A woman from North Carolina is reportedly dead following her decision to go on a “Vodou retreat.”
As USA TODAY reported, 51-year-old Dana Jackson supposedly died after going on a Vodou retreat in Haiti where she was planning to become initiated as a “Manbo priestess.”
As Harvard University notes, a manbo or mambo is a “female ritual specialist in the Haitian Vodou tradition.” This person “performs ceremonies, initiations, healings and divinations. She is a spiritual guide for those who make contact with the gods through possession.”
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Jackson’s son, Timothy Jackson, said this form of sorcery is something his mother had been practicing for years. His mother left for her trip to Haiti on July 1 and was slated to come back to the United States on the 26.
There’s one particular part of the Vodou ceremony which would require Jackson to not communicate with others, something that deeply troubled her son.
“…she sent me one last message on the 13th, and said, ‘we will talk on the 21st, going to church tomorrow,’” Timothy Jackson said.
Timothy received one more message from his mom asking him to “pray for her” on July 21. He continued to try to reach out to her, but never received a response. His grandmother then notified him on July 22 that his mother had died.
“The way she told was, ‘your mom’s not coming back from Haiti,’” Jackson said. “She said, ‘she’s not coming back from Haiti. She passed away…’”
Jackson said his mother was not in the company of complete strangers on this trip. They were people she had previously knew and built community with. However, when Jackson tried to get a hold of the group leaders, he had a suspicious feeling that something wasn’t adding up with the stories he was being told.
“To be completely honest with you, my initial thought was my mom went down to Haiti,” Jackson said, “They did this last piece of the ceremony, and something sinister happened.”
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Jackson said he was told that his mother became ill during the deeply spiritual ceremony and then fainted. He was then told when she was finally conscious again, she thought she was in Virginia, a state that she hadn’t lived in in more than a year. He was also told that she had a heart attack and a stroke at the hospital after having seizures.
“They said that my mom didn’t bring her medicine. So there was a red flag, because what medicine are you guys talking about?” Jackson asked.
As of Aug. 16, Timothy Jackson still has not received word about the whereabouts of his mother’s body.
This terrifying and heartbreaking story is a reminder as to why believers should not mess around with deadly and demonic things like Vodou. The enemy has every intention of stealing, killing and destroying anyone he can. It is only through Christ where we can find true life and freedom.
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Abby Trivett is content development editor for Charisma Media.
