Zarabanda

Nsala Malecun-Malecun Nsala Zarabanda

"Where iron seduces steel, or metal finds rapture with mettle, I see him there. The train of destiny rolls on forever. His is an unstoppable locomotion, cheered ever onward by the crowing of the cock, and the echo of baying hounds. His whistle pierces the night's veil of silence, its shrill blast chases away the lingering ghosts haunting the dark, and shatters my illusions of doubt. He rumbles across creation with impunity over the backs of the wicked with a champion's roar. The tracks are open he bellows. The way is made clear. The machete leads the way and defends all who follow. He is Zarabanda!"

-Papa Crocodile

The pact with the Nfumbe: The hand of the living clasping the hand of the dead.

Within the grand universal mechanism of Palo Mayombe lies the one essential component of Palo's ignition.

Much like Nkuyu or Lucero is the falling star, the spark of life that star seded life on this planet, the Nfumbe is the fiery spark which starts the awesome machine called Palo Mayombe.

Without Nfumbe there is no Palo, there is no Palero, no Palera, and no religion. Nfumbe is the bridge between the living and the dead, the micro and the macro, the priest/ess and Nzambi as well as the Mpungo.

It is the pact a Palero/Palera makes with the Nfumbe which initiates them into the mystery tradition of Palo Mayombe and gives them license to call the attention of the Mpungo.

The Nfumbe is a single spirit of the dead who the priest/tess makes a life long pact with.

A pact to care for the Nfumbe, see to his or her well being and aid in their continued elevation or spiritual progression. In turn the Nfumbe acts as the priest/tess' s liaison within the kalunga or endless sea of the dead. The Nfumbe is the sole familiar spirit of the Palero or Palera and works for their protection, health, and attain victory in all their battles.

Without this pact no feat in Palo Mayombe can be accomplished. No Nganga or Prenda will blaze with life, no Mpaka will activate, and no spiritual congress will gather. All functions struck null and empty.

The mediumship preformed with the Nfumbe is paramount and in direct relfection of the relationship between Nzambi and humans, so much so it is the sum total of what the religion of Palo Mayombe is.

You cannot strike a pact with an Nfumbe without Palo Mayombe. Both are one in the same.Palo Mayombe is not the Nganga, or even the Mpaka, but the hand of the living reaching out for the hand of the dead, both pulling each other up in kind. Palo Mayombe is that before all else and nothing without it.

Palo Mayombe is about relationship. Man's relationship with the universe, with nature, with his or her community, house and temple. The preist or priestess' s relationship to their ancestors, and the desires of their own hearts. The relationship with Nfumbe touchs on, reveals and enhances all relationships the Palero or Palera has and forces reexamination with all.

The truth of this makes pale and shallow the idiotic valuation on the sacred act of necromancy by which the priest or priestess speaks with his or her Nfumbe, ancestor or errent dead and exercises acts of religion with or through them.

These fraudulent black magic hoaxsters so-called "living gods" profane these scared acts not by any infernal device but by sheer quackery and make mockery of the medium of necromancy. The joke they make of the goetic mysteries alone is unforgivable, and their attempt to align themselves with Palo Mayombe, Voudu and Kimbanda through the public's  ignorance of such traditions is just further examples of what complete shit stains these swindlers are.

There is no room for falsehood in Palo Mayombe. The prenda and the mpaka can be useless bootleg fabrications but the pact between priest/tess and the Nfumbe, between flesh and spirit can never be faked.

One can recite seven types mumbo-jumbo, draw all sorts of symbols, and leave generous offerings all in the theme of Palo Mayombe but that is all it is...themed. Without the essential component of the Nfumbe to bridge these acts to the Kalunga, and act as an agent on behalf of the priest or priestess, there is no Palo Mayombe and thereby no authenticity.

Palo Mayombe is all facets of human experience and all considerations of the Universe. The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly lies in the heart of the Palero or Palera. Those summer breezes or great raging storms are brought to or carrier away by the Nfumbe on behlaf of that priest or priestess.

It is time the public sees Palo Mayombe as a salve to wounds, and remedy to sickness, a temple in the heart of a community... not the curse hurling, corpse tampering, demon summon Halloween reject practice portrayed by certain unfortunates who sadly got way more attention then they deserve.

In my house the Nfumbe is honored and venerated. Palo Mayombe is practiced, and lived authentically. We sing, dance and commune with all the seasons, conditions and facets that flow through the portal of the Mpaka and are  forecast by my Nfumbe.

 Here true Palo Mayombe lives. By this strong communities are born and thrive.

-Papa Crocodile.

Goetic Energy Work and Circulation.

It is no surprise that magic is a practice where “energy” is the primary focus. Ask any occultist what magic is and you will no doubt hear some variation of this: “magic is the bending or manipulating “energy” to the will or desire of the occultist”.
It seems that answer is good enough for most, as it has been rehashed and regurgitated Ad-nauseam, but rarely ever effectively expanded upon.
The reason?
I believe because few have any real grasp of that answers implication.
It is true that magic is the bending/shaping of energy to mirror the will/desire of the occultist. Nothing wrong with the answer on the surface as it is wholly correct. The problem is that occultists use that small bit of knowledge (a dangerous thing) as a goal post for occultism, rather than the starting line for which it really is.
Magic is the energy of “response to stimuli”.
Thereby in order to conform to any sort of bending to will, or shaping to meet desire, there must be sufficient will or desire in order to correspond too.
The greater majority of modern occultists are weak.
They do not transmit their own will or desire strongly enough to stimulate a response from the magical linage they practice (sadly made worse that much of those magical lineages are from what I have termed the “hodgepodge lodge” a piece mail collection methods held in various different organized systems patch worked together into a disorganized ineffectual method of getting nowhere fast).
When I call most modern day occultists weak I do so without apology.
If someone is energetically weak, they are first weak both mentally and physically.Modern day occultism especially that of Western based mystery traditions, and steadily increasing include the African based mysteries, have become havens for the pseudo-intellectualist, the self-entitled, and limp wristed passive-aggressive idealist.
These people tend to be soft, easily rattled, impulsive, talk but no action, thought but no deed, theorist but no application based individuals.
It is small wonder why they can never seem to have any real interactions with spirits, their magical work is sub-par and their lives are mired in fantasy rather than reality.
Magic responses to what you bring to the table.
By virtue of still breathing you have a certain energy field however it is the grade, and condition of that energy field which needs to be addressed.Just because you stand in front on an altar and make demands, does not mean that anything will feel compelled to response.So what is energy?
Energy is the result of movement carrying mass.
All physical matter is super compressed empty particles, or “energies” condensed to give the impression they are inert. However these practices still hum and vibrate which gives off frequency, or sound. That sound being high pitched or low in pitch still have physical effects because of the movement of the weight behind it.  Your thoughts have a sub-atomic mass, a weight, which moves at the “speed of thought”, which now has in some cases been measured.The move structured-vivid-defined a thought is the heavier (in terms of sub-atomic weight) that thought is, and the more energy will be produced when driven by speed of thought.
Imagine a small marble hitting a wall at 180 mph; now imagine the energy produced by a 16lb cannon ball hitting that same wall at 180 mph.
The difference in effect would be notable to say the least.Many modern day occultists have not, and do not, perform ANY type of structured energy work.
Why? I feel it is primarily laziness. Energy work is well work, and if there is anything soft, self-entitled people hate its work.I also believe that cogitative dissonance plays a role too.
For so long these occultists have defended their position that no one can tell them what to do, and to just do whatever feels right. Seeing that doing just whatever you want and whatever feels good is the perfect road map to nowhere, they would rather continue down the road to nowhere rather than admit they were wrong.
The purpose of energy work is to take undeveloped thoughts, gradually build weight behind them and move and or sustain them for durations of time.You are effectively taking that marble sized thought and transforming it into a 16lb cannon ball in respect the type of response you will get it that type of stimuli.
I will introduce the first “circulation” of the energy work method I inherited from my Godfather in the Goetic linage held in my house.
You might “think” you know it or already perform it. I ask you not to make that mistake. For while you may in fact be at least familiar with it I invite you to really get to know the many components and refinements which have been lost on so many others. It could be that after you see the many different considerations that go into just this simple circulation, the method itself might be altogether new for you.The base: Stand. Relax. Close your eyes. Bring your attention to a sphere of soft white light the size of a basketball a foot above your head. Breathe in and as you exhale the sphere circulates down the left side of your body under you feet, and as you breathe in the sphere floats up the right side of your body back to above your head. Repeat 10 times.Consideration one: Your breath needs to remain absolute soft and silent. You should not hear your own inhales or exhales.Consideration two: You should not hold your breath. It is a tendency for many to hold their breath on the end of inhales or exhales. Your breath needs to be natural cycles; the exhale is the beginning of the inhale and vice verse. The rhythm needs to be developed and sustained.
Consideration three: The duration of the inhales and exhales should be mirrored and need to be built up to 10 seconds each of soft comfortable cycles of inhales and exhales with no breath holding. 20 seconds for each inhale and exhale.
Consideration four: The sphere of light must mirror your breath. The sphere of white must reach underneath your feet exactly when the next inhalation begins. The sphere of light must also be in transit over your head and down the left side of your body as your exhalation begins.
Consideration five: The sphere of light must be of steady shape, size, brightness, and speed throughout the entire process.Consideration six: the orbit of the sphere of light must be smooth and with no stops as this indicates interrupted breathing patterns or irregularities in breath.
I have not ever once meet anyone who can meet just two of these considerations starting out, and rarely is there anyone who has met even just one consideration.Energy work takes work, and it takes time.
It is a refinement process.These considerations make the work more effective and thereby the energy stimuli put out by a magician more likely to generate a stronger response from their magical system.
This makes more a more demanding but rewarding system of energy work.
I can honestly say that the energy work in the Goetic linage I inherited is light years beyond anything else I have found within the Western Mystery tradition widely practiced presently.
While there are even more considerations of just the first circulation, those will be enough to take the great majority of even so term occultists to a new level.
The body of energy work in my system, and its metaphysical composition is staggering.However is terms of just this circulation, simply read the exercise and apply “consideration one” to the base line. Once you can sustain “consideration one” apply “consideration two”, and so forth.
You will attain a very profound, power and refined energy circulation of which has tremendous carry over to all aspects of the occult.

-Papa Crocodile.

Vititi Congo/Sight of the Congo

While all Palo Mayombe is Cuban and is linked to the Congo of Africa, there seems to have been an attempt by other Palo Mayombe houses or musansos to distance themselves from their African roots. Why? I can’t say for sure.

 I have been told by other Paleros (priests of Palo Mayombe) that there is no such thing as African based Palo Mayombe, even though Mayombe was around thousands of years before Palo Mayombe and all the M’pungo (deities) of Palo Mayombe are Congolese.
 I tend to avoid such linage based nonsense from rama to rama (linage of Palo Mayombe) and continue to do what I know works because the results, accuracy and proficiency of my efforts with the spirits of the Congo.

One Palero recently wrote “In my rama (of Palo Mayombe) we are moving to a more heavily Mayombe approach”.

A very strange comment for someone already initiated into Palo Mayombe. Maybe it is an admittance that some Cuban houses of Palo Mayombe realize that they are hurting themselves by trying to deny their Congo linage. What does the Mayombe contain that the other ramas are missing? I am glad not to know.

I am happy to have been initiated into a Palo Mayombe house who considers itself more a Congo house rather than a Cuban one. We are most definitely “mayombe” and always have been.

Another issue might be the reason I get so many questions about the use of the M’paka, the third eye of a M’pungo, a portal, and a divination tool with no superior. It is made using a horn, and then filled with the mysteries of the M’pungo who resides over that M’paka, topped off with a round mirror (mensu-mensu)

M'paka

.

Through the trance work, and use of stimulates like tobacco kept secret in Palo Mayombe, the priest or priest can affect how they want to scry into the M’paka and for what purposes; remote viewing, seeing past and future events, astral projection, looking at someone’s health, viewing the dead, solutions to problems and even projecting influence over someone else. All through the M’paka and supported by the correct state of trance and stimulus.

This is called Vititi Congo, or the sight of the Congo. It is truly African art and maybe one of the things missing from other Palo ramas? From the amount of questions I get from scratched Palo Mayombe initiates about how to use the M’paka it seems as such. More awkward is the silence that follows after I ask them why their godfathers or godmothers do not teach them this.

Vititi Congo is something I make extremely heavy use of and a facet that makes Palo Mayombe truly formidable. Second only to Vititi Congo would be the divination practices I still work in the Goetic linage I inherited, and I do not say that lightly.

In my much younger years I remember watching Conan the Destroyer and the magical horn and god/monster. It gave me chills, and haunted my dreams. I knew even then some 30 years ago that I somehow someday would have a magical horn connected to the third eye of a powerful deity... thank you Palo Mayombe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmvPLtawtKc

In fact just recently I found out from a friend of mine who is close to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and writers of the movie Conan the Destroyer that they researched elements of Ritual High Magic, Goetia, and yes even Palo Mayombe and bended them into the magical structure of that Hyborian world setting. Interestingly enough Hyboria resembles what in the secret tradition of my Goetic linage calls the 3^rd age of humanity.

Much of the mirror magic, East Asian sorcery, shape shifting and illusionary glamours found in Conan the
Destroyer is based in true practices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HitAtndOsWw

Seeing that movie as a child of 7 or 8 ignited something inside me, like a remembering, and I heard a call that I follow even to this day. I found the Goetia and Palo Mayombe as a direct result.

Okay enough nostalgia.

Vititi Congo is essential to the practice of Palo Mayombe because it demonstrates the global and through my experiences, the universal reach of the M’pungo. It allows myself to come into correct alignment with them and in turn Nzambi, the great creator and true God of all things, and elevate my understanding of the mysteries that surround time, space, perception and connection.

When a priest or priestress of Palo Mayombe is able to see anything through the blessing of the M’pungo and Nzambi, it is clear they can attain anything through the blessing of the M’pungo and Nzambi. This is a vital component of the religion of Palo Mayombe, and a key insight into the Congolese spiritual worldview.

Through Nzambi all things are possible.

In true Congo tradition, Mayombe was practiced only by the royal and warrior caste. The M’paka served as the third eye of the M’pungo, but the prenda or Nganga was the body of the M’pungo. These where often buried and a tree planted over them. The priests would hold rituals around the tree, and whole communities would grow up around them. These trees still exist and some are thousands of years old, and the rama of Palo Mayombe I am a part is directed linked to a few of those trees.

The warriors of a tribe would carry the M’paka, and use it to decipher where their enemies where hiding, where to hunt, what trouble might lay ahead, what solutions to problems could be found, and even to speak with their ancestors. The M’paka is a portable and versatile tool linked back to the Nganga which gave birth to it and it the major power center.

The M’paka is a portal also. The priest or priest may call any of the M’ungo through the M’paka, as well as any spirit of the dead.

A truly wondrous and frightful utility is that the M’paka is a two-way portal and the priest or priestess may travel supported by the dead into the astral or Ndozi (dream) realm.

Someone very recently found out that Palo Mayombe has global reach as above mentioned, and thought that he could make threats of death and rape to someone under my protection, as long as they out of my physical reach.

I traveled through my M’paka into their Ndozi, and influenced their dream body to believing a large spider was eating their face. They woke to find that their physical body was mimicking their dream body and he had torn open large gashes into his cheeks that required stitches close.

Should this need to happen again, it will be much, much worse…

But through a similar application I could also look into a sick person’s body and interpret what I see and where. These clues I have provided for clients has been life changing in knowing how to manage their healthcare and nudge doctors in the right direction even when they initially cannot find anything wrong with the person and yet it’s clear they are suffering.

Palo Mayombe use of Vititi Congo frees the priest or priestess from societal base level views of right and wrong. The perception is elevated and the powers to create and destroy, life and death become versatile in their application.However this different from the selfish, self entitled left hand path nonsense of neo-occultism that argues their is no good or evil. A bunch of snot nosed children inviting a righteous spanking  and a lesson in actions and consequence is all those miscreants are.

Palo Mayombe knows that Vititi Congo is reflected by Malongo, or “Nature” itself. Most Neo-pagans claim to be nature venerators but can’t see the forest because of all the trees. They will walk into nature, inhale and exhale deeply and extol the peace and tranquility they “see”. Vititi Congo knows/sees not so much differently, but much more than that narrow view.

Vititi Congo shows me the great and many battles of life and death happening in the grass under my feet, the ants tearing apart other insects or tiny mammals too sick to run away. The bird of prey, snake, or trap door spider searching for, or waiting for its next meal to happen by. Let us not even get started on the violent conflicts happening on the microbial level.

Even the trees are muscling for rank and over taking weaker tree’s root systems with their own.
True “peace” is attained by knowing the great conflict and fortifying your place within it.  

Malongo/Nature is predatory.

The Universe is predatory.

If you reach out to a dog who growls as a warning (nature’s way of saying do not touch) and then you reach out further and the dog bites your fingers off is that the dog’s fault or yours? You are perpetuator of uninvited contact, you are the culprit and your lesson was sorely needed.

This man (?) threatened to rape and kill my goddaughter, is being influenced to rip his own face ripped open not in accordance to natural consequences of approaching a growling dog?

For his own sake the lesson is that he thinks twice about his actions, and doesn’t think he is above consequence.

How much of the world would change in a weekend of that was fully realized by everyone??

I could give birth to cancer in a person, create psychological break down, as easily as bringing about the death of a tumor or destroy the stranglehold a gang has on a neighborhood.

Vititi Congo perception is not narrow, limited or base. For the sake of humankind’s elevation, he and she cannot be either.

Vititi Congo allows for near instant bigger view of the Macrocosm and zoom in telescopic sight of the microcosm.

The biggest to the smallest and all points inbetween.

Vititi Congo is truly the sight of Nzambi and it is only through Nzambi’s blessing and the aid of the M’pungo and the dead that I can attain to such sight. I am just a man, and I require the divine aid of my creator and it’s creations to find and maintain my assemblage point in the grand multi-layered and infinite dimensions of the universe of totality.

I hope this brief write up about a mere smattering of Vititi Congo helps you see the religion of Palo Mayombe as something which forever seeks to know and understand man’s true role and place in the universe, to awaken the “God-Mind” in our own minds, and learn the appropriate versatile uses of such pivotal energies as life and death, creation and destruction rather than just another strange “voodoo” for placing curses and hex on people that many seem to want limit Palo Mayombe into being.

-Papa Crocodile