Cults and Establishments Term Paper

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Cults

Indeed, it is very difficult to think of two traditions that could be more radically different than those as embodied by the movement of the Nation of Islam in America and the tradition of Vodou as it is practiced in Haiti and as variants of it are practiced in other areas as well. Indeed, the origins could not be more different than they are, for one thing, as Vodou stems out of a long and distinguished tradition of beliefs held by the Yoruba peoples of Africa and that was changed and syncretized during the period of enslavement. The Nation of Islam, on the other hand, was created by a single man, Elijah Muhammad and is a religion that, though it attaches itself to a greater historical tradition, which is that of Islam, is, in fact, quite ate variance with the larger religion, but at least elements of being part of different and older religious tradition. Although both do have elements of ritualized dress and behaviors, however, it also appears that the National of Islam's dress is quite different, and certainly, the rituals practiced by the two religions could not possibly more different than they, in fact, are.

There are some similarities between the two, of course. In particular both were to some rather extensive degree shaped and affected by the denigrated status afforded to African peoples who were displaced and made to suffer sub-standard living conditions by conquering European powers.

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This, of course, is most obvious in the Vodou tradition, which developed its powerful and intriguing tradition of syncretism. Syncretism is a word that means the combining of two seemingly incompatible religious traditions. In the case of Vodou, African peoples enslaved by European colonizers in Haiti were not allowed to practice their true religion, thus they combined it in a syncretic fashion with the Gods of the Yoruba people in a way such that the two religions have commingled to form Vodou, which has been, itself, now a religion for literally hundreds of years. The Nation of Islam, too, was a religion founded on the idea that the emancipation of balck people was an important issue. In the case of the Nation of Islam, however, the belief held is that white people are literally devils created as the result of a science experiment gone awry. Thus, while Vodou was shaped in a more covert way by white oppression, the Nation of Islam was an openly hostile and separatist force that flew in the face of white oppression.

Aside from this similarity, however, there are really very, very few other elements in which the two religions could even be considered slightly similar. Vodou, for example, is a religion….....

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