Voudon Gnosticism: An Introduction to the Rites and Practices

Voudon Gnosticism

With chapters on Leghba, the Lord of Sexual Magic, the Voudonist Kabbalah, the Work of OTOA and LCN, and working with Les Vudu, the author presents a comprehensive introduction to practices within the tradition. He appreciates the central dictum that the magician is an artist and should continually explore their own inner kingdoms, led by what they find there. Many who enter this tradition, even those without professed artistic ability, suddenly find themselves driven to produce works. In this way, the Hoodoo manifests in current time and space, drawing sustenance from these objects as if they were offerings. Frater Vameri has made an offering of his own, one that others may take a piece of and, nurturing it, find their own journey into the realm of Voudon Gnosticism. It will help them gain a clearer understanding of Michael Bertiaux’s work and perhaps reveal their own secret identity as a lucky Hoodoo.

SEAN WOODWARD, GRAND MASTER OF

ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS ANTIQUA AND

AUTHOR OF KEYS TO THE VOUDON KINGDOM

Finally, we have a book that explains the framework of Bertiaux’s magical world with clarity and simplicity, providing invaluable context and meaning to his magical world.

KATY DE MATTOS FRISVOLD, COAUTHOR OF

THE CANTICLES OF LILITH

Destiny Books

One Park Street

Rochester, Vermont 05767

www.DestinyBooks.com

Destiny Books is a division of Inner Traditions International

Copyright © 2024 by Eduardo Regis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data for this title is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-1-64411-927-3 (print)

ISBN 978-1-64411-928-0 (ebook)

The text stock is SFI certified. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative® program promotes sustainable forest management.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text design by Virginia Bowman and layout by Kenleigh Manseau

To send correspondence to the author of this book, mail a first-class letter to the author c/o Inner Traditions • Bear & Company, One Park Street, Rochester, VT 05767, and we will forward the communication, or contact the author directly at www.eduardoregis.com.

I dedicate this book to Les Vudu,

who typed all these words with me.

I also dedicate it to my initiator Frater Selwanga

and to the great explorer of universes

known by the earthly name of Michael Bertiaux.

Contents

Foreword

Gnostic Vûdû: An Introduction

Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold

Preface

1The Foundation: History and Myth

2What Is the Voudon Gnostic System?

3Becoming a Voudon Gnostic

4Bertiaux and The Voudon Gnostic Workbook

5Lucky Hoodoo

6The Atlantean Mages and the Immortal Hoodoo

7Zothyria beyond the Stars: Inside Your Mind

8The Serpent and the Egg: Cosmic Sexual Magic

9Legbah , the Lord of Sexual Magic

10 The Magical-Spiritual Sessions of Hyde Park Lodge

11 The Voudonist Kabbalah: The Gnostic Portal of Baron Lundi

12 Necronomiconomania: Fear and Fascination beyond Yuggoth

13 An Arachnid Journey to the Center of the Web of Worlds

14 The Work of Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua and La Couleuvre Noire

15 Working with Les Vudu

Acknowledgments

Appendix

The Universe of a Wandering Gnostic Monastery in the Voudon Gnostic Multiverse: A Brief Review of Tau Palamas’s Work

Sébastien de la Croix

✧✧✧

Notes

Bibliography

Index

FOREWORD

Gnostic Vûdû: An Introduction

Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold

On the evening of July 6 in 1974, a most interesting conjunction took shape: the sun, Saturn, and Mercury all lined up in the sign of Cancer together with Vulcanus and Sol Niger, an intense conjunction known as the Gate of Man. This astrological moment occurs when the solstice moon opens the watery veil of summer between the worlds so humans can traverse into the realms of hidden mysteries with greater ease, a perfect moment for spirit contact made possible. That night, Michael Bertiaux and Lucien François Jean-Maine gathered in the home of Marc Lully along with four other people to conduct a séance. This was one of many séances these seven people of the inner circle of mysteries had conducted, but the spirit teacher who communicated in this séance emphasized two elements of great importance for Gnostic Voudon. First, how the Voudon Gnostic priesthood was a mystical type of priesthood, a priesthood that would continue the work of Jules Doinel, who founded the Église Gnostique in 1890. But Doinel’s work was judged merely to be an awakening. The mystical priesthood gathered at the table in Lully’s apartment were called to work with not only the aeon or Christo-Logos of Doinel but also with the daemon. This would take the form of a new image of the Afro-Atlantean religion and its philosophy, the new order of the Vûdû faith-experience, and the new gnosis of reborn oracles.¹ This new form of Vûdû saw Legba as the aeon propagated by Doinel, hence Legba-Christ was established as the aeon that would complement the Ghuedhe family of lwas or spirits as the daemon in this syzygy under the banner of esoteric Voudon, or Gnostic Vûdû. Here we find a perfect balance between the two luminaries of heaven, the sun and the moon, through the family of Legba and the family of Ghuedhe.

This mystical priesthood was represented by artist-magicians, semiotic shamans, and occult researchers, or as Bertiaux writes in his Voudon Gnostic Workbook: The gnostic artist is a magician when he allows the divine energy of creative and cosmic illumination to enter into his multidimensional consciousness and thus awaken the angels of their inspiration.² In order to assist in this work, the Gnostic artist has as his road map—or if a culinary metaphor is welcome, his cookbook—Michael Bertiaux’s 1988 publication The Voudon Gnostic Workbook.

This work was completely different from anything preceding it, and I recall the day when I got my copy of this doorstop of a book, which I had found hidden away on a shelf filled with scarfs and crystals in a store in Oslo selling clothes, incense, and imported Asian products. The bookseller had hidden the book because of the terrible word Voudon in the title, which, the cashier told me, everyone knew was associated with evil. If only he had bothered to open the book and read the contents he would have found chapter 9, which states that the purpose of the magician is to hold back the powers of evil. Anyway, I am digressing. This was in 1992, and in search of a guide that would help me understand The Voudon Gnostic Workbook, I discovered the works of Kenneth Grant, in particular Grant’s Cults of the Shadow (1975), a profound piece of writing, which was a most welcome read.

Like Bertiaux, Grant can be difficult to access as he is also working within the realm of Gnostic artistry, not the least his own esoteric logomachy of the Kabbalah. The pursuit of understanding Bertiaux’s magical system is bound to bring on frustration and confusion as The Voudon Gnostic Workbook is not an orderly system of rules and instructions but is designed for the Gnostic explorer, the Hoodoo man to discover his or her own system or, more precisely, magical ontology. Readers who are in search of a logical and orderly system—not the esoteric logic that Bertiaux uses to compose and manifest these lessons and teachings—discard this masterpiece. It is also important to keep in mind that Bertiaux’s work, his teaching organ, the Monastery of the Seven Rays, and his orders, Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua (OTOA) and La Couleuvre Noire (LCN), or the Black Snake Cult, are at root spiritualist and hence teachings given from other intelligences are pivotal. This is evident in how so many lessons in The Voudon Gnostic Workbook are attributed to the spirit teacher giving the teachings and lessons.

Another element of importance is philosophy. Bertiaux is presenting a magical ontology through the lenses of Heidegger, Bergson, and Husserl, which means that he is inviting us to explore an almost infinite number of states of being in order to find resonance and reference. His workbook is written to assist in these efforts. Hence his writings involve the explorations of strange landscapes, whether they be the City of Fa, Meon or B-Universe, or the Zothyrian Empire, which will ultimately unlock potential or wisdom in the ontological sphere of the Gnostic artist.

The exploration of multiple universes finds its occult physics in the tantric doctrines discussing chakra and loka. Chakras are, as we know, power centers in the human body that when activated will trigger access to a given loka, or world. The findings of the saddhus and tantric sages, like Gorakhnath, concerning the existence of many worlds and even worlds within worlds that stretch across time and space, are similar to the discoveries of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s, what we today know as quantum mechanics.

The Voudon Gnostic Workbook is divided into four parts. The first part deals with Voudoo energies, the second with Gnostic energies, the third with elemental sorcery, and the last with elemental theogony. The latter part is concerned with the elements necessary for the construction of the mystical and gnostic being.

This being said, The Voudon Gnostic Workbook is not a readily accessible work. So far, the books Keys to the Hoodoo Kingdom by Sean Woodward (2017), Syzygy: Reflections on the Monastery of the Seven Rays by Tau Palamas (2013), and Hoodoo Pilot by Kyle Fite (2020) have been great works to consult in getting a clearer understanding of Bertiaux’s universe. Frater Vameri’s book joins these other works in contributing to a greater understanding of Bertiaux.

Vameri, also known as Eduardo Regis, starts from the Franco-Haitian roots of OTOA and LCN, namely in the work and person of Martinez de Pasqually (1727–1774) and the influence of his Ordre des Chevaliers Maçons Élus Coëns de l’Univers on Bertiaux. From here the Franco-Haitian connection is explored through Papus and Lucien François Jean-Maine, leading to the early fusion of Voudon with several of the mystical and theurgic streams found within the larger French Gnostic tradition. With this as a backdrop, Regis discusses central themes in The Voudon Gnostic Workbook, giving special attention to the essential and important first lessons in the first part of the workbook, which are known as lucky Hoodoo. That along with ample discussions on the Zothyrian mysteries and the Ghuedhe mysteries becomes the backbone of this book. In this way, Regis connects the Gnostic and Vodouist elements into a passionate and clear presentation of Voudon Gnosticism, which adds in a great way to the slowly growing library of books expounding upon this complex and beautiful new vision of the Vûdû faith.

Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold is a psychologist, anthropologist, and writer who has conducted extensive studies in African and Afro-derived religions and sorcerous cults. He has published several works on these topics and has had personal involvement with several of these faiths, notably Ifá, where he is a member of the prestigious council of elders, the Ogboni Society. He is a Grand Master of O.T.O.A., a Baille-Ge/Hierophant of L.C.N., and the Abbot of The Monastery of St. Uriel the Archangel, located in Brazil. His published works include Palo Mayombe (2010), Pomba Gira (2011), Exu (2012), Ifa: A Forest of Mystery (2016), Trollrún (2021), and Seven Crossroads of Night: Quimbanda in Theory and Practice (2023).

Preface

In this book I talk about magic, spiders, spirits, strange boxes, H. P. Lovecraft, and much more. What do all of these have in common? Me, of course. Confused? It will all become clear pretty soon. First, let me tell you all about who I am, how this book came to be, and why I think you should read it.

The work you now have in your hands is the result of a selfish effort. Almost everything I have written in these pages I wrote to either organize my ideas or communicate with Frater Selwanga, the person who initated me into these practices. Once I realized what I had written, I changed some passages to include a broader audience and continued to write with those readers in mind.

You might be wondering who I am and why