🪘Haitian Vodou

Traditional practice

This is a living tradition carried through lineage and community. Its value is documented through generations of practitioners rather than clinical trials. Absence of Western studies is not absence of wisdom.

• Trance, possession, and altered states. Drumming, dance, and possession-based ceremonies induce non-ordinary states that can be destabilizing for anyone with a personal or family history of psychosis, bipolar, dissociation, or acute trauma.
• Financial and spiritual exploitation risk. Sacred traditions attract self-appointed teachers charging steep fees. Watch for practitioners who pressure you to pay for extra ceremonies, discourage outside support, or claim exclusive spiritual authority.
• Cultural appropriation and closed practices. Some elements are closed to outsiders or reserved for initiated practitioners. Participating without invitation, or teaching it without lineage, causes harm to living communities and to your own practice.

• Psychosis, bipolar I, or dissociative history (usually avoid). If you or a close family member has a history of psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar I, dissociative disorders, or are in an acute mental health episode, avoid psychedelic, trance, and intense inner-work practices unless cleared by a psychiatrist familiar with this territory.
• Active PTSD or unprocessed severe trauma. Immersive, ceremonial, and altered-state work can surface traumatic memories without warning. Build a relationship with a trauma-informed licensed clinician first, and choose practitioners trained to hold trauma responses.