SYSK Selects: 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.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. I've got my voodoo doll out because it's Saturday.
It's time for a Saturday Select and I went with
What's the Deal with Voodoo? From July six two. Uh.
You know, I picked this one because I just remember
being a very interesting episode. Voodoo is. Um. Well, we
we talk all about it, not just in a pop

(00:20):
culture way because voodoo is so often misinterpreted on TV
Sitcom's Go Figure, but we get into the real voodoo
and in the history of it and what's behind it.
All very interesting stuff. So here we go, July six,
What's the Deal with Voodoo? Welcome to Stuff you Should

(00:43):
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 hate this chair? Dude? Do you realize that, in
like the last eight podcasts, we've just complained at the beginning.

(01:06):
We're probably so tired of it. Yeah, So let's let's instead, Chuck,
instead of complaining as is our usual way these days,
let's go back in time. Oh yes, I'm going to
take us back. You're ready, okay, Chuck? Um, this is

(01:26):
August 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

(01:51):
of slave leaders and maroon leaders and maroons were runaway
slaves who've 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.

(02:12):
I've been there, have you really? Oh? Wow, Well we're
about together now, right. There's this voodoo ritual that took place,
and all of the leaders basically pledged their support and
dedication to this rebellion. And a week later, all hell
breaks loose. Okay, um this thousands of slaves revolt. They

(02:35):
murder every white person they can find. Apparently they paraded
around from like 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,

(03:00):
turn on you. The human spirit wants to be free, exactly, Chuck. Uh.
And that's essentially what happened that 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. Awesome, yeah, um, But

(03:22):
that that meeting in the woods that started it all.
The voodoo ceremony that instance, and other slave rebellions that
were kind of based around voodoo UM have kind of
given the religion a bad rap among whites lots of
things since then. It's kind of weird to think of,

(03:43):
but our conception of voodoo 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

(04:05):
this is what you know voodoo is. It's babies impaled
on steaks. What happens when you let people practice voodoo? Right, Chuck? Actually,
the um that slave revault is successful slave rebellion um
is what Pat Robertson was talking about famously. After the
Haiti earthquake when he said a long time ago, and

(04:25):
people in Haiti don't like to talk about it, but
they made a pact with the devil um to get
the French out and they said, we'll give you our
souls if uh, you'll get the French out, and the
French got out. And then so basically he was saying,
you know, the it's devil worship. Voodoo is devil worship,
and the successful slave rebellion is proved positive of it,

(04:47):
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 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 now, okay,
Voodoo is a religion. A lot of people think it's

(05:08):
just a bunch of hocus pocus, which is more like
who do which we'll get to later. But voodoo is
an 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. Yeah.

(05:30):
And it's a very subjective religion too, right, it's like
a very personal um and it governs your day to
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,

(05:50):
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, so Haitian voodoo, you're gonna all this
supreme god bandhi. But in voodoo, you can't talk directly
to the main god. You have to go through one
of the spirits called the loa, right, and there are
many loa. Now I'll have different functions, but it is hierarchical,

(06:13):
it is. And they're based on dead ancestors ancestral spirits, yeah,
which it 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.

(06:34):
It's much it's much easier to compare um like a
pagan 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

(06:56):
to compare it. And so answer all just still kind
of put it in this um context of of ways
we can understand like gods, right, but they're not gods.
You can't like to to voodoo practitioners. They're not God's
their ancestral spirits. The spirit world is as real as
this world. So we may hear their call them gods accidentally,

(07:19):
but that's that's just as close as we can come.
You could compare them to a Greek or Roman gods, right.
They have different personalities that represent different things, but it's
kind of that shared pagan worldview that different parts of
the natural experience are associated with different gods. Yes, right,
good point. Thanks. Uh. It's basically so white Christians can

(07:40):
understand exactly what we're talking about, 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 voodoo to be a

(08:00):
good community member and you know, 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,
say like a voodoo priest or priestess, right, um, you're

(08:21):
seeking advice, guidance and you're living your life by that, right. Yeah.
So there's actually I guess kind of the whole um
evil aspect does exist bo bo um in African tradition,
right yeah. African voodoo, Yeah, that's the dark side of
African Vodoo is called bo right, and voodoo practitioners a

(08:43):
voodoo priest is called a hogun right yeah. An African
voodoo priest, right yeah, And an African and Haitian voodoo
priestess is called a mamba, right, yes, mamba um So
the mamba and the Hogun are not charged with um
carrying out bow, which is evil spells hexes um basically

(09:05):
magic that does harm, right, right, And they do use
voodoo dolls they do. Yeah, but um, this 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

(09:28):
have a working knowledge of it. But so so they
can oppose people who practice bo. Yes, you have to
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, are we going to Africa? Are we in
Haiti at this point? Let's do Africa first. I mean,

(09:51):
this is the cradle of voodoo, right, yeah, like six
thousand years ago. That's where the word comes from. It
comes from the Faun language, which was the kingdom of
Fun 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,

(10:15):
Benin and Togo are like the the areas where these
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 voodoo today. And just

(10:36):
to gauge where that falls and world religions, it's about
double the number of Jewish people in the entire world. Wow,
is it really? Yeah? Well there, I mean stats vary
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 in Beni. Yeah. They say six of the

(11:00):
bull 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

(11:25):
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 these the loa um actually possessing someone who
then gives commands or says, you know, what are you doing?
Why aren't you you know, um, spending more time with

(11:48):
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 him or her is known as the rider.

(12:11):
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 what you should do in
your day to day life, right um. Back in Africa,

(12:35):
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 to talking about African voodoo. I
did screw us up, and I apologize, Chuck, apologize to

(12:57):
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 lowa. Right. Um. You
can take any object and consecrate it and it becomes
a ritual, sacred object. Right, which is where the dolls
come in, which, as you said, are not used for
um harm Right. Well, they can be by the if

(13:20):
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.
I know that in both Haitian and African voodoo there

(13:44):
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
beginning of every ceremony because you have to get him
to open the gate so you can absolutely start communicating

(14:05):
at the low and so things can be people can
be possessed. Right. And actually Papalaba is also a one
of the black men at the Crossroad, who um bears
a striking resemblance to our friend Mashamn. Oh really yeah, interesting, Yeah,
the Crossroad a k a. The Christian Cross in Haitian tradition. Yeah, right,
we should go ahead and talk about that. Probably if

(14:26):
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, is 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.

(14:47):
They brought voodoo with them, and the problem there was
Columbus said, no, no, no no, no no. If you're going
to be a slave over here, you have to be
converted to Christianity. So that was the code noir. The
French actually did that one to be baptized, forced conversion.
So what they did was in order to keep practicing voodoo,

(15:08):
they incorporated and this or 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. Yeah,
so Catholicism and voodoo working together, right crazy, So even today, Um,

(15:47):
they're a lot of the loa there. Well, there was
a lot of ready um uh similarities between these ancestral
spirits and Catholic saint. It's right. So like St. Peter
is associated with papal Legba because St. Peter's the guy
who's outside the gates to heaven. Papal Legba is the

(16:08):
gatekeeper to the spirit world, so they 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 sat. So it's it wasn't
It's not a leap all the time, but sometimes it's

(16:28):
a stretch like St. Patrick, remember drove out the snakes
from Ireland. He's associated with 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,

(16:50):
I'm being possessed and objects being able to be consecrated
and and 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,

(17:14):
who knew, 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. Yeah.
And one way that you can do this is by
animal sacrifice to appease the god, you know, the spirit. Yeah.

(17:37):
Now this 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, do 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,

(17:59):
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 the chicken, right um.
And this chicken is washed and leaves to be consecrated,
and then it's fed from this ritual dish. And if

(18:20):
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. Always
eat though apparently I guess they don't. But but it's
not just chickens. I think this applies to the goats, pigs, whatever,
sacrifice right um. And so if it eats, then it's like, okay,

(18:43):
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 um with
rum and syrup and salt, and then people will either

(19:04):
take 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

(19:25):
might think it's 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

(19:48):
what they say. So you gotta like stand in the
circle and witness all this in some part but you know,
they're running all over the place, so you gotta like,
you know, keep your distance. And um. They're also if
while you're possessed, you are imperview is 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 guy was talking about witnessing

(20:11):
a a voodoo ritual in West Africa, yeah, recently. And
these guys were, um, we're 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 of it is like
you can't feel pain while you're possessed. Interesting. Yeah, well,

(20:33):
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, Well, 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 Westerners see that and they think those people are

(20:55):
crazy look at them. Well, not just that, but blood
making a real all of parents 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 stomach for real blood, which is why wine

(21:17):
is used in place of it or as 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 certainly not the end. I think in the West,

(21:37):
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 during this period there were a lot of books
and movies all of a sudden being written about uh

(22:00):
and portrayed like Haitian voodoo as these you know, crazy
blood letting people, 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
do became popular. Right in the nineteenth century, there were

(22:21):
two women named Marie la vau 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.
But after the second one disappeared, UH, the the followers

(22:47):
split into factions, and one of the factions became who
do and you do became very powerful. And who do
is a mix of bow black magic with voodoo and
or in the who do tradition, I guess, And so
now we have 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

(23:08):
thinking of is who do not voodoo. They should have
named it something else. They should have, you know, like
um Chimmy Chongga or something exactly um UM. So these
misconceptions still abound. UM. There was a paper in nine
four that apparently this physician who wrote it, A researcher
who wrote it still takes flak four. Um. But it

(23:30):
was titled Night of the Living Dead to colon. Do
necromantic zombieists transmit ht LV three slash l a v
during voodooistic rituals? So basically, do necrophiliacs who are into
zombieism and our voodoo practitioners started, are they the reason

(23:51):
for the spread of aids in Haiti? Well, actually, there
is a certain element of public health too, That's what's
gonna say. That's like, that's one of the real concerns,
just not all these Western misconceptions of like taboos. Um.
Real concerns are that there is blood letting and that
they freely bleed on one another and or sharing you know,

(24:14):
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 failed 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
again we said everyday life, like voodoo is part of

(24:35):
your everyday life. If you were and 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. Yeah, you're right, Yeah, you're definitely right,
because I believe in a lot of like Eastern medicine. Sure,
I might look into voodoo, might clear up my sinuses. Yeah. Uh.

(24:57):
And like 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

(25:18):
about voodoo because 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

(25:40):
turning people into zombies. We 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 mombas.
It's definitely Um has a stigma about it, and until

(26:02):
I read all about it, 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

(26:24):
good example in this article of um spirit 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

(26:44):
to escape the Chinese army successfully that spirit possession. But
it's Buddhism and they don't sacrifice chickens. 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

(27:05):
today where one guy went down and spent some time
with with the voodoo um practitioners, and I think Haiti
and he said, maybe his Ira Glass people are crazy.
That's 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

(27:28):
and he he said, quote, the whole point is to
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

(27:50):
was not quite right there. But again, think about how
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

(28:10):
as a cult, right or associated with the devil. Well, yeah,
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

(28:31):
to hang our hang ups on other people. Right, Yeah,
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

(28:51):
bull Bill Pullman playing him. But um, he's done a lot.
Actually to a cloud voodoo to continue these misconceptions rather
than hear them up. Really yeah, but he's made a
lot of money along the way. Good point. And then
of course Live and Let Die. We like to talk
about Bond. That some voodoo in that best bond ever.
Roger Moore, God, it's so true. Roger Moore was awful. Dude, Dude,

(29:15):
Roger Moore was great. I grew up with Roger Moore,
so I like, like, I have 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 Connery was, or the New Guys whatever, Dalton or
who's a name that Greig? All right, Well, if you

(29:48):
want to learn more about James Bond and Voodoo, you
can type James 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 bart
how stuff works dot Com, it's time for listener mail. Josh,
I'm gonna call this ghost prisons for reels? Did you

(30:12):
read this one from Will h? Hey, guys, just thought
I would 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 flat to come. Aren't way about some way?
People stopped listening a long time ago? Chuck, I have
met on several occasions a man by the name of

(30:32):
I'll go ahead and say his name, mom Do Habib,
who was very prominent in the Australian media for being
an Australian citizen held at Gitmo or Jitmo, Gitmo, Gitmo, alright,
because Guantanamo. It's not Jouantanamo Guantanamo. Through my conversations with him,
it was clear that he had not only been tained
at Guantanamo, but also it was a subject to extraordinary rendition.

(30:57):
He was captured by the US and 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 US 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 if he was

(31:18):
under the power of a voodoo's spell or under the
power of morphine. Right 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, mainly due

(31:40):
to the tireless campaigning of his wife, he was released
from Guantanamo and returned to ODZ. 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 a bobby, for

(32:00):
a slab of b for a stubby. In regards to
the perception that Obama is better in terms of this stuff,
it is unfortunately not the case. We'll say that Gitmo
has been replaced by a Bogram airbase in Afghanistan, in
prison even further from the public eyes. Keep up the
great work, guys. Hope this finds you in good health.
There is no way to end that softly. It's gonna

(32:22):
stop here. And yeah, keep up with great work. So
that comes from Will and he says peace right on Will,
Peace to you two, my friends. So, uh, what do
you want to call for, Chuck? I don't know? Something interesting?
How about if you are a practitioner of voodoo. That
is excellent, Chuck. We want to hear from you, yes,

(32:42):
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 glaringly wrong or omitted,
because this one could like this one could use filling out.
I think a little more. What are they called voodoos?
Voodoo practitioners, voodooists, voodooists? You know the line in Blazing Sales,
Now go do that voodoo that you do so well? Yes,

(33:04):
Late Harvey corman Um. You can also follow us on Twitter,
s y s K podcast. We have a Facebook page
that we like to hang out on sometimes. It's called
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

(33:29):
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home
page