Magickal Stories - The Exú

Over a weird first hangout where we sat and drank tea from chairs so deep and low to the ground we felt like children at the grownups' table, Brian Butler and I decided to begin a collaboration where I’d come over and dig through his personal archives of obscure occult objects and texts and ask him a bunch of questions. Brian’s an artist, writer, and musician whose Crowley-style occult studies are related to his work, which is obvious from his short films Night of Pan and The Dove and the Serpent. He is also known for his collaborations with Kenneth Anger. Brian has access to all kinds of magickal stuff requiring clearance that comes through ritual. And he’s found items you can acquire only when you go searching in weird pockets of the world way off the cultural grid.

During a trip to northern Brazil a few years ago, he discovered Candomblé, a polytheistic Afro-Brazilian religion founded in the spirit of nature. Sometimes Candomblé is confused with Macumba, which makes sense because it’s another polytheistic Afro-Brazilian religion—only people associate Macumba with voodoo and witchcraft and don’t like to bring it up in polite company. Macumba is split into two schools; the dark side is called Quimbanda. And Brian found one of its highest kings.

VICE: Who do we have here?
Brian Butler: His name is Belzebu and he’s the South American version of Baphomet. He’s what’s called an exú, or a demon, in the system called Quimbanda. I found him this past July when I went to Porto Alegre, which is south of Brazil. It was just the summer solstice here, but I went there in the same week and it was the winter solstice. It was interesting to shift everything to the opposite.

The first morning there we had a press conference and met a kind of strange guy. I wasn’t expecting to do much occult research on this trip, as I’d already been to the north of Brazil and found the Candomblé people in Salvador. It’s a heavy region for Candomblé because the port there is preserved from Africa. They say the system of voodoo is more pure because it’s been preserved, like a time warp.

There, I met someone who spoke English and she basically said that I was looking for the devil. He is called Exú in the system of Candomblé.

How did she come to this conclusion?
We were talking about magick and the occult and to simplify, people don’t understand what I’m talking about unless I say “demon” or “devil” or “Satan” or something. If you say “occultism” in general, most people don’t—well, maybe gradually it’s changing, but in general people don’t have anything but the devil to latch onto or have a reference for. Kabbalah or Western magick, people don’t know what that means.

So you just say “devil.”
Yeah, I mean look at him. You look at him and say, “Oh, that’s the devil.”

How did you find this woman?
I went to São Paulo first, and some people there know I’m into this kind of stuff. I got a list of names of people to contact, voodoo priests.

Where did you start?
At an art opening I asked the host about voodoo. I didn’t know if he’d be offended, but he said “Yes, the security guard here is a voodoo priest. Maybe he’ll invite you to his ceremony tomorrow night.” It was kind of like Serpent and the Rainbow.

I went to their ceremony and it was kind of tame, women on one side and men on the other. It reminded me of a Southern church. They were throwing rice, and the security guard came out wearing a gold outfit and he had these metal serpents on his arms, he was sweating and his eyes were all big. And the people next to me, he would wipe his sweat on them as some kind of blessing. I asked these people about the darker aspects and they got evasive and didn’t want to talk about it.

When you say “darker aspects,” what do you mean?
The other deities. This was a ceremony but they weren’t actually doing real voodoo practices. They were celebrating a deity but I don’t think they were trying to impose their will on the universe or work magic.

It wasn’t what you were looking for.
Not really. On my last day we decided to take a look at some places on this list. The next place we couldn’t find, so we asked a man walking up a hill with a box on his head for directions and he offered to take us there. It was pretty removed from the tourist areas, up in the favelas. We walked up and there was chicken blood all over the door.

I wanted to get a shell reading from the priestess. It didn’t work out with her but she said she’d lead us to another place that would do it. We walked out the front door and she walked out the back door. So we kept walking and it was getting more and more dangerous. I went to the temple in this favela and as I went in, they had a sort of doghouse in front. They were like, “That’s Exú’s house. He’s too evil, you can’t even look in the house, it’s too dangerous.”

Did you want to?
I was curious, that’s why they led me here. I went inside the temple and I got a shell reading. It was interesting and I learned some stuff.

So how does this connect with Belzebu?
When I went to this press conference last summer in the south of Brazil, years later, there was this guy there asking occult questions. I introduced myself to him and he told me about the kind of magick they had there. He seemed to have a lot of knowledge. “Let’s go right now and I can show you the market,” he said. We get to the market, and it’s all Exús. It was like a hundred statues of different versions of this guy.

Did you have to tell this guy what you were looking for?
No, he knew.

How?
It was obvious. I found out, that’s their whole religion there. The type of voodoo they practice is called Quimbanda and it’s all about what Candomblés call Exú. The devil of the other place, which they kept outside the house, to these people is like their God.

OK, so you’re at the market.
Yeah, and the guy I’m with speaks English, which is a big plus. They got all happy when I was there, and they started bringing out porcupine quills and showing me how to put death curses on people, do all these sort of things, very enthusiastic and jovial people. I got some quills.

Later that night I went to another guy’s temple and he had an elaborate temple for another exú called Tatá Caveira. Earlier in the day I’d gravitated toward a statue of him. He’s like a skeleton sitting in a chair. This guy’s temple was pretty intense.

How was it intense?
This was his protective spirit that he would send out. So it had a lot of blood and ashes, it was a pretty heavy vibe of this skeleton dude. He seemed pretty powerful.

Who is Tatá Caveira?
He has a lot to do with revenge. He was betrayed in his lifetime and came back as this skeleton in a chair.

But you didn’t bring him home with you, you brought back Belzebu. Why is he here? What’s he do?
What do you think he does?

What he would do for me is probably different from what he’d do for you. For me “the devil” is about stirring things up, showing you where you’re held down of your own will. Division, dividing. I’m not freaked out by him like some people are. Obviously you’re not either.
Yeah, I don’t think he’s the devil from the Bible. He’s basically a version of Baphomet, or he could also be a version of Pan. He represents the all. He’s androgynous, he’s pointing above and below, so he’s sort of the balance between the higher and the lower, the spiritual and the material. And actually that’s why I brought it back, because that’s what the Quimbanda priest advised me when I was there. He did a reading but the readings there are different.

What’s different?
You hang out, and—he explained to me—again, it’s all through translation—that he can give a reading only when the spirit comes through him, and he can’t say when that’s going to be. You kind of hang out, and discern when he’s possessed or the deities are speaking through him. It’s a way of balance. That’s what this represents, the balance of all these different forces and being on the fulcrum of these different things. Like riding a wave.

What’s his crown?
He’s a king. There are ranks of demons, and some are kings. Some are just people who graduated. You don’t necessarily have to be a pious person or a hero to become an exú. One of the common translations is “people of the street.”

Sort of how we are all Gods?
Yeah, kind of. They have a homeless person as one of their statues. There’s very few texts in English explaining this religion. I’d never really heard about it or considered it, and I was kind of blown away. Like, Wow, these people have this thing and it’s all about demons. The so-called “dark side.”

Why do you say “so-called”?
Well, it’s all relative to where you are: physically, spiritually, mentally. A good analogy is the equator. On the other side, like in South America, everything is opposite. It doesn’t mean it’s evil or good, it’s just opposite. If you’re on a different pole sometimes things look different from where you are. Maybe to some people Christianity is evil, in that it’s restrictive and oppressive. Maybe that’s the dark side. It’s dark to me. And the light is freedom and creative expression and fun. A lot of these exús, they like to have fun. That’s the running theme. And that’s the spirit of the people, they were all having a good time, even when explaining how to do death curses.

Um…
Also, as I was in Brazil last summer, I have a guy in New York who’s an old friend, a collector. He was up in a park near his home and that’s a spiritual thing for him, that’s where the Process Church went, and the Son of Sam/David Berkowitz lived next to there too. So while I was there I told him about Exú, and he got really into it. He’d go to the park and do different things, and he just sent me a care package this week of items he put together. I haven’t really gone through it.

Wait, he goes to the park and does “stuff”?
I showed him a picture of the Tatá Caveira temple and he noticed the main exú, the old African one, it’s like a stone with seashells for eyes and the mouth, and it’s in like a mound of dirt. So he felt a need to make that in the park. That’s where the Process Church—the order Son of Sam belonged to—conducted sacrifice rituals there.

I don’t think the Process Church conducted sacrifices.
Yeah, they did. They had a portable crematorium.

What did they sacrifice?
Humans. Anyway, I’m going to start selling these rocks on my website.

Where did this come from?
There’s a sacred site that has a limited amount of these stones. I’m actually feeling something from this.

What are you feeling?
Some vibes, some sparkle.

We dug through the package together and discovered that along with the stone exú, there was candy to feed it, a vial of sparkles to keep him happy (who doesn’t like sparkles, really?), palm oil and cologne to spruce him up, a ceremonial rattle, and protective and purifying candles, one of which, to Brian, felt holy. “He sent me another box that I haven’t opened yet,” Brian said, and began to drag an enormous box out from the corner and opened it up. Here’s what was inside:

I like how you were like, “Oh, it’s just sitting here.” Do you have a lot of things just lying around that you don’t open?
Sometimes. He sends me music gear too, because it’s all related: occult ritual.

What do you do with this stuff?
If the need comes up, I reach in my drawer for it. But I don’t do it just to do it. I’m beyond the level of experimenting.

Upon further inspection we find a small black velvet box. Here’s what was in that:

Whoa! A Process Church ring!
Yes, this is pretty awesome. So you can see the sort of chain of cause and effect of all these things, and how they develop.

And then we found what Brian called “the mojo bag”: herbs and candy and incense. The Marshall amp was packed exactly like a deity.

Look, a bag of guitar strings, and custom picks too!
They have Lam printed on them. Lam is the extraterrestrial that Aleister Crowley communicated with.

That’s pretty great.
I had a visitation from him in Brazil.

Let’s save that magickal story for another time.

@lizzyarmstrong