Loa was a word used in Haiti to refer to a type of spirit or god found in voodoo/vodoun religions. They differed from other gods and angels in that they didn't exist far above people. Instead of being worshipped the loa were treated as friends who could be talked to, who could dance with the priests and priestesses, and who were capable of becoming drunk and angry like anyone else. They could be used as symbols that were both real and not quite real. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)
The loa of Haitian vodoun were one of the few groups of Immortals still acting as gods well into the 20th century. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) They consisted of the Rada Loa and the Petro gods, good and bad spirits that included Baron Samedi and Catholic saints such as Saint Patrick. Cthulhu was honoured by a small group whose Great Old One worship originated in Dahomey. (PROSE: White Darkness) The revolutionary Mackandal and his followers payed homage to the Catholic saints. Mackandal himself was believed to have underwent some kind of transformation at the moment of his death. His followers expected him to return one day as a messianic figure. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Dreekan voodoo had Treeka'dwra a messianic beast-god. (PROSE: Storm Harvest)
When Faction Paradox initiated Fitz Kreiner into their group, he was said to have been touched by the loa. The Faction noticed that the concept of a celebrity was similar in that they could be viewed by transmissions but remained apart from people and they could become the face of their ideas. On the human colony world Ordifica, the Faction fully infiltrated the media-obsessed culture within a couple years to create loa in the medianet. The Remote carried on a belief in loa. They referred to powers that Rassilon barred from entering N-Space as loa, including the Cold. In their dramatisation of a group of beings breaking into N-Space, the Engineer referred to them as loa. Rassilon, however said they weren't spirits. (PROSE: Interference - Book One) A group of young Gallifreyans in a coven led by Paradox member Tarra invoked the loa. Kellen preferred that they refer to them as equations. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)
Behind the scenes
- Besides the whole phrase "Rada Loa" in White Darkness, Interference Books One & Two and The Ancestor Cell are the only novels that use the term "loa". In Deadly Reunion they are the "Haiti lot". The Adventuress of Henrietta Street is referencing recycled historical material from Lawrence Miles' Faction Paradox in which he had wrote that Mackandal was said to have become a loa.