SCI-FI Investigates Voodoo (Divx)

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Sci-Fi Channel

SCI-FI Investigates

VooDoo.



There is more to Voodoo than tales of dolls and pins. To learn the truth about this religion, the SCI FI Investigates team heads to New Orleans to experience its practices firsthand.



The team - skeptic Rob Mariano, paranormal investigator Rich Dolan, archaeologist Bill Doleman and crime scene investigator Deborah Dobrydney - travels to New Orleans right before the city's most important voodoo ritual, St. John's Eve. Bloody Mary, a voodoo priestess, meets the team at St. Louis Cemetery and escorts them to the grave of Marie Laveau, the most famous figure in New Orleans voodoo. Bloody Mary advises them that their gifts for the spirit = a Laveau doll, a mojo bag, a candle and a stick - are inappropriate, so Rob leaves his Red Sox hat instead. In the cemetery, three team members receive messages from Marie Laveau, though Bill says he has no way of measuring if the messages are really from Laveau and the group leaves unsure if Bloody Mary really has a connection to the supernatural. They do concede, however, that she touched on personal details she could not have known about.



The team dresses entirely in white for a baptism-like voodoo ritual on St. John's Eve led by priestess Sally Ann Glassman, on a bridge over St. John's Bayou. Possessed with the spirit of Laveau, Glassman speaks to each team member individually. While she confers with Rich, a question referring to their conversation pops into Bill's mind ("Water or rocks?"), despite Bill's inability to hear them talking. Rob is the most compelled by Glassman, but afterward Deb does not believe the experience counts as evidence that voodoo exists.



Deb shows a videotape of Glassman to clinical psychologist N. G. Berrill and asks if Glassman is faking. Berrill says it's impossible to prove scientifically that Glassman was possessed; he doesn't know of any tools that measure possession. Glassman was in an altered state of consciousness, which Berrill defines as an occasion when time and space become collapsed or expanded.



The team visits priestess Miriam's voodoo temple for a bone reading, a type of fortune-telling. Miriam explains that she helps people get in touch with their thoughts. Like the other priestesses the team has consulted, Miriam is drawn to Rob, saying his spirit is speaking. She casts her bones and tells Rob he will have three children: a girl followed by twin boys. She correctly identifies a big year in his life and tells him to expect another at age 35.



At the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, Jerry Gandolfo informs the team of the two ways a priestess can turn people into zombies: by selling their souls to the devil or with the poison from a puffer fish, which causes a death-like state. He defines voodoo as a religion, a superstition, folklore and "fakelore." He tells the team that most of the voodoo they see is fake, but a small percentage is "hard to explain," leading to the conclusion that an individual's sense of perception is important, because it can convince a person that something magic is happening.



The team participates in one final voodoo ritual, this time at priestess Miriam's temple courtyard. The group concludes that it was witnessing a self-induced possession, just as with Glassman on the bridge. Deb says that when a person believes in voodoo, it becomes real to them.



The team ends their investigation with a discussion. Rob insists things happened that he cannot explain. Bill believes that to really learn about voodoo, a person must experience it. Rich concludes that the team was able to glimpse a dimension of reality that most people do not see.





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