What's the deal with Voodoo?

Voodoo is a religion found in parts of Africa and Haiti that's often misunderstood. In this episode, Josh and Chuck separate the faction from the fiction as they explore how Voodoo really works.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is
Charles W. Chuck Bryant. How you like your chair? I

(00:23):
hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in like
the last eight podcasts we've just complained at the beginning.
We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck,
instead of complaining as it is our usual way these days,
let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm gonna take
us back. You're ready, okay, chuck um. This is August,

(00:52):
little place that we now know of as Haiti, and
what's just happened is a slave uprising. Actually, what is
the only successful slave uprising in the world. Good for them? Yeah,
that's what I say. What happened was what happened was
in earlier in August of a group of slave leaders

(01:17):
and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway slaves who made
it to the hills, and we're basically staging guerrilla warfare
against um plantations and white colonists. They got together and
there was a ceremony that was performed in a place
called Alligator Woods or block came in. I've been there,
have you really? Oh wow, Well we're about together now, right.

(01:41):
There's this voodoo ritual that took place, and all the
leaders basically pledged their support and dedication to this rebellion,
and a week later all hell brake slurs. Okay um
this thousands of slaves revolt. Uh, they or every white
person they can find. Apparently they paraded around from like

(02:05):
settlement to settlement with a white human baby impaled on
a steak I might draw the line there, but burned
every plantation they could find and just basically held a
slave uprising. You know. It's like you can only hold
somebody down for so long before they, you know, turn
on the human spirit wants to be free, exactly. Chuck uh.

(02:28):
And that's essentially what happened the the Haitian slaves rose up.
They were unsuccessful actually in but historians say this is
the point that started at all and by eighteen o
four Haitia was a free republic. Yeah. Um, But that
that meeting in the woods that started it. All, the

(02:50):
voodoo ceremony, that instance and other slave rebellions that were
kind of based around voodoo um kind of given the
religion a bad rap among whites since then. It's kind
of weird to think of, but our conception of voodoo

(03:11):
is almost entirely hollywood ized, fictionalized um and fear based
based on this um kind of collective white distant memory
um of well, this is this is what you know.
Voodoo is, it's babies impaled on steaks. What happens when

(03:34):
you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually, the um
that slave revoult the successful slave rebellion um is what
Pat Robertson was talking about famously after the Haiti earthquake
when he said, a long time ago, and people in
Haiti don't like to talk about it, but they made
a pact with the devil um to get the French out,

(03:55):
and they said, we'll give you our souls if uh
you'll get the itch out, and the French got out.
And so basically he was saying, you know, the it's
devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship, and the successful slave
rebellion is proof positive of it, and that's why the
earthquake happened in his opinion, And then Haiti. They were
probably like, who's this devil you keep talking about? We

(04:18):
don't believe in that, dude. This is gonna be a
lot of debunking going on today. Let's debunk dude. Let's
start talking about voodoo. Okay, let's write now. Okay, Voodoo
is a religion. A lot of people think it's just
a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like who
do which we'll get too later. But voodoo is an

(04:38):
actual religion. There is a there's one God. It's very
it depends on where you are. If you're talking voodoo
and um even generationally speaking, there's a lot of differences. Yeah,
because there's no definitive holy text. It's a normal tradition
and it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like
a very personal um and it governs your day to

(05:01):
day life. And it um also has it's different, has
a different impact on every every person, right, Yes, it does. Yes. Uh,
So there's like I said, there's one supreme God, and
depending on where you are to be different name. Uh,
if you're talking Haitian voodoo, we're basically going to cover
like African and Haitian in parts, I would say won't you. Yeah, Okay,

(05:22):
so Haitian voodoo you're gonna call this supreme god Bandhi.
But in voodoo, you can't talk directly to the main God.
You have to go through one of these spirits called
the loa, right, And there are many loa now, all
have different functions, but it is hierarchical, it is, and
they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah, which it

(05:42):
turns out to be, and we'll get to that more
in detail. But that's a big, big part of voodoo,
is uh, the ancestry and dead people basically spirits of
the dead people. Right. And you're talking about comparing it
to say, Christianity or Judaism or something like that, it's
much it's much easier to compare um like a pagan

(06:03):
religion like voodoo, to a pagan religion like um Druidism, right,
than it is to compare either one to Christianity or Judaism. Um.
Although there are some similarities there are, especially in Haitian voodoo,
but in African voodoo, um, it's it's much more difficult
to compare it. And so anthropologists still kind of put

(06:25):
it in this um context of of ways. We can
understand like gods, but they're not gods. You can't like
to to voodoo practitioners. They're not gods. Their ancestral spirits.
The spirit world is as real as this world. So
we may hear their call them gods accidentally, but that's
that's just as close as we can come. You could

(06:46):
compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right, they
have different personalities to represent different things, but it's kind
of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of the
natural experience are associated with different gods. Right, good point. Thanks. Uh.
It's basically so white Christians can understand what we're talking about.

(07:06):
Um so uh, African and Haitian voodoo in in both
cases you have it's really not a bunch of evil
doing and and spells cast upon one another. It's mainly
used for for good and to be a better person.
In fact, you're you're counted on as a practice or
a voodoo to be a good community member and you know,

(07:27):
a stand up guy or gal. Right, yeah, and I
remember we said that it was a personal and subjective religion.
Um So, when you're practicing voodoo, when you are um uh,
interacting with it's say like a voodoo priest or priestess. Right, Um,
you're seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah,

(07:50):
So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um
evil aspect does exist bo bo um in afri Can tradition,
right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of
African vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a
voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah, an African

(08:13):
voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo
priests this is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba. Um.
So the mamba and the ho gun are not charged
with um carrying out boat which is evil spells hexes
um basically magic that does harm right, right, And they
do use voodoo dolls, they do. Yeah, but um, this

(08:36):
is not to say and this is where it kind
of gets a little prickly like a little hinky um
where the voodoo priests and priests is may not actually
practice bow this black magic, but um, they're familiar with it,
they have a working knowledge of it. But so so
they can oppose people who practice boes You have to

(08:59):
understand something to fight it. That's the belief. They're right, right, sure, Okay,
So Chuck, let's talk a little more about ceremonies and
some of the characteristics and traits that make voodoo voodoo.
All right, We're going to Africa. Are we in Haiti
at this point? Let's do Africa first, Okay. I mean
this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six
thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It

(09:20):
comes from the Fawn language, which was the kingdom of Fawn,
and that means sacred spirit or deity, right, and I
think it was like northwest northwest Africa. Northwest it's north
central west Africa, so it's west Africa. We're talking. Ghana,
Bending and Togo are like the the areas where these

(09:43):
ancient kingdoms of Fawn and Congo, Congo with the k
um we're located. And this is the cradle of voodoo. Yeah.
And I actually got a stat for you. Um, they
say that thirty million people in in Togo, Ghana and
was it Benin Yeah, still practice vood you today And
just to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's

(10:03):
about double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow.
Is it really Yeah, well there, I mean stats very
because depending on if you're like an active practice practitioner
of Judaism or if you're just like born Jewish. But yeah,
it's about double so it ranks. It's also um an
official religion and beneath yeah, they say that of the

(10:23):
people of that country follow voodoo still, right, so this
is a an established religion. Um. But one of the
founding um or foundational tenants of voodoo is that you
can communicate with the spirits, and you communicate with the
spirits to find out, you know, what you should do
from them, then the almighty deity, yeah, the Supreme God

(10:49):
right there, the medium right um. One of the one
of the other founding tenants of voodoo is you communicate
with these people not in your head, not through prayer,
but by the the loa um actually possessing someone who
then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing?
Why you aren't you you know, UM spending more time

(11:12):
with your wife, things like that, right. Yeah, we said
that It's different in African and Haitian and all over
the world and in different time periods, but that's one
of the main through lines and all voodoo is possession, spirit, intrusion, possession. Right. Um.
The person who's being possessed at the time is known
as the horse, and the whatever loa is is possessing

(11:33):
him or her is known as the rider. Right. Yeah,
that's in Haitian voodoo. How did I get ahead of us? No,
that's right, we can, we can kind of jump around. Okay,
Well that's really one of the big bridges. Um. That's
really the bridge between Haitian voodoo and African voodoo. Right
is that spirit possession exists. That's how you find out

(11:54):
what you should do in your day to day life. Right. Um.
Back in Africa on the African side. Um, some other
commonalities between the two. Because again um, or maybe not again,
but possibly the first time Haitian Haitian voodoo is African
voodoo with creolized yes, right, yeah, so let's get back

(12:17):
to talking about African voodoo. I did screw us up,
and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to our fans. I'm so sorry, fans,
Please forgive me. You never owe me an apology, buddy. Um.
So the answer the ancestral spirits make up the lower right. Um.
You can take any object and consecrate it, and it
becomes a ritual sacred object, right, which is where the

(12:38):
dolls come in, which, as you said, are not used
for um harm. Right. Well, they can be by the
if you're talking bow, but it's definitely not like you
see in the movies, right or the Brady bunch Um
during Yeah, um, the there's a lot of ceremonial dance. Um.
Spirits are in vogue through music, percussion, that kind of thing. Um.

(13:03):
I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there
is a gatekeeper um. And his name in Haitian tradition
is papal Legba. Right, I love that name, yeah, Um.
And papal Legba is the gatekeeper between the spirit world
and the human world. Right. And he's invoked at the

(13:24):
beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him
to open the gate so you can start communicating at
the low and some things can be people can be possessed. Right.
And actually papal Legba is also a one of the
black men at the Crossroad, who um bears a striking
resemblance to our friend masham Oh really yeah interesting. Yeah.
The Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yet, right,

(13:48):
we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if
some of this sounds familiar, if you're thinking Papa Legba
sounds sort of like St. Peter, and the crossroads sounds
sort of like the Christian cross there's a very good
reason for that. It's because, once again we go back
to our friend Christopher Columbus Hispaniola and the fact that
they brought slaves over to Hispaniola to work on the plantations.

(14:11):
They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was
Columbus said, no, no, no no, no, if you're going to
be a slave over here, that you have to be
converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The
French actually did that one go to be baptized, forced conversion.
So what they did was, in order to keep practicing voodoo,

(14:32):
they incorporated and this or out. My mind was blown.
I didn't know they did this. They incorporated parts of
Catholicism to kind of mask the fact that they were
practicing voodoo and it got all mixed up in what's
called syncretization. So Catholicism and voodoo working together right crazy.
So even today, um, there a lot of the loa

(14:55):
there well, there was a lot of ready um uh
similarities between these ancestral spirits and Catholic saints. Right. So
like St. Peter is associated with papal Legba because St.
Peter's the guy who's outside the gates of heaven. Papal
Legba is the gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they

(15:15):
associate him with him. Um, there is a god who
is um pretty powerful. He's a warrior protector god called
Ogu and he's associated with St. James who was a
warrior protector saint. So it's it wasn't It's not a
leap all the time, but sometimes it's a stretch. Like St. Patrick,
remember drove out the snakes from Ireland. He's associated with

(15:38):
snakes in the Haitian tradition. Um. But yeah, so when
you when you look at the underlying um tenants, the
really overarching narrative of being able to communicate with spirits,
invoking spirits through percussion, percussion, song, dance, I'm being possessed
and objects being able to be consecrated it and and

(16:01):
become sacred. Um. Then that's voodoo across the board. The
voodoo were familiar with. Um, that's Haitian voodoo, which is
kind of mixed up with Catholicism. Yeah. I said that.
They even incorporated uh, Catholic hymns and prayers. Yeah, crazy, Yeah,

(16:21):
Tracy Wilson, Yeah she did. Um. So, Josh, you brought
up rituals that they would perform to invoke the gods.
And one of the tenants of voodoo is the gods
will give you advice at all, but you've got to
take care of the gods the spirits. And one way
that you can do this is by animal sacrifice to
appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah. Now this

(16:43):
is um again. This is another ticklish aspect of voodoo,
isn't it. You know? I mean this is like, oh,
they sacrifice animals, They're they're evil. It's like, well, you
got the sacrifice animals part, right, right, you know, well
they used to sacrifice humans too, did they. Yeah, it's
been like at least a hundred years since any of
that's gone on in Africa. They say, huh so, Chuck,

(17:04):
there's actually um with the animal sacrifices. Um. There there's
actually a process, as you can imagine, there's a process
where so you're you're going to sacrifice a chicken, right, Um?
And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated,
and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if

(17:26):
it refuses to eat, then that means that the loa
has rejected that sacrifice, and the animal is set free.
If it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead. Apparently
I guess they don't. But but it's not just chickens.
I think this supplies to goats, pigs, whatever sacrifice, right, um.

(17:46):
And so if it eats, then it's like, okay, you're dead.
If it's a goat or a pig, it's throat, it's slip.
If it's a chicken, its neck is broken, but it's quick.
It's a quick death. It's not you know, tortured or
anything like that. The blood is mixed in this um
calabash like a big chalice bowl, yeah um, with rum
and syrup and salt, and then people will either take

(18:10):
a sip or they'll they'll um make a cross on
their crucifix on their head in blood. Right. So that's
the blood sacrifice. That's where the blood sacrifice ritual stands today.
Oh really they still do it that way because Haitians
still practice voodoo like uh like right out in the open.
So yeah, it's not some like Westerners might think it's

(18:31):
like some weird hidden thing, but it's not like that
at all. Uh. You also talked about UM when they
invoke or when you're possessed. There's I know, there's a
dance called the Dance of the hooded uh a gun
gun And apparently what happens is when someone is like
the spirit overtakes them and they're possessing and they're dancing around.
If you touch them, you die, that's what they say.

(18:54):
So you gotta like stand in the circle and witness
all this and jump part. But you know they're running
all over the place, so you gotta like, you know,
keep distance and um. They're also if while you're possessed,
you are impervious to pain, you can't be injured. Good point.
And today I was reading an article from I think
two thousand two or two thousand four UM, and this

(19:14):
guy was talking about witnessing a a voodoo ritual in
West Africa recently. And these guys were um were possessed
by Ugu remember the warrior protector spirit um and they
were cutting themselves with their knives, blood lighting UM and
weren't wincing or anything like that, because apparently one aspect

(19:35):
of it is like you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well,
and since you brought that up, we should probably go
ahead and talk about why Westerners view voodoo as some
sort of evil, awful thing, right, in addition to the
slave uprising, right, Yeah, exactly. One of the reasons you
just mentioned was a lot of the there's a lot
of self injury that goes on, like, yeah, and so

(19:58):
Westerners see that and they think those people are crazy
look at them. Well, not just that, but blood making
a real appearance, anything dealing with death, the fact that
they believe that death is like you know, not necessarily
a bad thing, and that the spirits are are still
living among us, guiding us. That's not where Westerners aren't
typically down with that either. Now, Westerners don't have a

(20:19):
stomach for real blood, which is why wine is used
in place of it or is a metaphor for it.
And like the Christian tradition, and death is something that
we don't like to think about or talk about in
the West either. Again, though in the voodoo tradition and
in a lot of other traditions, um death is just
a part of the natural order of things, and it's

(20:40):
certainly not the end. I think in the West, it's
kind of viewed even by the religious in some cases
as the end, and we don't really like to think
about that. You know. That's a good point. UM. The
other thing Tracy mentioned in here was from nineteen fifteen
to nineteen thirty five, the Marine Corps occupied Haiti and

(21:00):
during this period there were a lot of books and
movies all of a sudden being written about UH and
portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy blood
letting people, right, so those became really popular. One of
them was called White Zombie. Around the same time it
had spread UH to New Orleans and kind of who

(21:22):
do became popular? Right. In the nineteenth century, there were
two women named Marie La Vaux and Um. One was
they were the most powerful women in UM in voodoo
culture in the US UM and the one was the
mom and the one was the daughter. Mom retired and died,
the daughter disappeared. No one knows what happened to her UM.

(21:46):
But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers
split into factions, and one of the factions became who do,
and you do became very powerful. And who do was
a mix of bow black magic with voodoo or in
the voodoo tradition, I guess. And so now we have

(22:08):
who do and that is what most people think of
when you think of voodoo in the US, you think
of New Orleans. And then what we're actually thinking of
is who do not voodoo? Something else, you know, like
um chimmy chonga or something exactly. Um um. So these
misconceptions still abound. Um. There was a paper in n

(22:29):
four that apparently this physician who wrote it, a researcher
who wrote it still takes flak four um. But it
was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon do
necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v
during voodooistic rituals? But basically, do necrophiliacs who are into

(22:52):
zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason
for the spread of AIDS in Haiti? Well, actually there
is a certain element of public health to what's going
to say, that's like, that's one of the real concerns.
It's not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um.

(23:14):
Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that
they freely bleed on one another and or sharing, you know,
the blood of an animal sacrifice, people drinking that that
that can be bad stuff. Yeah, so that's a real
health concern. Um. Another really practical concern is a lot
of and we fail to mention this the priests and
priestess is one of their main gigs is to practice
folk medicine on on the practitioners of voodoo. Right, because

(23:38):
again we said everyday life, like voodoo's part of your
everyday life if you were right here, And some of
these folk practices kind of fly in the face of
real medicine. So that's sort of a concern here and there.
I think we should replace the word reel with Western metal. Yeah,
you're right. Yeah, you're definitely right, because I believe in
a lot of like Eastern medicine, I might look into
voodoo might clear up my sinuses. Yeahsietic uh. And like

(24:03):
we said, um, death is a big, big part of it.
And just the culture of fear that it creates is
something that is a big turn off for a lot
of Well, it creates a culture of fear in the
in the West, it is, but again, there's I think
even informed, um educated people have misconceptions about voodoo because

(24:25):
it's been harangued so long in this country that people
in the US just really don't understand what what it
is that's going on down there, and there's so many misunderstandings. Yeah,
they see angel heart, but even beyond that, like even
if even if you don't think it's who do you're
You're like, okay, well they're turning people into zombies. We

(24:47):
did the how zombies work thing and it's real down there. Um,
but that's not voodoo. That's bo right, yeah, exactly. Um,
So it's kind of it makes me um sad for voodoo.
I guess a little sad for voodoo. It makes me
sad for the Mamba's. Well, it's definitely um has a
stigma about it, and until I read all about it,

(25:09):
I probably fell into that same trap. But then you
start realizing aside from like spiritual possession and a couple
of the other things, like you know, it's not so
different than other religions when you look at it, and
I think Buddhist actually, I think there are times when
Buddhism when there is spiritual possession going on there too Christianity. Now, yeah,
there's a good example in this article of um spirit

(25:33):
possession happening in the Buddhist tradition, right, Yeah, that's where
I heard it. Yeah, all right, there was um in
nineteen fifty nine. The Dalai Lama was Um speaking with
an oracle that was possessed Um, and the oracle gave
him advice on how to escape the Chinese Army successfully

(25:54):
that spirit possession. But it's Buddhism and they don't sacrifice chickens, right,
I think that that's kind of it. There's a lot
of blood and death in voodoo and people are afraid
of it, right, Um. But I read it or saw
a thing on NPR today where one guy went down
and spent some time with with the voodoo um practitioners,

(26:15):
and I think Haiti and he said, maybe his Ira
Glass people are crazy. That's more Woody Allen than Ira Glass. Um.
But he basically like in the dark Side, even the
bow to the concept of heaven and hell and Western religion,
and he he said, quote, the whole point is to

(26:35):
manifest the darkness so that goodness can overwhelm it. And
it's the same in voodoo as it is in Christianity.
And you know, actually I said that Christianity they don't
believe in like possession at all. Not quite true. Oh yeah,
some some like Southern Baptist and Pentecostal believe that the
spirit can overtake you in such a way. So I
was not quite right there. But again, think about how

(26:57):
those people are looked at from the same people who
look at voodoo as you know, unseemly. Yeah, good point.
But what what's going on now though, is there's there's
sort of an outright war from on Voodoo by missionaries
still going there to convert them from what they say
as a cult, right or associated with the devil. Well, yeah,

(27:19):
they associated with Satan, which is ridiculous because nothing about
voodoo has anything to do with Satan. I don't even
believe it exists. Yeah, so this is Western Christians kind
of just putting all their stuff on them, lots of
hang ups. Yeah, we uh Anglo Saxon descendants really like
to hang our hang ups on other people. Right, Yeah,

(27:40):
let's let's stop that. Well I mentioned Angel Hart. We
should mention the movies real quick. Angel Hart, great movie,
Who do Surpent in the Rainbow? Great movie? But again
that was Wade Davis, the anthropologist, and he's done a lot.
That's who that was. Yeah, he's done well, it was
bull Bill Pullman playing him. But um, he's done a lot.
Actually to a cloud voodoo to continue these misconceptions rather

(28:04):
than clear them up. Really yeah, but he's made a
lot of money along the way. Good point. Uh, and
then of course Live and Let Die. We like to
talk about Bond that have some voodoo in that best
Bond ever Roger Moore. God, it's so true. Roger Moore
was awful. Dude, Dude, Roger Moore was great. I grew
up with Roger Moore, so I like, like, I have

(28:25):
a certain affinity for some of those films, some of
his earlier ones. But it got to the point where
it was just like a cartoon of himself. He was
never the butt kicker like Conner he was, or the
new guys know whatever, Dalton or who's the name of
that Greig. All right, Well, if you want to learn
more about James Bond and Voodoo, you can type James

(28:46):
Bond and Voodoo into the handy search bar how stuff
works dot Com. If doesn't work, which I can pretty
much guarantee it won't just type voodoo try that one.
And since I said handy search bar how stuff works
dot Com, it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm gonna
call this ghost prisons for reels? Did you read this
one from will h Hey, guys, just thought I would

(29:08):
drop a line about my interaction with your recent ghost
prisons topic, which we have yet to get a lot
of flag for. We've gotten zero flak. I'm ready for
some flag to come, aren't way thought? Some way people
stopped listening a long time ago. I have met on
several occasions a man by the name of I'll go
ahead and say his name, Mom do Habib, who was

(29:28):
very prominent in the Australian media for being an Australian
citizen held at Gitmo or Jitmo Gitmo Gitmo alright, because Kuantanamo,
It's not Juantanamo Guantanamo. Through my conversations with him, it
was clear that he had not only been tained at Clontanamo,
but also was a subject to extraordinary rendition. He was

(29:51):
captured by the US in Pakistan, sent to Egypt, where
he was held for six months and tortured. The torture, however,
was ineffective because of the misadministration of drugs by U
S agents, which rendered him almost above feeling for most
of the time, so like they doped him up so
much he couldn't even feel the torture, basically almost as

(30:11):
if he was under the power of the voodoo spell
or under the power of morphine. After six months, he
was dumped back in the Pantis Pakistan, before getting picked
up again and taken to Gitmo. It was apparently common
policy for the US to first torture then imprisoned in
Guantanamo Bay in order to use the torture findings. However,

(30:33):
mainly due to the tireless campaigning of his wife, he
was released from Guantanamo and returned to OZ. However, judging
from the times I have met him, the experience will
never leave him. In regards to the tortured, I forgot
all about it, but you want to come over for
Bobby for a for a stubby. In regards to the

(30:57):
perception that Obama is better in turn of this stuff,
it is unfortunately not the case. Say that Gitmo has
been replaced by a Bogram airbase in Afghanistan, a prison
even further from the public eyes. Keep up the great work, guys,
hopefus finds you in good health. There is no way
to end that softly. It's gonna stop here and keep up.
So that comes from Will and he says peace right

(31:20):
on Will, Peace to you two, my friend. So, uh,
what do you want to call for? Chuck? I don't know.
It's something interesting. How about if you are a practitioner
of voodoo. That is excellent, Chuck. We want to hear
from you. Yes, please do let us know. Um, if
you're a practitioner voodoo, we would love to hear from you.
Let us know what's going on and what we got

(31:42):
glaringly wrong or omitted because this one could like this
one could use filling out. I think a little more.
What are they called voodoours, voodoo practitioners, voodooists, voodooists? You
know the line in placing styles? Now go do that
voodoo that you do so well? Yes, late Harvey Corman. Yeah. Um.
You can also follow us on Twitter, s Y s

(32:02):
K podcast. We have a Facebook page that we like
to hang out on sometimes. It's called uh stuff you
should know. Website in parentheses and you can send us
that email if you are into voodoo at stuff podcast
at how Stuff Works dot com. For more on this

(32:23):
and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff works
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