Techno-Voodoo 2.0 : Technology Changes Religion

Last updated on: May 5, 2014 at 8:47 am by Lilith Dorsey

Techno-Voodoo 2.0 : Technology Changes Religion 2014-05-05T08:47:41-05:00 Lilith Dorsey

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Technology is magick. Try going a day without it and you may see how it’s necessity borders on religion. Now I’m an anthropologist, a filmmaker, and a Voodoo priestess but I spent my formative years just like many other unique people of my generation. I had my nose pressed to the television trying to get it to twitch just like Samantha on Bewitched (my nose, not the television.) Like most kids, technology was mostly my master and sometimes my muse. I dreamed of a betamax, does anyone remember those ? I wanted to capture all the moments that were going missed. Never in my wildest imagination could I have dreamed of the possibilities we now have at our fingertips. Someone asked me once what my favorite magickal tool was and I said final cut ( the editing software.) Technology like magick expands exponentially everyday with each new participant, each new effort. The divine marriage of the two was inevitable.

Voodoo Zombie Silent Rave

Last summer I had the pleasure of leading the first ever Voodoo Zombie Silent Rave. A Silent Rave is one where everyone wears their own headphones and listens to their own music. My Voodoo godchildren and I thought this would be another great way for people to both stay in the comfort zone of their own heads while understanding their place in connection the universe. It was amazing, including everything from Kreyol chanting on the microphone to a confused thriller flash mob. This is definitely ritual for a new and wider world. Voodoo has always done it’s best to beg, borrow, and build upon useful practices wherever they may be found.

Hyperdome Voodoo

Technology gives us tools. The more tools anyone has the better off they are, I’m trained as a cultural anthropologist , not a monkey-studying physical anthropologist, but I still know that tools are what separate us from the beasts. As I write this it’s 2014, and we have so many marvelous tools for magick at our disposal. Some of the most exciting rituals I have ever led involve sacred fire and have been inside a geodesic dome. These new and exciting magickal tools are game changers, now the sacred geometry of our ritual space is expanded to a full 360 degrees. Think about it, the possibilities are inspiring. Our minds and our magicks have no boundaries. Hurray!

Can You See Us Out in the ‘Verse ?

Voodoo Sign02 photo by Dan Merino. Licensed under CC 2.0

Voodoo has a deity for technology. Simbi is it’s name. A sacred serpent in charge of computers, your wi-fi connection, and more. Simbi is electric, he can solve a problem with lightning fast speed. I got a really nice Simbi shout out from the folks at Tek-Gnostics, in their piece on Voodoo in the digital realm. Voodoo just like the sacred serpent is ever-changing, adapting, moving. We have gods, we have rites, we have new tools. When I wrote Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism almost a decade ago, it was to help present the history of a sacred past. These days a technologically aided magick escapes and shapes our realities.We have gone from drumbeats to keystrokes and back again. Who knows where we will go from here? “No power in the ‘verse can stop us.”

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