New Thought

What Holistic Healers are Missing about Curing Cancer?

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-05-21T12:56:58-04:00

Okay, we’ve read the tabloids about Angelina Jolie getting a double mastectomy to decrease her chances of getting cancer.

Then, we were all saddened when the coolest techie in the world, Steve Jobs died of cancer. Spiritualist, holistic healers and folks from every rock crawled out saying that people can heal from cancer if they eat right, meditate, and maybe do a little bit of yoga. Sadly, these people are only seeing part of the picture. Now you may ask, how can a holistic healer only see part of the picture? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Well yes, and if you truly believe that diet, exercise, and a couple of down ward dogs is going to keep you from getting sick, you are a moron.

You see, no one really knows how people get cancer.

We understand that cancer is nondiscriminatory. It attacks all races and genders. It attacks the wealthy, the wise, and the healthy. It normally starts when one little cell goes a little crazy and then snaps. Like a crazed gunman it takes refuge in its hide. Then, it is able to discretely snipe off similar cells until a whole organ is infiltrated. These “sniper cells” are difficult to detect. So many Western doctors decide to fight fire with fire. So they unleash their nuclear attacks through chemotherapy. This approach will certainly kill the cancer and everything else that’s surrounds it. Sadly, these nuclear attacks weaken the body. And make it more susceptible to other types of cancers and diseases.

So what’s the solution to this problem?

You need to find the sniper and destroy its hide. This sounds really difficult to do when you are only looking at the human body. In truth, you should be looking at the collective consciousness of the human mind. It is basic knowledge, that we all share a congenial source of energy. However, we are still unsure of how this energy can adversely affect us.

Much like germs can create malady and disease, impurities taken in from our collective consciousness can cause depression, high stress levels, and even cancer.

Although there are many things that both Western doctors and holistic healers can do to minimize the spread of cancer, no one has been able to cure the disease completely. The cancer just goes into remission, which means that the sniper cell retreats back to its hide. If the patient keeps taken in negative impurities from the collective consciousness. The sniper cell will resurface and will wage its attack with a vengeance.

Negative energies don’t only come from the foods that we eat, or the people who are around us.

They come from a network of divine intelligence that allows energy to ebb and flow. This energy flows throughout nature. It is this network that connects us. And it is this network that can destroy us. A great example that I can use to describe this concept is to imagine eating at a restaurant. Customers come and go, the food is healthy and the water is pure. However, the glasses and the utensils are filthy. In fact, the people in the restaurant never bothered to clean them. And this is what so many holistic healers are failing to do. They are failing to clean the utensils.

They are failing to clear the negative energy in our collective consciousness.

So people are in constant need of tune-ups and energy shifts, partly because they are continuing to align themselves with these impurities. They are continuing to eat with dirty utensils. Is clearing the energy in the collective consciousness difficult to do? Yes, it is difficult if you don’t approach healing from a real holistic perspective. And that is by understanding the concept that we are all one. We all share the same pain, the impurities that run through a cancer patient’s veins, are the same impurities that run through yours. However, your cells haven’t snapped, at least not yet. You need to understand that we are all one. And that holistic healing may very well begin with the individual, it ends with the collective mind.

Kanye West delivers a message to the world.

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-05-19T12:18:14-04:00

Kanye West delivers a message to the world.

I have a dirty little secret; I am a huge fan of Kanya West.

I have to give credit where credit is due. The man is brilliant and his performance last night on Saturday Night Live was electrifying. When I was watching him, I couldn’t help but to think about two very different people who changed my life. One, a well-respected African priest who told me that we don’t pick our ancestors, our ancestors choose us. The other was a plump Russian lady, who put me in my place when we were having a rather heated debate about racism in America. She was able to shut me up with just one simple sentence. “Americans foolishly believe that they’re free, Russians know much better,” she said snidely. This really hit home, and I can tell you I am not someone who is lost for words easily. But I didn’t have a rebuttal. So I left with my tail between my legs. When I got home, I really needed to think about it. Are we really free?

Hell Naw, we’ re not free. This is what I’ve been trying to tell people all along.

Are people like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian free? Yes, they are free because they’ve learned to tap into a power that is greater than them. People mistakenly believe that freedom is just about peace of mind. However, I feel that is partly true. I believe that freedom is about having guts, courage, power, and money to make things happen. Besides, isn’t that what manifestation is all about? Isn’t that why we pray, do rituals, ceremonies, and spells? Under my definition, these celebrities are some of the best root-workers, priest, magicians, and witches in town. They’ve mastered the game. They are so “rooted” and have so many connections that they can make things happen for you faster than any witchdoctor. And yet, they give us bits and pieces of their magic in their art and music.

My hat goes off to Kanye, as well as many of the great rappers of our time.

He is capturing art in an African way. Kanye West is like a New Age griot, who tells stories that are both powerful and riveting. He opened himself up to a higher power, and thus he was able to receive knowledge and wisdom from the ancestors. This is what real African art is about. Like it or not, I truly believe that our ancestors chose him to deliver this message, just as they chose him to write it. The great rappers of our time have conveyed similar messages time and time again. They conveyed this message through their music and art, and yet, so few of us have been able to understand it.

We have to learn how to be free. But before we can break out of our mental prisons, we have to accept the fact that we’re still in them.

And I am not just talking about mental slavery. I truly believe that Kanye’s message is much deeper than that. I believe that it is tapping into a power that is deeper than you. Sadly, you won’t find this in church, a synagogue, temple, or mosque. The only place that you can find freedom is by going within. This is the gift that your ancestors chose for you. But you have to be open and willing to accept it.

The Spiritual Possession is Meditation on Steroids

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-05-16T11:50:41-04:00

Are you aware of all the things that you can do when you tap into the power of the ancestors?

You can write books, get a Masters degree, design a website, learn how to market, and build a great business model. How do I know this? I know this because I’ve done all of these things in a very short period of time. I am not one to toot my own horn, but I’ve done things in half the time with a fraction of the effort exuded by others. Do I take shortcuts? Well yes, I am able to do this because I have access to a team of advisors. Who are these advisors? They are my ancestors.

Just think about the Matrix.

Morpheus was able to teach Neal virtually all forms of martial arts with just one simple download. He simply implanted the information into his mind. He did the same thing with Trinity when she needed to learn how to fly a helicopter. Within seconds, she had all the information that she needed to operate a very complex piece of machinery. So where am I getting at? Once you’re able to unplug yourself from the Matrix (become enlightened) you start to have access to an infinite amount of energy (information). Just imagine, a huge database with nothing but software that can solve all of your problems. And if the software is not developed yet, then you can have one of your ancestors develop it for you.

This is a resounding concept that has been applied in many African cultures. The Edo people of Benin Nigeria used the statutes of heads in their commemorative ceremonies. The “Head of Oba” was passed down from a king to his heir. Many historians fail to understand that African art is transcendental in nature. The “Head of an Oba,” is a direct representation of an inheritance of power and wisdom from all previous kings. The “Head” also known as the “Ori” in Yoruba, is the gateway that allows us to tap into an infinite source of wisdom through spirit possession.

Being mounted by a spirit is not entirely bad.

In fact, many illnesses and ailments that afflict the body have known to be cured this way. In many situations the spirit possession is so strong that it not only cures the ailments of the person being possessed, but all the people around him. I’ve heard stories of African medicine men being able to heal dozens of patients in hospitals. John of God, a world-renowned intuitive healer who has even been featured on Oprah, talks candidly about spirit possession. He never takes credit for curing patients all on his own; rather he attributes the miracles to spiritual beings that work through him, guiding him on how to heal. There are numerous studies that slaves in the Americas survived by tapping into this power. Perhaps the spiritual possession was a gateway into the spiritual world, a world that enabled slaves to heal their physical and mental wounds.

Read full article here

How to know if you’re in a dangerous cult?

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-05-14T10:09:57-04:00

Okay, I get it all the time, people who constantly ask me about cults.

I never claimed to be an expert in the practice of cults. However, I have witnessed some of their practices, I did manage to make a smooth transition out the door before anyone forced me to drink any of the Kool-Aid. Since people continually ask me about cults. I figured that I would use this post to express my opinion on what I think they are.

People who walk around in white gowns with matching kerchiefs are not actually in a cult.

I am sure, to many outsiders this kind of get up may come off as cult paraphernalia. However, I am here to tell you this is very far from the truth. Medicine men, healers, and shamans wear white clothing in much the same way that doctors and nurses wear scrubs. White is the color of purity and cleansing, and is worn and is used in many practices and ceremonies in all cultures. Besides, you never judge a book by its cover. A person dressed in a white robe and hat is no more suspect of being in a cult, than a young boy with face tattoos and hooded sweatshirt is suspect of belonging to a gang.

No, the people you have to look out for are dressed just like you.

Instead of me going over a litany of reasons of why you should not join a cult. Or going over tell tale signs that you’re in a cult. I think that it will just be easier for me to explain to you how cults work. Just think about Superman and Lex Luthor. No. I am not talking about Christopher Nolan’s Superman, or that cheesy remake of Superman with Kevin Spacey. I am talking about the highly successful franchise with my man Christopher Reeve. He was tall, dark, handsome, and incredibly stupid. By the way, you’re Superman, and the cult leader who is trying to take your power, money, and dignity, well that’s Lex Luthor.

You see, you’re incredibly powerful all on your own.

You come well equipped with supernatural powers that allow you to see into the future, slow down time, and manifest all of your hearts’ desires. You’re stupid because you don’t believe that you can do these things. So people like Lex Luthor come around and put on a dog and pony show. They do things that you can also do, but you just haven’t figured out how to do it yet. So you begin to follow Lex Luthor like a mangled puppy dog, fascinated with his power, not understanding that you’re SUPERMAN. You are then brainwashed to believe that Lex Luthor cares about you. That he is a master in the supernatural sciences, and that he knows what’s best for you. Then, you begin to let Lex Luthor make decisions for you.

The next thing you know, Lex Luthor has access to your bank accounts, your credit cards, and even your dignity.

You’re private sessions become late night booty-calls, and your friends and relatives become distant strangers. You see Lex Luthor understands the one thing that can destroy you, loneliness. Loneliness is your kryptonite and you will give up virtually all of your power for just the chance to feel wanted and loved. Even Superman gave up all of his power to be with Lois Lane.

Don’t put your happiness in someone else’s hands. Understand that everyone you come into contact with is a reflection of you. They’re showing you your weaknesses, they are giving you your kryptonite, they’re weakening your soul and keeping you from realizing your full potential. So get rid of the kryptonite and the Lex Luthors, get out your cape because now, you’re going to learn how to fly.

It takes a village to raise a child

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-05-13T11:13:42-04:00

I think that we’ve forgotten these wise words.

I watched the Oprah show last night on single mothers, as well as her show on fatherless sons last week. I have to say that both her and Iyanla Vanzant do a fantastic job at addressing issues that are attacking our family structure. We can’t watch these shows without understanding that the very fibers of the nuclear family are deteriorating. As I was watching these shows, I couldn’t help but to ask myself, is this structure really effective in today’s day and age? Those of you that follow me know exactly where I am going with this. Maybe it is time for us to take a page out of our ancestors’ book?

Yes, it all goes back to the community.

It is our nature to be communal, and I truly believe that there is nothing harder than a man or woman walking away from his or her family. For the record, I am not a single mother. Yet, I grew up as a single child without any real support from a family structure. In my case, it was the community that helped me to gain experiences that I would have never had access to. It was the community that fed me, introduced me to art, and showed me that I could live a much better life than I ever imagined. There are numerous children who go through the “system” and don’t turn out like me. In fact, most of us don’t make it. I’ve seen many of my childhood friends lose out to drugs, prostitution, gangs, and even death.

There are many reasons why a man may choose to leave his wife and family. One of which is divorce.

Yes, this is not an excuse, but we have to understand how men are wired. By nature they are providers. They suffer from major inadequacy issues if they can’t provide in a way that they would like to. I suppose the cold response to this problem is to tell them to not have children in the first place. But let’s keep it real. How many children are actually planned? We also know that many men will support the woman he’s currently with. Or the woman he is having sex with. Men have to prioritize and sex is definitely at the top of their list. While crying, snotty nose toddlers in need of diapers and Similac milk are pushed out of their minds and ignored until they are seen in the obituary section of Sunday’s paper. Sad, but true.

On the other side of the coin, we have men who want so desperately to have sex, or are so deeply in love, that they will actually raise someone else’s child.

Come on we have to give props to all the men who step up and take on these fatherless children. It is a great deal of responsibility, yet these men take the reins so willingly and graciously. So what’s my point? My point is that we are all mothers. We are all fathers. Our ancestors understood that the family structure was too precious to break. So they didn’t believe in a child having just one father or mother. The child’s aunts were his mothers. The child’s uncles were his fathers. And his cousins were his brothers and sisters. It was the community that actually raised a child. So when a couple decided to go their separate ways, the children were not adversely affected. In fact, they were still cared for by the people in the community.

Being a single parent is by far one of the hardest jobs in the world. My hat is off to anyone who is raising a child alone.

As much as I enjoy the motivational talks about single parents believing that they are enough to raise children alone, or that they have to be the mother and father of their children. I certainly don’t think that it’s very realistic (just saying). I’ve lost a leg in war, and I’ve seen far too many children lose out because they weren’t loved or cared for. We have to face the fact that maybe the nuclear family, in particularly in urban areas is broken. And just telling someone to be brave and be strong is a Band-Aid approach to a wound that isn’t dressed properly enough to heal.

Fatherless Sons

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-05-05T09:35:38-04:00

I can’t wait to watch the fatherless sons episode on OWN tonight. When I saw the previews I was immediately reminded of a powerful story I read in Julio Garcia Cortez’s book, The Osha: The Secrets of the Yoruba-Lucumi-Santeria Religion in the United States & The Americas. The book was perhaps one of the first that I have ever read, and I still use it as a reference guide when writing books and blog posts today.

I particularly like the story of Kunapongo Aggayu and Senkepen Oya. The story begins with Olodumare creating a drought all throughout the land. The people were dying of thirst and in desperation left their homes in search of water. So Senkepen Oya’s father, who was also the king of the mighty land, ordered Mapapo Eshu to go and find water. They traveled a great distance without finding water until he discovered a lake or river.

However, when approaching the water, he was forbidden not to drink it. In fact, any attempt that he made to drink the water was disrupted by a flash of lightning that pierced through the sky and into his body. Eshu Mapapo was struck numerous times before he finally summoned up the courage to ask, “Who the hell is hitting me with such fury that prevents me from drinking a little bit of water?” Kunapongo Aggayu answered and told him that he could drink the water on the condition that Senkepen Oya becomes his wife. Eshu Mapopo hurried back to the village to tell the king about the Kunapongo Aggayu’s proposal.

In just a short period of time, Kunapongo Aggayu and Senkepen Oya were husband and wife. The village was flooded with rain and water was plentiful again. However, Senkepen Oya found herself alone a lot in a cabin equipped with luxuries but no physical husband for her to love and touch. Soon, she became pregnant and people began to wonder if she even had a husband at all. Rumors spread around the village that Senkepen Oya child’s was a bastard with no real father. Relatives, who came over to help raise the child, ended up abusing him. Senkepen Oya sisters habitually delivered vicious slaps while berating the child, calling him a bastard and fatherless son. However, it was the fifth time when she was about to hit the child that Kunapongo Aggayu actually showed his face and ordered her to stop abusing his son.

He was a tall handsome man dressed in fine clothing with jewelry and rings. Senkepen Oya’s sister was so afraid that she ran out of the cabin. When Senkepen Oya returned to the cabin she saw Kunapongo Aggayu gently holding his son. He reassured her that he was her husband and the boys’ father, and that their son would never be known as a fatherless child ever again. Powerful! This is a story that reminds us that many boys who grow up without fathers are subjected to abuse and torment. I am so happy that Oprah has decided to address this issue, because it has been going on for far too long.

http://youtu.be/Sfeb9P44Y-w

http://youtu.be/ZvomBnBXsks

How to argue in a relationship?

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-24T14:45:50-04:00

Arguing is like having a spiritual fist fight!

http://youtu.be/YmoFqf0x7s4

Dr. Phil says that there is a right way and a wrong way to argue.

How to Fight Fair
How you argue — especially how you end an argument — can determine the long-term success or failure of your relationship. A primary requirement for any fight is to maintain control. You do not have the license to be childish, abusive or immature. If you have legitimate feelings, you are entitled to give a reasonable voice to those feelings in a constructive way. (That includes not being self-righteous or taking yourself too seriously.) "Disagreements are going to occur," says Dr. Phil. "The question is, do you go into it with a spirit of looking for resolution or do you go into it with a spirit of getting even, vengeance, control? You'll never win if you do that. If you make your relationship a competition, that means your spouse has to lose in order for you to win. It's not a competition, it's a partnership." Here are Dr. Phil's specific rules for fighting fair.
 Take it private and keep it private. Fighting in front of your children is nothing short of child abuse. It can and will scar them emotionally — all because you don't have the self-control to contain yourself until you can talk privately.
 Keep it relevant. Don't bring up old grudges or sore points when they don't belong in a particular argument. Put boundaries around the subject matter so that a fight doesn't deteriorate into a free-for-all.
 Keep it real. Deal with the issue at hand, not with a symptom of the problem. Get real about what is bothering you, or you will come away from the exchange even more frustrated.
 Avoid character assassination. Stay focused on the issue, rather than deteriorating to the point of attacking your partner personally. Don't let the fight degenerate into name-calling.
 Remain task-oriented. Know what you want going into the disagreement. If you don't have a goal in mind, you won't know when you've achieved it.
 Allow for your partner to retreat with dignity. How an argument ends is crucial. Recognize when an olive branch is being extended to you — perhaps in the form of an apology or a joke — and give your partner a face-saving way out of the disagreement.
 Be proportional in your intensity. Every single thing you disagree about is not an earth-shattering event or issue. You do not have to get mad every time you have a right to be.
 There's a time limit. Arguments should be temporary, so don't let them get out of hand. Don't allow the ugliness of an argument to stretch on indefinitely.

http://www.drphil.com/articles/article/20

Why brown girls are beautiful!

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-23T14:01:34-04:00

Have you lost the spark in your relationship?
Does your partner have a wandering eye?
Are you afraid that he is going to leave you?

If you are feeling insecure, maybe it is time to get your mojo back. Yes, I said mojo, because a woman’s sexuality is her magic.

The power of the mind

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-20T08:52:22-04:00

Do you understand how powerful your mind is? It is our brain/mind/Ori that connects us to the universe. We have to ask ourselves why great African civilizations and societies valued the symbol of the head.

Head of an Oba, 16th century (ca. 1550)
Nigeria; Edo peoples, court of Benin
Brass; H. 9 1/4 in. (23.5 cm)
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979 (1979.206.86)
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Great kings passed down “The Head of Aba,” to their offspring in commemorative ceremonies. The head was more that a symbolization or badge of honor. It was a representation of all the kings who had ruled the kingdom before. It was almost as if they were not only passing down the title of king, but all the wisdom and knowledge that came along with it.

The Kamitic Tree of life

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-19T11:50:25-04:00

Have you created your soul profile?

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-18T19:24:36-04:00

Deepak Chopra talks about accessing the Akashic records to access the three Ps, power, place, and purpose here in the universe.

This video ties into a post on the HuffPost Healthy Living, written by one of the greatest pioneers of health and medicine, Deepak Chopra, along with a few other reputable scholars who state that Your Brain Is The Universe!

What if there is physical evidence that the brain is a quantum device, and that its design reflects the cosmos in an uncanny way that cannot be by chance? In the Vedic tradition of India, it is held that "as is the smallest, so is the greatest. As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm." We're using modern terminology, but the concept is timeless: Nature is coherent from its subtlest level to its grossest. Some clues to this truth are visual -- the helix that appears in DNA and in spiral nebulas, for example. Hard science isn't moved by casual resemblances, however.

To tighten the parallels, one can turn to recent work by physicists including Dmitri Krioukov and reported in mainstream journal like Nature's Scientific Reports. To quote: The "universe may be growing in the same way as a giant brain -- with the electrical firing between brain cells 'mirrored' by the shape of expanding galaxies." Looking at simulations of galaxy interconnections in the early universe and neuron interconnections makes it virtually impossible to tell them apart. The brain and the cosmos, like the Internet, are networks, and they evolve the same way. The result, the authors argue, is that the universe really does grow like a brain. In a related article in the prestigious journal Science, researchers have discovered that the connections in the brain are highly organized, the brain's structure is like a grid of city wiring, the neurons traversing in all directions.

Several years ago the philosopher Clark Glymour at Carnegie Mellon University published an intriguing paper titled "When is a brain like the planet?" He provocatively concluded that when it thinks, the brain parallels the ecology of our planet. A phenomenon like El Nino, which is coordinated with weather events far away in Africa, is similar time series correlations observed in an fMRI brain scan. (Similarly, Greek seismologists at the University of Athens have concluded that the tremors before an earthquake are identical to the heart patterns before a heart attack.)

It is our Ori that connects us to the network of humankind
Through this network, we will be able to find our power & destiny

While reading this article, I couldn’t help but think about the parallels between the human brain, and the Yoruba interpretation of the Ori. Besides, it is our Ori that connects us with nature, the universe and all other living things. Chief Dr. Daryl Peavy talks about the “God of The Head,” in his book Kings, Magic & Medicine. It is a deity that is worshipped by the Edo indigenous community in Nigeria. “It is through the head that we have access to God Almighty, along with attributes such as divine wisdom knowledge and power when applicable” (Peavy, pg 20). To the Edo indigenous community of Nigeria, The God of the Head allows one to speak to God, and much like the Akashic records, The God of The Head connects the practitioner with a cosmic record of all life forces. It is through this connection that our ancestors were able to create their own soul profile. This is how they were able to identify the three Ps that could help transform their lives, power, place, and purpose. So if you’re truly looking to understand your destiny, the first thing you should understand is your Ori, and using it to connect to the universe.

Overcoming Adultery & Temptation Through Soul Retrieval

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-13T08:33:35-04:00

I’ve heard a lot bad things about Tyler Perry’s new movie Temptation.

Just for the record, I haven’t seen it. It is not because the bootlegger at my local nail salon was fresh out of pirated copies. It is merely because I can just watch the previews and know exactly what’s going to happen. It is not that Tyler Perry’s movies are predictable. It is just that adultery in most cases ends pretty badly, and I am just not talking about someone stalking your Facebook page. I am talking about real, hardcore madness, a fatal attraction, where your ex-lover boils pet rabbits, kidnaps your pre-school daughter, and attempts to shank your spouse with a super-sized kitchen knife. How does this happen? Why do we allow temptations to ruin our relationships and our lives? We do so, because we are looking for the lost pieces of our souls.

Let’s be honest, love makes us crazy.

When we feel like we are in love, we do a lot of wacky things that we would never do when we are sober. Yes, I use the word sober lightly, partly because love is an addiction for many of us. The feeling that we get from love is better than any high that we can get from a baggie of crack cocaine. It only takes one hit before we are hooked for life. Then, our whole existence is based on locking love down. We start to engage on an endless and often-fruitless task of chasing a fleeting emotion, that we know can’t last forever. So how do we stop the addiction? We merely have to look inside of ourselves and understand that every relationship, every romantic encounter is merely a reflection of what we are lacking inside.

Yes, every relationship is merely mirroring who you are inside. In many cases, we sacrifice pieces of ourselves to be in a relationship.

So when we come across someone else who represents all of the things that we’ve lost, we are drawn to them, attracted to them, even obsessed with them. In many cases, an obsession or even an attraction can be your own way of mourning the things that you’ve lost, had stolen, or had giving away in order for you to grow or maintain a relationship. Your soul is like a crossword puzzle, where each blank space is an experience or problem that you have yet to solve. So you’re always looking for the missing pieces. While drugs trick the brain into experiencing a euphoric high, relationships trick the soul into believing that it is whole and pure inside.

So how exactly does this work?

The feeling of oneness, of wholeness produces an exhilarated high. When you have an orgasm, you enter into a state of euphoria, a state of bliss where the soul feels whole and complete. This happens because your sexual organs are not where your erogenous zone is located. Rather, it is located in the neo-cortex of your brain. This is your real G-spot, your pleasure center that allows reverberating sensations of bliss to pulsate through your nervous system and into your body and heart. This is your body’s way of rewarding itself when it feels love and completeness. Over the years we have been conditioned to tinker with sexual parts and organs as if they are loose screws, when really we are truly aroused when the pleasure center in the brain is activated.

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What Generational Curse Would You Change?

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-09T10:55:24-04:00

What Generational Curse Do You Have The Power to Break?

I would change the perception that we have of ourselves, of our past, of our history, and belief systems. I would change the shame that we have of a culture that has existed for thousands of years. I would change the ignorance that keeps us cloaked under a blanket of shame and dissimulation. Our past, as painful as it is, needs to be spoken. A generational curse can only survive through shame, and “shame cannot survive being spoken.” Dr. Brené Brown.

Can ancestral memories be passed down from generation to generation? An article in the New York Times, In Andalusia, on the Trail of Inherited Memories proves that there is a science to worshipping our ancestors.

History is a part of daily life in the old quarter, where Inquisition trials were staged and neighbors spied on neighbors, dutifully reporting heretics — Christian converts who were secretly practicing Judaism. The former Jewish quarter, where white houses plunge down a steep, silvery lane, is still standing, though unmarked by any street sign. I wanted to understand why my family guarded secret identities for generations with such inexplicable fear and caution. When my aunt died a few years ago, she left instructions barring a priest from presiding over her funeral; my grandmother did the same.

There are scientific studies exploring whether the history of our ancestors is somehow a part of us, inherited in unexpected ways through a vast chemical network in our cells that controls genes, switching them on and off. At the heart of the field, known as epigenetics, is the notion that genes have memory and that the lives of our grandparents — what they breathed, saw and ate — can directly affect us decades later.

Recent studies in Sweden explore the effects of famine and abundant harvests on the health of descendants four generations later. That is not exactly what I am looking for: I’m intrigued by the notion that generations pass on particular survival skills and an unconscious sense of identity that stands the test of centuries.

The French psychologist Anne Ancelin Schützenberger, now in her 90s, has spent decades studying what she calls the ancestor syndrome — that we are links in a chain of generations, unconsciously affected by their suffering or unfinished business until we acknowledge the past.

Practitioners of African religions are not the only ones to passed down “secrets” of their ancestors to their children.

In the 1990s Dina Wardi, a psychotherapist in Jerusalem, worked with the children of Holocaust survivors and developed the theory that survivor parents often designated certain children as “memorial candles” who took on the mission of serving as a link to preserve the past and connect the future. The children of survivors who actively struggled against the Nazis, she found, had a compulsive ambition to achieve.

A similar strategy existed among the forced converts, the Anusim: Usually older women were entrusted with passing on information about their secret identity to particular younger family members. In our family, the historian was my great-aunt Luz, whose name means light in Spanish. I lived for a summer in her house in San José, Costa Rica, but she never confided in me, and regrettably I was not curious enough about our past to ask questions.

I am thankful for everyone in Lucumi and in Santeria, who were able to keep many of our African secrets alive. They did this through the face of adversity and through persecution and even slavery. Were they compelled to hold on to these secrets for a reason? Do we have a huge resource of power and abundance that we have forgotten how to tap into? Dr. Darold A. Treffert believes that we all have access to our ancestor memories through a process he calls genetic transmission.

Dr. Darold A. Treffert, a psychiatrist in Wisconsin, maintains a registry of about 300 “savants” who through a head injury or dementia acquire skills they never learned. Conceivably, he says, those skills, like music, mathematics, art and calendar calculating, were buried deep in their brains. He calls it genetic memory, or “factory-installed software,” a huge reservoir of dormant knowledge that can emerge when a damaged brain rewires itself to recover from injuries.

“How is this possible?” Dr. Treffert asked in an interview. “The only way that knowledge can be there is through genetic transmission.

That is exactly what we have to do? We need to rewire our brains and recover from the “mind injury” of shame, guilt, and judgment. Just imagine all of the things that we can do, if we just freed our minds and tapped into this doormat source of knowledge and wisdom.

Breaking Generational Curses

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-08T13:12:31-04:00

We don’t die: We Multiply.”

This is the catchphrase uttered by funny man Robin Harris. I remember him strutting up and down the stage, telling backstories about how he struggled to take care of Bébé’s kids. He described them as being rowdy and rambunctious children who couldn’t be controlled or disciplined. Whenever, I think about Harris’ story, I don’t think about children. Rather, I think about cockroaches. Yes, cockroaches.

Yeah, I realize that talking about cockroaches is pretty dang disgusting.

However, my intentions are not to gross you out. Rather, I need you to understand how breaking generational curses work. Generational curses are like pesky little insects that scuttle around your house or apartment, leaving brown droppings of roach dung in your cabinets and coffee saucers. They feed off of the residue of your soul, and if you see one, then you’re guaranteed to have dozens more. You can’t stomp on them, smash them, or kill them with your bare hands, because these kinds of roaches don’t die, they just multiply.

Much like a curse, a roach is a “freak that comes out at night.”

During the day, it will hide out in the nooks and crevices of your soul. At night, they will crawl through drains, vents, cracks, or holes in your auric field or wall. They contaminate your mind by dropping tiny brown pellets of filth and sleuth. These pellets manifest into thoughts of unworthiness, shame, guilt, and regret. However, you just can’t crush these thoughts like a bug. After all they are like the pesky little pest that you just can’t get rid of, they can’t die, they just multiply. These thoughts are like irritating little critters that multiply until almost every aspect of your life is infested with their filth.

picture from http://tinyurl.com/cftyp8t

When you see one that crawls across your television screen, or has grabbed hold of your leftover tuna fish sandwich, you’re repulsed by it.

Seeing that one roach triggers the thought that you have dozens more, hiding out in your cupboard, in your closet, behind a family secret, behind a traumatic event that you would never dare tell anybody about. Suddenly, you’re reminded of the dirtiness, the guilt, the embarrassment, the failure and the shame. Then, your mood turns for the worse, where you feel like you are being attacked by millions of roaches. You enter a frightening state of formication where roaches are crawling all over you like an angry fleet of locust, attacking your self-worth, your confidence, and even your will to live.

Curses are teeny little bits of thoughts that manifest in different ways throughout your life.

You can’t stop them or suppress them, because they don’t die, they just multiply. So how do you get rid of curses? The first thing that you need to understand about a generational curse is that it is encoded in your DNA. In many cases, it has been passed down from generation to generation. Many people have a predisposition to certain kinds of curses or behaviors such as incest, or abuse, or addictions. In many cases, these things lay doormat in the subconscious mind until a particular event or series of events triggers it.

To read the rest of this article go here

Breaking Curses: There is a Thin Line Between a Curse and Its Cure

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-03T15:05:50-04:00

I get it all the time, people contacting me with complaints or concerns that someone put a curse on them.

Many of the people who contact me don’t understand exactly what’s going on. However, they know that there is something wrong. They have a string of bad luck and or intrusive thoughts. They have repetitive flashes or feel compelled to do something as if they have absolutely no control over their body or mind. They feel drawn to someone who they know is bad for them. Or they feel like they are going absolutely completely nuts. If you suffer from any of these symptoms, there is no need to worry. You’ve come to the right place, for every curse has a cure.

So if you’re here, reading this post, I can only guess that you’ve
done research.

You’ve landed on other people’s blogs or website and read information about binding spells and curses. You’ve read how people can curse you by taking strands of your hair, your fingernail clippings, or maybe even an article of clothing. You’ve read that people can make your life a living hell by creating a voodoo doll or burying a piece of your clothing in the ground. It is important to not dismiss this information as nonsense. Yes, people who follow me understand that I am incredibly practical and have a zero tolerance for tricks and none-sense. However, there is a great deal of truth behind the magic of curses. This truth comes in the form of DNA. Today, modern day scientists are making mind-blowing discoveries about how our DNA shapes and molds our bodies and lives.

So you probably are waiting for me to get back to breaking curses.

I will get back to that shortly. But first, I want you to understand the power of DNA. It is important to understand that DNA is the blueprint to the human soul. Duh! I am pretty sure that you knew that. Well, how about I tell you something that you probably didn’t know? One single strand of DNA can survive outside of the body. It is completely self-sufficient and independent. It even has its own respiratory system, excretory system, reproductive system, circulatory system and every other system that is known to man. Also, the DNA cells have memories and programing in the guise of proteins. Proteins instruct the lungs on how to breathe, the heart on how to beat, and the eyes on how to see. So in a nutshell, a person can shape and mold you when they have access to your DNA.

To read the rest of this article go here

Kings, Magic & Medicine

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-04-01T22:17:14-04:00

Wow! If you are looking for a great book that describes the secrets of healing and African medicine, then I suggest that you read Kings Magic & Medicine. It is a great book (very well researched) written by Dr. Daryl M. Peavy JD. He is a scholar, a Chief, and high priest, who has managed to capture the very essence of African religions, practices, and culture. Page after page, Chief Daryl unravels the secrets of the Edo people who are located in modern day Nigeria. I was fascinated to learn about the secrets of traditional Edo medicine and found a great deal of similarities between the Edo and the people of Yoruba. Chief Daryl brilliantly captures the essence of energy and its healing power by describing an almighty God who provides remedies for “all ailments, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual.” As well as deities that bring about good fortune, indifference, and confusion. This is a must read for anyone who is looking for a very intense study of the Edo people and of African medicine.

How To Shift Energy Using the Forces of Nature

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-03-25T11:37:25-04:00

Before I became spiritual, I used to think that people were crazy when they talked about energy shifting.

I believed that it was a bunch of new age crap. Or that it was astrological nonsense that gave people a reason to be wild and crazy. In 2012, before the Age of Aquarius, I experienced a great deal of people praying, meditating, and fasting, preparing for the big energy shift that was supposed to be as catastrophic as Judgment Day. Like them, I waited in anticipation for the ground to open up, for the earth to catch on fire, for angels to descend from heaven. None of this happened, and the Age of the Aquarius turned out to be a bigger hoax than the Y2k bug. So what really happened? The energy shifted. However, we have yet to understand how.

Our ancestors understood how energy works and how it shifts throughout the universe.

Today, there are some who use the science of astrology to discern the shifting aliments of nature. However, our ancestors just used their instincts. Much like the wind shifts and moves clouds throughout the sky, our intentions shifts and moves energy throughout the universe. I always say that the physical world mirrors the spiritual world. Clouds for example, are a large collection of very tiny droplets of ice-crystals. Crystals have north and south poles, which mean that they are able to generate positive and negative charges. What does this mean in dummy terms? It means that clouds are clusters of matter that can attract and deflect energy. Let’s explore this concept a little further.

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Spiritual Alchemy: The Process of Turning Karma into Dharma

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-03-22T13:13:31-04:00

If bitch is the new black, then asshole is the new stupid.

Sure, there are people in history, in business, and the entertainment industry who may be considered assholes. However, I believe that these people are master alchemist who mastered the science of turning karma into dharma. Maybe Steve Jobs was a slave driver and deadbeat dad. Maybe, George Washington was a bastard for burning the boats his soldiers arrived in. Sure Jay Z launched his career by being a womanizer and misogynist pig. And Eminem can probably go down in history as being the most obnoxious and annoying rapper of all time. Let’s keep it real. All of these people have something in common, negativity. But through the process of spiritual alchemy, they were able to turn their sh*t into gold.

So what is karma?

It is all the sh*t that you were born with. Don’t be fooled by all the hype that you create you own world with your choices. In truth, you are heavily influenced by the collective consciousness (universe/ancestors). If you are not aware, enlightened, or strong, then the collective consciousness will start to make choices for you. And trust me, you aren’t going to like it. The collective consciousness discerns who’s going to be broke, rich, diseased, happy or miserable. Lucky for you, you have the ability to change this through the process of dharma. This is when you begin to transform your life by appealing to the collective consciousness (ancestors). However, you can only do this by changing your perception and or transcending to a higher level of consciousness.

The process of alchemy has even been explored in ancient African practices.

In Yoruba, alchemy is described as an alignment of the heavenly and earthly consciousness. In Chinese medicine, it is explained as the marriage between two polarized opposites such as yin/yang, positive/negative, or male or female. The combination of these two forces supersedes the strengths of just one polarity, thus allowing one to transcend into a higher level of consciousness. So what does all of this mean in dummy terms? It means that negative energy is needed in order for you to grow spiritually. Also, the more negative energy you have, the greater your chances of reaching a higher level of consciousness (aha)!

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Check it out

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-03-20T18:02:47-04:00

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The Path to Enlightenment Can Be Painful

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-03-12T00:07:25-04:00

I am gonna knock you out! Momma said knock you out! I am gonna knock you out! Momma said knock you out!!!

I am sorry, but if you choose to work with me, I am gonna knock you out. This is the reason why I am very selective about the people I work with. I need to be sure that they are going to be able to take my jabs. I need to be sure that they are resilient enough to bounce back from my punches. If they swoon, or if I knock them out cold, I need to know that they are motivated to get back up again. The path to enlightenment is hard and it normally begins with a hit being taken out on you by momma (Yemaya). Then it normally ends with a TKO knockout by yours truly. So are you ready to step into the ring?

You see our brains are subject to information overload.

We activate millions of neurons with each bit of information that we process. We just can’t understand that our brains work much like a motor. It generates waste and produces a buildup of exhaust fumes in the mind, body, and soul. Lucky for us, our body has a coping mechanism. It is called the off switch, which is also known as sleep. Sleep, is the knock out method that is needed for replenishment and rejuvenation. During sleep, a routine diagnostic is performed. This is a precautionary measure performed by the body to ensure that everything is working and is up to par. Sadly, because of all of the information that we are forced to process each day, a few hours sleep is not enough to rid our bodies of all of its cellular waste products.

So then the rumbling starts, and your brain is like a hoarder, buried alive in its own filth.

You get into the ring of life and just one punch drops you to your knees. You get dizzy. You can’t get back up. You collapse and the last thing that you feel is your face hitting the floor. You are out for the count. You see your whole life passing you by. You see all the events that led to your demise. You see the failures, the let downs, the frustrations, and the setbacks. Your mind becomes fried as it slowly demises into a vegetative state, a lower level of consciousness. But don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. You are on the right path, the path to enlightenment. You just had to get all of sh*t knocked out of you.

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Black Magic Spells That Back Fire

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-03-05T12:11:38-05:00

I remember taking my little niece to see the Disney movie, the Princess & The Frog.

The movie was eerily accurate, especially when the Shadow Man does his little song and dance about black magic spells and how he is going to appeal to his “friends on the other side.” I know that it is a children’s movie. However, I am well aware of the work and dedication that goes into writing a good script. It needs to intertwine two worlds of fiction and fact. However, it cannot allow the viewer to get lost in the process. This means that the viewer has to be fully engaged, yet detached. This is difficult to do, both in movie making and in spell casting. In both cases you need to be totally committed to the process, but completely detached from the outcome. Attachment is what causes black magic spells to back fire.

Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready?

Let’s start with the basics. Shall we? Spell casting is nothing more than an intention. Every thought has two components, which are content and energy. Energy creates electromagnetic waves in which thoughts moves through. Feelings and emotions, in particularly desires perpetuate these energy waves. This is how the process of manifestation works. However, your intentions alone are not enough to generate a desirable outcome. This happens because you live in a world with billions of other people, who all want the same things. Let’s face it. Everyone and their momma is lighting candles and casting money spells. So what separates the winners from the losers? Power.

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Jumpstart Your Life by Using Voodoo Magic

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-03-04T10:24:30-05:00

Did you know that we are all human defibrillators?

We can give ourselves a jumpstart from the infinite amount of energy that circulates the universe. We can give ourselves our own therapeutic dose of electrical energy to stabilize the rhythms of our hearts and relationships. We can pump ourselves up before exercise, work, and even before those lustful tumbles between the sheets (goodbye Viagra). When we’ve lost the spark., and we have absolutely no energy. We can get a jumpstart from a transvenous user. Or we can have an entirely new one, implanted in our souls to ensure that our internal rhythms are naturally ensync with the flow of the universe. This is how you can jumpstart your life by using voodoo magic.

There are many situations where people come to me asking for help with spell casting.

I need to explain to them that a spell is nothing more than your intention. However, your intention alone is not going to be enough to grant the desired results. That intention needs power behind it. You are only able to channel that power from the ancestors or from the universe. However, this is the tricky part. People don’t know how to channel energy. I am sure everyone has his or her own rituals or “scientific method” to channeling energy. Sadly, if these things cannot be done repeatedly with consistent results then they are just folklore or superstitions. If you truly want to understand the power of intention, then you must learn to tap into the reservoir of power that is within you.

Understanding power is the key to jumpstarting your life by using voodoo magic.

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Getting Out of Debt Using the Seven Cardinal Sins

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-28T14:25:31-05:00

Getting out of debt is almost as hard as breaking out of prison.

Yeah, you can file for bankruptcy but you can never get away from the stigma. There are always going to be the employers who refuse to hire you because of your bad credit. And don’t forget the double digit interest rates, fees, and charges that the bank will joyfully tack on. Of course, having a great deal of debt will have an adverse affect on your living conditions. You can forget about the American dream of buying a house. Or even living in a somewhat decent neighborhood. Instead, your apartment will be the equivalent of a prison cell. It will be equipped with rats, roaches, and a ceramic toilet with feces stains around the rim. So if you’re badly in debt, you need to understand the seven cardinal sins that got you there.

Whenever I think about the seven cardinal sins.

My mind rewinds back to an old Fatboy song with a matching video (yes, I am that old). It features three morbidly obese men rapping about how their greed landed them in jail. There is a motif throughout the song that is both “ear-catching” and soulful. The tune replays itself in my mind whenever I think about debt. When people complain that they are broke, in debt, or financially miserable the tune pops up in my head. In Jail, in jail without the bail, in jail because you failed. I want to be as gentle as possible to these people. However, I really have a hard time breaking it to them that it is their greed, pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, and sloth that caused them to be in jail without the bail.

Gluttony

So you might be asking yourself, how did I get here? Well, you’re kind of like the three hundred pound fellow who woke up one day and realized that he was fat. You were packing the debt on like they were pounds and ended up in: jail: in jail without the bail: in jail: In jail because you failed

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How To Make A Voodoo Doll The Right Way

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-28T14:04:42-05:00

I am going to stick a needle in your arm.

Then I am going to stick one into your chest. Then, I am going to pierce a long one right through your heart. I am not going to have any negative intentions what so ever. In fact, I am going to work to heal you by clearing the meridians or energy passageways throughout your body. Oh, so you thought I was talking about the voodoo doll? Naw. I was however, talking about something that was very similar to it, acupuncture. Aha. You never saw that one coming. Just think about it. Both practices use pins and needles. Both work with the power of intention. And both practices work to manipulate the subtle and ethereal body.

So what went wrong?

Well, the voodoo doll began to get a really bad reputation. People started poking holes in it, stabbing it with their lies, and pricking it with their bad intentions. They took something that was so holy and innocent and turned it into an abomination. The relationship between the soul and the doll became as perverted as an altar boy and priest in church. Now, publicly owning and operating a voodoo doll is just as bad as being on the neighborhood’s sex offender’s list. Everyone is warned to stay away. So, if you’ve read this far, I can assume that you are a sane, free, independent thinker, who doesn’t care what other people think. So I am going to give you a few quick tips on how to make a voodoo doll the right way.

The wrong way!

Don’t do this for all of the wrong reasons. If you have serious issues with someone, and wish to make a voodoo doll for revenge, or to seek power, stop reading this post right now. Then, go and get some help right away. A voodoo doll is not a substitution for good counseling. If you are having thoughts of hurting others, then you need to take some time and examine yourself, because this is where the real pain/problem is.

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Everything In Life Is a Choice

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-20T10:29:45-05:00

I am not going to write some upbeat, unrealistic article about how you should take responsibility for your life, because ultimately, “you” create your experiences with your choices and actions. I am not going to do that because I don’t believe that it is true. Children don’t choose to be abused. Women don’t choose to be victims of sexual assault or raped. And people damn sure don’t want to be born with any kind of mutation, illness, or disease. These people didn’t make bad choices. “We” as a whole make choices for them.

Yeah! We are about to get into some rough terrain here.

But I want to challenge you. I want you to start to think differently about yourself and about your life. First, you need to understand that there are some things that happened to you in your life that wasn’t your choice. Rather, it was the choice of the collective consciousness. Our ancestors believed in this theory of oneness. They understood that everything in our world was interconnected. Now, we have a great deal of spiritual scholars who believe in the same thing. Deepak Chopra describes the mind as not just being a structure that is located in the head. He says that the mind is a process of information that flows in and out of the body, as well as through nature.

Now, people are beginning to see the world from a holographic perspective.

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Let Me Tell You Why You Hate Your Bleeping Job

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-18T11:36:24-05:00

So What’s Really Going On?

You gave up your bleeping freedom to get a job. That’s why you bleeping hate it. You can’t communicate effectively or freely, so you end up with a whole bunch of suppressed desires. You exchange time for money and you have to sacrifice so much of yourself to work. What else are you going to give up? Are you going to give up your worth, your creativity, and your ideas? You are a modern day slave who is no longer forced to work under a burning hot sun. Now, you are tortured with how to manuals, regulations, and guidelines that will ensure that you will never feel alive again. So maybe you’re not picking bundles of cotton or being whipped by a slave master. Now you’re being thrashed by your boss’ pen. Each write-up or note in your file is like a hash tag of whip marks on your back. You hate your bleeping job because you are forced to be subservient, submissive, inferior, and “enslaved” into a life of fear.

You hate your bleeping job because the only sense of reprieve that you get is moving up into the master’s house.

Yes, your once ambitious aspirations have devolved into you being a house slave/middle manager. This is the station where everyone who is imprisoned by the mind aspires to be. In this position, you can really express your desires to be a complete asshole by humiliating your workers and or employees, subjecting them to ridiculous demands and work hours, and keeping them incarcerated and controlled into your own little prison of fear. If they act up, going into solitary confinement is not enough. Instead, they get sold off, forcefully separated from their work family and never to be seen again. You hate your bleeping job because it has turned into a plantation where you are painfully employed. And your dreams of being free are as distant as a chariot descending from the heavens. This does not only apply to a job, it could be a dream business that you are failing miserably in. You know the business that I am talking about? The one that has more secret debt than Enron.

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The Courage of Conscious Living

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-11T11:05:18-05:00

Are you bored with life?

Do you feel like you’re stuck in a rut? Do you feel like there is something more that you should be doing, but you just don’t know what it is? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not living your life consciously. You have become a slave to your own fear, and that fear is complacency. Complacency works against our bodies and soul’s natural desire to grow. We all crave adventure. We all want to be risk takers, because we innately understand that sometimes we need to live on the edge in order to evolve. If you’ve lost the courage to live consciously, I suggest that you read this article.

Due to the short attention span of many blog readers, I am going to get right to the point.

If you want to have more guts and courage, you need to build solid mass. Yes, you need to start to be as buff and as tough as Ogun. After all, Ogun works hard to keep his body chiseled and tight. If you don’t want to spend half your waking hours pumping weights in a gym, or drinking high fructose protein shakes that will just give you a lot of gas, that’s okay. Not everyone has the discipline to be as healthy and strong as Ogun. However, you do need to incorporate a work out routine in your schedule. And this workout routine includes flexing the muscle of confidence, will power, and courage.

When I talk about courage, I don’t mean running into a burning house and rescuing an elderly lady or a kitten.

I am talking about rescuing yourself from a bad marriage or relationship. I am talking about rescuing yourself from a dead end job, or leaving a sleepy town that has one dirt-paved highway. I need you to understand that courage is like a muscle that you have to flex. You have to condition yourself to have courage. And you can only do this when you live and experience life fully. Much like a body builder, you are going to have to strain to lift the extra ten pounds, but you will get stronger, each time you push yourself to go a little further. But with courage comes fear. However, it is important to understand that courage is not the opposite of fear. It is its precursor.

Fear is the most natural thing in the world.

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Root workers: Healing You by Getting to The Root

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-07T18:35:42-05:00

I’ve often made jokes about people keeping their Voodoo on the down low.

However, today I would like to take it one step further, and call out all the root workers, the black magicians and the people who perform Voodoo, and really don’t believe that it is Voodoo. Are these people in denial? Or do they really not understand that manifesting is the new form of conjuring? Do they not understand that the vision board is another form of an altar? Do they not understand that they are making potions when they use certain herbs or eating certain kinds of organic foods? I think that people are really confused about what “Voodoo” is. So I am going to take the time to explain to people that Voodoo is all about healing the root of our problems.

Okay, you’ve watched some documentaries on the History channel.

You’ve seen some crazy stories or read some half-truth book about Voodoo, root work, and zombies. Well, I am going to let you in on a little secret. If you believe in the power of intention, if you believe in the law of attraction, if you believe that you can heal yourself just by having positive emotions and thoughts, you are practicing Voodoo. Wait! Before you jump out of your seat, point your finger, and accuse me of being a heretic, just give me a few more paragraphs to explain. Just understand that people want you to be afraid. They understand the power of truth, and so they will work to keep you from it. First, you have to understand that Vodun has been around longer than any New Age book, or metaphysical concept. It’s one of the oldest religions in the world.

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Check me out this Saturday!

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-04T10:42:46-05:00

Barbara Williams Show
The mission of this radio ministry A Path of Enlightenment Healing Arts Ministry is to awaken the global community with the understanding that peace and harmony resides within each one of us. The truth and conviction of who we are will deepen our sense of freedom, wholeness and spiritual restoration. It is through a spiritual awakening that we can begin the individual walk on A Path of Enlightenment. http://barbarawilliamsbrown.weebly.com A Path of Enlightenment Healing Arts Ministry assists with the process of spiritual growth and development. Identifying strengths and purpose reinforces competence and confidence in ones abilities. There are no cookie cutter methods for spiritual growth and development. Sessions a tailored to each persons goals.A Path of Enlightenment also attempts healing through the presentations of spiritual lessons relating to truth, Love, and Wholeness via its radio ministry. Peace and Blessings, Rev. Barbara

I will be on this radio show talking about the Orishas and the Seven African Powers. If you are available, please tune it. I would appreciate the support.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/barbarawilliams

Best Free Money Spell on the Market

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-02-04T10:37:04-05:00

Save your money!

There is no need for you to go out and buy a money spell. After all, the whole point of a money spell is to attract more money into your life. I can give you a few quick tips on how to attract money. And don’t worry. It’s on the house.

The first thing that you need to do is hunt for money.

We spend months job-hunting, but we spend absolutely zero of our time money hunting. Is there a difference? Yes, a big difference. If you are looking for a job to give you money, you are probably looking in the wrong place. There is nothing wrong with having a job, but understand that a job is never going to “pay” you what you’re worth. Just remember, the whole concept of a corporation or business is to make a profit. They can’t very well do that if they are paying you an exorbitant amount of money.

No, don’t get me wrong.

I am not telling you to go out and quit your job tomorrow. Employees are the backbone of our country and they keep that good old invisible hand of capitalism working efficiently. What I am telling you is to widen your perspective a little bit. Write down all of your skills and talents, and ask yourself if you know someone who is willing and able to pay you for this skill. Do you have five thousand friends on Facebook? Do you know someone, who knows someone, who can give someone you know their big break? Can you promote a product or cause that you believe in to generate extra income? You see, when it comes to money spells. It is all about creativity. It is all about thinking outside of the box.

The biggest problem that many people fail to realize is that money is energy.

So if you are feeling sluggish, tired and you’re broke, this means that you are not utilizing your skills to the fullest capacity. Another misconception that many people have is that they need to make money. This couldn’t be further from the truth. You don’t make money. You find money. Everything that you need and desire already exists. These things are just buried in parallel worlds and realities. And you can only dig them up by searching outside of the box that you were born into.

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Create a Profile at OrishaConnect.Com

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-29T18:50:11-05:00

Our ancestors tend to believe that we are created and reincarnated in groups.

I like the call these groups “soul groups.” Whenever, I think about soul groups, I remember being a child, watching the television show Soul Train (all you youngsters look up Soul Train on YouTube). For everyone else who is old school like me, I am sure that you remember the platform shoes, super-size Afros, and bell-bottomed pants. Many great celebrities and dancers got their start from appearing on the show. My favorite part of the show was the Soul Train Line. I loved to see the dancers form two lines with a space in the middle for other dancers to strut their stuff. People looked their best, wore their best, and had a good time dancing and showing off the latest moves. They set the tone for black and urban pop culture. Anything or anyone who was featured on Soul Train immediately became hot.

The dancers and performers were more than just people on a musical variety show.

They were trendsetters, legends who supported some of the biggest names in dance and in music history. They were a soul group indeed. For they were a group a people brought together by a common cause to promote black music and art. Unfortunately, there is no more Soul Train. But there is a new website called OrishaConnect. This is where people throughout the diaspora can connect, socialize, find love, companions, or maybe even get a new best friend. This is our soul group. We can now create a Soul Train Line of online profiles where we can strut our stuff, and let everyone see what we are made out of. We can create a digitalized community where like minds can engage without fear or hesitation. So create your profile today. Join the trendsetters, and ride the Soul Train Line as we bring the Orishas into mainstream culture.

OrishaConnect.com
http://www.orishaconnect.com

Free Magic Spells On How To Bring Back a Lost Lover

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-29T18:40:26-05:00

It is hard not to go psycho after a breakup.

Your ailing heart wants you to just lose it and become nuttier than an super chunky jar of peanut butter. But you need to try and restrain yourself. Stop having those fantasies of slashing your lover’s tires. Stop sneaking around their house and work place like a Peeping Tom. And stop performing those midnight drive-byes with the hope of getting a little make-up action. Stop being angry, and understand that your rage is concealing your pain. Many of us like to get angry because it so much safer than being vulnerable, or feeling exposed, or just being sad. Unfortunately, many people try to do magic spells to bring back their lost lovers while in this state. This is only going to cause more strife and disappointment. So if you really want to cast a free magic spell, you need to cast it on yourself, not your lost lover.

The first thing that you have to do is whip out the crystal ball or divination cards.

No, you don’t have to call Miss Cleo and get ripped off by paying insanely high rates. But you do have to understand who you are as a person? Do you see yourself how others see you? We are two face, we talk out of both sides of our mouths. We have a split personality that causes us to be more schizo than a patient in a psych ward. Many times, we can’t connect completely in a relationship because we can’t align both sides of ourselves. You see, we have our true selves, this is how we truly are inside. Then, we have our projected selves. This is how we come across to other people. Most of us go wrong in relationships, because we can’t step back and see ourselves from someone else’s perspective.

We may think that we are as sweet and kind as Mother Theresa, but throw around insults that hurt like Mike Tyson punches.

We may think that we are low maintenance, but we are really nag hags. We may think that we are independent, but we are as reliant on our spouses as a section eight mom with a welfare card. We fall short in relationships when we try to cover up our true selves. We may be needy because we have inherent insecurity issues. We may become a nag because we are direly afraid that something will go awfully wrong. We may become dependent because we’ve lost the courage to stand on our own two feet, and to even think for ourselves.

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Spells of Magic That Work

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-23T18:23:26-05:00

Okay, hit rewind.

I know that you remember the hit movie “ The Matrix Reloaded.” Just take a moment and try and remember the twins. They were the henchmen, quiet yet formidable, stealthy attacking their rivals by shape shifting into incorporeal forms. You know who I am talking about. The albino twins with dread locks, dark sunglasses, and receding hairlines.

The Matrix Reloaded

These guys were pretty spooky. Yet, they managed to encompass a prevailing scientific concept that has been ignored or dismissed for over a century. This concept is called quantum entanglement. And it explains how spells of magic work.

The Matrix Reloaded

Good old Einstein called quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.” For him and a few other colleagues found that atoms when studied on a subatomic level acted strangely. In fact, when atoms are split, they take on the exact same properties. What does this mean in dummy terms? It means that the modification in one particle directly affects the other. It means the change in one particle simultaneously affects the other. And the change occurs faster than the speed of light, spanning space, distance, and time instantaneously.

Of course, our ancestors knew this.

This is perhaps why twins, in particularly the Ibeji twins are revered throughout West Africa. They are the earliest symbolization of spells of magic that work. The Yoruba people who live in what is now called Nigeria have the highest rates of multiple births on earth.

They believe that the Ibeji are the sacred twins that bring about joy, vitality, prosperity, good health, and fortune.

They also believe that the twins symbolize two bodies with one soul. If one of the two twins happens to die, then the mother has to nurse and nourish the soul of the deceased twin, just as if it were alive. If they fail to do this, the disgruntled soul of the deceased twin will come back and cause malady and misfortune.

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Martin Luther King. Jr. Spreading Love on Inauguration Day

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-21T16:27:41-05:00

He’s got the world, in his hands.

He’s got the whole world in his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands. Martin Luther King Jr. civil rights, leader and activist was able to change the entire world, as we know it. He understood that the universe is a single unified force that connects everything in nature. So he used the power of love to shift our consciousness, to help us understand that we are all one, and that the idea of the “individual” is merely an illusion.

Conflict and chaos is what brings about creation and growth.

The best way to think about conflict is to imagine painting over a used canvas. The picture beneath the canvas and the picture on top are going to overlap and create an entirely different picture. Of course, you can put a fresh coat of paint over the canvas, but in most cases the images on the bottom are just going to bleed through. So the only thing left to do is use colors that are going to make the picture more appealing.

So you can use the color of equality and create affirmative action, but hate and fear will just bleed through.

You can use the color of justice to ensure balance and equity, but insecurity and doubt will continue to bleed through. You can use the color of hope by electing the first black president into office, but insurrection and incivility will continue to bleed through. Soon, you realize that there is nothing you can do to cover up the old picture. No matter what colors you use to paint over it. Its ugliness will always bleed through.

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The Thrill of the Hunt: Chasing Your Dreams like a Natural Hero

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-16T12:01:20-05:00

Slap em upside the head, knee him in the stomach, slap her across her face, do whatever it takes to bring the other person down.

After all, we’ve come pre-equipped with the primal instincts to kill or be killed. This concept was deeply explored in the Block Buster hit, “ The Hunger Games,” where people had to stab, fight, punch, and kill to ensure that the “odds were ever in their favor.” Sadly, many of us live our lives this way. We judge, criticize, hate, and put down others to ensure that we are the one and only victors. We form clicks, cults, subsidies, country clubs, and exclusive member groups to keep some people in, and to keep others out. We never stop to think how different our lives could be, if we invested in one hero, who could help us break free from a “game” that will inevitably bring us all to our ssdemise.

We need a hero.

This is when Ochossi, also known as Oxossi comes running in like a black knight. He is known as the Orisha of hunting and his Greek counterparts are Artemis and Diana. However, in the Yoruba pantheon Ochossi is a savior, a warrior, guardian, and master herbalist. In Umbanda, Oxossi is the leader of the fourth line of the seven lines of Umbanda in Rio de Janeiro. He is the Orisha who hunts down malefactors. He poisons the very tip of the arrows that he creates. And he is even compassionate enough to create an antidote. When he is focused, he never misses his mark. This is perhaps why followers of Ochossi tend to be the best archers in West Africa.

In the Western World, we are always hunting.

We are hunting for jobs, money, and soul mates. Competition feeds our primal instincts, so that we have to work hard to ensure that we don’t miss our mark. We are up against thousands of people for jobs and opportunities. So we are constantly fighting against the odds. Gone are the cyber tooth tigers, jungle cats and lions that we used to fight with swords, and or are bare hands. Now we are fighting against the cheaters, backstabbers, manipulators, and tricksters. If we feel threatened and believe that we may lose our job, spouse, pride, business, or dignity, we get into fight mode. And we begin to tear them up, beat their heads in, and rip them to shreds. Besides, we need to ensure that we are the one and only victors. Jealousy, judgments, prejudices, and dogmatism turns us into savage beast. We are like vicious dogs waiting for the command word “attack” so we can rip our opponents to shreds and ensure that the odds are ever in our favor.

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What To Do When You Don’t Have Enough Time

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-14T11:53:46-05:00

Fast-forward, rewind, skip, pause, and play.

Those are the main command buttons on our remote control. Over the years, we’ve mastered these controls. We normally skip commercials, fast forward through the movies’ dull parts. And rewind the film when we feel that we’ve missed something entirely. Fortunately, movies don’t adhere to the same perception of time as we do. Some time ago, a cameraman or director understood that time is an illusion, and can be slowed down or sped up based on one’s perception of it.

Our spirits operate outside the realm of time and space.

We’ve all watched those action packed movies, and have been amazed or in a state of awe when everything in a movie slows down. A flying bullet suddenly appears to be floating through the air. Debris from deadly explosions flurry like snow flakes. And a plummet to one’s death turns into a masterful trapeze performance. These things are not just special effects. We actually experience time slowing down and speeding up in cases of emergencies. So what does this mean? It means that your perception is your remote control. It also means that everybody perceives time differently.

I wrote a previous article, “It’s Time for Enlightenment,” where I explained that the Orisha Obatala is the father of time.

However, time is not linear, as many of us perceive it to be. Time is a concept that is based strictly on perception and the past and future are merely illusions of time. The only real concept of time is being in a conscious state of stillness, where we are completely one with nature. Many spiritual gurus would call this state, the present moment, or living in the now.

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Protecting Your Home From Evil Spirits

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-10T16:10:29-05:00

Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do? Watcha gonna do when they come for you?

There are a lot of things that people do to ward off evil spirits or to protect their home. They may hang horseshoes on their door, or put up some wind chimes, crosses, evil eye Mezuzah or even place garlic cloves around their neck. However, there is only one method that is guaranteed to keep evil spirits from entering your house. It is the power of your intention. If your intention is relatively good, then you’ll have a great deal of peace and prosperity. If your intention is bad, there will be only so much you can do, before the evil spirits come for you.

Whenever I think about evil spirits, I think about all the shitty jobs I used to have.

These were the jobs that I kept for a week tops. They usually ended with me cursing out my boss, and then being escorted out of the office clasped in plastic handcuffs. Yes, even I have a past. But no one knows about it. It’s not like a document any of this on my resume.

I had the awful experience of working in boiler room sales.

Yes, I was one of the people who called elderly widows and tried to get them to refinance their homes at exorbitant rates. They would come into my office with canes, or driving medical Bobcat scooters, they would sit quietly, struggling to breathe, even with the aid of their portable oxygen concentrator. I had to repeat myself several times as I tried to explain why a rate of 11 and 13 percent was a great mortgage deal. I couldn’t do it. I always had a big heart, and felt the need to always do what was right, even if it amounted to me being broke. Looking back, I now understand that every experience in my life was a lesson that I needed to learn.

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Detoxing: Cleansing The Bloodline from Curses & Negative Energy

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-09T00:27:51-05:00

There are a lot of people in the world today who honestly believe that their sh*t don’t stink.

Of course, there are a number reasons why someone’s sh*t would stink. One is that these people are on this deadly diet of toxins. Dogmatic beliefs and bad perceptions actually clog up their arteries and energy passageways. Two, overtime they begin to take in a great deal of toxins that cannot be excreted properly. Three, their energy will start to get clogged throughout the body and soul, causing them to be more stopped up than a men’s public restroom toilet. These clogs can be easily fixed when they are very close to the surface. But can prove to be difficult to dislodge if they are all caught up in the pipes. So in a nutshell, negative energy can cause people to be full of sh*t.

So many of us are full of sh*t, partly because we fail to understand how are ancestral bloodlines work.

We get the part that Obatala is the father of all orishas and is the genetic engineer who pieces together the human body and soul. We get the fact that Obatala created mutations and handicaps when he was drunk off his ass on palm wine. However, we fail to understand that during conception, our parents are pre-installing and pre-programming different beliefs into us and how we will see the world. It is our programing, our beliefs that determine how we “perceive” the world and thus determine how our bodies, mind, and souls will manifest. This is the natural process of evolution. Our ancestors give us an “inheritance” of memories, behaviors, and ideas to ensure that we are equipped to survive in our environment.

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Please Free Eshu Elegba: Understanding the African Deity of Infinite Possibilities

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-04T22:16:44-05:00

It is time to clear Eshu’s name.

Many years ago, He was convicted of the most heinous crime. He was demonized and ostracized and suspect of being a deity of witchcraft and voodoo. People have murdered his reputation by calling him the devil. His purpose has been misconstrued, while his chains have gotten heavy from the prison of lies that he sits in. Today, he’s locked up, seething, wrongly accused of blasphemy, when he was merely a victim of it. Now it is time to free Eshu, because now we have the evidence to properly clear his name.

There is a great deal of supporting evidence as well as expert witnesses that will testify that Eshu Elegba is innocent.

The things that were once considered heresy in the past, are now being presented as popular thoughts of scientific theory.

Exhibit A
Quantum Superposition is a theory that everything happens at once. All possibilities are presented at the same time. However, we are not always aware of these possibilities. It is Eshu who helps us to understand all of our possibilities. He is the bridge between the subtle and physical world. He helps us to determine our fate and change our scope of perception, so we can make the right choices at the right time.

Exhibit B
Popular Quantum physicist, such as Brian Greene has stated that we don’t really live in a universe. Rather, we live in a multiverse with eleven or more dimensions. This multiverse consists of parallel realities or anti-worlds, where information that is not readily available to us may be stored. It times of crises, when we are blind and cannot understand our destiny or see our fate. We call out to Eshu, for he can bring back information from other worlds or dimensions that we simply don’t have access to.

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Don’t Make Any New Year’s Resolutions: Instead Reach Out to the Ancestors

Yamaya Cruz — 2013-01-01T19:56:57-05:00

If you’ve written your New Years Resolution down on a piece of paper, I would like for you to burn It

tear it up, bury it, feed it to your dog, or shove it in the garbage can. After all, that is what a New Years resolution is, garbage. Now take out a plain piece of paper and write down all of your fears. And how you’re going to overcome them. It is important to understand that real growth is not about changing your thoughts. It is about overcoming your fears. So how do we overcome our fears? We do it by reaching out to our ancestors.

I know that sounds like a blanket answer, but in truth most of the pain and suffering we face actually stems from us not facing our fears.

This thick blanket of doubt, unworthiness, and complacency is constantly smothering us. In many cases, we don’t go after the things that we want or need because we imagine ourselves failing from the very beginning. Then, we snuggle deeper into the blanket of complacency mistakenly believing that these fears are real. They are not! Most of our fears are merely a figment of our imagination. Our fears seem real because social programs are constantly reinforcing them. Just think about it? How many images are actually yours? How many ideas are truly yours? How many beliefs are truly your own?

I wrote an article about a year ago, about us being trapped in the matrix, where every image, idea, feeling, and belief was given to us by some kind of outside programing.

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Emotional Baggage: What to Do When People Are Driving You Nuts

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-12-22T22:58:01-05:00

You’ve seen the giant monster trail mix bags at the grocery store.

The bags weighs at least three pounds and has an assortment of candies and nuts such as M&Ms chocolates, raisins, peanuts, and cashews. We eat them by scooping them out by the handful and shoving them into our mouths. Our taste buds tingle from the assortment of flavors and textures. The receptors in our tongues can’t perceive just one taste perception: so salty, sour, bitter, and sweet elements are mixed with our saliva. Emotional baggage works very much the same way. People who are overly emotional are like the giant size, monster trial mix bag that we buy in grocery stores. They are a handful. And if we don’t learn how to communicate effectively with them, they will drive us completely nuts!

We’ve all encountered them, the co-worker we want to choke, the irate customer we want to gag, hogtie, and lock in the utility room,

the spouse we want to knock over the head with a frying pan, and the boss we secretly wished would fall asleep at the wheel and drive off a cliff. Hey! We all have fantasies. It’s the only thing that keeps us sane, especially when we are dealing with people with a great amount of emotional baggage. Lets face it, communicating with people is hard. Partly because we have an assortment of emotions, feelings, traumatic experiences, programming, and conditioning that turns us into “mixed bags of nuts.” We can be totally sweet one minute and sour the next. One bad experience can make us bitter. Criticism and judgments trigger us to be defensive and shrivel up like a slug doused in salt. We are very much in this continual state of emotional flux. This makes us pretty much unpredictable.

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Understanding the Mayan Calendar, 12/21/12, & The Real Meaning of Doomsday

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-12-21T00:00:38-05:00

Gas! Gas! Gas! Gas!

I had the unfortunate experience of actually entering a gas chamber. I wore the Evolution 5000 series gas mask over my head, and the matching chemical protection suit. Then the siren rang and someone cried out gas! Gas! Gas! Gas! The gas mask was glued to my face like a strong adhesive. I ripped it off and cringed from the pain. My face got hot from the gas, and my skin felt like it was being marked by a bunch of tiny brand irons. My eyes watered and I begin to develop phlegm in my throat. I raced out of the chamber right before all of the food in my stomach came out. I remember someone patting me on the back and saying, a little bit of poison can make you stronger while too much can send you to your death. It is from this experience that I understood the real meaning of “Doomsday.” It represents the change of eras where a poisonous gas will set out to destroy the old and replace it with something new.

So this poisonous gas is really just an amalgamation of radioactive decay.

It has happened before. In fact it has happened many times throughout history. Colonization was replaced by industrialization. Industrialization was replaced by information. And now, the Information Age will be replaced with a new era of thought. This is an era of pure consciousness. This is the era of infinite possibilities. In African religions, we have always understood that the earth contracts and expands. We are very much aware of the fact that something needs to be destroyed in order for something else to be created. Many scholars in the Western world refer to this concept as creative destruction. In Yoruba and throughout the African diaspora we associate this concept with two archetypes. Ogun is the deity of progression. While his wife Oya is the deity of death and destruction.

So before you go out and buy a bed-bunker that is made with 10-guage steel doors, or blast boxers that can be used to protect your most “valuable assets,” understand that Doomsday isn’t about living in this post-apocalyptic world.

You don’t need to stock up on the Lifesaver jerrycans, or the GorillaTorch Blade.

You need to start stocking up on ideas. You need to understand that our world is a world of infinite possibilities. This is when you begin to understand that God is not this omnipotent entity that is outside of us, but works more as a consciousness that we all share. This is when we begin to understand that “we” as humanity destroy and recreate with our actions, behaviors, and thoughts. This is when we begin to understand the concept of pure consciousness, and we begin to work together as a unit, not as fragmented pieces of thought.

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One love-One Heart: Let’s get Together and Feel Alright

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-12-17T14:20:31-05:00

“Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right. Let’s get together and feel all right.”

Bob Marley sang it right. There is one love, as it was in the beginning, and so it shall be in the end. However, in order for us to understand love, we have to surrender to it. Yes, this is a difficult thing to do, and a far more difficult thing to accept. Love is illogical. Love is emotional. Love is pain. Love is chaos. However, it is the chaos of love that creation and rebirth stems from.

“Let’s get together to fight this Holy Armageddon. So when the Man comes there will be no, no doom.” Check out this book, Life with Bob Marley and the Wailers

Life, just like our beating hearts is very erratic. When we start to discern the rhythm of it, we will begin to die. Life has its own rhythm that is only discovered through chaos. Chaos allows us to unravel the fabrics of creation and growth by understanding the higher levels of the universe. First, we have to understand that chaos is not about disorder. Chaos is a system of probabilities, quantum scientist refer to this kind of chaos as superposition. This is when we begin to have a holographic approach to understanding life, where we can see all possibilities at once. We are then able to make better decisions by narrowing all of our possibilities down to just one.

“Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (one love).” There is one question I’d really love to ask (one heart).” Is there a place for the hopeless sinner, who has hurt all mankind just to save his own? Believe me.”

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Spice up Your Love Life by Practicing Tantra

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-12-10T20:56:38-05:00

A crazy thing happened to me today.

It seemed that someone slipped passed my captcha code and begin to bomb my email inbox with a whole bunch of trashy spam. I have several email accounts. So I’ve built up a tolerance for spam. I treat them like my grey hairs. I pluck them out one at a time. But today, I opened my inbox to find a litany of trash mail. I got invitations from nasty college girls who wanted to invite me to their dorm. I received messages from MILF’s who were looking for booty calls. And I was cordially invited to be part of a community of casual sex buddies. Yuk! Suddenly I felt dirty like I had just participated in some kind of raunchy sexual tryst. I scrubbed my email box like it had been infected with a sexual virus or disease. It was only after I finished that I got the message that my ancestors was sending me. People really didn’t have a clue! They didn’t realize that sex was a means of finding God.

So I guess you didn’t expect to hear that.

Historically speaking sex and God hasn’t really been a good mix. I suppose it all started when someone decided that sex was bad and sinful. So this way of thinking caused people to have more sex, they just needed to feel guilty about it afterwards. The guilt makes us not want to connect, find love, or be vulnerable. This is perhaps the reason why so many of us have intimacy issues. So we look for the quick fix. We long for the one-night stands, the casual encounters, and the friends with benefits. Sadly, we fail to realize that all sexual encounters are relationship encounters. Ouch! I know that was hard to hear, especially for the people who have commitment issues and avoids relationships like the plague.

There are a lot of people who would disagree with me.

But I truly believe that every person that we come across in life is a relationship that helps us to learn more about ourselves. As human beings, we long for intimacy, love, and affection. We need all of these things in order for our souls to grow. So we pull people into our lives that can help us heal our wounds while finding balance. Many people don’t understand the concepts of relationships, so lovemaking has become very disjointed. People start to take on a methodical approach where they treat lovemaking like it’s a mathematical equation. They really feel that they can plug in a few numbers and get the desired result.

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Religious Intolerance: The Oldest Form of Terrorism

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-12-05T20:23:15-05:00

We’ve all encountered them.

They are like the suicide bombers with six full sticks of dynamite strapped to their chest. They conceal their bombs with a heavy overcoat and maybe a pleasant smile. They work to get close to you. All the while, their internal clock is ticking away. They are waiting for the right time to pull the lever so they can blast both of you into oblivion. Only, the suicide bombers that I am talking about are the fanatics, the zealots, the crazy cult martyrs who sacrifice themselves and others just to advance their message or purpose. They wage their terror attacks by planting bombs of dogmatism, hate, and intolerance thus killing themselves and everyone else around them.

These religious fanatics are like ticking time bombs.

They are misguided martyrs who have been convinced to believe that there are absolutes. This mind-set worked well many years ago, before people understood that the world was round and that the earth orbited around the sun. Now, we are beginning to understand that our universe consists of infinite possibilities. Our world has multiple layers, each with its own component of truth. We tend to gravitate to the religions, practices, and philosophies that resonate with us. After all, we are all different. We all perceive the world differently. And we all have to walk down different paths. So it makes a great deal of sense that our religious beliefs will be as diversified as our race, cultures, and customs.

But the fanatic cannot accept this.

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Telling Lies Will Cause Your Nose To Grow

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-12-03T21:14:41-05:00

Telling Lies Will Cause Your Nose To Grow: Understanding how Insecurity Can Pull You Further Away From the Truth

The truth shall set you free. At least this was the lesson that little ole Pinocchio had to learn in order to get his wooden nose to shrink. In case any of you are lost. I am talking about the Walt Disney classic film that was originally released in 1940. It was about a wood maker and his puppet named Pinocchio. I won’t bore you with details because I am sure if you’re interested you will Google the name or check out snippets of the movie on You-tube. However, for the purpose of this article, I want to emphasize the fact that Pinocchio had one simple wish, to be a real boy. But in order to become a real boy, he had to prove that he was brave, truthful, and unselfish. Sadly, poor Pinocchio struggled with these traits, partly because he wasn’t comfortable with being “real.” So he told lies that caused his nose to grow.

So we can learn from this animated film.

So many of us are telling lies that cause our nose to grow. These lies basically start within ourselves. Then these lies expand and grow to affect our families, loved ones, and our communities. So why do we tell lies in the first place? Well, we tell lies because we are really insecure about who we are. We are not completely confident in our abilities, or we don’t have the will power or strong enough desire to manifest a favorable result. So we cheat, we tell a little white lie here, a little white lie there, we exaggerate, fudge the truth, and just omit information entirely. However, by doing this, we are failing to realize that these lies are causing our noses to grow. Why does this happen? It happens because the real lie is that the concept of security is merely an illusion. So over time, the illusion, our noses begin to grow.

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I See Dead People: Understanding Clairvoyance & Telepathy

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-11-11T20:49:58-05:00

It is rumored that the director of the movie “Sixth Sense,” wrote the script a total of six times.

Why did it take him six times to write the script? Partly because he was unsure about how the script should end. Then low and behold, on the sixth try, he discovered that it was a movie about communicating with the dead. Perhaps the “ghostwriting” business is more complicated than we expected? Maybe we are reading the material, without knowing the writer who is behind it. We are jolted, and shocked when we experience any thing that goes beyond our limited perception. So much so that experiences such as clairvoyance and telepathy are merely twists that are defined as paranormal activity, instead of elements of our earth’s brilliantly structured plot.

It is multi-dimensional and it is perceived differently based on its angle.

There are scientists who believe that our universe has eleven or more dimensions. The best way to understand this concept is to think about the many layers of our earth. If we think of earth as being one-dimensional, we are only able to see the boring flat surface that sits on top of it. We simply can’t see the many life forms that are brimming below it. However, if we think about the earth as having eleven or more dimensions, we can conduct sensory excavations. This is when we can dig deep and uncover the fossils from other realms and universes.

Much like the earth has shifted, resulting in erosions that allow us to find fossils.

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The Sliding Scale of Manifesting

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-11-05T15:02:25-05:00

It is that time of year, election time, when political candidates are being asked to produce tax returns and other financial records.

The public understands that there are some people who are very wealthy, and pay the same amount of taxes as an illegal housemaid. There are even candidates that admit that even though they fall in the higher income tax bracket, only 14% of their income goes towards taxes. How is this even possible? It is possible because manifesting works on a sliding scale. Just think about it. In the physical world, the less money you make, the more you have to pay. In the subtle world, the more energy you expend, the better you’ll be able to manifest.

The best way to think about this concept is to imagine that energy is like your paycheck or maybe like your W2 form.

We all have deductions like social security, FICA, and state and local taxes. However, with energy, you have other types of deductions. Doubt would be in box number 14, regret in box number 12, unforgiveness in box number 16, and unworthiness in box number 9. After your income has been reduced by all of these reductions. You are left with very little energy to manifest with. So you take shortcuts, and you buy only what you can afford. So if you’re a single woman, you might want to manifest a man with a big bank account and a shiny new car. But might be disappointed when you attract a man who drives a Chevy Impala and has a Russell Simmons bank card.

Don’t be discouraged

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Humans who shed their skin: Understanding the Power of the Ancestors & Singularity of Consciousness

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-11-02T21:14:55-04:00

Who are we?

A better question to ask is who would we be if we decided to shed our skin? We are all aware that humans shed a few flakes of skin here and there. But what if we could peel it all off in one shot, like it was a dirty sock? What if we could shed our bodies in much the same way a snake sheds its skin? We would be able to get rid of a whole bunch of labels that cling to us like bacteria. We would be able to get rid of a great deal of inferiority complexes and titles that have eaten away at us like a parasite. Hell, we would be able to get rid of all the things that we hate most about ourselves. But still, who would we be? We would be everyone.

The process of becoming awakened is really about peeling away all of the things that are false about ourselves.

We do this, so we can “rediscover” our roots, our purpose, and our mission in life. This helps us define who we are. Many of us may engage in past life regression to explore previous lives. We look for answers to our current problems by exploring events from the past, and reconnecting with people who have passed on. But we fail to understand that there is no past. There is no future, the only time that we have is now. And all of our relatives, all of our loved ones, all of the events and great civilizations that are thought to be lost in history, exist now, inside of us. We can tap into this power. We can have this knowledge, once we decide to shed our skin.

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Scoring Big By Following Your Destiny

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-10-30T14:32:37-04:00

Try this one on for size? Does your human body fit? Do you feel like you’re on the right path? Do you feel like you should be something more than what you currently are?

This goes beyond dreaming about being a star baseball player, or famous football star. It’s about the desire to follow your path and or destiny. Sure, they are going to be people who block your path like a three hundred pound linemen. There are going to be people who tackle you down and keep you from scoring. Others will force you to fumble your ball. But stay strong and realize that no matter what you do, you are still on your path. You may be only able to get to the first or second yard line in this lifetime. But you’ll have many more “lifetimes” to succeed. With each one granting you more chances to advance the ball and score that winning touchdown!

There has been a lot of debate about free will and destiny.

However, I am here to tell you that everything in life is a choice. You make choices both before you were born and after. Just think about destiny and free will like being a fish that is caught on a hook. The fish can move left and right (free will). But no matter how hard it tries it is going to get reeled in (destiny). This is why it is important to understand that your higher self (soul) has already predetermined your destiny. The higher self sees the bigger picture. Nothing that happens to you is a mistake. Rather, it is an experience that allows your destiny to unfold. It is important to understand that our higher selves exist at a higher dimension that transcends the linearity of time and space. Eshu Elegba is guiding our souls, and allowing them to see past, present, and future events, all at the same time.

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What’s love got to do with it? Understanding the True Meaning of Soul Mates & Twin Flames.

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-10-27T17:46:20-04:00

What’s love got to do, got to do with it. What’s love but a second hand emotion?

What’s love got to do, got to do, got to do with it? Who needs a heart, when a heart can be broken? The legendary songstress Tina Turner sang it right. Love is a risky business. You can win big, or lose big. Sadly, most of us lose big because we don’t have the slightest idea as to what real love is. Love is the manifestation of God. It is the strongest magnetic force in nature. It enables us to find balance within ourselves by conjoining the feminine and masculine entities.

Many of us lose in the game of love, partly because we don’t understand that it is a muscle that needs to be flexed.

We need to pump it up by engaging in as many relationships as possible. For these relationships bring us closer to finding the balance that is inside of ourselves. All relationships are about healing and growth. We subconsciously attract people in our lives to help us or guide us down a certain path. Many of us “fail” in love because we are not used to trusting in something that goes beyond our current framework of thinking. Love has become a second hand emotion. So when we fall, we fall hard.

In order for us to have harmony in relationships, we need to have harmony within ourselves.

We can only do this by effectively balancing the masculine and feminine entities inside of us. Legendary creatures such as the incubus have been known to seduce sleeping females, sucking their energy and causing them to deteriorate in spirit and in health. The succubus is its female counterpart and tends to prey on males. These mythological creatures are archetypes that embody the disparities of the masculine and feminine powers. The incubus works to deteriorate the masculine entity within the female. While the succubus works to deteriorate the feminine entity within the male.

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Help! Someone’s Trying To Kill Me

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-09-22T11:31:17-04:00

I have something that I need to tell you.

Somebody’s trying to kill me and once I tell you why, they are going to be after you too. I mistakenly came across some information that may very well change the world by shifting the balance of power, as we know it. Very few people know about this information, and those who do are now exiled or dead. I may not live to see another day, but I have to make sure that this information gets released. So here it goes, all institutions are based on power and control.

They are probably watching me right now.

Hackers have possibly put bugs inside my computer, and my cell phone is most likely tapped. But I must continue. For I believe that you have the right to know everything. You see people form institutions for the same reason why animals travel in herds. They do it for security, protection, and survival. Solo acts very seldom win, and the institutions know this. This is why they form political, religious, and even social organizations. They do it because they can successfully oppress the person who threatens to disrupt their balance of power.

Political, social, and religious institutions are hungry for power.

They want to dominate the masses and create large monopolies. They want to rule everything, so that the little guy never has a chance. If you fight against them, then they’ll send out one of their “men” to shoot you in the kneecap or chop off your pinky finger. What? You don’t believe me? You’ve seen what they do to social deviants, religious leaders, and political misfits? Just look at all the people who worked to disrupt the balance of power, Martin Luther King Jr. Dead. Malcolm X. Dead, Osho, the original spiritually incorrect mystic. Dead!

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Black Magic Gone Wild

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-09-19T12:12:30-04:00

Do you want to know about a homemade moonshine recipe?

Or how about an E-How, step-by-step article on how to cook crack cocaine? Or maybe you might be looking for some information on basement clinics that perform unsafe and illegal abortions? All of these things are on the Internet, equipped with pictures and YouTube videos. Some of them have an 800 number and supply their customers with pick up and delivery services. Why am I asking you these questions? I am asking them because I want people to understand the value of information. And what happens when it is prohibited.

What does the prohibition of black magic do?

Well, it makes people want to do it more. People are often surprised when they visit my website. They can’t understand how I can just put it all out there for the whole world to see. They believe that the information will land in the wrong hands. I hate to burst your bubble, but black magic is already in the wrong hands. By prohibiting black magic, you force people to undergo seedy and often dangerous practices to get the things that they want and need.

Right now as we speak, there are people casting spells like backwoods, toothless moonshiners.

Their high potency spells have an illicit distillation of intent and emotions. They are packaged in recycled glass bottles with simple instructions scrawled on the front, use this to f*ck somebody up. It gets much worse. How about the charlatan witchdoctors? You can find them in the unfinished basements of one-story homes that contain airborne toxins that poison your spirit like a bad case of asbestos. They work with rusty and unsterilized tools, trying to “abort” bad spirits. But sadly, their skills are no better than a surgeon with a revoked license.

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Seven African Powers ecourse

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-09-17T12:21:12-04:00

The Seven African Powers: The Stepping Stones To Enlightenment

I am like Harriet Tubman. Only, I am a spiritualist who carries a shotgun.
I am an abolitionist fighting to free people from the mental prison known as the mind. And I won’t hesitate to blast away any form of hesitation and doubt. You see, I freed myself a long time ago, from the chains society held me in. However, each night, I was haunted by the faces and voices of all the people who were suffering, all the people who were still in chains. I began to have visualizations and finally, I understood that my ancestors were calling me. There was something that I needed to do. I needed to set people free!

I needed to help them escape from their chains, from the imaginary masters that they had given all of their power to. I needed to guide them through the darkness, to the Underground Railroad where they can learn the secrets of our lost past. I needed to teach people how to embrace their fears, so they can have the courage to set themselves free. I am a realist, a woman who knows my weaknesses and limitations. So I can’t promise to fix your life, bring back a lost lover; make you completely irresistible and a million dollars by next week. I can’t make promises like that, because I am not a hustler looking to turn tricks.

I am a realist who understands that I can help change the world by freeing one mind at a time. I can do this by teaching people the metaphysical concepts of our culture, history and religion. I can do this by getting people to run through the night, stumbling over tree stumps and stones that they cannot see. I can do this by getting people to free their hearts from the constraints of jiggling chains. I can do this by giving people the confidence, knowledge, and wisdom to chase their dreams with more tenacity than a famished hound. I can do this by teaching people the secrets that have been lost and hidden for so many years. I can do this by covering the following topics:

Understanding the ability to heal yourself and others by using the universal life force of energy
Using Quantum Physics to understand how the universe really works
Teaching people how to protect themselves from spells, curses, witchcraft, and hexes
Help you understand the paranormal mysteries of the universe

I have condensed a lifetime of information into one basic e-course. You can watch and read the e-book and videos at your leisure. The videos will be sent to your email inbox on the following days:

Tuesday October 9th, 2012: How To Defend Yourself Against Spells, Witchcraft, & Hexes.
Tuesday October 16th, 2012: Working With and Understanding the Vital Force
Tuesday October 23rd, 2012: Seven African Powers part one
Tuesday October 30th, 2012: Seven African Powers part two

I understand that there are some of you who are on the verge of giving up. You’ve been on the path for many years and have worked really hard to gain knowledge. There may have been many points in your life where you could taste the freedom. And then suddenly, your whole world came crashing down. This happens because you have yet to get all of the pieces to the puzzle. Your awareness is limited to an extent that you just don’t have enough information to make things happen. My goal is to get you to keep learning and growing. The road to freedom is going to be filled with ups and downs. But your life will get better and better each time you fall down and get back up again!

Remember, true learning is about discovering yourself while creating the life that you desire. All mistakes stem from ignorance. So we all need to become aware, so we can make better choices and have better control over our lives. So don’t waste another second in chains. Embark on the path of freedom and order the Stepping Stones To Enlightenment today.

No. You don’t want to become aware and make conscious and active choices about your life. You’d rather live a life of dreams and fantasies and hope that miracles will come like a chariot descending from the heavens. No problem, it’s all good! Just swing low and get the first module of this e-course for free! When you’re ready. I’ll be coming forth to carry you home.

Why Do We Hurt The Ones That We Love?

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-09-07T16:16:33-04:00

What if I were to present to you a line up of all the people you dated? You would be able to look at them from a two-way mirror.

You would be able to see them, but they would not be able to see you. You would be able to call them up one at a time, asking them to turn left and right, so you can accurately identify the suspect who committed the most heinous of all crimes. You might be able to identify John the cheater, Jane the cold-hearted bitch, and William the backstabber. But as you scour your line of past lovers, you realize that they all share similar characteristics and traits. And you can’t identify just one. It is at this moment that you will realize that the person, who committed the crime of breaking your heart, did so because they just weren’t able to see the real you.

How many of us are hiding behind two-way glass mirrors?

So many of us want to stay hidden and concealed by an imaginary glass. We point fingers and find comfort in playing the victim as we identify the suspects that did us wrong. This happens because many of us fail to understand the energy that is transferred between two people. Sexual energy is the underlying force that defines all aspects of relationships. It is the omnipresent power that fuels our being and it allows us to communicate on a much deeper level. This energy actually moves through sound waves that don’t only penetrate our ears, but all of our senses.

Many of us are unaware that we are subconsciously broadcasting our feelings, thoughts, and emotions.

Millions of people are tuning into our station and it is up to us to get as many listeners as possible. Everyday, we are consistently conveying messages that come from deep within our souls. These messages include a full panorama of thoughts, feelings, dreams, and memories. People stop tuning in when the messages becomes foggy. And when negative energy starts to produce a great deal of static. People just get “turned off” entirely when we start to send out patterns of negative emotional energies.

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Powerful & Free Love Spells to Use When He’s Just Not That Into You

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-09-05T23:20:18-04:00

Are you ready to get the sexual energy to surge through your lover’s body like bubbling hot lava?

Do you want your touch to be as hot as colliding rivers of fire? Do you want your love life to be filled with spewing eruptions that enable you to get the ultimate orgasmic explosion? This love spell is way too powerful to be contained in a bottle. But the ingredients are pretty easy to come by. All you need to do is tap into the natural energy and hormones that are located inside the human body.

Do you want him to have eyes only for you?

Do you want him to be head over heels in love? Do you want to tame the wild fire of a cheating lover? Or add some spark to a dying relationship? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the first thing you have to do is call out to Yemaya. She is the Orisha who presides over salt water, the womb, and sexual energy. But before you get too excited. It is important to understand that sexual energy is just not about sex. It is used for creation and for building and sustaining all relationships.

A good way to think about sexual energy is to imagine it as being much like a gas.

When we are attracted to someone, we immediately smell the fumes. Then there is one spark. There is a match that is lit that sets everything on fire. It is at this time that testerone is produced in both the male and female body. This hormone encourages sexual heat (Chango’s heat).

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The Cult of the Community

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-09-03T14:34:22-04:00

Have you ever received one of these emails?

Greetings Sir, I got your email from a very trusted and confidential source (spam list). I am the prince, prime minister or dictator of a foreign nation that you have never heard of and probably don’t care about. However, I am willing to put some serious dollars into your pocket if you help me escape my bloody war-torn, disease-infested country.

All I need is an American bank account to deposit all the millions of dirty money that I made exploiting my own people.

Once I am safe and secure in America, I will be more than happy to give you half for all of your trouble (sucker). I get these emails all the time, and immediately, I delete them. However, there are millions of people who are forking over their beliefs (their accounts) in hopes that one-day they’re going to get a big payday.

Money is hard to come by.
Some of us who are good with our money might save a couple of dollars here and there. Some of us might have CDs, or money market accounts or shared investments like mutual funds or 401ks. But what if one day, you woke up and your money was all gone? What if you believed in something, invested in something all of your life, only to find out in the end, that it was just one big lie.

I suppose you would feel worse than all those people who lost billions at Enron.

Use of accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting enabled them to hide billions of dollars in debt. Enron stock prices devolved, resulting in employees losing their pensions and their faith in a mismanaged system that had failed them.

How many of us are part of a mismanaged system? How long will it take before we lose everything?

We need to understand that we all make deposits and withdrawals into a congenial source known as the collective consciousness. The collective consciousness is a direct representation of the power of the community. It holds all of our shared beliefs and moral attitudes. It is a unifying force that pulls people together by giving them one common cause to believe in. A cause that people will fight and die for.

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Use Black Magic like it’s a Handgun

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-22T15:12:53-04:00

You may find it hard to believe that I am a “straight shooter.”

I am pretty good at it too, so watch out. I’ve spent hours, even days on a firing range, shooting M16 rifles, semi automatics, and operating other types of heavy machinery. Hell, I’ve even handled explosives. I’ve pulled the pins out of one or two hand grenades in my lifetime. I know what you’re thinking. Why would a spiritualist engage in such violent practices? Well, I do it because I need to master the weaponry of destruction.

The real reason why people are afraid of guns is because they understand the magnitude of its power.

It can kill someone with just one straight shot. Our thoughts, emotions, and actions work in similar ways. Unfocused thoughts and emotions are deadlier than a fully automatic spray gun. If we are not careful, we can fire stray bullets that pierce the flesh of the people we love. If we are afraid of weapons and misinformed on how to handle them, accidents can happen, and we could end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

Dark energy or black magic as it is commonly called is an essential part of nature.

It is used mainly for the purpose of destroying action, intention, and thoughts. The natural process of nature is to destroy so it can recreate. Enemy invaders like bacteria, viruses, and germs are constantly ambushing our bodies. Marauders are constantly plaguing our spirits. The haters, the turncoats, the manipulators, and the users are like the bacteria that our bodies have to constantly fight against. If we stop fighting, we would quickly become sick and die. Millions of species have become extinct this way. We have to understand this energy, master it. So we won’t have to lay sieged to a series of sneak attacks.

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Let The Sunshine In: Get Rid of the Junk & Follow Your Calling

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-20T16:16:37-04:00

Can I get a Big Mac, a Quarter Pounder with cheese, a large fry, and uh diet coke please?

How many of us have spoken these very same words just a day or two ago? So many of us flock to fast food chains to consume the “immortal burgers” and French fries that are saltier than seawater. We know it is bad for us. So we try and assuage our guilt by drinking that one diet coke. As if that’s going to make a difference.

What makes it so bad is that our cravings for junk has spilled into virtually every aspect of our lives.

How many of us engage in a diet of reality television shows? How many of us indulge in gossip? How many of us feed on drama? Then, we try and ease our guilt by reading a couple of inspirational blogs, or spending a half-day at church, or attending some other faith based function. As if that’s going to make a difference. The only real way to cut the junk out of your life is to be inspired.

Let’s keep it real.

It feels safe to watch others make complete fools of them selves on national television. You can laugh and ridicule them, talk about them with your friends, follow them on Twitter. You can even buy their ghostwritten book when it comes out. Celebrities are famous for two real reasons. They can engage, or they can inspire. The celebrities that engage are the ones who flaunt their riches, and their lavish outlandish life-styles in your face.

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The Power of Intention: & Tapping Into Your Supernatural Abilities

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-17T13:15:28-04:00

Are you more like Superman or Batman?

There is a reason why I asked that question. When it comes to the power of intention, people normally fall into two categories that aren’t always mutually exclusive. They can be like Superman, born with supernatural abilities that are unexplainable to modern man. Or they can be like Batman, a strong business mogul by day, and a vigilante crime fighter by night. Both use the power of intention to get the things that they want. Only they go about it in different ways.

Me? I am more of a Batman person.

Not because I love the movies, but because I can relate more to the character. Sure he’s good looking and has tons of money. But that is not why I like him. There is a certain level of vulnerability to him that makes him, human. He approaches the power of intention with a methodological approach.

Much like a venture capitalist, he takes on a whole bunch of projects, knowing full well that many are going to fail.

He understands his limitations and works hard to overcome them. He works to tackle his fears as forcefully as the criminals he fights in the night. He is innovative, and designs fancy gadgets and equipment that are as unlawful and as lethal as an Iranian bomb.

Superman on the other hand, is like the American golden boy.

Not that I don’t like him. I love him. Only, he seems like someone who downplays his powers in order to fit in with ordinary man. Come on. Those stupid glasses and the ridiculous job, let’s face it. A man with that much power doesn’t need to work. He can shoot lasers from his eyes. He can fly through the air. He can even turn back time. Superman is someone who reminds us all just how unfair life really is.

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Manifesting is Not a Diet: It is a Lifestyle

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-17T11:26:52-04:00

Stop it! Stop trying to fit into those pants that you have in the closet. They are way too small.

They are going to look like high waters. They are going to give you a muffin top and fat back. They are going to hug your lower belly so tightly, that you’re either going to look five months pregnant. Or, you’re going to look like a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch. We all have clothes hanging in our closets that are a now a whole size too small. But we are determined to go through the arduous task of struggling to fit into them. Now! Take this idea and apply it to your thoughts, actions, and feelings. How many of us are trying on thoughts that no longer fit?

Hey! I’ve raised my hand. Don’t let anyone fool you.

It is difficult if not almost impossible to control your thoughts. It’s worst than trying to curb midnight sugar cravings. Or stopping you self from eating the rest of the banana cream pie that’s tucked away in the fridge. It is like once you start, you cannot stop. It’s an obsession. It’s an addiction. Our negative thoughts are very much like our weight, it inches on and off based on emotion and intention. This happens because manifestation materializes at differing speeds. Like our metabolisms, everyone is different. Some people can diet for several days and lose twenty pounds. While others have to live on a just one leaf of lettuce to drop a little bit of weight.

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Mo Money, Mo Problems: The Hard Lessons of Life, Death & Manifesting

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-13T17:52:16-04:00

What is Hip Hop? Is it violence? Excessive swearing? Aggressive lyrics?

Is Hip Hop about gang banging and crime? I have been grappling with these same questions for some time now. And I’ve come to realize that Hip Hop is merely a form of creative expression. Like a beautiful piece of art, it is strictly subjective. I know, there are a lot of people who can’t get passed the watered down beats and nonsensical lyrics. But if you take the time to step back, and examine the art from a different perspective, you will begin to understand the themes that unfold behind it. Great Hip Hop has powerful lyrics that are layered with truth. Lyrics that don’t only resonate with the soul, but teach hard lessons about life, death, and manifesting.

Great artist not only talk about the struggles and obstacles that we all face in life.

They reveal the secrets needed to overcome them. The Notorious B.I.G summed this up with just one grammatically incorrect sentence when he said, “mo money, mo problems.” Many of us mistakenly believe that money will solve all of our problems. However, those of us who know better understand that energy works both ways. It works much like a buy one get one free sale. Good and bad come together. Just think about it! People who have a great deal of fame, will get a lot of bad publicity. People who have money will attract vultures, crooks, and scammers who will try taking them for all they’ve got. People who strive to do only good, will inevitably do bad.

Why does this happen?

When you are riding the waves of success, your thoughts and feelings have greater manifesting power. Both your positive and negative thoughts will manifest more strongly and rapidly. It is almost like being in the fast lane and driving a car at 100 miles per hour. You need a tremendous amount of control and awareness when driving at these speeds. A sharp turn to the left or right could send your car flying over the edge. Not braking or slowing down could cause fatal multi car accidents. Manifesting at these speeds is incredibly dangerous because you’re sharing the road with others who all want to reach their destination as well.

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Spiritual Warfare: There is a Thin Line between Good & Evil

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-09T12:01:34-04:00

What is peace? It is anarchy with a smile on it.

Come on. I am not telling you anything that you don’t already know. You understand that we all have this sense of corruption, destruction, and turmoil seething inside of us. This is perhaps why the Joker, the infamous villain normally featured in Batman movies resonates so strongly with us. He helps us tap into our primordial nature, our primitive instincts. He shows us that there is really a thin line between love and hate, war and peace, and chaos and order. He works to test our limits, causing these lines to dissolve faster than a wet sheet of toilet paper.

The Joker is a criminal mastermind and psychopath.

He understands that all warfare is based on deception. He is a man of no rules, except for dissimulation. He has even imbued this into his personal style by wearing cracked war paint for makeup along with a hideous purple suit. Like Satan, he deceives the world for the fulfillment of his own personal agenda. He conceals his true identity, and thus hides portions of the truth to create lies and illusions to mislead others. Our ancestors called the practice of dissimulation sorcery or witchcraft. They knew that anything that wasn’t aligned with truth was negative. Today, we call the practice of dissimulation normal.

Dissimulation, much like the Joker’s bleached skin now has a more permanent look.

External pressure triggers our minds to release toxic stress hormones that flow into our blood stream. This causes us to be in a perpetual state of fight or flight. We start to see everyone as our enemy. So then we begin to engage in aggressive and even violent behaviors just to survive. This frame of mind is as deadly as a nuclear attack. For it contaminants our spiritual supply (collective consciousness) and demolishes the structure of our moral code.

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The Four Classical Elements Air, Earth, Fire, & Water

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-07T12:55:35-04:00

When my nephew was younger, he used to have an obsession with the hit television series, Avatar:

The Last Airbender. I remember him imitating the characters. He would call out each element, water, earth, fire, air, as he performed sloppy roundhouse kicks and jerky mudras. I always had a hard time explaining to him what I did for a living. How do I explain African spirituality to a child? Then, one day, I just had the perfect response. I am an airbender, spiritual style.

Yes, I gave him information that he could run and tell all of his friends about.

I think that I was on his list for having one of the coolest jobs ever. Maybe he could invite me in for show and tell? Perhaps he could introduce me to his teachers during career day? I’m sure that I would sound absolutely crazy introducing myself as an airbender. But I wanted to stick with it. I felt that it was important for my young nephew to understand the richness of our culture and the power of our ancestors.

You see, we spiritualist have been bending, twisting, and working with the elements since the beginning of time.

We have become unbalanced over the years because much of the information needed for spiritual growth has been lost or hidden. We used to live according to the laws of spirit, where everything around us was bustling with life. We practiced “bending” openly, working with the elements of nature without judgments or fears. Now, there is a dark force that doesn’t want to adhere to the laws of nature and the spirit world. This dark force wishes to live by its own rules.

So now, many of us practice in private.

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Energy Healing, The Ultimate High

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-08-03T15:15:24-04:00

Okay, who wants to get high?

I got something that is really going to blow your mind. It will take the pressure off, make you relax, and send you to the moon and back. It will cause you to be in an everlasting euphoric state, an eternal high that you won’t want to come down from. Don’t worry. It is all natural and genuinely pure. And you are guaranteed to get addicted. What am I talking about? I am talking about the blissful state of energy healing.

Maybe our ancestors had it right.

They were shamans who used psychotropic drugs to induce a trance like state. These drugs were 100 percent natural, grown directly from the earth. They used them for rituals, spiritual practices, and as a tool for studying the augmented mind. Today, there are a few of us who choose to uphold their traditions. Only now, we are hanging out at some backwoods bonfire with a keg of beer and a couple of bags of Doritos and Sun Chips. We are telling our stories about our psychedelic trips to the anti-worlds while passing around a rainbow colored bong.

For the record, when the bong was passed to me, I always passed (honest).

I never believed in the whole mind-altering chemical induced states of consciousness thing. Why go through all of that, when I could do it naturally. No. I don’t mean the drugs that grow naturally. I mean the energy that flows through the universe naturally. Mood altering drugs have a grave effect on the central nervous system. They affect the functioning of the brain, thus changing your perception, mood and behavior.

What if I told you that you could do the same thing, by just altering the energy that flows through your body?
No, I didn’t smoke anything before I wrote this article. And I didn’t come across this information during an altered state of consciousness. I am clean and sober. In fact, I can back up this theory with a little bit of science.

I wrote about string theory in other articles.

Many scientists believe that nature can be broken down into teeny tiny vibrating strings. These strands of energy are very versatile and can move and stretch to define the mass and charge of every single living organism and form of matter. These strands can curl up into complex shapes, each emitting a different energetic frequency, much like the notes that are produced from a French horn. So what does all this mean?

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My Spiritual Coming Out of the Closet Story

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-31T16:07:10-04:00

I always knew. I knew that there was something that was different about me.

But for years, I remained in the closet. Although it may come as a surprise to many of you, I was a weird kid. I was both feared and admired, a deadly combination that many priests and politicians would kill for. I did the whole Goth thing before it was even popular.

Since I am naturally black, it was an easy look to pull off. But these things were just camouflage.

The clothes and the attitude was just war paint that I wore to fend off anyone who tried to get close to me. I didn’t want anyone to know the real me. Deep down inside I knew what I was, a spiritualist who was too cowardly to come out of the closet.

Over the years, my dark clothes turned into expensive stiff two-piece power suits.

My talent for being feared and admired enabled me to become the ultimate corporate bitch, closing deals before the stock market rang its bell. I was a top producer, with dozens of frenemies. I had the life that many people dreamed of. Despite all this, my love for spirituality continued to grow.

I knew that I was in serious trouble when I found myself in some East Village loft, sitting crossed leg in a man made circle.

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The Power of Manifestation is about the Battle of Wills

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-30T15:42:01-04:00

The corporate world has an initiation process.

You have to endure the stress, the cutthroat competition, the 70-hour workweek, and the unpaid hours you spend networking at different events. I was able to get through corporate boot camp by reciting one special mantra. “Will is everything.” Much like a military issued dog tag, it defined me. It gave me the strength that I needed to stay true to my calling and purpose.

When it comes to manifestation, we are not all created equal. I know there are a lot of people who would disagree with me.

But it is just common sense. If everyone were able to manifest everything they wanted, there wouldn’t be any poor, disappointed, or angry people. We all know that the world is full of these kinds of people. Why? Because manifestation is not just about having positive thoughts, it is about will power. It will make you or break you. In most situations, you are going to have to have a stronger will than your opponents and or competitors.

Back when I worked in the corporate world, I spent a lot of time networking.

After a while, I had it down to a science. First, I would stare at my opponent like we were two cowboys before a deadly duel. We each would have one hand on our business cards, like pistols. Then we would eye each other to see who was going to draw first. Of course, there were a lot of times when I was just too slow. This is when I was gunned down and forced to listen to a litany of ideas and sales pitches that I really didn’t care about. I felt irritated and annoyed because I had been robbed of my personal power.

A lot of spiritualists don’t want to get ugly when it comes to writing about manifestation.

But I am going to share with you a dirty little secret. If your will is not strong, you will be beaten down and broken like a secret agent or foreign spy. People will exploit you for your labor, torture you as they try to collect your ideas and information, and make you scream for mercy. In these situations, you have to resists. You need to stick to your guns. But this won’t stop people from exerting their influence over you. After all, they do have ways of making you talk.

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Do You Really Want to Learn about Astral Travel?

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-26T23:05:15-04:00

The problem with astral travel is that many of us are carrying too much weight.

I’ve read the statistics and understand that many of us are teetering towards obesity. But in order for us to move around, we have to drop the weight. How much weight? Well, all of it.

You see the smallest parts of your body actually transform as they transition into different realms or planes of existence.

In quantum mechanics, this process is called phase transition. In metaphysics, it is known as traveling through different planes of reality. We understand that the human body, no matter the size is way too clunky and heavy to fly. Merely because we have the good old force of gravity pulling it down. So the body needs to transform.

Just think of the human body as being like a huge block of ice that is frozen and as hard as concrete.

When the ice melts into water, the molecules inside the water can move freely amongst each other. When the water begins to evaporate, it becomes a gas. When gas is not contained, it will disperse into space, defying the laws of gravity. In metaphysical terms, we are like blocks of ice on the physical plane, bodies of water on the etheric plane, and like steam or gas on the astral plane.

When people speak about having an out of body experience.

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The Ego & The Power of the Dark Side

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-25T18:28:36-04:00

Why aren’t there any therapy groups for people who are addicted to power?

There are groups for gambling addictions, shopping addictions, even sex addictions. But there is nothing for power addictions. Ideally, I would like to organize one of these groups. And I would like Darth Vader to be the guest speaker. I can imagine him looking distressed. He would be hunched over and unmasked, holding a lit cigarette with about an inch of ash dangling from it. His eyes would be red and swollen from the swelling of tears.

He would be remorseful, racked by guilt and sorrow as he rehashed war stories of all the galaxies he destroyed, all the planets he oppressed, all the people he tortured by using the telekinetic one hand force choke.

I just would want to ask him one simple question. Where do you think you went wrong Darth? He wouldn’t be able to look me in the eyes. Instead he would look away and say, “I didn’t understand the power of the dark side.”

That is the problem with the dark side.

It is very misleading. It is like a drug that you try once and then the next thing you know, you’re hooked for life. Power is the worst kind of drug. It is particularly dangerous when taken in large dosages. This results in power trips, superiority complexes, the suppression of ideas, not to mention tyranny and dictatorships. But I don’t think that I have to lecture Darth Vader on the effects of overdosing on power. He understands that power can be used to bring balance back to the force. Or it can be used to oppress it.

So the best thing to do is just take this one step at a time and understand the root of power addictions.

It all starts with perception. It is our perception that frames reality. However, Darth Vader just couldn’t get it through his thick skull that we are all one in the same, conjoined by one single force. We are just conditioned to perceive that we are different, this way of thinking results in a slippery slope of ideas. Perceptions amount to separatism, separatism amounts to judgments, judgments amount to prejudice, racism, sexism etc. We just can’t understand that when the ego reigns supreme, everything around it will be subjugated to its power.

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Kill The Ego & Have No Mercey

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-23T15:53:49-04:00

Our ancestors had a weird way of solving most of their problems.
If someone were a social deviant or misfit, they would just kill them. If someone committed incest or treason, they would kill him. If someone refused to contribute to the community, they would bury them neck deep in the soil, and yes, you guessed it right. They would kill them. Even the people who were exiled were hunted down and killed sooner or later.

Today, we live in a 21st century and we understand that killing is bad.

We are fully aware of the repercussions and thus we have to find other more civil ways to solve our problems. So we no longer kill people. Now, we just kill ideas. Throughout the years we have been socially domesticated. Much like a dog or cat, our genetic code has been altered, “neutered” to stop the procreation of anything that is different or new.

The human domestication was intended to weed out all of the bad traits of the human being.

It works as a process to “tame” our primal instincts, our wild nature, and our sexual impulses that makes us want to mate with anyone we are attracted to. We are trained to have self-restraint, which works more like a muzzle than a filter that separates good thoughts from bad. Today, we are reprimanded if we misbehave. We are violently beaten over the head if we can’t control the movement of our bowels. Besides, the whole point of being domesticated is being able to clean up our sh*t. But sadly, many of us are knee deep in it.

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Pass the Ball & Learn about the Law of Giving & Receiving

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-20T12:27:37-04:00

I’m always amazed when people think that they can hold on to energy.

The best thing to do when it comes to energy is to pass the ball! Yes, pass the ball! It could be an air pass. Or bounce pass, as long as you understand the importance of passing. Basketball much like life is a team sport. The players are all involved and have to learn how to function as one. However, passing remains one of the most under-taught and under-utilized skills in both the game of basketball and in life.

Aside from the fact that many people are self-centered, self-absorbed pricks.

We fail to understand the importance of passing. Passing is about sharing. It is about giving. It is about being grateful for our surpluses. But too many of us hog the ball. We think that passing is only something that we can do when we can’t clearly make the shot. We have to understand that in order to win in life. We have to work as one cohesive team. This is the power of community.

Unfortunately, throughout the years we have created a society that revolves around the individual.

This kind of mind-set creates a “win” or “lose” situation, where one person prospers at the expense of another. This way of thinking creates huge disparity gaps and the “its not my problem” attitude. Sadly, with all of our technical advancements, we have yet to evolve passed this mentality. We have yet to understand that we are all interconnected and can function much better when we work as one.

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Repressed Memories & Shamans View of The Underworld

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-18T10:07:32-04:00

I love irony. Irony is the reason why I was captivated by the character Hannibal Lecter in the movie “Silence of the Lambs.”

He was a brilliant psychiatrist, who also happened to be a violent psychopath serving a life sentence in prison. He committed murders do to his insatiable appetite for human flesh. He was brilliant and also incredibly manipulative. He was able to dismantle the workings of the inner mind, skillfully digging into the human psyche like it was a tenderized piece of meat.

Dr. Lecter was deeply enthralled by the human mind, because he understood what was hidden in there, our deepest fears and darkest desires.

Many of the scenes in the movie take place in a dimly lit cell, with the character’s faces moving in and out of shadows, just as we move in and out of consciousness. We create a dimly lit cell in the dark recesses of our minds. In it, we have a depository of all of our repressed thoughts and emotions.

Ironically, these areas of the human psyche were developed to help people become more aware of their problems.

The shamans called this area the underworld. We visit this world when we have terrible dreams or nightmares. We visit this world when we re experience the trauma and painful memories of our past. Shamans would help people heal by visiting these worlds in dream like states. They also visited these worlds to set intentions and to help people manifest and not repress their desires.

Ironically, the more we evolved, the more we began to repress these desires.

Today, instead of the dream state being a haven for visualization and manifestation. It is a prison cell. It is a dark place where people express their freakish and perverted desires. Besides, in the dream world, people can behave any way they like. It has become the fantasy world, a place of escapism. In this place, there are no judgments or repercussions. However, there is one small problem.

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The Life Force That Governs Our Universe

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-13T00:05:31-04:00

Have you ever watched a bag of popcorn in the microwave?

The bags are relatively flat with kernels creating indentations. We normally place the bag on the microwave plate, hit the on button and watch the bag spin around and around. Then we hear the first kernel pop. Then we hear a succession of popping sounds, until the bag explodes and burgeons into a super-size bag of fully “evolved” popcorn. Aside from a few hard kernels left at the bottom of the bag, the popcorn is light, fluffy and ready to eat.

Okay, so if you’ve read this far, you are probably waiting for me to make my point.

I’ll say it in plain and simple English so everyone can easily understand. The energy that is used in a microwave oven is much like the life force that governs our Universe. Wait a minute! Before you decide to scoff and leave this page, just give me a few more sentences so I can further make my point.

Everyone has heard of the Big Bang Theory.

It is a cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. Scientist and even some spiritualist agree that the earth was created through an explosion or a series of explosions that created clumps of matter. These clumps of matter began to develop as the Universe began to rapidly expand. Consequently, the Universe is still expanding at an incredibly rapid pace. What is causing this to happen? It is a little something called heat. Yes, Chango’s heat!

I never get tired of saying that the physical world mirrors the spiritual world.

In space much like a microwave; there are waves of energy that cause planets to develop, just as the radio waves of the microwave cause kernels to pop. You’ve noticed that the kernels inside of a bag of popcorn can’t all pop at the same time. This is because the heat from the radio waves actually cooks the food from the inside out. The heat creates friction, where atoms inside the food start to rub together, enabling the food to cook faster.

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Check this out!

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-11T14:41:34-04:00

“The most informative documentary you are yet to see” continues its US TOUR, book in advance to secure your place when its in a city near you!

DOCUMENTARY SYNOPSIS:
An educational documentary examining significant correlations between tenets in mainstream religions and African spiritual practices widely stigmatised as Juju, Obeah or witchcraft and questioning why in light of these similarities African systems are viewed negatively whereas modern religions are not.

TRAILER:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LqxMegWSqI
KEEP UPDATED WITH SCREENING LISTINGS ON THE LINK BELOW:
http://www.longbelly.co.uk/documentaries/ancestral-voices-esoteric-african-knowledge

CURRENT DATES & VENUES

Philadelphia, PA
Fri 6th July Time: 7:00pm – 11:00pm
The Rotunda 4014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Admission: $5.oo donation
Info contact: Maat International Travel-Network
Email: dinternational.rouse@gmail.com
Brooklyn New York
Sun 29th July Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Sue Rock Originals Everyone Design Studio 1069 Bergen Street Brooklyn, NY 11226
Admission: $20.00
Info contact: Tel: (718) 781-4142
Email: suerockoriginals@yahoo.com
Advance bookings ONLY. Book tickets on this link here- Tickets
Newark, New Jersey
Sun 5th Aug Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm
Afrikan Dance Spectrum Studio, 30 Central Avenue, Newark NJ 07305
Admission: $20.00(full), $15.00(concessions) Q&A with directors & DVD sales
Info contact: Ali McBride
Tel: (201) 433 9496
Email: Ali7771@msn.com
Atlanta, Georgia
Sat 11th Aug Time: 7:00pm – 11:00pm
Venue TBC
Atlanta, GA 30312
Info contact:
MotherEarth Productions
720.227.6935
productionsofmotherearth@gmail.com
Atwood Community Gardens
779 Atwood St. SW
Atlanta, GA 30310
Please forward to people, networks and organisations that may be interested!
Due to the international demand for screenings we are looking for people who are willing to work with us to help arrange film screenings in your local area, community or organisation.
If interested please email us at ancestralvoices@longbelly.co.uk to discuss options.

FACEBOOK
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ancestral-Voices-Esoteric-African-Knowledge/146370848725383

YOUTUBE
http://www.youtube.com/longbellytv

The Pains of Meditation

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-08T23:43:37-04:00

When People tell me that they meditate for hours. I have a difficult time believing them.

I’ve been meditating for almost ten years, and I can’t sit still for more than twenty-minutes. My legs start to get rigid. My back begins to hurt. My fingers start fidgeting. I start to lose concentration as invading thoughts start to explode through my mind like bombs from a terrorist attack. Then, the tics start to come, followed by involuntary movements that are highly disruptive.

Then there is rude and intrusive outburst of thoughts.

Instead of me thinking about world peace, I start to think about how badly I have to piss. Instead of focusing on intention, I get angry and think about contention. I try to realign my thoughts and focus on meditation, but my mind jumps to procreation. These things always happen to me. It is like I have Tourette syndrome only while I am meditating.

I’ve done my research and I am not alone.

Many people suffer from tics and disruptive involuntary thoughts while meditating. I wanted to find out what the solution to this problem was. After digging a little further I finally found my answer. The solution was simple. It was all about discipline. Discipline! That’s one word that I didn’t want to hear.

Whenever I think about discipline, my mind rewinds back to the days when I hired an ex Drill-Sergeant as a personal trainer.

I remember him yelling at me to move faster and work harder. I remember running like a maniac, with my heart beating so quickly that I felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. The man was pure evil. He ran beside me and barked, discipline is all about getting pain and weakness out of the body.

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The Spiritual Cast System & The Real Meaning of The Family Tree

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-07T23:08:39-04:00

Don’t worry! I didn’t make a typo.

The title is absolutely correct. There is a spiritual cast system that exists in the world today. Before you read on. It is important to know that I am not going to talk about the social caste system. We’ve all heard about the poverty, the rigid divisions of social classes, the inability for upward mobility, and the lack of opportunities that stunt production and growth.

However, I am going to talk about the spiritual cast system.

This cast system involves us being born into a certain ancestral lineage. We come into this world, pre-programmed and pre-packaged, with batteries included. We were all given a certain amount of energy (ashé) to fulfill our mission, calling, or purpose in life.

We actually inherit programs from our ancestors.

These programs are in the form of thoughts, behaviors, emotions and memories. They are installed in our DNA and in our genetic code. The double-sided helix represents the ladder, the symbol of ascension that enables us to transcend beyond our basic programming.

But the double-sided helix also represents that chains that bind us.

It symbolizes the manacles that attach us to family members, even to relatives that we can’t stand, like Uncle Mike the jailbird and cousin Tammy, the drunk. It is difficult to break ties from family members because we all share one common link, our bloodline. What’s so bad about the spiritual cast system is that our relatives in previous lives could be our lovers or best friends in present lives. In many situations, we are reincarnated with the same people, with the same bad programing. These are the ancestral links or bloodlines that divides the world into rigid “spiritual classes.”

The first spiritual class is the lowest of them all.

They are like the untouchables in India, only they create their own misery by allowing themselves to inherit toxic thoughts and ideas. Their bloodlines are tainted. Yet, they are either too stupid or too lazy to do anything about it. These are the people who are completely immobilized, as if both their legs were in a cast. They honestly believe that they have no control over their lives. So they live and die in a mental state of dire poverty. And thus, they become like the beggars who cut off their limbs to plead for meager scraps of food.

The second class has one leg up.

They have a little more freedom and believe that they have some control over their lives. These people operate as if they are wearing a single hip spica cast. They have one good leg, but they have no idea what to do with it. These are the people who let opportunities pass them by. These are the people who make it halfway to their destination and quit. These are the people who allow others to dissuade them from their goals. These are the people who don’t fully trust themselves because they have inherited beliefs from their bloodline that they are not good enough. These are the people who spend their whole life making lateral moves because they never gain the courage to take the leap forward.

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Spiritual Uprising & The Attack of Spiritual Leaders

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-07-05T23:39:40-04:00

They are everywhere! They are plotting in chat rooms, gathering in groups, and sharing information with all of their friends on Facebook.

You know the people I am talking about. These are the people who do everything right. They follow a spiritual formula right down to the letter, and yet, they still managed to get it wrong. They are getting frustrated and they want to scream out to the world that spiritual leaders and gurus are con artist, fakes, charlatans and black magicians.

I am sure there are a lot of spiritual leaders that barricade their doors at night.

Some have an entourage of people around them to shield them from flying bullets. Others live their lives in fear, dreading the day when their followers revolt and attack them with pitchforks and kitchen knives. Yes, I can honestly say that there are a few spiritual leaders and gurus who are as twisted as a Rasta Man’s dreadlocks. But I can also say that they are a many who are incredibly humble and honest.

Spiritual leaders, priests, and gurus have it tough.

They tend to be radical thinkers and people aren’t exactly very receptive to new ideas. Jesus Christ (JC) spent his whole life trying to teach people about enlightenment. Things were different in his day. Information was scarce; very few people knew how to read and had a difficult time understanding spiritual concepts. So JC preached God’s word through parables. Of course, there were people who just didn’t believe in miracles, or in the power of enlightenment.

These were the people who probably had an unhealthy set of 22 teeth and an IQ score that was well below 70.

They couldn’t imagine someone who was able to teach and heal with just the power of his heart. They couldn’t understand why so many people flocked to just one man. Jesus knew people were out to get him. I am sure he had many nights when He slept with one eye open. The more people He healed, the more people resented him. People understood his true message only after he died. They looked into the empty cave and at his pile of clothing, and finally understood JC’s teachings. They finally understood the concept of resurrection. Duh! That is what JC was trying to tell you all along.

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Why Can’t I Manifest Anything?

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-06-24T20:43:53-04:00

Don’t do it! Don’t walk around with a noose tied around your neck. What do I mean by that?

Stop believing that positive intentions, thoughts, prayers, and desires are all you need to manifest great things into your life. They are not. These things are just variables that work much like letters in the game Hangman.

We used to play Hangman in school, either on a chalkboard or on a plain white piece of paper.

The whole purpose of the game was to improve our spelling. We were only given a few letters, from which we had to decode or guess the correct answer. The teacher would draw a body part for each incorrect answer. First there was the head, torso, arms, legs, and feet. If we had too many incorrect guesses then the teacher would draw a noose over the stick figure’s neck and the game would be over.

The more letters that you received, the easier it was for you to guess the correct spelling of the word.

You could master the game if you understood the mechanics of the alphabet and had a strong grasp on the English language. This concept can be applied to the power of manifestation. We are not given enough variables and we don’t fully understand the mechanics involved when it comes to manifestation.

For one, we still have this dogmatic outdated view of how the cosmos work.

I mentioned in previous articles that the past, present, and future exist all at the same time. We can travel to the past through our bank of memories. We can also predict the future if we have all the right information. But that’s the problem. We can never have all of the information. The Universe is always changing, and we can only make predictions based on the information that is available to us.

However, this concept gets a lot more complicated. Since everything in our Universe is already created.

There is an infinite amount of possibilities. The options to all of your choices already exist in parallel realities. All the answers to your prayers, the solutions to your problems are just waiting to be solved! The level of your awareness, your intentions and the choices that you make materializes your future. All of these things are waiting to be born in the womb of our Universe.

This womb is called dark energy. Our ancestors knew about dark energy.

However, they believed that the African deity Olokun presided over it. Olokun lives in the darkest and deepest parts of the ocean. He/she is the deity of creation, of richness, and wisdom. Ironically, dark energy is almost 70% of our Universe and water is roughly 70% of our earth. This deity is incredibly mysterious, partly because people don’t know a lot about him or her, just as people don’t really know much about dark energy.

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Keep Your Love Locked Down and Find Your Soul Mate

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-06-21T12:06:18-04:00

You ever have one of those songs that you just can’t get out of your head.
These songs are so incredibly infectious that you find yourself singing the lyrics at the most inopportune time. I guess that is the power of good music, or good marketing. The one song that I like to avoid is “Love Locked Down,” By Kanye West. It is not that I don’t like the song. I love it! I just don’t want to sing it all day.

I suppose the song resonates strongly with me because it touches on the risk we all have to take to find love.
This is the meaning I got from the lyrics the first time I heard the song. Then, after the 50th time of singing the song to myself or to other people, I realized that it just wasn’t’ about love, it was about finding the right partner. We have to keep our love locked down!

We all have our ideal soul mate.
Our soul mates are kind, caring, loving, resourceful faithful, honest, and incredibly good looking. They are always supportive and would never do anything to hurt us. We each have a perfect match that we are constantly searching for. But in order for us to search for him or her, we have to have a prototype that strictly exists in our heads. Then, we go through life looking to replicate him or her.

It is important to understand that there is a dichotomy that splits our world into two spheres.
Everything is positive and negative, or good or bad. Thanks to Einstein, we operate under the Theory of Relativity where people have to define the best by comparing it to the rest. When it comes to relationships, we compare people to other people. Or we compare them to the ideal prototype that we have sketched out in our heads.

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It Is Time for Enlightenment

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-06-19T13:52:53-04:00

The book the “The Power of Now” changed the topography of spiritual pop culture.

The “Power of Now” allowed people to coin really cool phrases like, “It is what it is,” and “The only time that we have is now.” You know that a book is a pop culture phenomenon when Wall Street yuppies are admitting that they have a problem with their ego. The book was a major success, partly because it shattered our view of what time really is.

Everything is in the now!

There is no such thing as the past, present, or future. The book helped us to have a better understanding of how the cosmos really work. The flow of time is really just a standard of measurement that was created by modern man. Our ancestors lived much simpler lives. When the sun came up, they got up and worked. When the sun went down, they prepared to go home and rest.

However, our ancestors had a different perception of time.

They didn’t believe that the past was etched in stone, or the future was virtually unpredictable. They understood that everyone experiences time differently. They knew that time could speed up, or slow down, depending on how a person chose to perceive it. Most importantly, they knew that the past, present, and future existed all at the same time. This is the power of now!

Now there are some people who would disagree with this concept.

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Things You Probably Don’t Want To Know About Attracting Abundance In Your Life

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-06-17T00:11:04-04:00

If you are the kind of person who hangs out in the “Self-Help” or “How to Section” of the bookstore, you have to read this article!

This piece will blow your mind and make you think differently about the spiritual, financial, and physical world. You will begin to see things from a different perspective. It will be a major epiphany, a life-changing event that is going to make you shout out the information from a mountaintop. The words are going to be harsh, but liberating. Are you ready for them?

The one thing that all the self-help gurus don’t want you to know is that there is no such thing as abundance.

Yes, you heard it right. Now, around eighty percent of you are going to X off the page and never read any of my articles or visit my website again. However, I believe this is information that you must know if you truly want to grow spiritually, physically, and mentally.

You see, resources are scarce for a reason.

Back in the day, our ancestors hunted for days for food. Once they caught the food, they had to go through the arduous tasks of skinning it, cooking it, and finding natural ways to preserve it. Today, money is very difficult to get. We have to find creative ways to spend it, save it, and make it stretch as far as we can. I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to make money. We all know that today, we are forced to do so much more with much less.

The truth of the matter is that nature makes resources scarce. So people can work hard to attain them.

I know, it sounds so unfair, especially to those who sit on the couch eating chips and cakes all day. But this is the very reason why nature is so harsh. It wants you to work hard, so the human species can evolve. So at this point, you are either still with me. Or you have decided to read someone else’s blog who promises to teach you about attracting abundance and prosperity into your life. Don’t be fooled, that person has probably brought all of his “fans” and now has a negative balance in his checking account.

I’ll be completely honest with you. I am not rich.

In fact, I am far from it. However, I’ve been very poor and I can tell you all the things that don’t work if you are trying to get money. Watching videos, attending seminars, listening to positive affirmation CDs, invoking spirits, listening to people who don’t have any money, and making secret pacts and promises to the devil. None of these things will help you. Why, because attracting abundance in your life requires a certain mentality. This is a mentality that very few people actually have.

Just look at Bill Gates. People laughed at him when he wanted to make software.

People agreed to let him build software, because they believed that the money was in the hardware. But Bill Gates had a different mentality. He was following the laws of nature, the process of evolution. So now, Bill Gates has a new software program every couple of years. He may add a few more bells and whistles, but it is just enough to convince people that there is a value to his products. The man is brilliant! He attained abundance by understanding a primary concept about nature. People need to upgrade!

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Love Addictions

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-06-13T23:50:56-04:00

I just want to give you a short quiz on what you think love is. A, Do you think that love is about reciprocity?

B, Do you feel that love is about openness, honesty, and sharing?
C, Do you feel that love is about calling someone ten to twenty times a day, monitoring their Facebook page like it is a stock market message board, and conducting casual drive-bys to see if they are home is love?
If you answered C, then I regret to inform you that you fall into the category of being an emotional stalker.

What is an emotional stalker?

It is a lot like an obsession, but goes beyond harassment and intimidation. People who are emotional stalkers suffer from a serious case of mistaken identity. Emotional stalking is actually very common and many famous people have been known to have this disorder. Pepé Le Pew spent his whole career in pursuit of a female cat, which he believed was a skunk. The cat worked hard to escape his repugnant smell, but Pepé was relentless in his pursuit.

Pepé Le Pew is not the only one.

Millions of people are chasing after the wrong people. Their desperation is like a repugnant smell. It is an immediate turn-off that sends people running towards the door. However, emotional stalkers just can’t take the hint that people are just not interested. They continue to pursue them, until they get a restraining order in the mail. Emotional stalking is actually a very serious condition that stems from the malnourishment of love.

In truth, our souls need love in order to grow and heal.

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The Power of Compassion

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-06-11T23:43:05-04:00

I have been around the block a couple of times and I’ve heard all the talk about empathy and compassion.

The Buddhists preach about how great it is to have compassion. Babalawos talk about sensitivity, and Christians talk about forgiveness. What does all this mean? It means absolutely nothing.

Warning, the rest of this article contains explicit tell it like it is language about compassion, empathy, and forgiveness.

So if you are the kind of person who places flowers in the barrel of guns, I suggest you read something else. If you choose to continue, you will continue at your own risk.

The truth of the matter is that many of us cannot be compassionate, empathetic, or sensitive because we are limited by our own beliefs and perceptions.

Many of us are nearsighted, we see the world from one single perspective, our own. We sometimes have occasional moments of being farsighted, but this only happens when we “try” to see the world from different perspectives.

Many of us live in a bubble.

We are nearsighted and tend to only care about issues that strike close to home. We care about the things that affect us directly. We are empathetic, compassionate, and sensitive when we feel and understand our own pain or the pain of our loved ones. Then, there are times when we are farsighted. This is when we can only “imagine” the pain that other people are going through. We watch television and see famines, Jihads, and refugees fleeing war-torn countries, and we have just a flicker of empathy, a fleeting moment of compassion. Then, we turn the channel to see what else is on.

Now, it would be a different story if our wives, husbands, or daughters were trapped in one of these countries.

It would be different if we ourselves had to flee from an army of angry child soldiers. It would be different if we had to brave the jungles and risk getting eaten by hungry lions. It would be different if we had watched our loved ones die from the blade of a rusty machete.

That is my very point! It is always different, when it is somebody else.

People talk about compassion, forgiveness, and sensitivity. But these things mean nothing to nearsighted people. It is not that they don’t care about other people. It is just that they don’t have the capacity to understand. Our ancestors operated from a different paradigm. They didn’t have a “me” generation mentality. They believed in the concept of “we” because they realized that everything and everyone was interconnected. If one person had a problem, then everyone had a problem.

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Am I in an Abusive Relationship

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-06-06T14:49:45-04:00

Be aware!

There are people who are committing the most heinous spiritual crimes. They look like regular people. They could very well be your ex-boyfriend, current wife, or psycho girlfriend that you just can’t get rid of. Some people may refer to them as divas, or ladies men, pimps, or players. Or others who are truly intuitive may say that they suffer from severe psychological issues.

I believe that these people are a couple of therapeutic couch sessions away from being full-blown serial killers.

Besides, they have much of the same mind-set; they just aren’t crazy enough to take their sick fantasies all the way. So maybe they don’t wet the bed, or torture small cats or dogs. They are spiritually torturing themselves and everyone they come into contact with, because they operate with their weaknesses as opposed to their strengths.

Everything is great in the beginning.

Much like a serial killer they will work to lure you in with their charm. They know that you are going to have your defenses up, so they put on an act and make you believe that they are not going to hurt you. Watch out! They are looking to build your trust, and then they are going to attack. These are the people who emotionally exploit you. They intentionally go out of their way to hurt you.

It is safe to say that these people have serious issues.

For them, there is a miss match between certain thoughts and emotions, and actions and reactions are not paired up correctly. This produces weird awkward behavior that goes beyond laughing at funerals. These are the people who love drama. They love to make you jealous or upset, because they are looking for the opportunity to have power over you. Their domination does not only have to be physical, it can be emotional, financial, and even spiritual.

So why do these people even exist?

I can answer that question with two words, bad programing. Our souls carry programs from successive lifespans. Overtime, we get run-down and start to suffer from normal wear and tear. Traumatic events like abuse, neglect and abandonment create glitches in our system. So we are no longer able to operate effectively. Without treatment, our thoughts are not properly matched with the right emotion. So we mistake things like pain for love.

It is human instinct to look for a partner who we are compatible with.

So we instinctively look for partners who have the same bad programing or glitches as we do. Only, for an abusive relationship to work, there has to be a positive and negative spark. If the partner we seek is domineering, we must inherently agree to be submissive. This is the only way an abusive relationship will work.

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Live Your Calling

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-31T22:00:24-04:00

The shamans believe that in times of trouble, parts of the soul break away and live in the underworld.

People are then forced to go through life piecing back the broken parts of their soul. The shamans call this process soul retrieval. However, I believe that this process cannot be done in just one lifetime. I believe that we keep coming back, occupying a physical body, until our souls are complete.

Obatala is the Orisha who rules over the soul.

He is the architect who works with billions of puzzle pieces. He understands our purpose and our calling. He will guide us, giving us the correct puzzle pieces needed to evolve and to serve humanity. Obatala knows that it is our calling that ties our life together and gives us a sense of connectedness with our past and previous lives.

We’ve all had those aha moments and the epiphanies that changed our lives completely.

We’ve all been stuck on a problem, only to have someone come into our lives and solve it right away. We’ve all had those moments when we are frustrated and right when we are about to give up, we hear something or see something that inspire us. Suddenly, we have the “missing piece” and everything clicks and comes together. This is evolution. We are all going through life looking for the missing pieces that complete our soul.

Obatala can see the finished project before anybody else can.

He will work to guide you from within. You know that you are on the right track when you have a burning desire toward someone or something. Desire is power seeking to be manifested. Just think about desire and passion as the edges of your puzzle. They are pretty simple and straightforward. However, as you progress, the puzzle of your soul will get a lot more complicated.

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Ogun & the couch potato

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-29T12:45:18-04:00

Everyone knows someone who is literally a couch potato.

Their butts are glued to the sofa, and they can be found with a remote control in one hand and a beer in another. They always have excuses as to why they come up short. They never can find a job or keep one. They don’t believe in education and there is always someone who is plotting against them, dissuading them from meeting their goals. These people can be thrown into the category of having no ambitions, or personal power. They need Ogun, the orisha of iron and war to come and light a fire under their butts.

Ogun is the mighty warrior.

He is the patron of war and works with a machete to clear away paths and to help people overcome obstacles. Ogun is similar to Ares and Hephaestus in Greek mythology and Visvakarma in Hindu mythology. In Candomblé, he is syncretized with Saint George in Brazil. In Santeria, he is syncretized with Saint Peter. Ogun can also be associated with energy, in particularly personal power. In Sanskrit, under the chakra system, Ogun can represent the manipura or the third chakra.

This chakra is located in the area of the solar plexus of the body.

The manipura chakra, much like Ogun represents our potential to succeed in life. It is also a symbolization of self-esteem and vitality. People who are very much in touch with Ogun normally have a lot of self-confidence, a sense of self-worth and a great deal of personal power. In a sense, they can make things happen. They never do anything for the approval of others. They know what they want in life, and are supercharged when it comes to overcoming obstacles and hardships. They are survivors and are normally optimistic and enthused about their life choices.

Someone who possesses the qualities of Ogun is Jay Z, a hip-hop performer who created a multi-million dollar empire.

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You Are Your Own Master

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-29T12:24:46-04:00

Would you rather be pinched or punched.

I know it sounds like a really stupid question. Who in their right mind would want to be punched when they have the option of being pinched? Well, the sad truth of the matter is that so many people are being punched, partly because they are unaware of the fact that they have a choice.

We get punched when we choose to suffer unnecessarily.

Yes, you read it right, I said choose. We have to understand that there is a cosmic dualism that divides our world into two separate spheres. This concept isn’t really new. Psychologist may refer to this concept as the separation between the conscious and unconscious mind. Christians may refer to this as the division of heaven and hell, and spiritualist might say that it is the line that is drawn between the body and soul.

I’ve written about dualities before. I mentioned in African religions like Ifa, the concept of good or bad does not exist.

Everything in nature is good and bad. However, this concept is about to get a little more complicated. Just think about it. It cannot be light and dark at the same time. A coin cannot be heads and tails at the same time. You cannot turn right and left at the same time. The only deity that can see both sides at the same time is Eshu-Elegba. The rest of us have to make a choice, and be on one side or the other.

However, if you choose one side, you lose out on the potential opportunities and pitfalls that could be on the other side.

This concept makes it difficult for you to know all the features from both sides at the same time. This is why life is so complicated. This is why we make so many mistakes. We simply can’t see all the options that are available to us. Our vision is limited because we are looking at life from the wrong side. We are looking at life from the outside in.

We need to turn life inside out. We do this by understanding that we have two choices.

We can either choose to be the masters of our fate, or allow others to master our fate. If we learn to master ourselves we can then understand that real change comes from within.

When we understand that we create our own experiences according to our perceptions, we just get pinched.

When we understand that when we change our perception, we change our experiences. We just get pinched. When we understand that the faults that we see in others, are the things we lack inside of ourselves. We just get pinched. You only get pinched when you realize that you are the cause of everything in your world.

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The Law of Manifestation

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-24T00:57:25-04:00

What do the invention of the number zero, the theory of relativity, and the Human Rights movement all have in common?

It is a little something that is called diversity. I know a lot of us are happy to see the equal opportunity banner when we apply for certain jobs. Many skeptics would think that diversity is just a ploy to appease certain people. However, I’m going to tell you that diversity is the primary ingredient needed to manifest the ideal into something real.

We’ve all had those days, particularly around Thanksgiving or Christmas when we can’t wait to eat our dinner.

We are starving, and the smells that stem from turkey and stuffing are strong temptations that we have to work hard to resist. Those of us that know better understand that cooking a huge meal is an arduous task.

The meat has to be thawed out, marinated and seasoned just right. The food has to be heated at a certain temperature to ensure that it is cooked evenly.

Some foods need to be baked, while others need to be fried or chilled. It is a process where many different variables need to come together to create the perfect meal.

The law of manifestation works in the same way.

Many different variables have to come together to create something that is truly unique, masterful, and game changing. I’ve said it a dozen times, everything in nature ebbs and flows to evolve and to create something that is bigger and better than it self. We can see this by examining the smallest parts of nature such as atoms, electrons and protons.

A key ingredient to the law of manifestation is heat, Chango’s heat.

Yes, we’ve all heard those stories about Chango loving to dance and mating with different women. However, we must learn to understand that there is a great deal of complexity behind the simplicity. Our ancestors were no dummies. They understood that there were many forms of energy. They knew that energy started to vibrate more intensely (doing the Chango dance) when heat was applied to it.

Our ancestors associated Chango with magnetism for a reason.

They understood that he represented electrons, the male or masculine form of energy that generated a negative spark. Protons represented the female or feminine form of energy that generated a positive spark. Chango’s electrons begin to jiggle, creating more heat, more magnetism, to pull and attract the protons. When they unite, there is an “orgasmic” spark. This is a critical concept in energy, for this charge allows the atom to be completely balanced. This means that the atoms have an equal number of positive and negative particles. When the atoms are uneven, they become unstable.

For example, if the turkey is too cold, it has too many protons and not enough electrons. If the turkey is burned, dried out, or overcooked, it has too many electrons. So what the hell does all this have to do with diversity? Atoms are very much like people. When they are unstable, they are looking for ways to be complete and balanced. If they are not complete and balanced they lose their electrical charge, and they slowly begin to deteriorate.

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Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-23T20:27:04-04:00

Learning From Others’ Mistakes

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-21T21:12:47-04:00

Do you ever have those really great fantasies of punching someone?

Yes, there is an instant rush of adrenaline by imagining your opponent in the boxing ring. You can do horrid, or awful things to them. Or depending on how sick and perverted you are. You can imagine them doing awful and horrid things to you.

These are the people who get in the way of your dreams. These are they people who you are secretly intimidated by.

They pick your ideas apart, they always have to one-up you, and make you feel that you are not important. They take your ideas and claim them as their own. They always need to be the center of attention, and no one can ever outshine them. Do you know someone like this? If so, read on!

Just imagine a huge boxing ring.

Then put yourself in the center of it. Just imagine yourself being a meager, average guy, in plain red boxing shorts. Then, you look over to the other corner and see your opponent. He is huge! He has an 84-inch reach and has a neck that is as big as a tree stump. He towers over you, and suddenly you feel like Little Mac, in the Nintendo Punch Out video game. What do you do when your opponent is twice your size? You’re either going to run to find cover, or you are going to fight him.

In life, we also have adversaries.

They probably don’t have cool names like King Hippo, Glass Joe, or Bad Bull. But, they are just as deadly, and ten times more menacing. Much like in the video game, their punches hurt and cause you to lose time and points. But you have to continue to take the punches until you learn their weaknesses. Then, you have to master a strategy that is powerful enough to take them down. With the clock ticking away, and the punches wearing you down, you begin to feel defeated. This is the first step to victory, their victory.

The most popular war strategy is to destroy the opponent’s self-confidence.

This is perhaps why most wars are won before they are even fought. They want to instill fear in you. They want to convince you that they are stronger and more powerful, so you wouldn’t even think to challenge them. This is when you start to run away and look to find cover. You appease them and you give in to their ridiculous demands. However, you must understand that running results in you giving your power away.

You are afraid of these people because you believe that they can cause you to lose something, like your self-respect or dignity.

Or they can prevent you from having something that you want, like the glory of winning a battle, or promotion at your job. Intimidation is perhaps one of the best weapons in your opponent’s arsenal. For they will use it to make you afraid of “yourself.” You need to realize that you are divinely protected. If you have no fear, then people really can’t do very much to hurt you. Even if they take something from you, like giving you a black eye, or busted lip, or humiliating you in front of your peers. You need to understand that God will bring restoration in some way.

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Negative People In Your Life

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-19T14:08:21-04:00

I am a sporadic sleeper, so I have many nights when I am up at 3am.

There is really nothing to do at this hour aside from flipping through 321 television channels, and finding nothing good to watch. Then, I try to surf the Internet, but I slowly lose interest. Finally, I try and go back to sleep. But the images from the television and Internet slowly began to pop into my mind.

I remember all the blogs that I skimmed over.

Blogs with generic and search engine friendly titles like, “7 Ways to Avoid Negative People.” Or Three Good Tips on How to Deal with Difficult People.” Then, the movie, “The Fly” pops into my mind. Yes, it was the only movie that managed to hold my attention at 3.10am.

It is a remake of a 1958s classic, where some crazy scientist conducts an experiment that goes terribly wrong.

The title of the movie is pretty much self-explanatory; the scientist turns into a hybrid man/fly. I know it sounds utterly ridiculous, but the movie has great special effects, and the acting is incredibly convincing. Then, I had a brilliant idea. What if I could merge the two?

I’m not someone who likes to toot my own horn.

However, I can say that I have had a great deal of experience dealing with toxic, negative people. The blanket answer that I searched on the Internet is just to avoid these people. I believe that this is a very unrealistic solution, because everyone has positive and negative traits. We all have times when we are self-absorbed, manipulative, condescending, narcissistic, needy, and selfish. However, these kinds of behaviors become problematic, when people start looking for others to feed on.

These people are toxic.

They are like the mad scientist in the movie, “The Fly.” Like a bad experiment, something in their lives had gone terribly wrong. Perhaps they were victims of abuse? Or some other traumatic event that turned them into a hybrid monster? They are needy, controlling, and manipulative because they don’t know how to generate the feelings of love, joy, and fulfillment in their own lives.

So they prey on the weaknesses of others.

Like a fly, they gravitate toward decaying matter, because they want to make you “decay in matter.” They want you to feel bad about yourself. They want you to feel unworthy; they want you to feel guilty, and unloved. Remember, these people cannot generate their own positive emotions. So very much like a hybrid man fly, they have to vomit on you, break you down, and suck all of your goodness out.

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Negative Energy Balance

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-10T22:25:08-04:00

I’ve done it. I’ve come back from long vacations and business trips and had to throw away virtually everything in my refrigerator.

I am attacked by the smell when I first walk into the door. I plug my nose and survey the damage. There’s dry curdled milk, brown wet lettuce that is still tucked away in its bag, wrinkled tomatoes, and soiled ground beef that smells like rotten eggs. I hurriedly shove all the food in a bulk scented trash bag. But the odor from the distillation of rotting foods lingers behind like a bad after-taste.

Then, I feel guilty. My Caribbean relatives would be so disappointed in me.

I didn’t know what would kill me first, the rotten foods, or my relatives who never let anything go bad. They hated wasting money, and they would always preach to me that I have to eat food before it goes bad. But how can I possibly explain to them that food going bad is really inevitable? How can I explain the deterioration of food is analogous to the deterioration of life, and that it is nature’s way of evolving?

In Ifa, we talk about reciprocity. It is a process of give and take.

Nature gives us so much, in particularly food. But if we don’t eat the food, then nature will take it away. Sounds pretty easy right? Well, it’s about to get a little complicated. A small piece of fruit has a great deal of free energy. Our digestive system converts this energy into sugars and then into glucose. Glucose is converted into motion and our muscles use this for exercise and physical movement. According to the laws of science, the intake and outtake of energy should be the same. In spiritual terms this concept is called balance.

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Best Psychic Readings

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-08T20:37:13-04:00

I have two main pet peeves.

I can’t stand people who get multiple readings and people who pick their scabs. My brother used to have the nasty habit of picking his scabs when we were younger. I suppose that he got some kind of sick pleasure out of reopening a wound and watching it bleed. Or maybe it was a cry for help. Besides, blood trickling down a child’s knee is definitely an attention getter. I still can remember people’s response. First, they’d ask if he was okay, then they would scorn him with the words “quit picking at it!”

Those words still resonate with me today, especially when people tell me that they are addicted to psychics.

These are the people who call me asking for help, only after they have spoke to a dozen of other people who have told them things that they probably didn’t want to hear. Then, they go on and tell me horror stories about how they were cheated, ripped off and taken for everything that they had. They failed to understand that these psychics were just picking at their scabs and making them bleed.

Divinations basically work in two ways.

A diviner can use his or her intuition. Or they can use tools. In Yoruba, diviners use the Obi Abata, which is the Nigerian name for kola nuts. Others use cowrie shells or Tarot cards. Contrary to popular belief, these systems actually measure the probability of a certain outcome.

I’ve said it a dozen times.

Ifa is about nature and nature is about evolution. With that said, according to the laws of nature, defined by the concepts of quantum theory. No one can foretell the future with a hundred-percent accuracy. This is because energy is always vibrating; this constitutes movement, and brings about change. The universe is in a constant state of change.

Is your head spinning yet?

Well it’s about to when I tell you what constitutes movement. In scientific terms it’s called velocity. In spiritual terms it is called intention. Before the invention of microscopes, our ancestors had the innate ability to understand nature. They understood that the atom was the smallest unit of life that spun at a certain frequency. They knew that energy in its purest form was neutral, and that it was the power of intention that made it positive or negative.

Today, scientists also understand this concept by studying the language of nature.

They now know that an atom spins both counter-clockwise and clockwise at the same time, it is the velocity that causes it to move in a certain direction. In dummy terms, it is your intention that influences the outcome of the reading.

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Trust Only Yourself

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-04T00:00:54-04:00

I have to admit. Sometimes, I get lazy and take a couple of weeks off from the gym.

I slowly make my way back, when my thunder thighs and beer gut start to make a comeback. I normally walk around, and after a few short minutes, I realize nothing has changed. There are the same people on the same machines doing the exact same routine.

Then, I am taking back when I spot men who have seemed to transform overnight.

These scrawny mousy little men were now ripped with muscles that were more defined than a comic book villain.

Then, I watch as they unzip their fanny pack and began to count more pills than a pharmacy clerk.

Did these guys really think that they were into fitness? They had to understand that ingesting pills that the FDA refused to approve was not only unhealthy but also deadly. What possesses people to put poison into the their bodies?

I believe that people are rack with haunting nagging thoughts of unworthiness.

The voices in their heads make them believe that they are not good enough. So they focus on the ideal. However, over time this kind of behavior becomes an obsession. Because they are more focused on looking better as opposed to being better.

We have all heard about the dire effect of muscle enhancers; the loss of hair, the weakening of the immune system, and the male testes shriveling into two dried up peas.

This results in a low sperm count and makes it difficult for a man to conceive. But who cares if a guy doesn’t look good in a speedo. A man’s bulging massive muscles will outshine that tiny little bikini any day.

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Skills To Learn In Life

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-05-02T22:55:03-04:00

They’re off! Millions of sperm cells are racing to the finish line, with the ultimate goal of fertilizing one single egg.

An atom is the smallest unit of matter, while the cell is the smallest unit of life. Atoms constantly work to ebb and merge with cells that are equal to themselves. One sperm cell contains millions if not billions of atoms.

The one single cell that fertilizes the egg is the lucky one, for it holds the potential of becoming something greater.

The others, unfortunately will merge, or dissolve into other fluids in the body, which may or may not be excreted. So what does all this mean? It means that even the smallest units of life are looking to align themselves with their equal. Once they do this, they are able to create something special (in this case a fetus) that will allow the species to evolve.

I’ve said it a dozens of times.

Ifa is about nature, and nature is about evolution. People have to grow or face their demise. Baba Ifa Karade talks about this concept in his weekly teachings of Odu liturgy. He states that the ultimate goal is to merge our earthly consciousness with our heavenly consciousness. This is what he calls realignment.

The concept of realignment is the defining principle of Tantra.

Realignment entails a synchronicity, a dance between two different forces that eventually merge and operate as if they are one. Communication can also be considered a dance. People understand each other better when they are on the same “vibrational page.”

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Love In Abundance

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-04-27T13:06:32-04:00

Don’t be fooled by this whole New Age crap that tells you that you have to give in order to receive.

You may think that it is very noble to give your money and possessions away. But you will go bankrupt before you ever get a thank you from any one of your receivers. The whole obsession with attracting abundance into your life is a fallacy. People just say that to sell books and to fill seats in workshops and conference centers. Most of us are never going to have an abundance of money. Because abundance is not really about money, it’s about love. Sadly, our approach to love is the same as our approach to money. We just can’t get enough of it.

Let’s face it. We live in a world where there’s limited resources.

As far as I can tell, it’s always been that way. It started with the barter system, where everything was based on a trade. People traded crops for services and services for crops. However, the barter system got a little complicated, when people’s services or crops were no longer needed. Then, someone came up with the brilliant idea to create money, a currency system that enabled people to buy whatever they wanted. People started to provide their services and products for money.

Now, people can’t get the barter system out of their heads.

When they go out and buy something. They want to get the best deal possible. They are looking for a bargain, a steal; the best deal money can buy. Why do people behave like this? Because they understand that resources are scarce and they have to get their money to stretch as far as possible.

Similarly, people have this same approach when it comes to love and relationships.

They treat love like it’s a currency. They will give love, only when they know they are going to get love in return. We treat love as if it’s a currency, or some kind of stock option that we can lose money on. Then, we are disappointed when the people we love don’t do what we say, or don’t behave the way we would have liked them to behave. We treat love like it is some kind of investment. When it starts to tank. We want to toss away our love like it was some kind of cheap knock-off bag.

Our loneliness is a result of our conditioning; we are reared to believe that love is scarce.

It is something that we have to work for, or something that we have to earn. So we go through life, writing ‘”love checks” mistakenly believing that other people are going to meet our needs. We do things to please other people; we make so many sacrifices just to feel loved. But love is not a sell-out. It cannot be brought or sold. Love is the only resource that is unlimited. The only thing that we have in abundance is love.

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If You Can't Love Yourself

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-04-26T10:30:43-04:00

When you live in a city as big and as dynamic as New York City, you can’t help to notice the homeless problem.

Homeless people are everywhere, in street alleys, on the subway, even in the lobby areas of 24-hour restaurants. They carry around small cups, buckets, or upside down baseball caps that contain loose change that they jiggle around like Christmas bells. These people are secretly hoping that others will be in the “giving mood” and slip them a dollar or two. Some walk around with numerous bags, or just one single carrying case. They look disheveled, dirty, desolate, and completely hopeless. “As if they have been cheated by fate.” The sad truth of the matter is, they have. We are cheated by fate when we don’t understand our value or purpose in life.

It is still the American dream to own a huge house, maybe a mini mansion with a two-car garage and backyard that is as big as a baseball field.

Homeownership is important to a lot of people because it not only offers a sense of security, but it is a reflection of our accomplishments and wealth. A huge portion of people’s income actually goes towards their mortgage payment, repairs, expansions, and maintenance of their house. Why is this? Because people understand the value of attaining wealth, of purchasing a property that is “supposed to” appreciate in value.

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Ifa Yoruba Religion

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-04-25T12:28:26-04:00

I’ve said it a million times. Ifa as a religion has incredibly difficult concepts that are hard for the average person to understand.

Many people just accept Ifa based on its face value. But that’s the wrong way to approach an ancient religion derived from West Africa. Ifa is more of a science. It works with the Odu, a religious blueprint that guides us through life.

I mentioned before in previous articles that spirituality is about growth.
Enlightenment is about awareness, understanding all of our possibilities, so we can make the right decisions. We also want to work to avoid the wrong decisions. We want to reach our goals, have great relationships and successful careers with the least amount of problems. However, in order to do this, we have to understand the mechanics of nature. When we examine the mechanics of nature, we are able to study the different parts, and understand how they function. When we know how things work, we are then able to alter it to our benefit.

I’ve often talked about energy systems.
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Spiritual Awareness and Avoiding The Slippery Slopes In Life

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-04-11T23:02:25-04:00

If you ask any artist, producer, or writer, they would say that almost every story has to have some kind of profound meaning.

There has to be some sort of underlying principle or theme that resonates deeply with the soul. I can name dozens of movies that I absolutely love. However, the one that has the most spiritual meaning is the dark comedy classic “Gremlins.” Yes, the movie was brilliantly written with a moral message that warns people to avoid the slippery slopes in life.

It is unfortunate that most people don’t really learn one of life’s lessons, until they experience the dire consequences of their actions.

Gizmo was a cute little creature that was discovered and purchased in China-Town. Everything was great until little Gizmo was brought to suburbia. Emerged in the perfect world, the owner got careless, and despite admonitions from the seller. He spilled water on little Gizmo. This created the multiplier effect where little Gizmo gave birth to four other Gizmos. Then, the owner fed the little Gizmos after midnight and all hell broke loose. The cute snuggly, little creatures turned into nasty, ugly, menacing Gremlins that wrecked havoc on the town. They were destroyed by lightness and thrived in the dark.

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Who Is Orunmila?

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-04-09T17:17:41-04:00

Baba Ifa Karade conducts weekly teachings on Ifa, African parables, and Odu liturgy. In the first class he asked his attendees about Orunmila and the Odu. When Baba asked me about Orunmila, I was speechless. To be honest, I knew very little about the African prophet, and the information on the Internet was almost non-existent. Then, Baba started to ask me more difficult questions. Why is it that people know about great prophets like Muhammad and Jesus Christ (JC), but nothing about Orunmila? I thought long and hard about these questions. I’ve come to understand through my studies of Ifa, that it is not just about face value. The information is layered in such a way, that one really has to break down the elements in order to understand its true meaning.

In my opinion, people don’t understand the importance of Orunmila, because they really don’t understand Muhammad or JC. Prophets are really the spiritual leaders of the community. In modern times, we would say that they possess the “It Factor.” They have the power and insight to encourage change. There are a lot of people who actually fall into this category. However, prophets are single handedly able to change the perception of the entire world. But this is not an easy task. People tend to stick with the status quo because they would rather be in control than experience growth. People like to be in control because it ensures their own survival.

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Love Is The power of God

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-31T22:22:32-04:00

When we go to the movie theater, our eyes are focused on the screen.

We become so engrossed by the storyline, the sound and special effects, that we fail to see the projector that is tucked away in the back. If we didn’t know any better, we would think that the movie is actually coming from the screen. But we understand that a movie is just a bunch of tiny pictures “moving” to create the illusion of something that is in motion. Many people have a difficult time becoming spiritual because they are focused more on an illusion as opposed to the real thing.

Enlightenment is about getting real.

It is about finding the heaven that is inside of you. It is about reconnecting with the source. What does all this mean? It means that you are the projector. You control the pictures, sound, and special effects of your own movie, your life. And you determine how you want your movie to be seen. Your life is filled with tiny little pictures. Your experiences are nothing more than snapshots of thoughts and intentions that create images. These images move with emotion and action. But we have been programmed to focus on the screen. We are trained to focus on results, to be attached to people, things, and events.

I have many people who ask me about love and relationships.

I simply tell them that love is the power of God. Of course, they look at me like I am absolutely crazy. Many of these people don’t really understand love or God. These are people who are looking to fall in love with an illusion, as opposed to the real thing. They want to sit and watch the screen. We see it everyday. They have partners that come and go. They fall in love with success; they fall in love with fame, power, and money. These people are always looking to fall in love with something, because they need that feeling of sustenance and fulfillment in order to be complete.

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Get Your Spiritual Checkup

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-30T00:59:09-04:00

There is one thing that is an absolute complete turn-off, bad breath.
It is even more disgusting when we start to understand why someone’s breath smells bad. When you don’t brush your teeth properly, you are allowing food and left over debris to literally rot in your mouth, resulting in cavities and gum disease. Food gets stuck in the creases of your teeth, and residue starts to build up on your tongue, causing your breath to smell worse than a garbage incinerator. It gets really bad when people start to pop breath mints into their mouth. As if covering up the smell is going to make the problem go away. Sadly, our oral hygiene is much like our spirits, in desperate need of cleaning.

One of my favorite teachers once told me that enlightenment is about getting all the crap that is buried inside of us, out.
Yes, it was one of my aha moments. At that time, I realized that virtually every form of illness, every disease, starts on a subtle level. Holistic health practitioners believe that illnesses penetrate us from within our auric fields. By the time a disease gets to the mind and or body, it is already fully grown. Today, in our society it is commonplace for many people to treat the symptoms and not the cause. It is so much easier to just pop in a breath mint.

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Call When The Power of Intention Fails

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-27T23:39:34-04:00

In New York City, everyone has a side hustle.

People are big dreamers and they spend most of their days slaving away at a job they completely hate. These are the people who are chained to conformity. So they won’t dare leave their jobs. Instead, they have brief moments where they are swept away by their dreams of becoming the next rap mogul, break out reality star, or bestselling author. These people are just chasing their tails, because the more we think about things, without taking action, the further away they get.

I know, what I am saying defies everything you ever heard about the power of intention.

We are supposed to think positive thoughts and magically the things that we want in life will appear. The power of intention works for smaller things like getting a five percent raise at your job or getting a promotion. But when you start intending to have a successful business, or to be the next break out reality star, it is virtually ineffective.

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Money Is The New Form Of Energy

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-23T21:43:52-04:00

Why is it that so many of us are on this endless cycle of wealth and poverty?

There are times when we are living it up, loving life, and spending money as if we’ve won a lifetime supply. Then there are times when we are digging in the creases of our couches for coins. It is not just the common folk who suffer from the cycle of wealth and poverty. Celebrities go through it too. We’ve seen dozens of A-list actors playing the lead in huge blockbuster movies one day, and then bussing tables the next. Why does this happen? What is the secret to maintaining wealth? Honestly, I can’t really answer that question. But, I’ll just take a wild guess. The secret to gaining and maintaining wealth is to make the right exchanges.

I worked my way through college working nightshifts in a casino.

After three years, I was promoted and worked in the high roller section. I watched as people played one hundred dollar slot machines without even blinking an eye. My co-workers needed me to get tips from our customers, I thought it was because I was a smooth talker. Later, I learned that rich people have a certain mentality when it comes to giving money to the poor/workers. Number one, they never throw good money after bad. Number two; they never give money to poor people, because they believe that it makes them poorer. In fact, they were only tipping me because they felt that I had potential. My coworkers had families and mortgages and yet, they couldn’t get anything from these rich folks.

It wasn’t until later in life that I learned the lesson that they were trying to teach me.

Money is not earned, it is not given, it is exchanged. People who are wealthy and maintain their wealth are able to make viable exchanges. They put their money into things that have potential. Or into vehicles that circulate and allow money to increase its value. I know, it sounds a lot like the stock market. But if we treated all of our money transactions as if we were trading stock, we would be much more careful.

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Three Step Program

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-21T21:50:17-04:00

Unfortunately, many of us have had bad experiences with alcohol.

We have either experienced the dire effects of it, or we have watched loved ones struggle from a disease that seemingly has no cure. Of course, there’s rehab and other programs like Alcoholics Anonymous that walks people through a twelve-step process. But sadly, many people fail. Our ancestors believed in something called a soul wound. A soul wound is inflicted during the early stages of life. We can even carry our ancestor’s wounds or wounds from previous lives. We are only able to heal our soul wound by using the Orishas as means of light.

Einstein once said that we can't solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that it was created in.

We have to rise above it. I know, I am not telling you anything that you didn’t know. However, I can tell you something that you probably don’t hear a lot. Avoidance and discipline is not going to help, especially when we are dealing with addictive personalities. The approach needs to be different, where we need to shift from trying to control our desires to overcoming them. People mistakenly believe that change is difficult, because it involves a great deal of sacrifice and struggle. But this way of thinking is a result of our programing. People have forced us to change through coercion and fear, so naturally we resist.

When we are able to connect to our soul wound, we are able to delve into the shadow side, or the repressed side of ourselves.

In order to do this, we have to reach out to Chango. Chango is associated with the first chakra and represents our roots and foundation. All of our illnesses and issues are derived from this basis. In order to heal, we have to experience the pain. We have primary issues and secondary issues. Our primary issues stem from our inability to feel, to allow our emotions to show. When our emotions are repressed, they come out in distorted and perverted ways.

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Chango and the Story of Self Indulgence

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-19T12:19:52-04:00

It is amazing how we take so many things for granted.

We fail to understand that everything in life is an exchange; from money, to relationships, even the air that we breathe. Plants provide us with oxygen and in return, we provide them with carbon dioxide. This is an exchange that is simple, easy, and very natural. We do it without thinking, and it is completely effortless. Can you imagine how life would be if all our relationships were like this? We make things complicated when we start to indulge, when we stop holding up to our end of the bargain.

There is a huge misconception about life.

We believe that we make money, or that we give away money. When in truth, money is an exchange. Much like energy, money has to circulate in order to increase its value. In fact, money is the manifestation of energy, of ashé. The attitudes that we have toward money are the same attitudes that we have toward life. We are either going to hold onto it too tightly, or we are going to blow it all in one day.

The exchange of money reflects the concept of give and take that is needed for growth.

What would happen if the plants got an attitude every time we asked it for oxygen, or if we rationed our carbon dioxide? Only the strongest would thrive, and they would be the ones in charge. This concept works very much like a monetary system, it is rationed, and resources are distributed in such a way where those who follow the natural flow of energy will prosper.

Chango was a king who amassed knowledge, wealth, and nobility.

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Getting Things Done With The Seven African Powers

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-08T15:51:37-05:00

The Greeks believed that there was a unified system that could explain everything.

They believed that all things comprised of active cores, energy centers that dictated the move and flow of energy. This concept can also be applied to the Seven African Powers. It works as an energy system that allowed energy to circulate throughout the universe and body. Our ancestors knew a lot more about energy and applied a holistic approach to life. From the Zulus in South Africa, to the Ancient Egyptians in Kemet, they all formed energy systems because it was easier to focus on the whole, instead of the individual parts.

Today, we are taught that multi-tasking is effective.

When in fact, it is really an illusion because we are viewing things as separate entities. Our energy is split and is moving in a thousand different directions. Just think back to the days when we were in preschool learning the alphabet. Each letter had its own distinctive symbol and sound. Each letter was powerful and had its own meaning. When we started to progress and gain a higher level of consciousness, we began to learn how to string the letters together to create words, sentences, and even paragraphs.

Words are symbols of communication.
They reflect our culture, history, and work as a means of expression. The order of letters determines their meaning and effectiveness. Letters are used for instructions, for directions, for insight and creativity. They work as a vehicle that allows us to communicate with each other and understand the laws of God. The Orishas are very much like letters, separate, yet powerful in their own right. However, when they are linked together they create a whole entity that is more powerful than the sum of its parts.

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The Seven African Powers and the Concept of Kundalini

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-08T15:49:44-05:00

Back in the day, NASA used to launch space shuttles.

There was something dangerous, yet exciting about seeing aircrafts attached to a dark red tank, with two solid white rocket boosters. I loved to see the flames propelling the shuttle into the air, while dismounting billowing clouds of grey smoke. Then, the pieces would detach, and the shuttle would go flying into the air, into a world undiscovered by man. Even at a young age, I understood that science was mirroring many of the concepts found in the spiritual world. The liftoff was actually symbolic of how energy works and moves throughout the world.

Kundalini is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to understand.

Traditionally, people applied this principle to the Sanskrit chakra system. It involves the rising serpent activating all six chakras until it reaches the top, the apex, where it is reunited with its mate. However, as I discussed in previous articles, Africans also had energy systems. Our ancestors understood that the secret to prosperity, good health, and relationships was getting energy to circulate properly.

The sleeping serpent rests in the first chakra.

In Yoruba, the first chakra is associated with Chango. Chango is the deity of passion. He not only rules over the physical body, but the physical world. Chango was the first person to be enlightened and thus discovering the secret of manifestation. Chango plants the seeds through the power of intention. It is Chango’s passion, desire, and burning fire that allows him to find richness and prosperity in life and in legend. Chango’s fire is like the fuel that is needed to launch an aircraft. His goal is to be lifted up, to become enlightened, and to explore a world that is undiscovered by man. However, he cannot do it alone.

He needs his first rocket booster, Yemaya.

She is the mother of all Orishas. She rules over the domain of creation and sexual energy. Sexual energy is energy in its purest form. However, when it is combined with other energies, it becomes more potent, more powerful. Then, he needs his second rocket booster, Ogun. Ogun rules over the domain of vital power and gives Chango an additional boost. But the force of gravity is incredibly strong and Chango, Yemaya, and Ogun can’t get enough momentum going to get all the way to the top.

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The Meaning of Snakes in African Religions

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-03-04T12:46:54-05:00

My favorite spiritual animal is the snake.

I love snakes for various reasons. The shedding of their skin represents rebirth. They lay close to the ground, which makes them incredibly down to earth and practical. Most importantly, snakes love freedom, and they will fight to the death if they feel threatened.

My love of snakes took me to an actual workshop.

The trainer had cages of various sizes placed around the room. No one was interested in the corny corn snake, or the friendly but beautiful king snake. We all rushed to the cage that was holding the mighty python. I wanted to hold it in my arms, and feel its skin slither across mine, but the trainer wouldn’t allow me to even touch it. He picked up the python with an elongated hook and extended it beyond my reach.

It was at this time that I learned about the tentative relationship between man and snake.

Pythons have serious trust issues, and they don’t allow themselves to be touched or held by people they don’t know. The trainer then told us a story about a man who innocently wrapped a python around his shoulders. The python, out of fear of falling, begin to squeeze tighter. The man, unable to breathe, struggled to get the python off of him. The more the man struggled, the more the snake resisted. Fortunately, the man received help and wasn’t badly hurt. Other people aren’t so lucky.

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Symptoms of Spiritually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-29T21:28:47-05:00

Spiritually transmitted diseases result from the unprotected exchange of energy.

Every time we interact with people, we are formulating energetic contracts or constraints that may result in the lost of energy, the acceptance of toxic energy from others, and or harmful connections that cannot be severed.

Cords are the most prominent form of STDs.

Our auric fields consist of numerous bands or layers of energy that vibrate at different frequencies. When we interact with people, our auras merge, and we began to share information. Bonds are created when people began to exchange feelings and beliefs. However, these bonds can become harmful when the information that is exchanged is used to hinder or even imprison another person. Cords are very difficult to break because they span over time and space. Even when people are separated, cords continue to exchange feelings and information. This makes it difficult for people to detach from groups, relationships, and systems. We see this a lot with cults, gangs, and dysfunctional families.

Energy markers are another form of STDs. Many people often wonder why they get treated badly, or why they are victims of neglect and abuse.

They fail to realize that there are certain markers in their auric fields. These markers dictate how others should treat them. Having an energy marker in your auric field is like walking around with a kick me sign on your back. It invites others to treat you badly. People work to try and remedy this problem by changing their behavior. But they still find themselves being treated disrespectfully. Many people would say that this is the victim mentality. However, the people who are suffering from energy markers fail to realize that they are allowing others to pour salt into their unhealed wounds.

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Obatala and Overcoming Insecurities

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-29T21:26:48-05:00

Everyone is a little insecure about their looks and their body.

Now, there is something that can be done about it, plastic surgery. I am terrified of going under the knife, or even going to a free consultation for that matter. The whole process seems a little freakish to me, with doctors who just want to tear you down, and put you back together again with plastic parts, almost as if they are making their own modern day Frankenstein. I can’t understand why people allow others to mold them as if they are a piece of clay. They fail to understand that everyone is giving exactly what they need to fulfill their purpose in life.

I can imagine how it all starts, maybe a nip or a tuck, something that is barely noticeable.

Then, it spirals out of control. People want their boobs to be bigger, their stomachs to be flatter, and their ass to be tighter. The list goes on and on, and the surgeries never stop, because doctors keep urging them on. They are steadily fattening their pockets while creating freaks of nature. These people prey on other’s insecurities. Unfortunately, this not only happens on the physical level, but on a spiritual level as well.

Obatala is the father of all Orishas.

Before and during conception, He selects the physical chromosomes regulating our genetic code. He pulls information from our ancestral background, and he chooses genes that will enable us to meet both the physical and psychological problems we will face in life. In short, Obatala gives us exactly what we need to fulfill our journey or mission in life. Becoming inspired (in spirit) is a one-way ticket to happiness. When you are guided by spirit and on the right path, you will be giving all the resources, drive, and energy needed to fulfill this purpose.

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Putting A Condom On Negative Spiritual Energy

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-27T12:17:27-05:00

People jokingly call my hometown “Dirty Jersey.” Or it is referred to as the “Garbage State,” as opposed to the Garden State.

I ‘ve lived in New Jersey all of my life and I smelled the effects of pollution. I am attacked by smoke and smog whenever I hit the NJ Turnpike. Sadly, people don’t really understand the grave effects of pollution. We fail to understand that the negative energy that we expend works to not only trash our earth, but our souls as well.

The same thing that is happening to our earth is happening to a woman’s womb. Sadly, it many situations, it is being used as a trash dump.

People are not spiritually aware, so they lack the understanding of how to expel negative energy. Unconsciously, they release this energy through sexual intercourse. Sexually transmitted diseases and viruses such as HIV are manifestations of this kind of energy.

Trash dumps and pollution was a huge issue in the 1980s. Mainly because many of the sites didn’t have proper liners and the trash was lumped together and not properly sorted.

This resulted in a great deal of air pollution from the infusion of various incompatible chemicals. Also, nearby water supplies and rivers were tainted by liquids that seeped through the ground.

HIV also emerged as an epidemic around this time.

It was a virus that was transmitted through blood and semen. People didn’t use “liners” for protection, so they were susceptible to a great deal of incompatible energies. “Liquids” from sexual intercourse began to seep into the body and destroy the white blood cells, thus weakening the immune system.

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Negative Energy That Ruins Relationships

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-27T12:10:13-05:00

Today, there are thousands of women in Africa who are victims of rape through war.

Invading soldiers use rape as a tactic to conquer rival villages and tribes. Once these women are raped, they are type cast as being “ruined” ousted out of their village, and ostracized by family and friends. Rape is also spoken about in many African myths. The concept of rape and incest is considered taboo in virtually every culture. It is condemned all around the world, because it inflicts irreparable harm to the natural balance of relationships.

The African deity Yemaya is considered the mother of all Orishas.

She is the patron of the womb, which is the symbolization of creation. She is also a nurturer, much like our Earth, she gives and loves unconditionally. There is an unspoken relationship between the male and female powers, an energy contract that makes men the givers, and women, the receivers. This relationship is disrupted when men intentionally began to expel negative energy.

I’ve mentioned in previous articles that there is a significant amount of energy that is exchanged during sexual intercourse.

Auras, or bio-fields merge, and energy are exchanged from one person to the next. People often wonder why men in times of combat go off and rape women. They do it because they have a whole bunch of built up hostility in their auric fields. And the only way they know how to release this energy is through sexual intercourse. Releasing this kind of energy into a woman’s womb is like polluting the stream that she and her children drink out of.

This kind of energy is toxic to a woman’s womb because her stream of life is tainted, and her children and loved ones no longer have clean water to drink from.

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25 Novels to Honor During Black History Month

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-26T00:03:29-05:00

25 Novels to Honor During Black History Month
I’ve read half the books on the list. I grew up reading Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.

Rise of The Feminine Power

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-21T23:18:22-05:00

There are many movies airing today about artificial intelligence. These movies explain how logic has superseded emotion and sensibility.

The story lines normally involve a robot, or a bunch of robots that become more powerful than man. Then, man has to work to take back his power, but the machines are ten times smarter, faster, and stronger. In the end, man wins, because he is able to use the power of emotion. This theme is analogous to the human mind. It is logical, precise, and mechanical, much like a machine. However, it will never reach its fullest potential without the power of the heart.

There are a million and one books in New Age that speak about the power of the mind.

Some say that we need to become the watcher of our thoughts. While others say that we need to focus our intention, only then are we able to manifest the things that we desire in life. But these are just thoughts! Man has created a spiritual science that is biased in many ways, for the variables of love and emotion are missing. There are many who would say that we should free the mind. When in truth, we need to free our heart.

Freeing the heart seems dangerous, because then we become vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life.

Raw emotions, untamed by logical thought can result in chaos. However, it is in this state that we become our best selves. How many people fall in love when they are not looking for it? How many others stumble across opportunities, or have casual aha life-changing moments at the weirdest time?

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Warding Off The Enemy With Ogun

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-18T23:24:18-05:00

Years ago, I had the pleasure of going on an African safari. It was an experience of a lifetime.

It was great to see animals living in their natural habitat. We must have drove for hours, catching glimpses of cheetahs, elephants, and rhinos. Suddenly, our tour bus came to a halt, we all looked around and spotted a pack of spotted hyenas. They haughtily strode pass our bus, eyeing us, as if they were daring us to make a move. It was only when they had passed and were clear out of site that our tour guide decided to speak. The hyenas are the gangsters that rule the jungle. Although the lion is considered king, its throne is constantly threatened by a pack of canines that will eat them and their prey.

Later, I learned that the lion didn’t have to only hunt and kill its prey.

The lion had to protect it as well. In many cases, a lion, or lioness would have to carry their prey for miles back to their cubs. All the while, the hyenas would be tailing them, licking their fangs, and waiting for the lion to make the wrong move. If the lion was weak, for only a mere second, the hyenas would attack. They would circle around the lion, trap it, and force it to surrender its prey. Then, one by one, the hyenas would pounce on the lion, digging their claws and teeth into its neck, marring it to death. The hyenas had no mercy, and neither do our adversaries.

The lions can be analogous to the rich and famous people in the world.

They work so hard to have it all. And, they have everything, fame, fortune, and beauty. But there are many people watching on the sidelines. Much like the hyena, they want what they have and are just waiting for the right opportunity to take it. They trail behind these people, sometimes in the guise of friends and supporters. Meanwhile, they are salivating, licking their lips, and waiting for them to make the wrong move. They long for their moment of weakness, and hope to catch a mere glimpse of vulnerability, so they can attack. It is sad to say that we live in a jungle, and there are many people who want others to fail, so they can walk away with their prey.

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The African Way of Letting Go of Stress

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-18T23:22:54-05:00

The number one killer in the United States is stress.

Unfortunately, through the process of evolution, our environments have changed. We live differently than our ancestors did centuries ago. We breathe in a great deal of pollutants; our foods are saturated with sugar, salt, and preservatives. And we are constantly operating at high stress levels. We live our lives in total and complete fear. We are afraid of losing our jobs, our houses, our businesses, and our relationships. We are conditioned to live our lives in fear, and they only way to relieve stress is to let it go.

I’ve traveled throughout the world, and I have seen my fair share of poverty.

I’ve seen poverty in East Berlin, in Europe, and South Africa. I remember driving by the little shanties, and eyeing the villages with children running around barefoot. They had no running water, electricity, and very little food. Yet, they were smiling, happy to see Americans drive by them in a large charter bus. I was a different person back then. However, I knew that these people had so much less than I did, and they still managed to find happiness in their despair.

Sometimes people have to really lose it all in order to understand the true meaning of life.

We live a lot better than most people in the world. We have all the gadgets we need and more food and water than we can possibly consume. But these things have worked more to imprison us then to set us free. We can’t find joy in our lives because we are always imagining the worse possible situations. We tell ourselves that stress is good. That it allows us to accomplish more and surpass our limitations.

But stress causes our bodies to be so tight and rigid, that we have to expend a great deal of energy just to complete one task.

Furthermore, stress and anxiety are negative states of mind that don’t really allow us to manifest and attract the things that we need in life. Instead, we attract the very thing that we don’t need, more stress. I learned a lot from my travels in Africa. Life is incredibly simple when we learn to let go. The Africans revered death, because to them it wasn’t the end, but a new beginning.

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The African Science of Death

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-17T22:45:25-05:00

I never had so much fun learning about quantum physics.

I hated science in high school, loathed it college, and didn’t touch it with a ten-foot poll in graduate school. Everything changed, when I started to learn about African religions. Quantum theories suddenly became interesting. I fell in love with the three laws of thermodynamics, because it so accurately described our ancestors’ view of the world.

African ideas about death are incredibly similar to the laws of quantum theories.

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It is merely transformed. Virtually all-African religions believe that life did not end with death. In fact, death was a new beginning that allowed people to transcend to different realms. There is no solid line between life and death. And the world of the living, and the world of the dead are not always mutually exclusive. Our ancestors understood energy, long before it was studied in the West.

The second law involves a more complicated concept called entropy.

Entropy measures information that tends to decrease or increase over a long period of time. This means that some of the oldest civilizations in the world have the most unavailable information. Information in today’s world is known as energy. Our ancestors called it ashé. They called it ashé, and they describe death as the decrease of power, life force, or ashé. They believed in different levels of life and death. If someone was experiencing misfortune, it meant that his or her vital force, or ashé, was diminishing in power.

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Asylum For The Spiritually Insane

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-17T00:06:39-05:00

People who are spiritual can go crazy!

As they evolve spiritually, their minds split, and they are forced to live in two worlds. The first world is that of man, where people need to be successful, famous, and powerful. The second world is that of God, where people need to be humble, meek, and modest. How can people play by two different sets of rules? How can they become spiritual without giving in to their desires? They do it by allowing themselves to be completely free.

There are a lot of scandals about priest, gurus, and spiritual leaders.

However, very few people realize that their roles have changed significantly throughout the years. In ancient times, priest and shamans lived in one world, the world of God. They spent virtually all of their time meditating, praying, and conducting rituals. They were isolated yet supported by the greater community. They had no use for money and basically provided their services for free.

Today, aside from some faith-based organizations, priest and priestess are forced to live in the world of man.

They need to put food on the table, put clothes on their kids back, amass members and build a solid reputation for their institutions. Now, priest and spiritual leaders are an integral part of the community and are susceptible to the vices of modern man. They are tortured by the voices of temptation. Voices that tell them that they need to be fame monsters, build huge temples, and have millions of followers.

But how do people do this without taking more than what they need?

How can people amass power, money, and fame, without exploiting the very people they strive to teach? Some spirit leaders who are successful become racked with guilt, because the voices from the world of God tell them that they should be doing more. So they take the edge off by assuaging their guilt. by giving to charities and providing more services to the community.

Yet, the voices from the world of man continue.

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The Secret of Black Magic

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-13T20:48:37-05:00

I have a terrible habit of checking my email twice a day.

There are always one or two people who want me to teach them black magic. They want to know the secrets of voodoo, and get the inside information on witchcraft. I just laugh to myself, because deep down inside, I know that these people “just can’t handle the truth!” Only those who are enlightened understand the true magnitude of black magic.

People approach black magic as if is a magic powder that can be packaged and boxed up.

They believe that there is some kind of formula that can be used and duplicated like a family recipe. Others believe that they can manufacturer black magic spells into little package bombs that people can buy and sell on the Internet.

There are some who would say that magic is magic, it is the intention that makes it good or bad.

There are few people who can work a spell like a chemist, creating concoctions that are deadlier than an A-bomb. These people are few and far between. I couldn’t imagine a world where everyone had this power. It would be utter and complete chaos. People would use black magic to get back at jealous boyfriends, to blow up cheating wives, to even kill off their competitors for jobs. In simple terms, people would use this power to satisfy their desires.

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chakras and energy

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-10T21:56:57-05:00

I never liked Styrofoam cups, plastic bags, or aerosol cans.

I always knew that these things were bad for the environment. Now, I am an advocate of the going green initiative. I understand that everything that we humans do affects our eco-system, including our spiritual development.

I have experienced two wars in my lifetime.

Countries normally go to war for one reason, to get more resources. There are many who believe that the wars in the Middle East were all about oil. Oil is a limited resource and it is becoming scarcer with each passing day. We are inundated with commercials about Congress wanting to drill in the most obscure places. Some have predicted that the world is going to run completely out of oil in the near future.

However, these premonitions don’t stop us from burning oil.

We continue to drive our cars and heat and cool our houses. In fact, the United States alone consumes almost a third of the world’s resources. Now, people are beginning to discover that there is an inexhaustible source of energy. It is called solar power, and it is one of the oldest forms of energy in the world.

Our ancestors understood the power of solar energy.

In fact, we have a whole chakra system that derives from the concept of solar power. We have seven wheels of light that reside along our spine. Each wheel, or chakra is able to convert fast moving energy into slow moving energy. A chakra is able to convert energy such as psychic, spiritual or subtle energy into sensory, material, or physical energy.

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How To Use African Religions To Be Emotionally Healthy

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-08T10:21:44-05:00

Everything in nature has to flow, including our emotions.
Our emotions play a huge role on our health. Too much of a bad thing can have a negative or positive effect on our organs such as the liver, lungs, spleen, and kidneys.

Excessive anger is dangerous to the liver.
It can also cause headaches, high blood pressure, and strokes. Anger often stems from repressed emotions such as sadness, rejection, and mourning. Unfortunately, it is more acceptable to express anger than other emotions. However, it is the most damaging to the body and soul, for it does not allow energy to flow properly. If you know someone who has anger issues, they should work with Yemaya. For they have many wounds that need to be healed by a mother’s touch.

Excessive worry and sadness is damaging to the lungs.
It also causes abdominal pain and swelling. People who are prone to worrying and sadness need to work with Oya, the deity that presides over the dead. Stress stems from fear of failure. And sadness stems from our inability to mourn. Holding on to pain is like walking around with a dead corpse on your back. Sooner or later it will began to rot, to stink, and to attract bugs. Working with Oya means burying the dead, accepting the past, and surrendering to things that you don’t have any control over.

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Spiritual Energy

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-08T00:33:18-05:00

I never believed that it was smart to put an animal in a cage.

We hear stories on the news of animals attacking their owners. There was the 200-pound chimpanzee that attacked and maimed an innocent woman. There was the killer whale that seized a trainer in its jaws, dragged her to the bottom of the pool, and thrashed her around until she was dead.

There are countless other stories that have aired on You-Tube and on Animal Planet about tamed, docile animals suddenly turning violent.

People are shocked when things like this happen, as if they don’t understand the dangers of repression. Locking up our emotions is like trapping a wild beast in a cage, sooner or later; it is going to fight to be free.

I am often amazed when people describe Yoruba, Vodun, and even Santeria as primitive.

Yes, there are numerous deities that embody the forces and elements of nature such as fire, water, and earth. But people in these religions have an individual connection to the natural world. Our ancestors lived closer to the earth and had a grave respect for nature. Today, so many people are far removed from nature that they have forgotten that all of its elements exist within man himself.

People are not allowed to freely express themselves.

Instead, they are being reared like a pet. They are rewarded for good behavior and scorned for bad. People can’t embody the natural element of fire, because anger and jealousy is bad. People can’t show sadness, the element of water, because sadness is a sign of vulnerability. People can’t be too loving and giving, the element of earth, because it is a sign of weakness.

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Eshu-Elegba And Parallel Realities

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-03T23:20:47-05:00

Can you imagine a world where we could see the end before the beginning?

Wow! We would never make stupid mistakes. We would always make the best choices, and everything in life would be absolutely perfect. In truth, no matter how much we evolve spiritually, we will never get to a point where we can predict the future with 100% accuracy. This is because our world is constantly changing. Nothing in nature stands still, and we need the guidance of Eshu-Elegba to understand how we relate to our world.

There are millions of people in the world who are directionally challenged.

Even with a GPS system, they still don’t know where to go. These are the kind of people who are accident-prone, they don’t know left from right, and are rated as high-risk drivers on their insurance policies. Why are these people so dangerous to themselves and others? They are dangerous because they fail to see the part that they play in the grand scheme of things.

I have written dozens of articles about imprinting and programing.
I have spoke of how we are taught to view our world from a linear perspective. When in truth, the world consists of numerous anti-worlds or parallel realities.

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African Spiritual Awakening

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-03T23:18:19-05:00

Ever wonder why some people are successful and others are not?

Or why some musicians can make hit after hit, while others struggle to record one good song? Or why there are movies that become instant classics. These are the movies that you never get tired of watching, because they have underlying themes that resonate with our souls. The movie The Matrix has serious spiritual undertones. I watched the movie years ago, when I was still “trapped in the matrix.” And although I didn’t truly understand the richness and value of the theme, there was something about the movie that resonated strongly with me.

It wasn’t until later, that I realized that I was sleeping through life.

Much like the movie, I was tucked away into a cocoon, a fantasy world that I had created. Today, I understand that there are millions of people who live their lives this way. After all, our cocoons protect us and give us comfort. It allows us to feel safe and secure, almost as if we are back in our mother’s womb.

However, the cocoon is just an illusion.

And while we are sleeping through life, the world is passing us by. So we rely on comfort and safety. We make excuses and say things like, I hate my job but I am not good enough to get anything else. Or my partner is a worthless bum, but I can’t leave him or her because I can’t stand the thought of being alone.

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Chango And The Spirit Possession

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-01T21:47:15-05:00

It is commonly known that drumming is used in African diasporic traditions to help people go into a trance.

The drum is associated with the Yoruba deity Chango for two reasons. The drum is not only a musical instrument, but also a tool that helps to regulate the human heart. Also, the beatings of the drums represent the vibrational frequencies of energy. These frequencies have an effect on brain waves and electrical impulses on the body and soul.

For years, anthropologist and historians have studied African traditions, and never understood the ceremonial dances around fire.

The Yoruba deity Chango rules over the domain of fire. Fire is not only a major earth element; it is also a symbolization of the spirit mounting the soul. During altered states of consciousness, the body begins to change. The drumming alters the autonomic nervous system, increasing the heart rate, blood pressure, and pulse.

In dummy terms, the body gets burning hot.

The spirit possession pushes the body to its most elevated state, where it begins to burn away impurities that have been inflicted on the soul. The drumming works as “music to the ears” for it allows the nervous system to disseminate the sounds as electrical energy. This helps people to release trapped emotions, illnesses, and negative energies that have impeded the soul. In short, this was our ancestors’ way of cleaning and healing themselves. They not only understood the power of the possession and its effects on the body but also on the mind.

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The Spirit Possession

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-02-01T21:39:44-05:00

Spirit possession is perhaps one of the most difficult subjects to write about.

Many people have researched the topic, and yet still don’t have a clue. This is because spirit possession is more than a supernatural or paranormal event. It is a means of healing and communication.

It is no secret that spirit possession plays a huge role in African traditions.

However, it is a subject that is widely misunderstood. We are now living in a time where science and spirituality are starting to merge. And we can now use quantum theories to explain spirit possession.

Now, we are going to go back to the old Yoruba principles, and explore the belief that everything in nature is both good and bad.

And that one cannot exist without the other. This means that there cannot be a problem without a solution, an illness without a cure, or strength to combat a weakness. It is our conditioning that allows us to become incredibly linear so we can’t understand parallel realities. In dummy terms, the solutions to all of our problems already exist! We just have to find them. For example, people believed that the world was flat, until someone “discovered” it was round.

Getting back to the laws of quantum physics, energy only exists if it is observed.

Overtime, it gradually reduces in availability until it cannot be accessed. Remember, energy cannot be destroyed, so it slips into a parallel reality until it is rediscovered. This means that there are no new ideas; no original inventions, and the whole concept of creation is really just an illusion. This is because everything that you can possibly imagine already exists in a parallel reality. But it needs to be manifested, transferred from the world of the invisible to physical matter, through the power of intention.

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Warding Off Evil In African Religions

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-25T22:21:36-05:00

I couldn’t help but get back to my favorite scary movie, the “Exorcist.”

It’s not only a movie that defined my childhood, it was a work of art, a classic that revealed the basic protocol for dispelling negative energy from people who are possessed. First, you must pray, and then you throw around a little bit of holy water. Then you hold up a cross, look away, squeeze your eyes tight and hope for a miracle. I like to watch and write about fantasy and horror movies because it allows people to “ walk on the wild side.” It allows us to enter a gateway where the physical and spiritual worlds collide.

The cross, in the movie and in real life has a number of meanings.

For one, the cross is used to ward off evil. It can also provide a gateway or chamber to higher worlds. An X also obstructs or blocks negative energy. Wearing a cross as a necklace works as your own “do not enter sign” for the symbol protects you from marauders and other negative energies.

Holy water is used for many purposes.

Throughout the years, spiritualist and shamans have understood that water has significant healing qualities. Our bodies are mostly water and so is the earth. Water molecules have north and south poles just like our earth. Each water molecule has a dipole length, as in a magnet. In dummy terms this means that water can actually store information. Both mystics and shamans understand that the earth has its own memory. Everything in our universe is energy. When energy is concentrated, it creates physical matter. This happens through the power of intention.

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How Do Voodoo Spells Work In African Religions?

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-23T21:41:54-05:00

Voodoo, not to be confused with Vodun can be used in the practice of witchcraft.

I like to think of Voodoo as malware that disrupts the natural flow of energy. Much like a virus, Voodoo spells operate to gather sensitive information and or to gain unauthorized access to your computer system (your mind). The virus’ ultimate goal is control and exploitation.

I can’t understand why someone would want to intentionally corrupt files.
However, people do it everyday in the spiritual world. They do it through the power of intention. Of course there are 101 thousand books on display about intention and how it’s great to attract abundance, love, and peace into your life. But, the power of intention has a “dark side” that’s crueler than Darth Vader.

Your intention actually directs the flow of energy.

If your intentions are to help your nephew get out of the hospital and be healthy, then positive energy will be directed towards him. If your intentions are to see your boss drop dead from a stroke then negative energy will be directed toward him. However, there’s a catch! People who are spiritually developed vibrate at much higher frequencies. Their immune systems (souls) are stronger and they can repel and deflect negative energy.

Just think of negative energy like a virus.
You pick it up from surfing the Internet, opening an email, or an attachment. Your computer starts to act funny. You began to lose files; you get millions of pop-ups, and spammers trying to sell you Viagra. You get frustrated because you need to use your computer for work, school, and socialization. At this point, you are either going to do one of two things. You are going to get the virus removed, or you are going to continue to work on your computer with the virus on it.

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Curses in African Religions

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-20T23:33:42-05:00

People think that a curse starts and ends with the mind.

This is only partly true. A curse begins with the exchange of energy. It is best to think of a curse like an airborn virus, for it works to tear down your immune system and weaken your defenses. When a curse is not properly treated, it grows to infect all parts of the mind, body, and soul. The best way to combat a curse is through prayer and meditation.

Curses can come from other people or they can come from other realms.

In many cases, they come from people’s auric fields. Every living being on earth has an aura that vibrates at a different frequency. These auras have individual bands of energy that pulsates much like a heart beat. When we interact with other people, our auras merge, and we began to exchange energy (information). The energy could be good, or it could be bad. Bad energy can be transferred in forms of a curse and it works in two ways. It can either take your energy and or dump bad energy into your auric fields.

Just imagine a curse being like a leech that latches onto your body and sucks on your blood.

Or a fly that lands on you and regurgitates on your skin. Curses can be exchanged unintentionally and intentionally. People who are well versed in the dark arts, such as brujeria and witchcraft are able to work with this kind of energy. However, most people are unaware that they are carrying a curse, or that they are spreading it to other people. Curses can be exchanged from person to person, from group to group, to family to family. The energy is malignant and so strong, that it binds people together in the worse way.

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Yoruba And The Concept of Demons

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-18T23:06:17-05:00

I am a big fan of scary movies. In fact, one of my favorite movies growing up was The Exorcist.

Now that I am a grown-up, I understand that the movie was incredibly sensationalized. However, as crazy as it sounds, I believe that the movie had an element of truth. There are people who get possessed by mysterious entities. Some people may call them demons; others may say they are evil spirits or negative energies. In Yoruba, these spirits are called the ajogan.

Ajogan are demons that attack and take you away from your natural self.

Although I have never heard of any cases where people’s heads starting to spin. I’ve seen people totally lose contact with reality. The ajogan work in two ways, they can either pull you down, or boost you up by giving you a false sense of self.

The ajogan are tricksters and master manipulators.

They will work to blow your head up by stroking your ego. Having your ego stroked is like having your pictures photo-shopped. It starts out with little changes, that aren’t really you. You use the slimming feature to erase pounds off your stomach and thighs. You take out the red-eye, you lighten or darken the picture, and you even start to remove whole people from the frame. However, by doing this, you move farther and farther away from your natural character. And you become oblivious to your flaws and weaknesses.

The ajogan will work to create a dream world for you.

Where you can sleepwalk through life, and never have to address your flaws, mistakes, or weaknesses. Millions of people live their lives this way. However, they cannot sleep forever, one day they are going to have to wake up. When they do, they are confronted with a reality that they simply can’t handle. They are disappointed in life and with themselves, because they hate the way they look in pictures without them being touched up with photo-shop.

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The Yoruba Religion and Initiations

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-16T23:09:02-05:00

Within the last two centuries, African based religions such as Candomblé, Vodun, and Yoruba have gotten a bad reputation, partly because of the practice of witchcraft.

There are all kinds of wives tells about voodoo and brujeria. As a result, many people become “part-time” believers, flocking to African based religions only when other religions have failed them. This has resulted in people looking for a quick fix, or ways to assuage their immediate needs and desires. This way of thinking is not what Yoruba is about. Yoruba as a religion guides people back to their true nature through practice and initiations.

Getting back to your true nature means aligning your earthly consciousness with your heavenly consciousness.

But so many of us live just to fulfill our immediate needs. We become hustlers, swindlers, liars, and cheaters, without understanding that we have to experience the consequences of both our intentions and actions. If we constantly put out negative energy, we will constantly receive negative energy. This results in the hamster wheel effect, where we re-create the same experiences and situations over and over again until we learn from our mistakes. The initiation process in Yoruba helps us to break the cycles of reincarnation by elevating us to a heavenly consciousness, where we can have direct communication with higher powers.

Of course, these higher powers would be the Orishas.

I like to think of the initiation process as being a journey to enlightenment, or in other words, a way to increase our bandwidth. We all want the ability to be able to “talk” to the Orishas. However, we have to develop physically, mentally, and spiritually in order to do that.

Ilekes is the first process for the novice.

Ilekes are religious beads that mark the first level of commitment made by the novice. Five Ilekes are presented ceremoniously to the initiate, with each one representing a particular Orisha. Initiates are giving a white Illekes for Obatala, black and red for Eshu-Elegba, yellow for Oshun, blue for Yemaya, and red and white for Shango. Receiving the Ilekes gives people limited access to the Orishas. It’s almost like having a cheap cell phone plan. You don’t have a lot of bandwidth or reception, you only get so many minutes, and the signal is weak and unclear.

The second initiation process is receiving the Ajagun or the warriors.

The ajagun are comprised of Elegba, Ogun, Oshoosi, and Oshun. Their function is to protect the initiate from destruction from opposing spiritual forces (ajogan). This initiation process allows you to have better reception. It is like having free nights, weekends, and carry-over minutes.

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Ifa Yoruba And Reincarnation

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-11T21:37:26-05:00

Among the West Africans and aspirants in the United States and the Caribbean, Orunmila is recognized as a primordial deity that was present at the beginning of creation.

According to legend, around 2000 B.C, Orunmila was born again as a priest teaching aspirants an advanced form of spiritual knowledge and ethics known as the Odu. Orunmila also led a league of priests known as Babalawos. From the holy city of Ile-Ife, he instructed them on how to use the Odu to help aspirants to overcome their karma and stop the cycles of reincarnation.

Karma is a retributive process whereby we re-experience certain situations in life, until we learn a lesson, or get back on our right paths.

Babalawos not only use the Odu to guide us and to help us pick up on certain patterns and mistakes that we have made in past and current lives. They work with our energy, also known as ashe to help us reach a divine state of oneness. We reach a divine state of oneness when our earthly consciousness, known as the Ori is elevated and developed to an extent where it can be unified with our heavenly consciousness.

I explained in earlier articles that those who are completely developed vibrate on a much higher frequency.

Also, I touched on how difficult it is to reach a divine level of oneness. This is because many of us still operate using our earthly consciousness, which are lower desires such as greed, envy, and power. These lower desires urges us to go for the quick fix, they force us to take shortcuts and to be cunning and vindictive. These desires affect our decisions, which in turn generates bad karma. People who always complain about being stuck in a rut, or people who make the same mistakes, over and over again are going through cycles of reincarnation.

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The Concept of Karma In Yoruba Religious Practices

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-10T23:25:52-05:00

Yoruba, as a practice, a religion, a culture, and way of life, can be incredibly difficult to understand.

Orunmila, a great prophet who lived approximately 5000 years ago in West Africa, taught the Yoruba people an advanced form of spiritual knowledge and ethics, known as the Odu. The Odu is a collection of 256 verses, each with its own collection of knowledge and wisdom. Many priest use the Odu for divination purposes, for they believe that the practice bridges the gap between the spiritual and physical world. Divination is a process of seeing how the past affects the future. This concept is known in both the Eastern and Western world as karma.

Many people use the word karma pretty loosely.

Suffice it to say that karma is a process where we re-create our experiences until we learn from our mistakes and walk down the path that God has created for us. Many people fail to realize that we carry karma from previous lives. We also carry karma from our lineage and family ties. Priests who interpret the Odu or use the Odu for divinations are looking for particular patterns and or mistakes in past and present lives. Then, they are able to guide initiates and practitioners down the right path to rectify a problem or reoccurring situation. The Odu acts as a tool or a religious script that morally guides people through life.

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Chango And The Law of Degradation

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-05T21:04:13-05:00

In the news, there are stories about students who are working three jobs to avoid taking out school loans.

Businessmen are paying themselves a below poverty line salary to stay afloat. The great recession has caused many people to cut back, to an extent that it hurts both their spiritual growth and long-term goals. In fact, many businesses fail because they don’t have enough income to support their short-term goals. College students drop out of school because it becomes too exhausting to juggle three jobs and a full load of classes. Many say that people fail at long-term goals because of lack of planning. I believe that people fail because they lack the foundation necessary for growth.

Chango, is an African deity in Yoruba.

He is commonly associated with the root chakra. We cannot thrive, live, or even stay upright without the stable support of our roots. We need to grow roots deep into the ground so our branches can reach the sky. Having strong roots gives us a sense of security, belongingness, and a great sense of physical health. Chango is the deity that allows us to become grounded; everything that happens in our minds, bodies, and spirits finds its source through Chango.

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Yoruba and The Concept of Spiritual Degradation

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-03T22:20:52-05:00

I have been studying numerous religions for a long period of time. I hear the same phrases over and over again.

I’ve attended many seminars and workshops and listened to gurus, leadership experts, priest and priestess all talk about the same thing. They speak about enlightenment, about peace of mind, and awareness. However, many of these people are missing out on one huge concept, degradation.

There is the law of gravity that pulls us down; it keeps us near the earth and from floating away.

However, gravity can be our worst enemy when it comes to self-development. The best way to explain degradation is to imagine going into a seven-story walk up building. Each floor represents a stage of development that you have to pass through in order to reach the top. The top is like the pen house suite. In spiritual terms this pen house suite is a symbolization of completeness, where you are freed from the confines of the physical body. Many mystics believe that reaching the top allows one to tap into innate powers and magical abilities. Others believe that the top is where the soul is free from the wheels of life that forces reincarnation.

The goal is to get to the top. Each level has its own vibrational frequency that you need to master.

As you climb the stairs you become more powerful because the higher up you go the more you can see. However, there is one small problem. The law of degradation will pull you down. It will make it completely difficult if not almost impossible to get to the top. Many people trip, fall, and stumble down the stairs. The higher they are, the harder the fall. Some people fall and can’t get back up again. Others work to dress their wounds and heal before they make an attempt to climb the stairs again. Those who are wounded need to work twice as hard to make up for the ground that was lost.

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New African Spirituality

Yamaya Cruz — 2012-01-02T20:49:18-05:00

Many people have been writing and asking me, what is New African Spirituality? Of course, people can read many of my articles and see that I write about Orishas, chakras, and energy healing. However, there is a much deeper purpose to the website. New African Spirituality is about self-development.

I have learned that millions of people in the United States suffer from depression, abuse, and other illnesses. People contact me and tell me horror stories about their lives. They speak of the awful things that have been done to them, and the terrible things that they have done to others. Then, I have people who contact me and have read every self-help and spiritual book in the world, and they’re still lost. They are looking for me to help them, to give them advice about love, relationships, and good health.

I was on that same path, just a few years ago. I soaked up knowledge like a dry sponge, I went to workshops and numerous seminars, and yet, I still didn’t really know anything. That was until I started studying Yoruba, and the principles of Ifa. It was then that I realized that the essence of spirituality is growth. If we as people are not developed, we are not going to be able to attract abundance, success, and love into our lives.

Enlightenment is about finding the light that is within. However, we can only do that if we take the time to reflect, to meditate, to go within and explore who we truly are. This process starts with “reprogramming.” So many people have been programed to believe that African religions are dark and evil. There are some people who think it is a taboo to even mention Santeria, or Vodun. This kind of programing works as a dark cloud that hovers over us. For true development involves healing, and the first step to healing is awareness. The second step is acceptance of all things, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Many people fail to develop because they are constantly looking outside of themselves. They become mechanical, going through the motions, without understanding the true essence of enlightenment, which is inner peace that comes from beyond the mind. People who are mechanical become zealots. They can always find fault in others but have a blind eye when it comes to their own flaws. These are the people who take the time to send me hate mail.

I am not looking to argue with anybody, for I am also on the journey to enlightenment. I used to point my finger and the play the blame game too. However, over the years I realized that there is really no need to do that. We are all one, and race, sex, gender and religious preferences are just programs that work to tear us apart. My job is to bring people together. My purpose is to raise awareness and help everyone understand that we are all looking for the same thing, inner peace. We all just have different ways of finding it.

Eshu-Elegba and Energetic Contracts

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-27T21:01:57-05:00

Eshu Elegba says that people need to be careful about the contracts that they sign.

They need to be sure the read the small print, the addendums, and the information that is exchanged nonverbally. I am pretty sure that this non-verbal exchange of information is the energy that is passed from one person to another. People need to be sure that they are not signing their life away or putting themselves at a disadvantage.

Most people would agree that energy is information in its most basic form.
We, as human beings, as living organisms are nothing more than energy that vibrates at different frequencies. When we interact with people, our energetic bodies merge and we began to share information with them.

However, there are some people who just want to take and not give.

These people are commonly called bloodsuckers, energy vampires, and psychological manipulators. These are the people who give off bad vibes, or the people you just don’t like, but can’t understand why. They operate based on the 80/20 rule. An even, 50/50 exchange of energy is not enough for them.

They want to suck you dry.

However, they will only take 80% of your energy. They will leave you with 20% because they need to keep you alive, so they can continue milking you for the rest of your life. These people have creative ways of manipulating people. They use all kinds of tactics like guilt, shame, and fear. Their main purpose is to have total and complete control over you, because then they know that they have a huge stash of energy to feed off of.

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Ogun, The Deity of Compassion

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-27T21:00:41-05:00

Ogun, the Yoruba deity of war and iron is much more than people perceive him to be.

There are a lot of stories that portray him as being a fearless warrior. He is a deity that is stringent, bold, and powerful and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. However, the most powerful warrior in the Yoruba religion has a dirty little secret. He has a heart, a big one.

I mentioned in previous articles that Ogun is associated with the manipura chakra.

This chakra works as a storage unit, housing our judgments, opinions, and beliefs that we have gathered about the world and ourselves. The third chakra is also a source of cognition, where virtually all thought forms are produced.

Our power center also works as an energetic field that surrounds our body.

It protects us from external influences and it ensures that we receive information that is necessary for our survival. Just imagine a huge fort surrounded by a fleet of soldiers with machine guns. Their job is to keep the riffraff out, and only let in the people who are going to bring happiness, love, and piece into your life. Then, it happens, someone sneaks pass your guards and invades your fort. You get angry and vow to never let anyone into your fort ever again.

However, there is one small problem.

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Ogun, Energy Gone Wrong

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-26T22:41:30-05:00

We have all seen them, men with huge beer bellies.

They walk around with spare tires, plumber’s butts, and A cup boobs. What has happen to these men? Maybe they got older? Or maybe they just gave up on life and decided to let themselves go? Well, it all boils down to one thing, power.

Aside from sexual organs, men and women are quite different.

Men are reared to be courageous and powerful. This power comes from the manipura chakra, also known as the third chakra or power chakra. It is located in the solar plexus, in the center of the body. The power chakra is commonly associated with the Yoruba deity Ogun. The manipura chakra is considered the seat of the soul. It is a place that manages the digestive system. However, the digestive process is the reflection of one’s ability to assimilate and “digest” not only food, but also thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. This center determines the health of both our bodies and mind.

Have you ever had a “gut” feeling? This is the manipura chakra working to process information, to help you make the best decision possible.

However, a blocked manipura chakra can lead to problems. Many men have a difficult time expressing their emotions. So they go through life with all of their feelings balled up inside of them. This is why men like to watch violent movies, or listen to music with explicit lyrics. These forms of entertainment resonate with men, because it gives them a vicarious thrill.

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Ogun and The Power of Making Money

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-21T22:57:31-05:00

Having a difficult time making money? Can’t find a job? Are you working two jobs to compensate for the one that you lost?

Are you tired, overwhelmed, overburdened with debt and credit card bills? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to work with the African deity of iron, known as Ogun.

Some people are reading this article and probably thinking, what the hell does iron have to do with me not having money?

Well, that is a really great question. Ogun is the deity who is revered throughout the diaspora. Venerations for Ogun started in the Iron Age around 500 BCE. The adoption of iron tools sparked progressive growth in African communities. Iron tools significantly increased agriculture. Craftsmen and artisans were able to carve pots, pans, masks, and statues. And medicine men had sturdier tools to work with.

Ogun symbolizes fertility and growth.

He may not be the patron of agriculture, but he is credited as being the mastermind that made agriculture possible. You don’t need to be an inventor, beauty queen, or rocket scientist to attract money, power, and success into your life. Iron is in our blood, and we are each born with gifts and special talents that enable us to earn money.

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Ogun, And Rites of Passage

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-19T22:34:52-05:00

I had the most difficult time writing about Ogun.

From my research, I found that he was the patron of war, check. I found out that he was instrumental in the Haiti Revolution, check. I found out that he clears paths with a machete, check. With all the information that I gathered, I still had the most difficult time writing about Ogun. Then, I had a breaking point. I stopped menstruating and the words began to flow. I learned that the powerful deity of war hates bloodshed, and avoids it like the plague. To Ogun, a woman menstruating is a “period” of mourning, for it is a child that failed to be born. Wow! Ogun is deep and incredibly compassionate. The more I began to write about Ogun, the more I began to develop a deep respect and a profound love for a deity that every male should strive to be like.

Ogun is a savior, a breadwinner, and a hero.

He is the patron of war, of clearing paths, of tool making, and agriculture. He is the Orisha who makes sacrifices for his family and community. He is the patron of iron and he is commonly associated with the manipura chakra. Our ancestors understood that men have ten times more testerone than women. It is believed that testerone makes men, in particularly teenage boys more aggressive. So in traditional times, every boy went through rigorous ceremonies to be come a man. Back then; boys didn’t get cake and ice cream when they came of age. They were sent away from their mothers and sisters, to work with the men in the village to perform, backbreaking grueling work.

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Ogun, A Necessary Evil

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-19T22:33:16-05:00

Sigmund Freud was perhaps the first person to mention the ego.
He wrote long articles and books about how dangerous the ego was. Then, there were others who jumped on the Freud bandwagon, claiming that people needed to free themselves entirely from the ego. I have read numerous books by self-help gurus, spiritualist, and holistic health practitioners who all say the same thing, “get rid of the ego.” However, after studying Ifa, and learning about Ogun, the patron of iron and war, I believe that it is best for everyone to hold on to it.

I studied Western thought practically my whole adult life.

I wasn’t exposed to African principles until my later years, and when I finally came across the works of Ifa, I was blown away. Ifa, unlike many other religions is a practice of balance. I know, there are a lot of religions that talk about balance. However, balance is about understanding the male and female, or negative and positive forces in nature, and in life. Ifa is about acceptance of all things, and that means taking the good with the bad. The ego is a necessary human element that is needed for our survival. People need to have a strong sense of self. They need to understand their worth in order to develop spiritually.

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Chango The King Who Became God

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-13T10:01:07-05:00

There are a lot of stories about Chango.

He was the king of the West African city Oyo. He was cruel and kind. He was a womanizer and a woman lover. He was a great strategist, yet incredibly passionate and sympathetic. He was a man who felt deeply, lived life, and hung himself from a tree out of self-indulgence. Chango is followed all over the Americas, in Africa, and Europe because, according to legend, he was the first man to become enlightened.

Just imagine, driving in your car in the pitch black with one headlight.

You wouldn’t be able to see much. You would only be able to see the road directly in front of you. This is how most people go through life. They live just to satisfy and fulfill their basic needs such as, hunger, sexual desires, and sleep. There are others who drive with two headlights. These people can see twice as much; they can see more of the road, side-roads and signs. Their immediate desires are fulfilled, yet they are still looking to fulfill other desires such as security, love, and stability.

Then there are those who drive with their high beams on.

They can see whole intersections and U-turns. These are the people who have satisfied virtually all of their physical needs. They can see more of the road, and are able to make decisions that have a grave effect on themselves and others. These people become the business moguls, visionaries, philanthropist, and star athletes.

Then, you have the very few people who don’t need headlights at all, because they don’t drive in the dark.

These people are awakened, enlightened. These are great prophets, Gods, and kings. They are the people who had gone through all the stages of driving with just one, then two, headlights. And after many years, or lifespans they realized that they didn’t have to operate in the dark.

This concept, explains Chango’s process.

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Chango and Oshun, A Match Made In Hell

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-09T21:59:02-05:00

Falling in love is such a great thing.

Chango and Oshun ideally are perfect for each other. Chango is the personification of the masculine figure. Oshun is the goddess of love, divinity, and beauty. These two forces coming together create the ultimate power couple. But when the Honeymoon is over and the spark is gone, all hell can break lose. Falling out of love is awful, and the experience can be worse than an addict detoxing in rehab. One of the reasons why love hurts so badly is because our emotional memory is twice as long as our mental memory.

Our emotional memory works more like a long distance marathon runner, while our mental memory is more of a sprinter.

Our emotional memory is like the energizer bunny. Even when we are old and suffer from long-term and short-term memory loss, our emotional memory keeps going and going and going.

Scientist and holistic heath practitioners believe that the emotional memory is part of the aura.

The aura is the invisible field that surrounds the body and all living organisms. The aura has bands of energy that all vibrate at different frequencies. The layer that Oshun rules over is called the emotional layer. Two people with similar vibrational frequencies are often attracted to each other. The invisible force that pulls them together is called magnetism. The field of magnetism is Chango’s domain. When two organisms, or people, continue to vibrate at similar frequencies, their auras began to merge. The feeling of falling in love is so intense because you are not only feeling your own emotions, but your partner’s as well.

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Yemaya and The History of The Chakra System Yemaya and The History of The Chakra System Yemaya and The History of The Chakra System

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-09T21:56:46-05:00

I have been asked repeatedly why I continue to talk about chakras.

After all, I do write for a website that is titled African Spirituality. I write a lot about Orishas and people either can’t bridge the gap or can’t accept the fact the all religions or spiritual sciences, or forms of new thought all come from one central place, the collective consciousness.

We’ve all heard the argument there is one God and one heaven, but there are a million ways to get there.

We are now able to communicate with people from the opposite sides of the world. And we now work and converse with people from different backgrounds, ethnic groups, and countries. The Internet, International trade and commerce have connected us on a level that our ancestors had never experienced, but yet they understood, we are all one.

Most researchers believe that the chakra system began in India more than four thousand years ago.

Like most religions, it branched off into sects. The one sect that Westerners are most familiarized with today is the Tantric sect. The word Tantric can be translated into the liberation of knowledge. Tantra is a life practice based on teachings about chakras, kundalini, hatha yoga, astrology, and the worship of many Hindu gods.

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Oshun, The Orisha of Love

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-07T10:14:06-05:00

Falling in love is incredibly easy for some, and extremely difficult for others.

Many people can go years, or spend their entire life looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right. Love and good relationships continue to be a struggle for a lot of people. Couples have a difficult time staying in love, once they fall into it. Very few understand that people when in love connect not only emotionally but also energetically.

I explained in previous articles that all human beings and living organisms have an aura.

The aura has multiple bands of energy that surround the body. Each band vibrates at its own frequency, very much like a heart beat. Holistic health practitioners believe that like attracts like. This means that if human beings operate or resonate on similar vibrations, one can have an extreme effect on another. If you ever felt really attracted to a person, and experienced the magnetic pull of two things coming together. You can understand how difficult it is resist someone who you are attracted to.

Other people would call this attraction a “spark” or “chemistry.”

What is truly happening at this time is that you and your partner’s aura are merging and sharing information. There are many layers to the auric field. However, the one layer that is most potent to falling in love is the emotional layer. The orisha Oshun rules over the emotional layer. The emotion of love is an exchange of energy. In the most ideal cases, people are giving the best of themselves emotionally. This creates an euphoric feeling. Walking on clouds, head over heels in love, are expressions of the energy and power of love in its most elevated state. The feeling literally blows you away. In fact, most spiritualists believe that understanding the emotion of love can lead to enlightenment.

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What Is Brujeria?

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-06T10:44:31-05:00

The whole concept of Brujeria, also known as witchcraft, or black magic is a little confusing.

There are some who would associate Brujeria with spell casting, incantations, and rituals. Others see it as a practice that is more associated with cults and gangs. It is incredibly difficult to get accurate information online aside from the fact that Brujeria is magic with malevolent intentions. However, the real definition of Brujeria can be wrapped up into two words, “psychological warfare.”

It happens all the time, you wake up in the morning, turn on the TV to watch the morning news and see a donut commercial.

The advertisement is enticing, it shows people running with coffee and donuts, and conveys the message that coffee along with donuts is the perfect way to get energy. You drive to work and pass a donut shop. A part of you wants to keep driving because you know that eating donuts early in the morning is really bad for you, the other part of you feels sluggish and weary. You remember the commercial and decide to stop and indulge in sugary foods that send your insulin levels through the roof.

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The Power of Voodoo

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-06T10:42:04-05:00

I am sure that there are a lot of articles circulating on the Internet that explains the Gods and or deities associated with Voodoo.

There are tons of books published that speak about where Voodoo came from and where it is widely practice. And there are a lot of people who still don’t really have a clue as to what Voodoo is. Well, Voodoo in a nutshell is about energy.

Voodoo had been demonized throughout the years.

Voodoo also known, as Vodun is a widely practiced religion that originated from the Congolese people in Africa. Vodun was then syncretized with Catholicism in Haiti and is still heavily practiced today in the Caribbean and on the African continent.

The first thing that people fail to understand about Voodoo is that our ancestors in Africa were much more evolved spiritually than we are today.

They believed in the concept of “we” and not “me.” They understood that everything in the world was interconnected. The concept of “me” is relatively new, where people believe that they are separate from the universe. The concept of “me” makes it difficult for people to see the adverse affects of their actions. This concept enables people to just turn the channel on the television when they see starving children in Asia. The “me” theory allows people to feel that if something isn’t truly affecting them, than it’s simply not important.

People who practice Voodoo believe in the concept of energy. They understand that it is pure and free flowing and that it activates and nurtures life.

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African Ancestry

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-04T20:33:14-05:00

If you were to Google African ancestry you would probably get a myriad of results.

You would see websites offering to trace your ancestry back from thousands of years ago until now. You would see services claiming that they can tell you what tribe you’re from and when you came to the Americas. You would even see some websites that warn you about the scams that have been circulating around the Internet about African ancestry. However, people are failing to understand why knowing who your ancestors are and where they came from is so important. Many Shamans would say that our ancestors walk with us, which means they are a part of who we are.

Recent studies have supported this theory.

People who watch the History or Discovery channels may be appalled to see a Shaman or medicine man spitting rum or some other kind of substance on a patient. People in the modern Western world just don’t understand the concept of cleaning someone’s aura. It has never been scientifically proven that the aura actually exists. However, there are over ninety-seven different cultures that refer to the aura using different names.

Many holistic health practitioners believe that the aura consist of multiple bands of energy called auric layers or auric fields.

These fields not only encompass the body but every living organism on earth. Energy, or ashe flows throughout the fields at different levels of intensity and has a pulse, very much like a heart beat. Within this auric field is something that holistic health practitoners call a morphic field. The morphic field is explained in my e-course, The Seven African Powers. This field works as a database, storing information from past lives. Within the morphic field there are programs that instructs our bodies on how to behave, or on how not to behave.

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What Is Santeria About?

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-02T21:19:18-05:00

You can’t believe everything you watch on television.

Thanks to Hollywood, a couple of alternative rock bands, and a few episodes of Law and Order, Santeria has been misconstrued and portrayed as being a satanic cult. We have all seen the movies about the mindless zombies, or the savages who collect and worship human body parts. Just remember, Hollywood’s job is to sell movies, and portraying Santeria in a positive light is not going to generate a lot of ticket sales. That is why it is our responsibility to change our perceptions about Santeria ourselves. There is a great amount of knowledge and history that is shrouded in these African and native religions, knowledge that may very well be the missing link to a lost history. Now is the time to bring light to darkness and show the greatness of our past.

Santeria is a compilation of beliefs.

Like its followers, it is an eclectic mix of Yoruba, Catholicism, and Native American folklore. This mixture of African tribal religion, animism, ancestor worship, and more has shaped the lives of many people throughout history. The Yoruba religion itself came to the New World via slaves who were captured by the Europeans with the help of rival tribes in Africa. Many were spiritual leaders. They were high priests and priestesses who brought their knowledge to the new world. Healing rituals were rudimentary, because of the lack of supplies and the need for secrecy. However, these rituals often involved the practice of trance dancing and drumming, often used to communicate with their gods and ancestors. To Read The Rest of This Article Click Here

Santeria Religion Beliefs

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-12-02T21:17:15-05:00

There are many misconceptions about Santeria.

Perhaps the most popular is that it involves black magic or witchcraft. The fact of the matter is that there is witchcraft and black magic that are used in Santeria, just as there is darkness and evil throughout the world. Western history is rattled with Jihads and Crusades where people forced their religions and ideologies on others with the strength of a blade. Like any religion, there are people who use the forces of the universe for evil.

However, most people in Santeria use magic for good.

Another misconception is that Santeria is used to hex people, to put a curse on others, or to cause adversity or misfortune. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, followers of Santeria only worship Orishas (saints). They obey the guidelines of the religion, observe important feasts, and carry out the rites that are expected of them. In return, those who follow Orishas are promised access to powers as well as protection from evil. A more controversial aspect of Santeria is the practice of animal sacrifices.

While animal sacrifice is a fundamental part of Santeria religion, it is used in order to acquire what is considered a cosmic energy as well as to appease deities. Virtually all-traditional religions made animal sacrifices.

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Oshun and Chango, A match Made In Heaven

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-11-30T21:27:14-05:00

Everyone has heard of the phrase, “opposites attract”

That is the case in many situations in scenarios. Legend has it that Chango was the king of the Oyo, a great city in West Africa. He had numerous wives, but he was particularly fond of Oshun, the river goddess. Their marriage symbolizes a union of two great basic forces known as the feminine essence and the masculine power. This concept is similar to yin and yang and the ability of opposite forces to unite and same forces to repel and detract.

Chango is a representation of the ultimate masculine force.

He is dynamic, stimulating, and logical. He is a deity of great height and represents the skies and the heavens. His color is red, and he is considered hot, and is able to produce heat by breathing fireballs from his mouth. The goddess Oshun, on the other hand represents yin. She is the ultimate female essence. She is static, calming, and intuitive, much like the rivers she resides in. Chango and Oshun, much like yin and yang characterize two different types of energy, also known as chi, or in Yoruba, ashe.

In Chinese philosophy as well as in African practices, everything in nature is perfectly balanced.

If things become unbalanced then illness and malady may occur. Too much of Chango’s heat underlies pain and inflammation. Too much of Oshun’s coolness may cause blockages and stagnation. Both forces complement each other, and each force is needed to generate the spark needed for creation.

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Oshun And The Rivers of Ashe

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-11-29T21:57:31-05:00

Oshun is known in Santeria and in Yoruba as the Goddess of love.

She is revered in Western Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States for her beauty and grace. Others describe her to be the ultimate feminine essence equivalent to Venus. Oshun’s beauty is not just skin deep. She is the Orisha of unconditional love and is called upon for family matters and relationship issues. She resides in all rivers and lakes and is said to be the Orisha of sexuality. However, Oshun also resides in the rivers of energy that flows through our bodies. These rivers are called meridians.

Although the Chinese are credited for discovering the invisible energy channels that flow throughout the body and the world, the Africans were also very much aware of the power of chi.

Unlike the Chinese, they called this energy ashe and the meridians that this energy flowed through were called rivers. Today, meridians and energy fields are studied by holistic health practitioners and are used in the common practice known as acupuncture. However, the concept of treating the root of an illness as opposed to its symptoms is universal. Ancient healers understood the power of ashe, and could see beyond the skin, sinew, and muscle tissues of an ailing patient. They understood that disharmony in the meridian channels caused illness. They worked to treat the sick by reasserting an energetic balance within the meridian system.

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What Is Santeria?

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-11-28T21:45:15-05:00

Santeria has been called an Afro-Cuban religion.

Santeria has been a major religion in Cuba practiced by diverse people and has become a global religious movement in the United States and the Caribbean. Historians believe that Santeria began between 1780 and 1850 during the Atlantic Slave trade, when approximately 1 million captives were transported from Africa to Cuba. In Cuba, Africans from different regions intermingled and formed a popular religion from traditional African beliefs.
Santeria, much like many other traditional European religions consist of diverse spirits and divinities.

The supreme god, Olodumare, created the natural world where humans lived. The deities known as orishas in Santeria, ascended to greatness by exemplifying good character and thus becoming angels with unlimited abilities. Like other traditional religions, orishas were associated with natural features like rivers, thunder and mountains. In Greek mythology, Zeus was the God of thunder. In Santeria, the orisha Chango is the god of lightning and fire. Stores of the orishas, also known as patikis reveal their specific personalities and traits. Each orisha rules over some aspect of human life and or society. The patikis guide practitioners on how to worship the Orishas. Dozens of books have been published with complete guides and charts on offerings, foods, colors, virtues, and songs about each orisha.
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Black Writers Redefine African American History

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-11-28T21:41:59-05:00

New African Spirituality is a community of artist dedicated to the study of history, culture, and art pertaining to African-Americans and African descendants throughout the diaspora.

Writers and artists have always played pivotal roles in restructuring the social hierarchy of class and race in the United States. Early writings such as Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass authored by Fredrick Douglass vividly portrayed the brutality of slavery greatly advancing the abolitionist movement. W. E B. Du Bios’ Black Reconstruction in America challenged the prevailing orthodoxy of black inferiority. Other greats such as Z. Hurston, C. Cullen, and J. Toomer provided inspirational leadership that resulted in the explosion of African art and literary expression known as the Harlem Renaissance.

The mid-20th century gave rise to novelist Richard Wright and his attention to racial segregation and injustice. Works during the Civil Rights Movement included texts by Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots both penned by Alex Haley. The late 20th century brought award winning writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison to the fore of narrative and historical fiction. Black literature was (beyond L. Hansberry’s, A Raisin in the Sun) making its way as inclusive American classics.

Today’s African-American writers are working to remove the veil that continues to distort our history and religion. Following the footsteps of Ben Okri and Wole Soyinka, these writers delve into creative fictional narrative that portrays the beauty and psychological depth of African arts, history, epics, and myths; and the characters that embody them.

Added to the list of emerging writers are: Oloye Karade and Yamaya Cruz. Mr. Karade is the author of Storms of the Orisha and Emina and the Lake Dragon. His fictional narratives are based on knowledge amassed over his thirty years as an initiate in the Yoruba/Ifa religious tradition. The spirits and deities of the tradition serve as mythological and religious entities directly impacting the characters and plots of his novels. Yamaya Cruz writes with a flow of New Age spirituality embedded with twist and turns distinctively African. Her novel, When the Shadows Began to Dance is a creative narrative that depicts enslaved Africans beset by mental disorders –disorders alleviated by supplications to African deities and ancestors who’d also survived the Middle Passage. The healing of minds torn by horrid treatment via faith in the ‘old ways’ is the premise behind her work.

As a community, we understand that our ancestors survived the atrocities committed against them in America and the entire world by keeping African art and culture alive. We ask that you help us in our similar endeavor. Our community is now open and we’re accepting members. Also, if you have works of literature, art, or music we’d love to review them and place them on the New African Spirituality website. Together we can win.

If you are looking for a crash course on how to be fearless, check out my e-course. The Seven African Powers: The Stepping Stones to Enlightenment. Or, if you have additional questions call for a consultation. I am always ready and willing to help! www.newafricanspirituality.com

Eshu-Elegba and the Gates To Heaven

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-11-27T19:57:21-05:00

We have all seen the images of the pearly white gates that lead us into the heavens.

We have all heard the myths about an angel weighing our souls, judging us based on passed experiences and future intentions. If we are good, then we are allowed into the heavens. If we are bad, then we are forced to burn in hell for all eternity. However, we very seldom see, or learn about the angel that was blessed with so much power to judge us and discern our fate. That angel in Yoruba terms would be Eshu-Elegba.

The number for Eshu-Elegba is three, meaning the three great divisions, such as the past, present, and future.

He is commonly associated with crossroads and gateways. The gateways represent the bridge between the physical and spiritual realms. It is the angel Eshu-Elegba who leads us by the hand and guides us into the heavens, the world of the invisible, and the world where all the Orisha lay. This is perhaps why all offerings to the Orishas are shared with Eshu-Elegba.

Eshu-Elegba’s purpose is more than just an angel of guidance.

He is the Orisha who believes in tough love and likes to teach hard lessens about life. However, Eshu-Elegba’s main purpose is to teach people about the importance of making good decisions. The crossroads represent situations where opposing forces need to come together. In many situations we experience conflict at the crossroads. If we turn left, we are using our intuition and not logic. If we turn right, we may be taking the path of least resistance. A right turn can also suggest that we are making strictly logical decisions without using our intuition. In all situations, we are going to have to be aware of our past and present situations in order to make appropriate decisions.

This is the primary lesson that Eshu-Elegba tries to teach us.

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Obatala and the fibers of Humanity

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-11-27T19:56:11-05:00

Very few of us can remember the days when we were first introduced to the alphabet.

Many of us, even in our old age can still sing the songs and write the symbols. As children, we didn’t understand how letters were mere symbols that enabled us to communicate when combined or connected.

Obatala is the voice of communication.

He is the father of all Orishas and the deity of white cloth. The cloth does not only represent purity and cleanliness. The interwoven fibers represent the connection of all things to mother earth. Just as letters need to be stringed together to create words, then sentences, and paragraphs. Humans need to be stringed together to create individuals, families, and communities.

Obatala is the Orisha of high intelligence and is said to have descended from the heavens on an iron chain.

The chain can represent the double-sided helix that stores information, like genetic codes, also known as DNA. It is Obatala who crafts the blueprint of our souls. He works very much like an engineer, studying the details of the human construct, and then combining all the elements to form one single unit. A brick by itself is just a brick. It has little meaning or purpose. However, when combined with other bricks it becomes more powerful, more stable. Bricks, when placed together can work as shelters, as fortresses, and even barriers. Obatala represents the power of unity and synchronicity. He is the holistic force that enables humanity to evolve and survive.

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Yemaya, The Mother of Earth

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-11-27T19:54:33-05:00

It is now the 21st century and scholars, scientist, and anthropologist now agree that humanity started in Africa.

In fact, everyone in the human race can trace his or her lineage back to our mitochondria mother in Africa. This mitochondria mother is known as Yemaya in Santeria. She is known as Yemoja in Yoruba. She is also known as Yemanja in Brazil and many other parts of Europe.

There are thousands of stories, great myths, and legends about the African goddess.

In Yoruba, she was known as the river goddess. However, she became the Yoruba deity of the ocean during the Mid Atlantic Slave Trade when millions of captives appealed to her for guidance and support. Slowly, she became the orisha who presided over the oceans.

Yemaya can also be associated with Our Lady of Regla in Santeria. She can also be linked to the second chakra or swadhisthana chakra
in Sanskrit. The 2nd chakra is located in the womb area and is a vessel for creativity.

Yemaya presides over the womb and is called upon for maternity purposes, or to help aid mothers while giving birth. However, Yemaya is much more, she is the divinity of creation. She helps mothers give birth, not only to children, but also to new ideas, opportunities, and beliefs.

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The Process of Making a Zombie

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-09-26T16:43:07-04:00

Writing about traditional African Religions hasn't been easy.

People who have virtually no exposure to the practice ask me the strangest questions. "Is Santeria black-magic? What about voodoo?" In most cases, I just look at them and smile, because it just too daunting to go into the specifics about those practices. Then the forbidden question comes up. "What's up with the whole zombie thing?" At this point I am elated with delight, because talking about the human zombie is by far one of my favorite subjects.

Hollywood has done a great job at glamorizing the zombie.

They are portrayed as life-less, soul-less creatures that aimlessly stroll the streets. They are ready to pounce on you, rip out your jugular vein and turn you into a "zombie." However, the zombie goes much deeper than that. People are being attacked by zombies everyday. You have probably sat next to one, or even worked for one and didn't realize it. They are at your church, in your political organizations, and even your faith based institutions.

The legend of the zombie goes way back, when societies used religion to conquer and control.

They invaded countries with the bible in one hand and a steak in another. Then they would tell the people who are literally starving to death that they can have the steak, on the condition that they become Christian, Muslim, or some other type of popular religion. Of course, people accepted it. They "brought" into it; because they didn't think that it was a big deal. They could still be Christian and hold on to their traditional beliefs right?

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Black Magic Gone Viral

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-09-26T16:40:09-04:00

Many people believe that going viral is a brand new phenomenon.

It started somewhere in the 1990s with the birth of the computer, particularly the Internet. People, especially marketing gurus, and businesses desperately searching to increase visibility of their brand released product information. They did this, hoping that the informational product would be self-replicating, spreading copies of itself all over the Internet. In modern times we call this technique marketing, in traditional times we called it magic. Magic is something that really starts with a seed. You ever have a tune in your head that you can't stop singing? You ever see something beautiful in nature, take a snap shot of it, and place it on Facebook or YouTube? You ever hear some really great information and then call a friend to "spread the news." Magic is infectious. It starts with just a seed planted in one person's mind. The seed grows with word of mouth, until it hits mass market.
If a person plants a seed, and it grows strong enough to hit mass markets, they become a magician.
They then have the ability to influence thousands, if not millions of people. However, magic can turn bad when the intentions behind it is to cause harm or death. In other words, black magic is spreading information or engaging in practices with malevolent intentions. In many situations people engage in black magic when they intend to cause considerable harm to someone else for their own benefit. By that definition we all engage in black magic.

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Chango And The Power of Intention

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-31T19:24:56-04:00

Things have really changed.

The most popular Orisha in the United States, Caribbean, and South America has been reduced to a pint-size wrestling action figure. A giant size professional wrestler who goes by the name “Papa Shango” has snatched Chango’s persona. He is as big as an arctic bear and conjures up voodoo spells, right in the wrestling ring in front of thousands of people. He even has over 23,000 YouTube hits. I grew up watching Hulk Hogan, and the Rock. I watched wrestling even though I knew that it was incredibly sensationalized and teetering on the border of being completely ridiculous.

Sad but true, it seems like voodoo along with Papa Shango is sliding down the same slope.

In pop culture when people hear about Chango, they think of the wrestler. Or they are able to rehash stories of Chango being a philanderer. He was the man who danced and frolic all night with women. He had litters of illegitimate children and liked to use magic and sorcery because he was lazy and preferred to take shortcuts. There are some good stories too. Chango was a man, a king who ruled over one of the greatest African empires. His color is red, which symbolizes his passion and vitality. Chango governs our vigor, heredity, security and survival. Perhaps this is why he was so revered during the African slave trade. He is also honored today all over the world, in religions such as Santeria, Candomblé, Vodun, and Yoruba.

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The Law of Sacrifice

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-29T13:41:15-04:00

Many people have read the books “The Secret,” “The Law of Attraction,” and “The Power of Intention.”

Yes, they all can be considered blockbuster hits in the book world. They are stocked on the shelves in the “Self Help” and “New Age” section of every major books store. These books talk about positive thinking, about how the laws of the universe work as far as attraction. However, they seem to be missing one major element, the law of sacrifice.

Within the last decade, people have been swept away by the Harry Potter movies.

People want to believe that performing magic is relatively easy. That it can be dwindled down to swinging a wand and repeating chants with powerful incantations. There are other people who believe that magic, and the laws of the universe don’t work that way. It’s not just about thinking positive, it’s about making real sacrifices.
That’s difficult to do, especially in the 21st century where almost everyone has a sense of entitlement.

People think that they can just wave a magic wand and almost all their problems would be solved. Many people fail to realize that they must give up something that is truly valuable to them. They must make a trade, or an exchange of equal or more value. If a person wants to lose weight, they are going to have to give up the tasty cakes. They are going to have to sacrifice their time and invest it by walking in the park, or going to the gym.

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The Seven African Powers And The Laws of Nature

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-29T13:38:41-04:00

It is a pity that people don’t understand the power that they have. People watch television, listen to the radio, and search the Internet, without even understanding how they work. These things work much like the laws of nature. They have different channels, frequencies, and levels of communication.

Baba Ifa Karade has described the Orishas as being forces of nature. Much like the Sanskrit chakra system, the Orishas reside in the human body, as spinning wheels of energy. They vibrate at different levels and frequencies and operate on different continuums or mediums. I wrote in earlier articles that energy, which is often referred to as ashé in Yoruba traditions, is both subtle and physical. Physical energy of course is solid matter, while subtle energy is invisible.

The Orishas fall into the subtle energy category. The Seven African Powers can represent the seven chakras that reside along the spine. Chango represents the first chakra. Yemaya represents the second. Oggun is the personification of the third chakra. Oshun represents the fourth chakra. Obatala represents the fifth, and Orunmila represents the sixth. The seventh chakra is the Ori and represents the highest level of consciousness. The Orishas exists on different levels of consciousness or planes of existences. Just like a ladder have seven rungs, with each one taking you a step higher. When you reach the top, you can see all the other rungs that you climbed to get there. They work, much like a hierarchy, where a person becomes more powerful with every step. The higher you climb up the ladder, the more you can see.

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Putting Spiritual Leaders To The Test

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-29T13:36:21-04:00

A wise man once told me that a great way to test a man’s level of consciousness is to have him sit in a room for two months.

Huh! I balked. I could do that. I could sit and search the Internet, make a few phone calls, read some books, watch a few good movies. My list went on and on describing a myriad of things I could do in my room alone. No, a man needs to sit in his room alone, with nothing, just by himself.

Well, that was different.

If someone asked me to sit in a room by myself for two months, I would probably go crazy. Then, I thought about all the odd stories I heard about Shamans being dropped off on a mountain with no food and very little water for seven days. Then, I thought about all the spiritual leaders who fasted and went on hunger strikes. Yes, these men had a considerable amount of control over their bodies and minds.

Even medicine men in traditional communities had to go through rigorous rituals and even life and death situations to become healers.

In modern times, these ceremonies might seem archaic, even barbaric, but necessary. If a shaman survived seven days on a mountain, he was considered a God. If a spiritualist could spend two months meditating in a room, he was considered enlightened. And rightly so, these are people who have battled against nature and won. Which isn’t a very easy thing to do. How many of us eat when we’re hungry, rest when we’re tired, and drink when we’re thirsty?

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Who Said Eshu Was The Devil?

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-29T13:34:23-04:00

Recently, I’ve had several people write to me about Eshu.

They have told me horror stories about Eshu being like the devil, about him playing nasty tricks and games on people. He is a manipulator, and Orisha who never plays fair, and is unpredictable. Well, those were some pretty harsh things to say about Eshu. Then, I thought to myself. How did Eshu get this really bad reputation?

Then, I thought about Western literature.

I remembered reading Dante’s Inferno where a devil like creature resided in the under-world. The devil was of course an amalgamation of the dark forces that exists within our selves and in the world.
We were taught to fear the devil, to fear the darkness. This is perhaps why Eshu has become more like the boogeyman than our spiritual savior. He bears his stripes strong and proud. He blatantly brandishes his wickedness and it is too much to handle for some people.

Why? Well, mainly because people are afraid to look within themselves.

They are afraid to see the nasty devilish creature that they have hidden inside of them. So at night, when the lights go out, it comes out to play. It hides in their closet, and under their beds. It plays tricks on them by pulling off the covers, or by exposing its shadow to the light. It thrives on fear, because then people can push it back into the dark recesses of the mind, where it grows and becomes more powerful, more menacing.

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Obatala and the Cycles of Abuse

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-16T17:12:54-04:00

It is America’s worst kept secret.

Many men, women, and children are exposed to cycles of abuse. In many cases, abuse is about control. A man may physically abuse his wife in effort to make her stay in a relationship. Abuse can also be about power. A woman may insult and or humiliate her child or spouse because it makes her feel secure. It can also be about victimization, where a person who is abused believes that they deserve to be treated badly. Abuse in many situations is cyclical and if not treated can last for generations. Many people in abusive relationships or situations are in denial, and fail to understand the damage that they are doing to themselves and their children. The best way to stop the cycles of abuse is to reach out to Obatala, the orisha of purity, wisdom, and peace.

Obatala is the father of white cloth.

His cloth not only represents purity and lightness, it symbolizes the fabrics that weave our existence together. Obatala is the orisha of creation. He is the light or spark that is needed to manifest or to bring an idea from the subtle world into physical reality. However, Obatala also presides over DNA. After all, he did descend from the heavens on a heavy chain. This chain represents the double sided helix of DNA and the genetic codes that are past down from one generation to the next.

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Honoring our ancestors

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-13T16:50:04-04:00

In many traditional beliefs such as shamanism and Yoruba, it is customary to pay tribute to our ancestors.

Our ancestors can also be referred to as the Egguns in Yoruba, or spirits in other mainstream religions. For centuries, medicine men and traditional healers have understood the connection that we all have with our ancestors. Now, scientists are beginning to understand the connection as well.

Everyone knows about DNA.
It is the code of life that houses unique genetic information. Now, people can do a simple swab test for $200 or $400 and discern who their ancestors were and what tribe they originated from. Some people may decide to do this because they want to understand themselves fully. Others may do it because they are just curious, or struggling with an identity crises. However, knowing our ancestors may be far more important than we realize.

Epigenetics goes beyond DNA, because it instructs our body on how to react to particular, environmental situations.
Our DNA is set in stone. However, epigenetics instructs our DNA on how to act and not act in certain situations. In early studies of epigenetics, scientist found that children who were severely abused or neglected did not develop as quickly and efficiently as children who were loved and nurtured.

This is because the epigenetic cells instructed their DNA, to turn off the cells needed for development.

Instructions used to turn on and turn off DNA become embedded in a person’s genetic code, and can be passed down from generation to generation. This concept explains why some people have a predisposition to alcoholism. It also explains hereditary diseases such as lupus and schizophrenia.

Encoding starts as early as conception.
Cells from the mother’s mitochondria are inherited from her egg. Cells from the father’s mitochondria are inherited as well but they do not contribute as greatly to the growth of a fetus as the mother’s cells. People inherit thousands of generations of mitochondrial DNA from their mother’s lineage. In fact, most people can trace their lineage back to a mitochondrial African mother who lived more than 140,000 years ago.

So this means that we are carrying the hardships and traumas of our ancestors.
Shamans and spiritualist have understood this for years. Many shamans go through rigorous rituals like soul retrieval to bring balance back to the body and soul. Other spiritualist might create baths, or proscribe other herbs to change the vibrational frequencies within the body. Throughout history, in virtually all cultures, people have understood the importance of cleansing toxins from their bodies. They understood that negative emotions, bad foods, and stress adversely affected all parts of the body.

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Obatala The Father of All Orishas

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-13T16:48:53-04:00

For a long period of time, we lived in a world that was strictly physical.

We believed that if we couldn’t see it, touch it, or smell it, that it just didn’t exist. Of course the mystics always knew that there was an invisible world. They knew about energy and quantum physics long before any scientist had ever looked through a microscope.

We can see this in many of the creation stories in the Yoruba pantheon.

Obatala, the father of all orishas; is also known as the deity of purity, peace, and creation. He descended from the heavens onto to earth on an iron chain. This story can be interpreted in two ways. It can symbolize the concept of manifestation. It can also represent the biological makeup of human beings. Today, we understand that DNA is a genetic code that houses information that is past down from one generation to the next.
practitioners in the Yoruba religion seemed to have understood this concept as well. When examined under a microscope DNA looks very much like a chain or a double sided helix. Today, scientists understand that a person’s DNA code is pretty much set in stone. However, there are external factors that influence the behaviors of DNA.

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Shifting From Darkness To Light With Obatala

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-13T16:46:56-04:00

Shamans believed that in times of trouble, pieces of the soul break away.

They run and hide in the underworld, the subconscious mind. A Shaman will work to find the lost pieces of the soul, but it is incredibly difficult to do without calling on the father of lightness and purity, Obatala.

Obatala, In Yoruba is the father of all creation.

He brings about wisdom, purity, and peace. Most importantly, he is the mediator between darkness and light, and can help to raise the consciousness of an entire civilization or just one simple human being. Obatala presides over cells within the human body, in particularly DNA.

Legend has it that Obatala descended from the heavens on an iron chain.

This chain represents the genetic codes of information that are housed in our DNA. The chain also represents rings or cycles. This could mean the cycle of life, the cycle of energy, or even cycles of poverty and abuse.

In my earlier articles I discussed how our environment influences DNA.

Epigenetic cells actually turn DNA cells on and off like a light switch. It works in response to our feelings, thoughts, emotions, and actions. We are very much in control of our bodies, even at a cellular level.

Sometimes, our bodies become unbalanced and we get sick. Our sickness can be mental or emotional or even both.

We may visit a doctor or a spiritual healer who works with both physical and subtle energy. I mentioned before that subtle energy is invisible. While physical energy is hard and tangible. Subtle energy acts as a blueprint that instructs physical matter on how to operate.

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The Seven African Powers

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-08T16:18:08-04:00

The Seven African powers are highly revered and celebrated amongst initiates and followers of the Yoruba pantheon. They call them Orixas in Brazil and Loas in Vodun. Practioners from different branches may not worship the same African deities. However, the principle beyond the belief of the Seven African powers runs deep.

In fact, the concept of the Seven African powers is centuries old. The Seven African powers can be associated with the Seven Rays, which can be interpreted to be the Seven Attributes of God. It was first seen in Verdic literature and referred to as the Seven Rishis. The Seven Rays as a metaphysical concept has appeared in several religions and dates back to the sixth century.

The concept behind the Seven Rays is that there are building blocks of light, which gives us life.

Before we are born, our souls are sustained in a beam of light. The beam of light breaks into seven pieces when forming physical matter, or the human body. We are all born with Seven Rays or Godly attributes. However, we have one dominate attribute that forms our personality and life mission. The qualities of this attribute are developed and refined through successive life cycles.

The Seven Rays, or the Seven Godly attributes are connected to the energy centers in the body called chakras.

Chakras are energy wheels that are located along the spine. Baba Ifa Karade talks about the chakra system and how it relates to the Orishas and the Seven African powers in his book, The Yoruba Handbook of Religious concepts.
He states that Chango resides in the first chakra, or in Sanskrit the mulahadra chakra. Yemaja is the second chakra or the swadhisthana chakra. Oshun is associated with the third charka or Manipura chakra. Ogun is associated with the heart chakra or anahata chakra. Obatala is associated with the throat chakra or vishuddha chakra. Orunmila is commonly associated with the third eye or the Ajna chakra. Lastly, the crown chakra is associated with the Ori.

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Eshu and The Road To Enlightenment

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-08T16:16:49-04:00

Eshu is the orisha that is honored and revered in Yoruba, Santeria, and Candomblé religions.

He is the protector of travelers. He is the deity that presides over crossroads. He has power over fortune and misfortune and is the personification of death. He is also known as the deity of chaos and trickery. He is the orisha of tough love, and teaches hard lessons that people can learn from. Lastly, he is the messenger.

However, Eshu is much more than that.

His holy number is three, which can represent the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit in the Christian fate. The number three also represents the law of creation. There is the positive polarity of energy, the negative polarity, and the combination of the two creates the universal force known as ashé in Yoruba.

The crossroads has four elements, which can represent the different aspects of the human mind.

It is divided into four parts, the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, the super conscious mind, and divine intelligence. The conscious mind contains all of your waking thoughts, ideas, and cognitive abilities and is best known as your reality. The subconscious mind consists of buried thoughts, beliefs, and concepts. Your worse fears are hidden here. Many people are unaware of all the pain, anger, and fear that are tucked away in the dark recesses of the subconscious mind. The super consciousness is a part of your mind that is connected to divine intelligence or in modern terms, the Universe.

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Ego and the Loaded Gun

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-08T16:13:37-04:00

What kind of world would we live in if everyone walked around with a loaded gun?

Would the world be more dangerous? Would people feel safe? Would all the fighting and wars stop because no one would feel weak, vulnerable, or defenseless?

The ego is like carrying around a loaded gun.

Many religious leaders have preached about how bad the ego is for our spiritual growth. Our ego gives us a false sense of security and a heightened sense of self. It gives us brief and fleeing spouts of pleasures. Our ego is cunning and misleading and it can cause us to either shoot ourselves, or someone else who doesn’t really deserve to die. Sadly, the ego is becoming more powerful. We can look at the state of our economy, the deterioration of relationships and families, the onset of malady and disease to see that there is a raging war in our communities and within ourselves.

The shamans believed in four worlds.

They believed that the upper-world was the future, or in modern terms, the world of the manifested. The middle-world, was the present, or the here and now. The lower world was the past, and the under-world was the world of the subconscious. The under-world is the Hell that Dante describes in the Inferno. It is where all of our demons lay. It is where our deepest and darkest fears reside.

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The Parts of the Whole

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-08-08T16:12:11-04:00

Indigenous people from all over the world have understood the power of energy.

They didn’t have microscopes or sophisticated equipment to study matter and atoms. They had something much more powerful, their imaginations. Today, after centuries of disagreement, scientist and spiritualist agree that virtually everything in our world is made out of energy.

Some cultures call it chi, others call it ashé, but all acknowledge the fact that there is a world, a plane of existence that is invisible, naked to the human eye.

Energy in simple terms; is a source of power that shapes our existence. Energy vibrates at its own unique speed. Like-minded organisms vibrate in similar ways, but no two organisms are exactly alike. Energy from opposite spectrums such as male and female, or yin and yang can join together to create an electric charge or spark.

Energy can be physical or subtle.

Physical energy is more stagnant and concrete. While subtle energy is more flowing and invisible. Just think of subtle energy as being the blueprint, or instructions manual used to create physical matter. When something isn’t working properly, we normally refer back to the users manual to see if all the parts fit together naturally. The basis of all energy work is to get the body and soul to work as one harmonic unit.

If the body isn’t working properly, or in extremely bad cases the body is diseased or ill, there is a tremendous misbalance of energy.

Today, prescription drugs and surgery are commonly used to change the vibrational frequencies in the body. Our ancestors were able to alter our physical states by entering into altered states of consciousness. This state allowed them to travel to another plane of existence called the subtle world. By traveling to the subtle world they were able to diagnose pending and reoccurring problems. Some even got instructions on what herbs or remedies to use to cure a certain ailment or disease.

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The law of detraction

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-07-22T17:50:35-04:00

Everyone talks about the law of attraction, but no one talks about detraction.

What does detraction mean anyway? Detraction means a derogatory or damaging comment on a person’s character or reputation, the act of taking something away or lessening the value of something.

I like to think of detraction like having bubble gum stuck to my shoe.

It’s nasty and disgusting, and I’ll do anything to get it off. It’s been chewed up and spit out, all of its flavor and nutritional value is gone, and what’s left of it is sticking to my shoe, accumulating more dirt and residue. It holds me back. It makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. Hmm, it sounds like some of the people I used to know.

We’ve all experienced them, the people who are like chewed up bubble gum.

They come into your life bursting with flavor and sweetness. You can’t get enough of them, you want to be with them every second of the day, savoring their taste, and believing that the feeling will last forever. Then, like chewing gum, they get hard and stale. It becomes harder to chew, so you spit it out. Only to step in it five seconds later. Then, they’re stuck to you. These are the toxic and manipulative people who lack substance. They are incredibly superficial, which makes them very fun in the beginning, but it’s not long before their true colors start to show.

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Believing in False Gods

Yamaya Cruz — 2011-07-22T17:49:18-04:00

I remember my first reading.

I arrived a few minutes early, just in time to see my spiritual healer rip the fresh eviction slip off of her door screen. She greeted me with a cigarette dangling from her lip and then asked me to follow her downstairs. It was an eerie feeling, even from the start. She led me down a dark and smoky stairway until we reached a pit, she called the basement. She invited me to sit down in a flat beanbag chair.

Then, it started.

The whole experience was new and completely fascinating even if she was totally and completely wrong about me. Every so often she would turn her head from side to side as if the spirits were telling her something that was important about me. Then she would sit up, point her finger and scream out some bogus statement that wasn’t true at all.

This tactic is called cold reading.

The reader knows nothing about you; so they’ll throw out random statements, watch your face expressions and body movements to see which ones will stick. The clever ones will even ask you to write your name and birthday down so they can research your astrological charts using some free service on the Internet. Be Aware! Unfortunately, the problem isn’t the spiritualist or psychics.

The problem is the people who go to them.

Many are lost and trapped into a world of inner turmoil. They look for guidance, people to help them with their problems, only to find people who are more screwed up than they are. People who I call false Gods!

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