Customer Reviews

Ve-Ve Diagrammes Rituels du Voudou : Ritual Voodoo Diagrams : Blasones de los Vodu - Trilingual ed. French English Spanish (French and English Edition)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book, I was waiting so long to get it. It contains nearly 300 different veves. Even some not well known ones. In the brief introduction section its try to explain the parts of the veves (symbols what a veve contain). Everybody should have a copy, who wants to dig himself deep into the world of the Lwa.

I being a bit of a symboligist and I'm always looking for books on the subject. And if you have the same interest and are looking for a book on Voudou with almost every Ve-Ve you'll ever want. This is the book for you. Rigaud explains all the different parts of a Ve-Ve and their meaning. This book is also trilingual. Meaning it's in English, French and Spanish. And is not a book for amateurs who's only exposure to Voudou is what they've seen in movies. Definitely a mystic esoteric look at the subject

After spending much time in Haiti doing what could be called an informal anthropological study of vodou ritual I became throughly obsessed with the veves I would watch voodou practitioners draw with powdered chalk. I looked high and low for some sort of an encyclopedic work which documented the veves in their great beauty and variety - VE-VE is just such a book. It is large and elegantly formatted and also quite comprehensive. As a picture book I give it 5 out of 5 stars. Unfortunately the text is full of buzzwords and is written with a vaguely arrogant tone. The chapter on chemistry is laughable to anyone who has taken even a high school class in chemistry, the word "hydroxyl" is misspelled and mistaken for water when in fact a hydroxyl group is what characterizes an alcohol. Pseudo-science and buzzwords aside the text contains some interesting material and is worth, at the very least, skimming.

To me, much of the beauty of VouDou (VooDoo, Voudon) is that it is untainted by the dessicating forces of the Western Intellect. In this work, those very destructive forces are used to attempt to "explain" VouDou in a way that I feel does more harm than good. The work may please those who come from a Kabbalistic perspective. To me though it feels like a work that, perhaps unintentionally, seeks to appropriate someone else's or another culture's religion or magical system and use it to enliven their own, which might be on the verge of dying as a result of the application of too much reason and dry intellect.

Also I think the Veves could have been presented more attractively. Each is presented in a large size on a full page: I don't believe that these need a full page, in fact they would probably be more attractive if represented smaller. I have seen many reproductions of VouDou Veves that looked much more attractive than these do.

The one benefit of this book is that it contains so many Veves, and will be a useful collection, particularly as many of these might be hard to see represented elsewhere.

For being written in 1906 it really does have a lot of the missing pieces in it that other branches of occultism, and religious theory have in common, and yet lack at the same time.

The manipulation of the cosmic waters, is very hermetic, and alchemic to a new beauty through the use with the VeVe.

I was really excited about this book, as I enjoyed Rigaud's 'Secrets of Voodoo', and it does have a very comprehensive look at veves - the majority of the book, and it is a large one, is dedicated to the designs, and they are nicely grouped and indexed.

The text was not as informative as I would have liked. It veered far into kabbalistic symbolism and occult chemistry and this and that, which is not my taste in a Vodou book, but I'm certain for others it would be wonderful. The fact that the book is a trilingual version is great for those of us who can't read French, but, as I said, I really just skimmed over the text. I am more interested in Vodou as it is related to the African Diaspora - as soon as I read the words "Eve Kadmon" I just skipped ahead to the designs.

It's a shame that this book is so expensive - $125 at the time of this review! - and that it is only a paperback. The paper it is printed on is very low quality - and by very low quality, I mean maybe one grade up from coloring book paper. A page could be torn easily if one is not careful turning the page - the copy I am reviewing is an inter-library loan, and it is already missing some pages. That said, if you can spend the money, and especially if you are interested in Vodou from a more 'ceremonial magic/occult' standpoint, go for it. There is nothing else this complete that I've found, it's just a shame to drop that much money on a book that could be damaged so easily or wind up as crayon fodder.

This book id amazing never have I seen so many veves so clearly documented! I only wish the book were longer. The amount of veves is HUGE and the book is worth every penny!