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I once heard the VGW described as "what Star Trek might have been like if it was designed by Kenneth Grant". It's mad as a bag of radioactive spiders from Pluto, and therefore resolutely not the best place to go for a straightforward or accurate introduction to African and African Diaspora religious traditions. However it's fascinating and brilliant in the same way that Kenneth Grant is fascinating and brilliant. The VGW weaves together aspects of Les Mysteres, along with aspects of Tantra, Thelema, Lovecraft, and a million other things. The easiest way to get a brief overview of what it's about is to read Kenny G's 'Cults of the Shadow' (still in print, available from SKOOB books), which has a chapter devoted to Bertiaux and his group Les Coulevre Noir.
A lot of people involved with Santeria seem to be extremely down on the Migene Gonzales Whippler books, and she doesn't seem to be a particularly popular character. I'm not sure if this is because of any misrepresentation she's made or just because she happens to be writing about The Religion in the first place. It's a notoriously secretive world. I quite like her books myself, as there's not a great many works available on the subject and she does convey a sense of the Mysteries. A lot more books on Santeria do seem to be coming onto the market though, and it's been suggested that Santeria might be coming out into the open a bit more. If you were to include all of the related religions (Candomble, Macumba, Palo, Vodou, etc...) you might be looking at a major world religion, and one that's growing rapidly.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that you don't learn about Les Mysteres from a book, 200 quid or not, you learn from meeting and interacting with The Powers. Which can be a rough and terrifying ride, but that's sometimes the nature of magic. It's worth reading as much as you can around the subject to give yourself as many signposts as possible to navigate by. The more clued up you are about the general nature of the territory, the less scary chasms you're likely to stumble into. The Religion is living and experiential. There are no authoritative step-by-step guides to Vodon, in the same way that there are no authoritative step-by-step guides to human relationships. |
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