Out_of_the_Devil_39_s_Cauldron

She promised the card reader we would return within a week for my cleansing ceremony.
As we left the card reader’s house that day, little did my mother know that an evil door had
just been opened, and we were about to walk through it.
Welcome to Witchcraft
I knew my mom didn’t have $200, and the idea of asking my father for the money was a joke,
so she did what any good mother would do—she sold her bedroom set to a neighbor for $250.
A week later my mother took me back to the tarot card reader, who was a high priestess and
medium in an occult religion called Santeria. Leaving my mother in the front sitting area, Cookie led
me back to the kitchen where she initiated the cleansing ceremony by placing beads of different colors
on the table, each strand representing one of the five main spirit gods that ruled the religion.
In the kitchen, I sat and talked with her until someone from behind me tied a blindfold around
my eyes and led me to a room where together they tore off my clothes and bathed me with herbs and
plants. Terrified, I shook with fear but kept silent. Why couldn’t my mother be with me during this
strange ritual that was both frightening and humiliating? I had no idea what would happen next.
Suddenly the high priestess and her helper started singing songs to the five main gods of
Santeria: Obatala, Yemaya, Ochun, Chango, and Oya. Although I couldn’t see because of the
blindfold, I knew that two people performed this ceremony. Sometime later they dressed me in white
and took me to another room where I was offered up to the five gods. When they finished singing, I
was given five beaded necklaces to wear, each representing the color of a particular god. They told
me to bow down in a certain fashion, repeat the names of the five main gods, and thank the gods for
receiving me.
During the process the two women became my godmothers in Santeria. They wrapped my
head in a white bandana and told me I must stay dressed in white for seven days. Finally they released
me back to my mother, but I would never be the same innocent ten-year-old boy again. The world of
Santeria had become real to me. My life would be controlled by the guardian spirits that rule over
espiritismo and Santeria. I would no longer belong to my mother but to incredible forces beyond my
control, for these entities had stepped up to fill the void in my heart that yearned for a father.
After this, every weekend one of my godmothers took me to what they called centros
(espiritismo churches) to learn how to work the mesa blanca. I learned from the very best, people
dedicated to Santeria and espiritismo for thirty, forty, fifty years of their lives. They called
themselves mediums. As I made my weekly visits to the centros, I learned how to communicate with
spiritual forces of different ranks, cast spells, and recruit others into the religion—spirits that I now
realized were diabolical spirits, or demons.
School for Warlocks
Centro was a place where humanity met the supernatural in a most diabolical way, a place
where I went to “school” to learn how to lend my body to evil spirits—to be demon-possessed. We
met at Cookie’s house in a large room on the first floor. About sixty people gathered in rows of
folding chairs set up facing the mesa blanca. Aunt Maria took me there for the first time on a Friday