The Carnival of Life with Luisah Teish

This video is a special release from the original Thinking Allowed series that ran on public television from 1986 until 2002. It was recorded in about 1999.

Luisah Teish is priestess of Oshun, the African Yoruba goddess of love. She is also on the faculty of the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, California, and serves on the board of directors of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology. She is artistic director of theatre programs in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Palo Alto and Oakland. She is author of Jambalaya and Carnival of the Spirit.

Here she describes the different religions of the African diaspora — Voudon, Santaria, Candomble — noting that they managed to survive in the West by blending with the dominant Christian faith. She points out that the sharp dualism between good and evil, as epitomized by the figure of the devil, does not exist in African spiritual traditions. Rather the African dieties represent forces in nature. She tells an instructive tale of the god Chango.

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