Observations placeholder
Dr William Sargant – Voodoo in Haiti. And their gods live in them and they live in their gods
Identifier
024401
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Dr William Sargant was born in Highgate, London, in 1907 and educated at Leys School and St John's College, Cambridge. Up to 1972 he was Physician in Charge of the Department of Psychological Medicine at St Thomas's Hospital, London. He was Associate Secretary of the World Psychiatric Association and on the staff of the Maudsley Hospital, London for many years, He was also Registrar of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association, Rockefeller Fellow at Harvard University and Visiting Professor at Duke University. He was also the author of Battle for the Mind, and The Unquiet Mind.
Such a sad ending, he clearly had his own longing he was unable to fulfill
A description of the experience
The Mind Possessed - Dr William Sargant
This is everything one came to Haiti to see - to see this religion where you really do get in contact and live as your god - not just vainly hoping that you will. Your god comes to you, possesses you, mounts you, and you become a god yourself. And these very humble people, with very humble lives, are enabled thereby to live lives of comparative happiness because they have found a religion which does bring down their gods to them. And their gods live in them and they live in their gods. For that reason they are very much happier people than many of us who search for God and never find him, and whose conception of God is some intellectual process conceived in some vague manner in which this God is above, miles and miles away. To them their gods are real.
The source of the experience
African tribalConcepts, symbols and science items
Symbols
HobScience Items
Activities and commonsteps
Activities
Overloads
Frenetic exerciseSuppressions
Enacting ritual and ceremonyListening to beating sounds