Venezuelan cult draws tens of thousands of followers

By Girish Gupta (Reuters, October 31, 2011)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/36454/?&section=other-nrms

Venezuela - The jungle air is thick with cigar smoke and pierced by an occasional scream as drums beat, people chant and candles flicker illuminating bodies squirming.

Empty whisky bottles strewn across the ground are also a part of the ritual which is hundreds of years old.

"I still feel very cold thanks to the presence of the dead," said Ana Maria Caraya, who remembers her 15-minute trance as a dream. "I fell asleep. I feel nothing more."

The 25-year-old is one of thousands of believers in the cult of Maria Lionza, who is thought to have been born in the 16th century and was the daughter of an Indian chief.

Her followers travel to the jungles of the Sorte mountain in Venezuela's Yaracuy state for one week each October looking for healing and protection.

No one is certain about the origins of the cult, which includes aspects of Catholicism and African worship, or the number of followers. Estimates range from 10 percent to 30 percent of Venezuela's population.

Official believe about 20,000 followers, from Venezuela, the Americas and even Europe, descend on the mountain in October.

"MIRROR OF VENEZUELAN SOCIETY"

Caracas-born Eloy Parra is the medium who led Caraya in her trance, channeling the spirit of a 10th century Viking explorer who is now saint for the cult.

"What we're doing here is cleaning her aura with candles so she does not encounter earthly obstacles," said the 34-year-old, who was wearing only beads and shorts.

"Maria Lionza is the greatest thing we have here in Venezuela," she added.

Followers of the cult believe their chosen saint will possess the body of the medium who entices the follower into a trance in which they often speak in tongues or harm themselves.

Maria Lionza is known by members of the cult as La Reina or the queen. Angelina Pollok-Eltz, a former professor of anthropology at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas who has written a number of books about the cult, said it began in the Sorte mountains in the early 1920s and was brought to Venezuela's urban centers a decade later.

"The majority of the believers are members of the lower classes," she added.

The latest trend is the worship of saints dedicated to the thugs that plague the streets of one of Latin America's most crime-ridden countries.

"The cult of Maria Lionza is like a mirror of Venezuelan culture and society," said Wade Glenn, an anthropologist at Tulane University in the United States.

"Whenever there is a significant change in the cult, we must ask ourselves what is occurring in Venezuela to cause such a change," he explained. "People use Maria Lionza as a coping mechanism for life's hardships, as a form of survival."

Wade believes that estimates of the number of members who take part in the rituals may be much higher.

"I am confident in stating that minimally 60 percent of the population or more has at some level participated in the cult of Maria Lionza."

Venezuelan cult growing in popularity

By ("Catholic Online," November 21, 2011)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/36567/?&section=other-nrms

Caracas, Venezuela - The cult is a 19th-century invention based on the writings of Frenchman Leon Denizarth-Hippolyte Rivail. According to his writings, people could summon the souls of the dead into living bodies where the deceased could been be questioned for guidance. The cult is known as "Maria Lionza."

Practitioners engage in a number of rituals that are part Catholic, part voodoo, and part shamanistic. They typically gather around Sorte Mountain in Venezuela, which they believe to be sacred.

According to the legend, Maria Lionza lived on that mountain in the 1400s. It is said that while she was gazing into a river, she was attacked and swallowed by an anaconda. From within the Anaconda, Maria Lionza made an agreement to marry the mountain if it would save her. Once saved from the Anaconda, Maria Lionza and the mountain became one.

People come from all around the country each October to celebrate the cult's holiest days. The national holiday of Indigenous Resistance, October 12, is generally considered to be the most sacred. On that day, some of the pilgrims dress in native garb and perform a ritual known as "dance of hot coals." They claim that the spirits prevent their feet from being burned as they walk over beds of coals.

But the chief feature of the religion is its rituals which involve summoning of the dead. Generally, famous people are summoned into the living with the possessed murmuring and chanting as their words are interpreted by a cult priest. However, ancestors and virtually any other dead spirit can be conjured up according to the faithful.

Worshipers are then able to question the spirits and get advice. Virtually any topic from love, to prosperity, to other personal problems can be discussed. Priests and spirits are generally consulted before any major decisions are made.

Researchers say the cult has become popular as crime and poverty skyrocket in the increasingly troubled country. More than a third of the population lives in poverty and is poorly educated.

Established institutions are finding it difficult to meet the needs of the people, so when their basic needs remain unmet they become increasingly likely to turn to a religious cult -- it's that cult offers them solutions.

Commonly, practitioners seek the advice of spirits instead of psychologists. Less often, but more dangerous are occasions when people approach the spirits with physical ailments. Witchcraft is commonly blamed for sickness, so practitioners seek healing from shamans rather than doctors.

So long as Venezuela remains an impoverished country with many people lacking education and social services, the cult of Maria Lionza is likely to remain popular.

Venezuelans turn to magic in difficult times

By Daniel Flynn (Reuters, February 15, 2001)


Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/8762/?&place=south-america

SORTE, Venezuela - In a clearing beneath the magic mountain of Sorte, a half-naked witchdoctor cavorts over three quivering boys lying inside an intricate chalk circle lighted by candles.

"Strength, by the light of the moon. Strength, by the light the queen," his followers chant in the dusk, invoking the protection of Maria Lionza, the mythical forest goddess who rules Venezuela's most powerful cult.

The three boys have come to this jungle shrine to be purified from witchcraft. The rite mingles voodoo rituals from the South American nation's slave past with Indian shamanism and the beliefs of the dominant Catholic church.

The shaman sprays liquor from his mouth over their bare bodies and blows smoke from a cheroot into their faces while summoning a spirit from Maria Lionza's court to possess him.

Suddenly, his eyes roll and he bursts into a high-pitched jabbering. He has been taken by Elegua, a belligerent young spirit from the court of the seven African powers -- one of dozens of minor deities in Maria Lionza's spirit kingdom.

"Strength," chant the youths, quickening their drumming as the medium writhes and shrieks. Eventually, he collapses and his disciples help the dazzled boys to their feet.

Despite rumors of black magic and violence, hundreds of brightly clothed pilgrims flock each weekend to the birthplace of Maria Lionza, seeking relief from illness or adversity.

Rising social discontent has swollen her following in recent decades as wild swings in the price of Venezuela's lifeblood, oil, have impoverished three-quarters of its 24 million people and turned the once-affluent nation to soul-searching.

"In times of crisis, such as now, people look to the spiritual, some power from above, for a miracle," said Marino Diaz, author of a book on the cult.

OPIUM OF THE MASSES

For some, Maria Lionza was a green-eyed Indian princess sacrificed by her father to a giant serpent, for others the daughter of a Spanish conquistador who escaped to the woods.

As disenchantment grows in the cramped hillside slums of the capital Caracas, the voluptuous wood nymph has come to symbolize hope for many. Flowers and tributes from the faithful adorn a statue of the fertility goddess astride a tapir, erected during the 1950s nationalist regime of dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez, which guards the main highway through the capital.

"For us, Maria Lionza represents equality, a figure from the time of the Spanish who protected the Indians, the slaves and those in need," said Rafael Mendez, a 44-year-old mechanic from Caracas, referring to Venezuela's colonial past.

Sorte's rituals have their roots in the tobacco shamanism practiced by Indians since before European adventurers first braved the Orinoco River in a futile quest for El Dorado.

"Tobacco is the messenger," said a toothless Maria de Sorte, puffing a cheroot as she stood beside the river that guards the entrance to the forest. "It opens pathways to the spirits."

Before a caravan of pilgrims may cross the river, a spiritual medium must smoke tobacco at the great altar and ask permission of the queen. Such candlelighted shrines, adorned by statues of Maria Lionza or spirits from her Mestizo court, which adherents claim is a vernacular offshoot of the dominant Roman Catholic Church, are scattered across Venezuela.

A trail of more than 80 altars, each dedicated to a separate spirit or court, stretches toward the peak of the mist-shrouded mountain. The lush green woods around them reverberate with the beating of drums, wild cries and the explosion of coconuts filled with gunpowder, used to scare away evil spirits.

REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE?

While Maria Lionza is a peaceful nymph, most of the figurines that deck the jungle altars at Sorte are warriors: rebellious Indian chief Guaicaipuro; runaway slave leader Negro Felipe; Argentine leftist revolutionary Che Guevara; and Venezuela's homegrown independence hero, Simon Bolivar.

"In Venezuela, the worship of the past has become enlisted for the cause of dissent and revolt," said Yolanda Salas, an authority on the cult from state folklore institute FUNDEF.

Venezuelans' reverence for the rebel has been exploited by the current president, colorful, left-leaning Hugo Chavez, who led a failed military coup in 1992 only to be elected democratically six years later. He has hijacked the memory of the great Bolivar to glorify his own political "revolution."

Brushing aside political conventions, the former paratrooper has depicted the battle for Venezuela's democratic destiny as a fight between good and evil, God and Satan. In the process, he has attained messianic status for many cult members.

"Millions of spiritualists voted for Chavez, we formed an alliance when he ran for president. ... Chavez is like a high spirit made flesh, a liberating spirit," said bleary-eyed witch doctor Luis Perez, emerging from a trance.

In religion, as in politics, there are always those who will take advantage of the poorly educated masses. Venezuela's social turmoil, including rising violent crime and poverty, has promoted more mutinous and exotic sects: the blond-haired warriors of the Viking court, the Afro-Cuban spirits of Santeria, and the court of the Thieves.

These are foul-mouthed spirits who like liquor and sex and show their power by forcing mediums to slash themselves with broken bottles or knives. The higher up the path in Sorte, the more bizarre the rituals; there are rumors of animal sacrifice and voodoo in the remote woods.

"When a medium assumes the personality of a spirit, they have guides on how to act," said author Diaz. "Some people do not feel destined to be a medium, they just put on theater."

In a hut near the foot of the mountain, an old man sits at a candlelighted altar decorated with images of Maria Lionza. "I am a great guru ... the greatest in Latin America and in Europe as well," said Rafael Reyes, his dark eyes sparkling. "I control the third eye and the sixth sense," he added mysteriously.

The cult, he explained confidentially, is related to a Druid religion that sacrificed humans to make soap.

"You have to be careful of the charlatans around here," cackled Juana de Dios, the closest thing to a high priestess at Sorte, who leads the annual "fire dance" to celebrate the feast of Santa Barbara -- a dance across burning coals.

Behind her fast-food shop, the wizened spiritualist said she studied for two years before starting her 45-year career. She claimed to have performed miracles, curing people of madness and even removing a kidney with the aid of a spirit doctor.

"People talk about the situation of the country, but the faithful have always come," she said, chuckling. "Don't drink the water here or you will keep coming back forever."

Venezuelans increasingly turn to Santeria for spiritual needs

By (AP, February 7, 2008)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/27714/?&place=other&section=occult

Caracas, Venezuela - The man says he is possessed by a god. He shouts, his body trembles and he lifts a sacrificed lamb to his lips, drinking its blood from the jugular.

This initiation ceremony, seldom witnessed by outsiders, has become increasingly common in Venezuela, as the Afro-Cuban traditions of Santeria and other folk religions gain followers.

The rituals have become an attractive option for Venezuelans seeking a unique spiritual path, including healing ceremonies aimed at curing everything from illness to heartache. Some even believe certain gods will offer protection from Venezuela's rampant violent crime.

The surge in Santeria, which is practised by many in Cuba, can partly be explained by the arrival of thousands of Cuban doctors in Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez has been providing Cuba with subsidized oil in exchange for thousands of physicians who come to the South American country to treat poor people.

Santeria priests are also making annual predictions for Venezuelans and issuing warnings - just like Cuban "santeros" do in Havana. Last month, one group of priests said the gods have indicated that the twice-divorced Chavez would be a more effective leader with a woman at his side.

It's a familiar pattern. Santeria has grown in popularity in New York, Miami and Puerto Rico in the past following influxes of Cubans, according to Margarite Fernandez Olmos, a professor at City University of New York who has researched the religion.

In overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Venezuela, many shops have sprung up in recent years selling roosters, goats and other animals to be sacrificed in Caracas' working class barrios. In the city's churches, believers can be seen in head-to-toe white, praying to their gods before statues of Catholic saints.

Santeria was born in Cuba among Yoruba slaves from West Africa. They were forbidden to practise their own religion, so they fused their beliefs with the Catholicism of their masters, starting a tradition that has spread throughout the Americas. Catholic leaders consider the rituals idolatrous but have come to tolerate the popular practice.

Santeria has been present in Venezuela for decades, although some experts say it is more out in the open now due to the political situation.

"The current political ambience created by a populist government with its emphasis on nationalism has made Santeria more visible," said Leslie Desmangles, a religion and international studies professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Along with Santeria, Venezuela is home to other folk religions, such as the sect surrounding the Indian goddess Maria Lionza, which has also been flourishing.

Believers in Maria Lionza make quick dashes through highway traffic in Caracas to reach a statue of the goddess in a highway divider. They lay offerings of flowers, liquor or coins at the foot of the statue, which depicts the naked goddess riding atop a tapir, a jungle animal.

The Santeria movement nowadays cuts across racial groups and class lines, and includes lawyers and other professionals as well as the unemployed among its adherents. In spite of rapid economic growth propelled by Venezuela's key oil industry, people here face problems from crime to inflation.

"Santeria is on the rise because there are many people who need the help of higher powers to overcome their problems," said Belkis, a 51-year-old "santera" who declined to give her last name, saying true followers prefer anonymity.

She was among hundreds of white-clad believers who recently crowded into a Catholic church, praying before a statue of the Virgen de Las Mercedes, a manifestation of the Virgin Mary, who they said represents Obatala, a patriarch in the pantheon of Yoruba gods.

Some pay up to $7,000 for the years-long initiation process to become "babalaos," or Santeria priests. The Followers of Ifa, a Santeria association, says it objects to the practice of charging such sums, saying the religion is based on "humility, brotherhood and honesty."

The patchwork of other folk rituals in Venezuela includes lighting candles and leaving fruit and cups of liquor at makeshift altars among the tombstones at Caracas' largest cemetery. Others pray using idols that range from toy dolls to wooden statues of "malandros" - street hoodlums who serve as protector spirits on streets where killings are frequent.

One santero, a 40-year-old named Wilfredo who would not give his last name, said that while Santeria attracts many for positive reasons, there are those who use it for black magic "because they think they can go kill and rob and nothing will happen to them."

Black magic practitioners known as "paleros" are known to gather human bones from cemeteries in order to seal pacts with the dead, to call upon their spirits for vengeance. At least some of the grave-robbing that plagues Caracas' main cemetery is thought to be due to the paleros, who according to some Santeria followers offer up to $5,000 for a skull.

In contrast, those seeking enlightenment and healing often visit the mountains of Sorte in rural north-central Venezuela, a key site for followers of the Maria Lionza sect.

A poor 21-year-old woman, Andrea Gomez, came here to see a Maria Lionza priestess who leads healing rituals, hoping her wisdom could help improve a troubled relationship with her boyfriend and find a spiritual cure for what she called "psychological pregnancy" - uncomfortable abdominal swelling in spite of the fact she wasn't pregnant.

The ceremony began as the "curandera" priestess offered Gomez a tea-like drink made with anise, and then gave her a cigar and asked her to chew it. It wasn't long before Gomez spat it out and vomited - the first stage in the cleansing ritual.

Then she was led into a stream, where the priestess and her two helpers rubbed a concoction of herbs, stems and rum over her skin, and dunked her in the water.

Dressing her in a hospital robe, they led her to a large flat rock, on which they poured a trail of talcum powder to draw a door-like "portal" for spiritual healing. They asked her to lie inside the white lines on a bed of banana leaves, and lit candles around her.

The priestess prayed aloud, speaking in tongues for the spirit world. The healer closed her eyes and appeared to drift into a trance, then placed her hands on the woman's abdomen and forehead.

Afterward, Gomez was helped up by her brother and cousin, and she sat on a rock appearing tired and peaceful. The priestess told the woman not to speak, and announced to those who witnessed the 1 1/2-hour ceremony that "the evil" was gone.