Any well-researched book about the history and origins of the rock and roll beat will tell you that its rhythmical style is derived from the beat of the ritual Voodoo dances of Africa.

The rock and roll beat has syncopated rhythm, and places the accent on the off beat in 4/4 time. The key to its effectiveness lies in constant repetition, which research has shown has a hypnotic effect on those who are exposed to it for extended periods. Spend some time watching dancers in a night club, and you will see the hypnotic power of Voodoo-style rhythm on the human organism.

Voodoo is sensual and unrestrained in nature:

The follower of Voodoo seeks to incorporate a LOA (lesser god) into himself by writhing and leaping through a dance, while drums bang out complex rhythms. When just the right rhythm is found for an individual LOA, the dancer takes it up, and the LOA enters his soul. His physical and mental powers are immediately heightened; he becomes god-like himself. Animals will often be sacrificed to appease the spirits...The religion is strictly Dionysian, and dances often end in wholesale copulation (emphasis added).ⁱ

Each percussive or vocal part has a slightly different rhythm, which coincides with and sometimes crosses the other rhythms, or the guiding pulses, at strategic moments. The drummers often shuffle their feet or sway their bodies in dance-like motions to assist them in maintaining contact with the main beat, especially when the rhythm is syncopated. During these rituals that still take place in the Congo and Yrulaland, the intricate layers of the multiple rhythmic drumming are considered a primary source of occult power (emphasis added).ⁱⁱ

The club scene today is a high-tech version of this Voodoo sexual gratification. Darkened, pulsating clubs and raves capture many with their hypnotic sensual atmosphere. Even the lyrics of music played in clubs compels club-goers into sexual encounters that lead to shame and heartache. This is the same satanic influence that gives life to the spirit of unrestrained sexual gratification in Voodoo.

Beat Manipulation

I have seen this principle of "beat-manipulation" in my own experience. Not only have I experienced it on the dance floor, but I have also seen its effect during the course of my professional music career.

For the last several decades, the basic recipe for successful radio has remained the same. These elements are beat, repetition, catchy melodies, and a performance duration of roughly three minutes.

Although some elements of popular music have been adjusted and reshuffled from era to era, these basic elements have stayed largely unchanged.

The success behind this format of music is founded on the hypnotic principles of repetition. The constant repetition of the beat causes an instantaneous mental and physical response, while the catchy phrases and repetitive melodies ensure the message is retained and recalled at ease.

Rap Music and Nightclubs

The music today that most closely resembles the Voodoo ritual dance music is rap. As in Voodoo, it is the bare essentials of the beat that form the basis of rap music. On top of the beat is heard the monotonous chanting of the rappers.

In this musical environment, listeners can easily slip into a hypnotic drug-and-music-induced stupor, losing control of the master brain. This opens them up to the power of suggestion and lessens their ability to reason. The music becomes the hypnotic tool, opening the mind to receive the messages that demons want to implant. Digitize and modernize Voodoo music, and you end up with rap.

There is nothing new about rap or the endless beats heard pumping through clubs and raves around the world. Inside these temples of modern paganism, today's youth revel in their rebellious freedom. Half-naked bodies, writhing in sweat and saturated in drugs and alcohol, worship the gods of conceit and sexual expression.

What these young people don't understand is that they are repeating a ritual that has formed the basis of Satan worship and pagan ceremony for thousands of years. Whether we like it or not, the ingredients that make a Voodoo ritual ceremony such a satanic success are the very same ones that keep dance parties thriving today. No true child of God will be found in their association.

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them (2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV, emphasis added).

Read more about rave culture in our next article