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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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Backstory: I met my first girlfriend when I was around 17. Then I met her family, and during that time, O developed arthritis.
The pains were really bad, to the point that some days I couldn't even stand up from my bed. One day, her parents called me and asked me if they could "help" me.
This is where the story starts, they said they were part of a "religious group" and were called Santeros (so they practiced Santeria).
The thing is, at the time I was so ignorant that I didn't even know what that was and didn't even make the effort to find out for some reason.
They told me they could take me to a guy that could pray for my health and whatnot. Since I didn't want to sound rude, I agreed and we went to the place.
The man (priest? Idk) kept insisting he knew I had noghtmares and I was afraid of someone chasing me, to which I kept insisting that that was not the case. Yhe whole experience was weird.
But then he told my girlfriend's parents that he wanted to see me again because he meeded to "perform" to be able to help me with his prayers.
For some reason, I didn't even pay attention to this and just said sure.
A week goes by and I am going, again, to the same place with priest with my gf's parents. The difference is that, this time, there is a giant box in the back of the car.
I get there and they take me to the second floor of thr place. The floor is completely messed up woth dirt all over the place and weird artifacts, cockroaches, spiders, and a hole on the rooftop.
They tell me to take my clothes off (except my underwear) and pray to a god (I think it was called Oshun? I don't remember).
After chanting and praying, they tell me to lay down on the ground looking up. I do so and they proceed to take a small calf out of the box, decapitate and dismember it next to me, and afterwards putting the body in top of me in the form of a cross, all while chanting, singing, dancing, etc.
After that they told me to bathe in a specific river using oranges as a sponge.
The whole experience was fucking surreal, after that, I just reject almost everything that has to do with religion.
Well?? Did it help??
It certainly helped me stay away from the family after that! The family told me "your belief was not strong enough, that's why it didn't cure your arthritis". Sure...
That's wild. Where the hell this happened?
Venezuela, where I was born (although I don't live there anymore). However, there were way more Santeria small sacrifices (chickens) in Miami, FL when I used to live there, walking by the streets and actually looking at the bushes next to the streets you realize it's really common, every now and then you find a bloody plastic bag with a beheaded chicken/rooster and hanging chicken legs.