CARACAS, Venezuela -- The man says he is possessed by a god. He shouts, his body trembles and he lifts a sacrificed lamb to his lips, drinking its blood from the jugular. This initiation ceremony, ...

Disciples fill Faizah Perry's sunny suburban Houston home for a day of worship as chanting emanates from a sheet-curtained side room in which she divines the future and enacts other secret rituals.

Santeria is essentially an African way of worship drawn into a symbiotic relationship with Catholicism. The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Marcea Eliade Santería is an amorphous, practical, and oral ...

Tis the season of the dead: from Halloween to All Saint's Day, when traditionally Christian societies venerate those who have passed on. But for practitioners of the Afro-Cuban philosophy of Santería, ...

All this week, Morning Edition is talking about drums and drummers. The third installment in "Beat Week" explores the beats used in Afro-Cuban Santería ceremonies. Our guide is Felix Contreras, ...

The man says he is possessed by a god. He shouts, his body trembles and he lifts a sacrificed lamb to his lips, drinking its blood from the jugular. This initiation ceremony, seldom witnessed by ...

Santeria was created in Cuba by the mingling of Yoruba traditions brought by enslaved Africans from Nigeria and Benin with the Roman Catholic faith of the Spanish plantation owners. Attempts were made ...