Out of Africa came the cult of spirits who could enter human beings and cross the boundary between life and death. Carried across the Atlantic to the New World, voodoo gave the slaves in the West Indies a new sense of identity and hope. But around it clustered sinister tales of sorcery, animal scarifice and zombies. Seen as dangerous and taboo, voodoo became an underground religion. This book shows how voodoo has survived the prejudice and persecution of the past and how it thrives today as a cultural force.