Lack of African Religious studies in Occultism

[zMaji]

Despite these traditions being widely practiced in the Americas and obviously the African continent at large, there seems to be a lack of intrigue in African Spiritual cultures discussed in the field of occultism in Western circles.

Why?

What I am most appreciative of is their connection to the concept of destinty which relates to ones divine will. Their systems are largely based around alignment to ones divine will which translates to western occult practices quite well in particular via the Crowley quote of much renown.

Do you perhaps have a relation to African spiritual systems as a practitioner?

How does it relate to your craft?

 

[MorganBlack]

Hmm. Why they are not better known?

First, New World African Traditional Regions (ATRs) are initiation-based traditions with a heavy air of secrecy around them. Getting good information means going to talk with and getting to know people in those traditions, Haitians, Cubans, Brazilians, and others, befriending and talking to them. Not being smug - which is a common a artifact of the magician's ego.

Even well through the 1980s, the inexpensive chap-books of sorcery you could get in New York, Houston, and San Antonio were called 'stupid magic' by Donald Michael Kraig, if I recall, in a Llewellyn magazine. See? Smug.

To make it more complex, then worldview of New World magico-religious cults (said non-pejoratively) is animist spirit magic - a worldview that was almost entirely alien to Anglophone magical practitioners from circa 1870 (and going back to the Enlightenment) up until around the New Millennium or so.

When 20th-century modern magic was being formulated by well-fed British Londoners, they never thought to go talk to them. Wicca is a form of ceremonial magic and kept the 20th -century psychological interpretations. It wasn't until the 1960s that Sybil Leek started giving respect to Vodou and other ATR's, even opening the 'Witch Shop' in Houston. Texas, close to Rice Stadium. And only in the 1980s did Hoodoo and Brujeria started influencing Wicca and 'Wiccanate 'pagan magico-religious practices, and sparked a folk magic revival among white folks.

OK, this is a hard one to get. New World African Traditional Regions (ATRs) traditions do not have a Crowley concept of individualistic True Will (well, kind of) , unless we try expand it in ways beyond what Uncle Al meant by it.

The Vodou concept of Divine Will is not as individualistic as that of the modern magicians. It is better seen as the person's relationship to Bondye (God), the Lwa, and their community. In Vodou, that which is 'good' is often defined by what supports and helps the community, 'evil' being that which harm it, rather than being sliced down to such a fine level of personal granularity as in modern Western Magic-k.

Here your 'destiny' is part of a fabric of relationships, rather than what Steiner would call the 'Luciferian' consciousness of an atomized, opportunistic, calculating individual. One has a Govi (soul/essence) and a destiny, it is rarely pursued in isolation. The goal is Konesans (knowledge/balanced living, but also a broad intutition ) within the context of the house (Sosyete).

In Western Occultism, ancestors are often treated as optional. In African traditions they are more foundational. You cannot achieve your destiny if you are out of alignment with those who gave you life. Destiny is a baton passed down, not a path discovered in a vacuum. Again, the Brujo, who is more sorcerous, will step out of alignment with the community, and become a malefactor.

A Houngan (priest) or Mambo (priestess) "serves with both hands" (healing and protection), a Bokor is one who "serves with the left hand." They are often labeled as malfektè because they are willing to perform sorcery for hire outside the moral constraints of a Sosyete (community). I mention this becasue the role of a magican is usually outside the pale of polite socirty. We are dangerous to know.

The post-2001, newer Pagan formulations have attempted to reconnect with their ancestors, but they often view them through a very narrow lens of nationalistic 'Blood and Soil' ideologies. In contrast, the Vodou concept of ancestry is far more open and functional. While bloodline matters, the Ancestors also include the spiritual lineage of the House. It is a living, breathing tradition of adoption and shared spiritual heritage, rather than a rigid, exclusionary racial category. In Vodou, when you are initiated, you are "born" into a new family. You gain the ancestors, and spirits of your Mambo or Houngan. This spiritual kinship is just as "real" as biological kinship. This makes Vodou, while secretive, resilient and expansive rather than clannish, fragile, and overtly hostile to outsiders or other nationalitites.

 

[Aldebaran]

Many African and other Indigenous systems are closed-loop cultural technologies. They are not abstract occult philosophies, spell techniques, or symbolic tool kits that should be lifted out and universalized. They are embedded systems—woven into lineage, land, language, memory, and daily life over generations. Their strength comes from this containment.

When a system is closed-loop, its effectiveness depends on continuity: who raised you, what songs shaped your nervous system before you had words, which rituals calibrated your body long before you chose them consciously. These systems don’t operate solely on belief or study; they operate through inheritance, initiation, and lived experience. Approaching them as an outsider with the goal of “learning deeply” or “using the techniques” can unintentionally diminish them. Even when done respectfully, it often turns something relational into something extractive.

Awareness differs from access.

You can acknowledge these systems, respect them, study their existence and role in the world—but attempting to enter them without invitation is usually a mistake. It treats a living, relational structure as if it were an open framework. Many of these systems also involve ongoing relationships with spirits, ancestors, or land intelligences. These aren’t universal forces waiting for anyone curious enough to engage. They are specific. They are local. They are relational. They respond to continuity, not curiosity.

A blunt way to put it—often more accurate than polite euphemisms—is this: if your great-grandmothers didn’t sing those songs, tend those shrines, or live inside those rhythms, then the beings anchored to that system aren’t oriented toward you. At best, they are indifferent. At worst, engagement becomes noisy, destabilizing, or disrespectful—regardless of how sincere your intentions.

This isn’t moral judgment. It’s about system hygiene.
Trying to force intimacy with a closed-loop system you weren’t born into or invited into doesn’t deepen the system. It often weakens it—stripped of context, safety mechanisms, and relational checks that keep it coherent.

The more respectful approach is:

• Recognize these systems as complete in themselves.
• Learn about them without assuming access.
• Avoid treating them as interchangeable spiritual technologies.
• Let invitation, relationship, and time—rather than curiosity or hunger—determine depth.

Containment is not exclusion.
Containment is what keeps power from leaking into distortion.

That respect—knowing when not to step in—is often closer to honoring these systems than any amount of study or imitation ever could. I realize im a bit off topic here but there is an immense amout of power within indigenous systems that when respected should be left alone.

 

[MorganBlack]

Yep yep.

I keep talking about stories here, but they mean so in living tradition. It's also a civilization-level enterprise over a long time to have them dream-true , and not just anyone can add to them. There are, let's call them, official story-dreamers in Vodou.

So do I question whether you can just spin up an entire culture by reading academia papers, like modern pagan reconstructionists are doing. Most of what they say I can tell is just shit they read some place.

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OK, here's Some Dude on a Vodou forum. And then my rely, which got a huge positive reply from one of the Mambos, so I know I'm not mangling Vodou too badly.
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Some Dude talking:

"Yeah, what if it comes to me naturally? I understand but, my path is quite unique. Things just happen. What I see in meditation is often associated with vOdou. Angel numbers regularly. Two appiritions in 14 months and between that time got hit by a truck. The collision gave me a nerve condition which makes me constantly vibrate "

Me, replying:

That. "I understand but, my path is quite unique. Things just happen."

Anglo-Latino Texican here. My houngan passed away a few years ago, but I think I can talk as a someone who comes from outside the culture.

The American Protestant has a culture shaped by it reaction against the established tradition of the Church. "My revelation is just as valid..." is a very American Protestant thing to say.

In American culture we are taught that spirituality is a matter of opinion, whereas Vodou treats spirituality more like the practice of medicine or law. Protestants are taught their personal experience is the highest authority, and will "talk back" to the Church or any expert. However, Vodou is a closed, initiatory lineage, and does not have this very Anglo, very commercialized McDonald's "Have it your way, Make it your way" approach. In this tradition, to my understanding of it as a partial outsider, a personal vision doesn't grant authority or validity on its own.

Vodou is also a culture. And a very Haitian one , grounded in Haitian experience of oppression and revolution, and beautiful resistance. Think of it this way: You can't be self-taught in a culture you aren't born into or initiated into. Without the vetting of an Houngan or Manbo, and without the protocols of a Sosyete, a 'unique path' is simply outside of Vodou. You might have a very personal 'unique' way of understanding biology, but you aren't a doctor until the medical board says you are. In Vodou the Lwa speak through the priesthood and the community's protocols, not just through individual feelings.

And to add to this. Nobody is a clear channel. For the sake of argument, let's say even if you a sensitive human radio picking up a faint, stray signal, then still your own personal STUFF, your baggage, will be distorting their messages with your very American central nervous system. Without verification from an Houngan or Manbo, a vision is just a nice dream.