I was reading up on duppies ("bad" spirits in Jamaican culture) and came across the term obeah man, a sort of witch who can get rid of or even send duppies after people. I looked up those words and found that Obeah is a religion that originated in West Africa involving witchcraft and is considered similar to hoodoo but I couldn't find very much about it.
My dad is Jamaican and I've never asked him about the religion, mostly because I just found out about it. Mom told me though that he believes very strongly in many of the ideas of Obeah. Apparently whenever something goes wrong in his life, he believes he is being hexed by someone, and will tell someone back home in Jamaica so they can contact an obeah man to fix it.
Does anyone here practice Obeah or know much more about it? I'd love to know more, but I am having trouble finding a lot of info.
Obeah
Re: Obeah
You will not find much on Obeah. It is very secretive. 
I am first born american and both parents are from Jamaica. My parents will not speak of the Obeah man or woman. Every time I present with a knowing of certain things, they immediatly dismiss it as intuition. Now being an adult, i noticed that My gift of "Knowing" or Empath ability is growing at an expencial rate. I do no posses the capability of ridding a duppy(ghost). but I tend to hit on certain things why it might be there. I have a friend was being attacked by spirit and I asked this forum for help and allot of thisngs they said i kind of figured, but since i am new at accepting my ability. I will always ask for help.
So the only way to find out about Obeah, is to visit jamaica and speak to your relatives. The open minded ones. I hope I helped.
(Oh a memory hit that proves that it runs in my family and my mother chooses to deny it. She dreamt of my uncle running through our house and he said he wanted to say hello and stay awhile. She said she told him he must go and never return. She woke up and burn inceance at the front door, to make sure he will not come back.
Later that day she recieved a phone call that her uncle died.)
I am first born american and both parents are from Jamaica. My parents will not speak of the Obeah man or woman. Every time I present with a knowing of certain things, they immediatly dismiss it as intuition. Now being an adult, i noticed that My gift of "Knowing" or Empath ability is growing at an expencial rate. I do no posses the capability of ridding a duppy(ghost). but I tend to hit on certain things why it might be there. I have a friend was being attacked by spirit and I asked this forum for help and allot of thisngs they said i kind of figured, but since i am new at accepting my ability. I will always ask for help.So the only way to find out about Obeah, is to visit jamaica and speak to your relatives. The open minded ones. I hope I helped.
(Oh a memory hit that proves that it runs in my family and my mother chooses to deny it. She dreamt of my uncle running through our house and he said he wanted to say hello and stay awhile. She said she told him he must go and never return. She woke up and burn inceance at the front door, to make sure he will not come back.
Later that day she recieved a phone call that her uncle died.)
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Kassandra
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Re: Obeah
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Thanks for sharing your experiences, Aceso. The original post is from back in February, so hopefully the poster found some info. Not sure why she/he had a hard time, though --I ran obeah in a quick Google search, and tons of info came up, pages and pages.
It was immediately obvious from the stuff I read why people are still hesitant to openly talk about it, though. From this quote, it seems like at one time in Jamaica just mentioning the word alone got people in a bunch of trouble:
Indeed, the term obeah has come to be endowed with a
malevolent/malign social power - much like the "bad words"
(swear words) which can lead to legal sanctions if publicly
uttered in Jamaica or other West Indian societies
http://jeromehandler.org/wp-content/upl ... lby-04.pdf
"Legal sanctions," geez. No wonder folks are still hush hush about it to this day, though those "sanctions" may have been dropped by now. The way the Christian church suppressed the native religions throughout the Americas and the Caribbean is similar to how it suppressed the native religions in European countries such as Ireland. The Irish "had to convert" to Christianity, but many of them still kept their old ways. I'm sure legal sanctions were in place there at one point in history, as well.
.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Aceso. The original post is from back in February, so hopefully the poster found some info. Not sure why she/he had a hard time, though --I ran obeah in a quick Google search, and tons of info came up, pages and pages.
It was immediately obvious from the stuff I read why people are still hesitant to openly talk about it, though. From this quote, it seems like at one time in Jamaica just mentioning the word alone got people in a bunch of trouble:
Indeed, the term obeah has come to be endowed with a
malevolent/malign social power - much like the "bad words"
(swear words) which can lead to legal sanctions if publicly
uttered in Jamaica or other West Indian societies
http://jeromehandler.org/wp-content/upl ... lby-04.pdf
"Legal sanctions," geez. No wonder folks are still hush hush about it to this day, though those "sanctions" may have been dropped by now. The way the Christian church suppressed the native religions throughout the Americas and the Caribbean is similar to how it suppressed the native religions in European countries such as Ireland. The Irish "had to convert" to Christianity, but many of them still kept their old ways. I'm sure legal sanctions were in place there at one point in history, as well.
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Re: Obeah
Thank you Kassandra, for taking the time to look it up. Like I said before and as you read to even ask anyone about it, They will tell you to pray on your problems and it will go away. You can talk about other forms of witch craft easier than you can about this. I hope the person who wrote this get's the feed back as well. Blessed be 
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Bartleby
Re: Obeah
Thanks Aceso for your input! I still don't know a whole lot about it, but I know more than I did and I am piecing it all together. My father has a story similar to that of your mother's, in fact! There's so many little things he's always done that seem to be remenants of Obeah, little bits of folk magic here and there. I'm just now realizing how much!
Google was and is always the first thing I turn to, so I already knew about its history and the taboo around it. In fact, I already knew that from my mother and father. It was more of the practice of Obeah rather than the history that I was searching for here. Since google was next to no help, I have since turned to books, Jamaican folklore, and West African history.
With the information I'm (still!) slowly putting together, I am making myself a path that honors all of my roots.
Google was and is always the first thing I turn to, so I already knew about its history and the taboo around it. In fact, I already knew that from my mother and father. It was more of the practice of Obeah rather than the history that I was searching for here. Since google was next to no help, I have since turned to books, Jamaican folklore, and West African history.
With the information I'm (still!) slowly putting together, I am making myself a path that honors all of my roots.