Durek Verrett brings ancient spiritual wisdom to a city that's always on the cutting edge

BY MATT FALBER

“A lot of people when you mention the word ‘Voudou’ in the States think 'dark magic' and that's not what the culture is all about,” explains Durek Verrett. Verrett is a shaman and for years his family engaged in Voudou, one of the world's oldest religions.

For most, Voudou conjures images of evil curses, barbaric ceremonies, and little dolls with pins sticking out of them. These perceptions stem largely from a book called Haiti or the Black Republic. The book was published in 1884 by an author who perceived Haitian culture as a threat to society. He wrote a sensational account of cannibalism, human sacrifice, and zombies which later became the basis of Hollywood's depiction of the Voodoo culture.

The actual religion, according to Verrett, is much different. “The culture comes from a deep respect for the earth. It comes from a ritual side of bringing more healing and protection, and helping people to really connect to their true source of power and in my family healing was very important.”

In the early 1900s Verrett's great grandmother came from Haiti to New Orleans where she worked with the noted Voudou priestess Marie Leveau. “They prophesied a boy was going to be born and he would hold the Gateway of the Shaman, [meaning he carries] a feminine and masculine polarity—which means being gay. Most shamans [are] because they [must] walk into the spirit world having the feminine and the masculine available.”

Verrett's family recalls him being able to talk to family members who had passed on by the age of three. He says he could see colors around people and began having visions of things that had not yet happened. You might think it would be wonderful to be born with magical powers in a family that already knows you're gay. But Verrett's upbringing is not the story of a happy Voudou family swapping ancient recipes with June Cleaver.

Verrett's family was concerned with the negative stigma that surrounded their culture and were determined to sever his Voudou roots. “I was so confused. This was who I was. [After] my parents divorced, my stepmom was very afraid of it. They were very abusive. Then one day I was coming out of the mall on my skateboard and this black Mercedes pulls up, and this woman rolls down her window and says, 'It's you. You come from an ancient line of great powerful people and your family has been trying to snuff it.’” The woman became Verrett's first teacher, teaching him to read Tarot cards, runes, and make magical oils— something he seemed to have an innate knowledge of. But this was just the beginning of his education

“I worked in India, in Turkey with whirling dervishes, went to Israel to study the Torah, then became a born again Christian. In Shamanism we go to everyone's culture and abandon everything we believe and go full heart into it until the spirits come in and say 'that's enough.'” Verrett was in the Belizean jungle studying herbs and plants when the spirits told him he needed to move to Los Angeles.

“It's going through a major spiritual transition.” He's particularly excited about working with L.A.’s vast gay community. “In the spirit world [gay people are] considered nature spirits which house every type of emotion, the fire element, the water element, the earth element, every element in the spiritual charts. You have everything inside of you in full spiritual awareness already.”

Having established himself in the City of Angels, Verrett spends his days cleansing people, purging their homes of bad energy, leading meditations, talking to people's spirit guides, and making magical oils that boost vitality, bolster creativity, and heal broken hearts.

He feels he can make a big impact on the world by continuing his work in L.A. “This is the place where all media that goes out to the rest of the world is filtered. So if the minds of the people are not coming from moving us towards a place of spiritual awareness, then the minds of the people in the United States are [not.]”

For more information on Durek Verrett, visit www.Rspirit.org. To contact him, send e-mail to durek@mac.com. For more information on his line of magical oils, visit mystraoils.com.