E. A. Koetting and Baron DePrince - The Spider and The Green Butterfly

E.A. Koetting/Baron DePrince
The Spider and the Green Butterfly
malevolent Loa with a benevolent one, but instead will call
forth the Loa that was used in the original Operation of
Baneful Magick and will work with that Loa alone to lift
the curse.
Rada-
The Rada Family or nation of Loa are generally
more ancient than the other two, being the Loa brought
over directly from west Africa during the forced migration
of slavery. Many of the Loa worshipped and worked with
in Haitian Vodoun can be found in startling unchanged
forms in African worship today. This is even more
startling when the fact that Vodoun tradition has, until now,
remained an oral tradition, never having been committed to
writing by any of its adherents, but only by outside
speculators and spectators.
It is often mistakenly claimed that the Rada Loa are
more benevolent than either those of the Petro or the Ghede
families. While the nature of the Petro Loa tends towards
violence and chaos, and the Ghede Loa and spirits favor
vulgarity, sexual deviance, and general destruction of the
individual, the Rada Loa are not without their own evils.
Legba, one of the most well-known Rada Loa, is
not known for shying away from trickery, deceit, or
outright harm in order to teach and to guide humans in their
own Ascent, or, on occasion, for his simple amusement.
Ogoun, the Rada Loa of war, weapons, and fire, is far from
kind, both to his enemies or to those he possesses, the
possessed often washing their hands or bodies in flaming
rum, or sometimes will even piece themselves with a
sword, or entirely run themselves through with it.
White is the color often associated with the Rada
Loa, and is the color of the garments and many of the
implements used in rituals and ceremonies centered around
the Rada Family or a specific Rada Loa.
Petro -
The Petro family of Loa are considered to be those
which were either discovered or created after the forced
immigration from Dahomey to Haiti. By "created," I do
not mean to say that Houngans themselves created these
Loa in the same manner that a Kabbalist might "create" an
egregore, or a spirit servitor, in order to manifest a specific
change. Instead, some the Petro Loa are created by the
incredible acts of power of some people in their lives,
granting them immortality after the flesh as new members
of the Petro family of Loa.
The name of the family, "Petro," is thought to come
from the name of a powerful and violent Vodoun Priest,
Don Juan Felipe Pedro, who supposedly rose into the
pantheon of the Loa after his death. Many of the Petro Loa
are also said to be the "ascended" souls of powerful
warriors, slaves, and Houngans.
Other Petro Loa, however, do not display any such
connection to the deceased, but instead are simply violent
spirits who are quick to answer to the call for Baneful
Magick and who demand above all else the most dangerous
and difficult forms of blood sacrifice.
There seems to be some ambiguity, however, in the
direct link between the Rada and the Petro families. Every
Loa is said to have a reverse or negative side, a destructive
and violent side to counter the productive and benevolent
aspect of the Loa. The violent form of any Loa is often
considered to be in the Petro family, even though the
original Loa is of the Rada family.