Interesting Religions: Yorùbá
Source: Community Newspapers
For acolytes of Yorùbá, home is in Nigeria, and areas of Benin and Togo – presently known together today as Yorùbáland— where they speak a language also called Yorùbá. While no single founder exists, there is one divine creator named Olódùmarè, and for Yorùbá followers, the ultimate goal is to become one in spirit with him.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Other deities, known as the Orisha, are plentiful, as there are anywhere from 400 and 700 of them. Rituals include ceremonial drumming, spirit possession, and healing. During the slave trade, those practicing Yorùbá in Africa were brought to America, where forced labor as well as Catholicism and Christianity were thrusted upon them. Nevertheless, many held tight to their native spirituality, and fused Yorùbá with Christianity.
Source: WordPress
Interesting Religions: Cao Dai
Source: Blogspot
Founded in 1926 in Vietnam, Cao Dai (pronounced gao-die) is also the name of believers’ supreme being, or one that is free from physical attributes such as gender or personality. In the past, Cao Dai has borrowed from Taoism in the form of occult practices, including communicating with the dead via séances, which has now been banned by the Vietnamese government.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikimedia
To its at least three million followers, caodaism’s sacred religious symbol is the “all-seeing eye”- a left eye within a triangle- one that can be found in the cavernous, dragon-adorned temple constructed in southern Vietnam – where thousands make a pilgrimage each year. In The Quiet American by Graham Greene, the temple is described as “Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of a cathedral on a Walt Disney Fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in Technicolor.”
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