through travelling. Many memories have been added. Many people have become part of my life because of travel. Through you I will say once to everyone, I am very grateful to all of you. Especially those who have become close to me on this journey over the last eight years, from the depth of my heart, thank you for coming into my life.