People who are raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition are used to the idea of religious truth being written down in a sacred canonical text like the Bible or the Torah.  In fact, the first book ever printed on a printing press in Europe was a Bible, and for many years, the majority of books in print were religious texts. That's how important it is to us in our culture to have something written we can study, so we can know for sure that we're doing things "the right way."  Many of us attend Sunday school or go to class to learn about our religion.  Religious instruction is formal, carried out by teachers who know scripture.  Everything is written in a book, and what's in the book is the law.  The belief that we can study religion and know it through book learning is so deeply ingrained in us, that it's hard for some people to accept Santería as a bona fide religion precisely because it has no Holy Book, and no centralized authority figure who interprets doctrine for all practitioners.  

The fact that Santería has been kept alive for hundreds of years via oral tradition is understandable in historical context - in Cuba, slaves could not read and write - but in practical terms, it means there's no "how to" manual for Santería. Someone who wants to know what "authentic Santería" is like, and who imagines that all knowledge about the religion can be written down, agreed upon, and put into practice the same way by millions of people around the world, well, this person will be bitterly disappointed.  Looking for the single right way to do something in Santería is like looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  It always eludes us, because it doesn't really exist.

Learning through oral tradition engages the mind in a different way than book learning.  First, it requires a lot more time, because it requires a lot of repetition and memorization. The initiate has to be patient, listen, learn, absorb, meditate, and accept the limits of his knowledge as a beginner.  Until a solid foundation has been laid, more complex ideas simply won't make sense, no matter how intelligent you are.  Elders will tell you that Santería requires the head (the mind)  to be transformed via the aché (energy) of the Orichás, and this is something that happens very slowly, poco a poco (little by little).  A popular refrán (proverb) says:  The most certain way to know nothing is to learn everything all at once and too quickly.  Another refrán reminds us that no one knows everything, because knowledge was spread all over the world: No matter how much you think you know, you never know it all.  One head can't hold that much knowledge.

These sayings suggest that Santería views learning as a lifelong process, and one that's never fully complete.  There are definitely rules about how things should be done, and learning to respect the rules is an important part of spiritual development. But, the only way you can learn what's right and what's wrong, what's expected and what's going to cause problems for you, is by listening to your godmother or godfather,  learning how things are done in your particular lineage, and participating in religious activities with your community.  The elders will teach you, poco a poco, what you need to know, when you're ready to know it.  As the  learner, you can't set the pace; the teacher sets it for you. However, most teachers are delighted to find students who want to learn and who are serious about the religion.  In emotionally healthy communities, elders share their knowledge with younger Santeros/as to guarantee the knowledge isn't lost.

In Cuba, especially in small provincial cities like Palmira, everyone in the Santería community knows everyone, they know the lineage they come from, they know the godparents, the parents and grandparents of the godparents, and if they trace history back enough generations, they'll probably even discover blood families ties to each other.  Iyabós (novices, new initiates) are held accountable and carefully watched by elders in the community, who don't hesitate to correct behavior that's inappropriate, or report to the godparent any kind of misconduct.  Social pressure to conform to the expected norms of the ilé (community of Santería worshippers) keeps people in line, and makes sure there's uniformity within that community.  Everyone knows who's serious about the religion and who's not, who does things properly and who doesn't. Everyone knows the elders, they know who's an oriaté (master of religious ceremony), who's an expert at divination, who knows herbs, in short, they know who to ask when they're in doubt, and there's no need to have it written down in a book, because they have their elders at hand.

If you're not initiated and don't belong to a community of Santeros, what are you supposed to do?  Fortunately, many skilled priests are writing about the religion now, both in book form and on the internet.  Much more written information is available now than ever before, and there's less reluctance on the part of Santeros/as to share information with outsiders.  My advice is to read a variety of sources and look for common threads, patterns, and general observations that seem to be repeated by multiple authors.  Use your critical thinking skills to question the qualifications of the writer, the reliability of the information, and the author's motive for writing.  Think about what you read, and keep an open mind. Use book learning to understand in theory what the religion is like, but don't forget that book learning has limits.  Avoid writers who claim to possess the absolute and only truth, especially if they're arrogant and disrespectful of other people.  After you've looked at some books and some internet sites, you'll start to get a sense of who gives reliable information and who doesn't. Trust your judgment, and let your head lead you in the direction you need to go in.  

Here are two websites that provide reliable accurate information. The authors are experienced Santeros with a solid base of knowledge:
http://santeriachurch.org/
http://ochanilele.wordpress.com/

It drives me crazy when people refer to Santería as Voodoo. That's like calling a Southern Baptist a Lutheran.  To someone outside those religions, they seem pretty much the same, right? Both Christian, Protestant... But, people who belong to those churches will tell you that they're "completely different," and they'll get upset with you if you argue that there's no difference between the various Protestant sects. Same goes for those of us who practice African-based religions. Our belief systems might share some basic common threads, but Santería and Voodoo are not the same thing.
First, there are a lot of misconceptions about African-based religions in general.  If you go by what you see on television, you'd think practitioners of Voodoo and Santería are devil worshipers who practice black magic.  They stick pins in voodoo dolls and cast evil spells that kill their enemies. They manipulate and corrupt innocent people who fall under their influence, they engage in wild orgies, and practice ritualistic torture and murder.  We see images of naked (usually dark skinned) bodies, smeared with blood, dancing wildly around bonfires at midnight, all part of a mysterious ceremony that inevitably ends in violence, usually carried out on an altar heaped with candles, statues of saints, bowls, bottles, skulls, bones, dead chickens, and layers of dirt and grime.  Everything about these images inspires fear. They represent a threat to us, our orderly way of life, our belief system.  But, what you see on tv is not Voodoo. It's not Santería. It's the imagination of writers and producers who want to boost TV ratings by showing us gruesome and shocking images of others who aren't "like us."  These strange, primitive foreigners are to blame when bad things happen to nice people.  Most TV shows don't acknowledge Santería or Voodoo as religions - they always call them a cult -  so who's going to say they're showing religious intolerance? They're just showing images that correspond to what a lot of people already think is true. Sure, the world is a frightening place sometimes, and crazy people do horrible things to innocent people. But, most of the time, the crimes have nothing to do with Voodoo or Santería.  Remember Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy?  How about Timothy McVeigh? Or Jim Jones and his poison kool-aid?  To my knowledge, they weren't connected to Voodoo or Santería in any way. So, let's keep it real when we talk about dangerous people, ok?

What do we even mean when we talk about Voodoo? For example, there's West African Vodun, Haitian Vodou, and New Orleans style Voodoo that's practiced in the coastal regions of the southern USA.  Each variety has its own unique history, character, and set of practices.

Haitian Vodou originated with the Fon and Ewe peoples in Dahomey, West Africa (today Benin, and parts of Togo and Ghana).  Dahomey bordered the lands of the Yoruba people, many of whom would eventually go to Cuba as slaves and take their religion with them. A significant number of Dahomeans ended up as slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (today Haiti). Others were taken to coastal South Carolina, notably the Gullah Islands, and to Louisiana, where the plantation system depended heavily on slave labor.  These slaves took African Vodun to the New World, where it became established in Haiti and the coastal regions of the Southern USA roughly around the same time that Santería was taking hold in Cuba among the Lucumí people. During the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), many French families fled Saint Domingue with their slaves and settled in New Orleans, and the number of Voodoo practitioners there increased dramatically.  Over the course of the past two centuries, Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo have gradually taken on different characters, despite shared African roots, and today neither is identical to the religion as it's practiced in modern Africa.

I don't know enough about Voodoo to speak about it with authority, and I won't attempt to explain it here because it's outside my area of expertise. But, this much is clear: just because Santería and Voodoo have similar histories, it doesn't mean they're the same thing. Yes, they have roots in West Africa, and they came to the New World on slave ships. Yes, they grew up in places where Africans were marginalized and abused as slaves, and they offered practitioners a glimmer of hope and strategies for survival in a brutal world. Beyond that, each religion took its own path and developed in its own way, becoming a reflection of the people who practiced it in a particular place at a particular time. The next time you hear someone say that Santería and Voodoo are the same thing, you can confidently tell them they're mistaken.

If you want to know more about Voodoo as a religion, I recommend these books by Kenaz Filan:  The Haitian Vodou Handbook (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2007) and The New Orleans Voodoo Handbook (Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 2011).  They're sensible, informative and well written.