Today we speak with Lou Florez about his life as a diviner and metaphysical reader who facilitates spiritual connectivity and transformational empowerment throughout his myriad roles as a Priest, lecturer, author, medicine maker, and activist. We speak about afro-carribean diasporic magical traditions and the problems of their systemic exclusion in the Euro-Western knowledge academy. Lou speaks of the importance of unknown, called the great mystery in world wisdom traditions, and we go on to discuss this in relation to the transformative powers of the arts, specifically music, and how the embodiment of this mystery can become a liberatory and revolutionary practice. We share magical stories and end by talking about the fundamentals of cleansing practices from Lou’s most recent book The Modern Art of Brujería: A Beginner’s Guide to Spellcraft, Medicine Making, and Other Traditions of the Global South (Ulysses Press, 2022).

Lou Florez (Awo Ifadunsin) is a diviner and metaphysical reader who facilitates spiritual connectivity and transformational empowerment throughout his myriad roles as a Priest, lecturer, author, medicine maker, and activist. His work is inherently interdisciplinary and intersectional—bridging the fields of herbalism, ecology, divination, poetry, psychology, religious studies, gender and sexual studies, mixed-media art, and perfumery. Lou investigates the emanating Spirit present within all these fields and incorporates them into experiences that activate the Spirit within.

Lou is the cofounder and executive director of Water Has No Enemy (WHNE), a nonprofit committed to healing justice. WHNE seeks to honor the timeless and enduring indigenous wisdom stolen from communities of color through centuries of slavery, colonization, and institutionalized oppression and reclaim it for today’s world. The organization offers a collaborative space for changemakers to explore healing justice because we believe that true healing occurs at all levels—from the individual and social levels to our relationship to the natural world. We promote services and programming that intersectionally addresses social change, community activism, and transformation through indigenous, Yoruba, and African diasporic perspectives.

The EWP Podcast credits

• Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook
  


• Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (PhD candidate)


• Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay


• Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay


• Introduction music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala
  


• Music at the end of the episode: New Horizons by Justin Gray’s Synthesis
  


• Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra

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