Crossroads University

In Louisiana, Voudou is almost always associated with Marie Laveau. She is the Voudou Queen of New Orleans, quite literally. She took the traditions of her ancestors—along with her mother’s and her grandmother’s flair for entrepreneurship—and found a way to harmoniously blend the Catholic religion imposed upon her with her indigenous Creole practices. And she made a little money in the process! She triumphantly traversed both Catholic and Voudou worlds and was accepted, for the most part, by the society in which she lived.
 
 Marie Laveau’s successful combination of Catholic elements, African religions, and Creole culture survived over one hundred and fifty years and is carried on and emulated to this day by devotees and practitioners alike. Thus, her style of Voudou has proven persistent and worthy of acknowledgment as a definitive, emergent Creole tradition. But because there are so many different expressions of New Orleans Voudou, and because not everyone embraces her or Catholicism in their practice, I call Marie Laveau’s brand of New Orleans Voudou Laveau Voudou to differentiate it from other forms of Creole Voudou in Louisiana.

Most indigenous religions contain a magical or medicinal aspect that is intrinsic to that tradition. In New Orleans Voudou, the magical tradition is what is referred to as Hoodoo (also referred to as conjure and rootwork) and gris gris. At some point in the early 1900s - likely spurred by both the onset of a viable commercial Hoodoo sector as well as practitioners going underground to avoid harassment and prosecution by the police - Hoodoo was separated from Voudou and was reduced to a stand-alone ethnobotanical folk magic tradition that spread throughout the country. A person could practice Hoodoo, conjure and rootwork and not work with the saints or spirits if they didn’t want to. It was not necessary for conjure workers to be Voudouists; in fact, many conjure workers today are Christians and divorce themselves completely from Voudou. Interestingly, gris gris did not suffer the same fate as Hoodoo and has remained an integral part of New Orleans Voudou since Marie Laveau’s time. 

Years ago, I began to study the available literature for magickal activities related to Marie Laveau to see if they matched up with present-day practices. In doing so, I observed a pattern of specific types of conjure workings emerge, so I placed them into categories. Though not exhaustive, I concluded the following twelve categories of conjure can be found in the Laveau Voudou magicospiritual lineage over time:
 
 1. Bottle spells and container spells
 2. Candle magick
 3. Catholic conjure
 4. Coffin conjure
 5. Death conjure
 6. Fetishism: doll baby conjure and ju ju
 7. Front porch conjure
 8. Graveyard work
 9. Gris gris
 10. Magick lamps
 11. Supplications
 12. Water rituals
 
 In this course, we explore each of these traditions and students learn practical workings for many of them.