Eshu is an entity that regulates karma: he puts difficulties and temptations on the way, but also gives people the possibility of rejecting or accepting the spiritual path, the place of carnal, earthly and material temptations. People decide and Eshu acts.
Eshu carries out the work entrusted to the Orishas and the works that are entrusted to him.
Every Eshu works for a specific Orisha and every Eshu has its own assistants, thus forming a perfect hierarchical organisation.
Eshu is spiritual with an individual mission and with his own work (see Eshu law chart).
We all follow God’s commands and we always try to do good. The bad guy is not Eshu, but each one of us with our attitudes and behaviour, grudges, hatreds and resentments gathered in our hearts that make us act in one way or another.
No Orisha will listen to you unless you have entrusted your request to an Eshu first.
Eshu does neither good nor evil: he fulfils the orders we give him. He is seen as a playful and irresponsible child who enjoys creating confusion between us and the Orishas. What he does is our own responsibility because he does not distinguish between good and evil.
There are no religions or negative entities, but people with bad intentions who will do evil and people with good intentions who try to solve evil. The existence of both is necessary to balance the functioning of the universe.
Eshu is the universal magical agent, the envoy, the Orishas’ messenger: hence, he is the first to receive all offerings.
Before giving an offering to an Orisha you must first pay tribute and sacrifice to Eshu. If Eshu is relaxed and eating, he will be happy and then, he will allow you to perform the ceremony for the Orisha peacefully.
Eshu is the lord of the roads, the owner of the land production and everything related to fertilisation and productivity. Eshu spoke to the Orishas and told them that he would continue being their messenger but that he would treat humans differently: he would make them live with their fears and would scare them. He would become the devil for white people so that his own people would stop suffering slavery. He would strive with their emotions, suspicions, apprehensions, mistrust, turbulence and doubts so that his people could have a better existence. The Orishas reflected on those words and sent their Eshus to the Earth. According to the legend, Eshus became the devil for white people’s dark souls from then on.
Eshu is identified as the devil for Christians because the missionary priests found many difficulties, conflicts and problems when trying to impose their religion by force on slaves: too many gods and divinities for a people they were trying to subjugate.