Source: Philadelphia City Paper
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/29/the-spirits-move-them
The drums are already playing softly as members of Le Peristyle II Voodo sanctuary gather on the second floor of John Dowell and Roseanne O'Connor' home on North 15th Street, just a block away from Temple University. Th regular participants, usually no more than a dozen women and men, wearin regulation white or funerary colors, languidly prepare for the service by exchangin greetings and salutations.
As a persistent, throbbing drum beat creates a steady rhythm, and the faint smell of burning herbs carries through the two white, airy, high-ceilinged rooms, a spiritual guide called the "mambo" recites a litany of prayers, upon which the sanctuary is consecrated and believed to become a very powerful gateway to the spiritual world.
Papa Legba, ouvri baye-a pou mwen
Pou mwen pase.
Le ma tounen, ma salyie lwa yo.
Papa Legba, open the gate for me
So I can go through.
When I return, I will salute the loa.
Just about every Sunday, an ecstatic group of parishioners gathers to commune with Creole spirits called "loa." As they chant songs and even sacrifice animals within the sanctuary, Dowell and O'Connor, both mambos, can become possessed by a pantheon of deities. Not only do the possessed — who often make jerking motions — walk and talk in the manner of each effigy, but they change costumes and take on well-known characteristics embodying the male and female characters of this ancient religion.