Guest Author - Elizabeth Bissette

The Loa, Spirits of Voodoo
An introduction to the most central concept of Voodoo, the Loa.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art58712.asp/zzz

and... an introduction to Vodun, the West African religion that is behind Voodoo: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art58710.asp

if you're into that, check out the firsthand account of a trip to New Orleans to find some Mojo that climaxed in an encounter with Priestess Ava K. Jones, Great-Great Grand-daughter of Marie Leveau, who sent the musician in question (and he's rather questionable) to the Crossroads, no joke. It's part of my feature, "Hunchin' at the Crossroads, the Life and Music of Hasil Adkins" at: http://www.gratefulweb.net/gwebNews/gwebDesign/interviews.asp?articleid=1524&zoneid=7

related photo galleries feature photos of Hank Williams III and his Hellbilly crew, appropriately.

And check out the latest at http://blog.gratefulweb.net the Army's coming up with mind control helmets for soldiers, among other things (no joke, it's from "Time" magazine)

Oh, and I've returned to my Biblical studies roots, (must be all that writing about Hellbilly's, crossroads and Voodoo). I think I mentioned in my bio that I studied with Roger Bullard, one of the translators of the Nag Hammadi, (Gnostic) texts. Well, turns out another translator of the scrolls, Jim Brashler, is right here in Richmond at Union Theological. And he's agreed to teach me Coptic. So I'm soon on to the Gospel of Thomas, (like, Tuesday soon) and am spending 2-3 hours a day on the Coptic. You know something's hard when you're picking up a Greek book to understand it.

But it's very, very cool. Did you know there are only something like 25 people in the world who read it?

Call me Indianna Liz...

I've got a cover of the traditional spiritual, "God's Gonna Cut You Down", (a pretty severe cover, it doesn't sound too spiritual) at http://www.myspace.com/oldsmophelia too - you might like it, lots of people seem to. Johnny Cash covered it on one of his "American" albums in a slightly more laid back manner. If you can call a song like that laid back.

Please visit Mythology.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Mythology.

To participate in free, fun online discussions, this site has a community forum all about Mythology located here -

http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=124

I hope to hear from you sometime soon, either in the forum or in response to this email message. I thrive on your feedback!

Have fun passing this message along to family and friends, because we all love free knowledge!

Elizabeth Bissette, Mythology Editor
http://Mythology.bellaonline.com

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