Description
“New Orleans is legendary, complex, and delicious and I suspect few people know it better than Denise Alvarado. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits and Hoodoo Saints is her love story to the practices in this great American city. This is as good as the best gumbo.” —H. Byron Ballard, author of Seasons of a Magical Life
New Orleans has long been America’s most magical city, inhabited by a fascinating visible and invisible world, full of mysteries, known for its decadence and haunted by its spirits. If Salem, Massachusetts, is famous for its persecution of witches, New Orleans is celebrated for its embrace of the magical, mystical, and paranormal. New Orleans is acclaimed for its witches, ghosts, and vampires. Because of its unique history, New Orleans is the historical stronghold of traditional African religions and spirituality in the US. No other city worldwide is as associated with Vodou as New Orleans.
author and scholar Denise Alvarado takes us on a magical tour of New Orleans. There is a mysterious spiritual underbelly hiding in plain sight in New Orleans, and in this book Alvarado shows us where it is and who the characters are. She tells where they come from and how they persist and manifest today. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints shines a light on notable spirits and folk saints such as Papa Legba, Baron Samedi, Mary Oneida Toups (Witch Queen of New Orleans), Annie Christmas, Black Hawk, African-American culture hero Jean St. Malo, St. Expedite, plague saint Roch, and, of course, the mother and father of New Orleans Voudou, Marie Laveau and Doctor John Montenée. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints serves as a secret history of New Orleans, revealing details even locals may not know.
Denise Alvarado was born and raised in the Voodoo and hoodoo-rich culture of New Orleans. She has studied mysticism and practiced Creole Voodoo and indigenous healing traditions for over three decades. She is an independent researcher, artist, spiritual adviser, and cultural consultant. She is the author of the The Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook and The Voodoo Doll Spellbook: A Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Spells and Rituals and is the and Editor in Chief of Hoodoo and Conjure, the first magazine journal devoted to the spiritual, cultural and folk magic traditions of the American South.
6 x 9 Inches
240 pages
20 b&w photographs and illustrations
Published: February 1, 2022
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