Past Is Prologue

How African Spirituality Got Tied to Satan

From white colonizers to contemporary pop culture

A picture of a White Jesus defeating a dark-skinned Satan. Such depictions, including the iconography in this calendar photo, are very common in contemporary West Africa.

“You must stop your Satanic idol-worship.”

“You devil worshipper.”

“You will go to Hell.”

These are all common comments said to me as a third-generation practitioner of Vodu, an…