The Voodoo Society

Voodoo Today

Today, American or New Orleans Voodoo is a religion that incorporates many aspects of Christianity, particularly Catholicism, mostly due to the influence of its most famous practitioner, Marie Laveau.  Voodoo includes prayers to the Saints and Angels, and the use of holy water, candles, incense, novenas, etc., Voodoo practices which can be traced back to Moses and the other great Magi. 

No Voodoo altar would be complete without a Bible, to which many Voodoo and hoodoo practices can be traced, and Voodoo practitioners regularly make use of scripture, especially reciting the Psalms, in their secret rites. 

Voodoo is more practical than philosophical.  American Voodoo emphasizes the magical traditions of the craft, also called hoodoo, and is more concerned with improving the daily life of its practitioners than enforcing a strict code of moral conduct. 

Those who follow Voodoo believe in only one God but in many spirits (Catholic saints or Voodoo loa) who act as intercessors, spiritual helpers, and message carriers between them and God. These as well as the Voodoo practitioner's own ancestral spirits may be called upon and asked for help.  The spirits of Voodoo are able to help us with needs such as healing, protection, love, success and money. 

Despite the protests of revisionists who are more interested in its cultural aspects, American or New Orleans Voodoo and hoodoo bears little resemblance to traditional African religion.  Voodoo, as practiced in 19th and early 20th century New Orleans and the American South, owes much to the influence of the Creoles, native-born French and Spanish occultists who contributed knowledge drawn from the European magical tradition. 

A diverse mixture of African, French, Spanish, Anglo, and American Indian influences all contributed to the development of American or New Orleans Voodoo and its low magic cousin hoodoo while it gained much of its flavoring in the gumbo melting pot of New Orleans culture. 

People of all races are drawn to the practice of Voodoo and hoodoo, and have been since its beginnings.  According to author and Voodoo researcher Robert Tallant in 1946, nearly a third of those practicing Voodoo and hoodoo were white.  Today, Voodooists come in every color. 

Neither does Voodoo overly concern itself with things such as zombies and cursing.  Most Voodoo practitioners seek only peace, health, prosperity, good luck and happiness.   Voodoo and hoodoo spiritual practice is mostly directed to good and beneficial ends, such as spiritual healing. 

Voodoo offers such powerful protection that its followers rarely have to resort to the traditional Voodoo curse.  Voodoo believers generally practice a “live and let live” philosophy of life. 

Voodoo is one of the world’s oldest known religions and is generally acknowledged to be the world’s most powerful form of magic.  Voodoo is a living religion, traces of which can be found not just in New Orleans but all across America and, indeed, throughout the world. 

Many carried the Marie Laveau inspired Voodoo faith from New Orleans, first up the Mississippi and Ohio to river towns such as Natchez, Memphis, St. Louis, Old Vincennes, Louisville and Cincinnati, then to places as diverse as New York, Chicago, Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine and San Francisco. 

Voodoo and hoodoo became popular among some in the Old West, and branches of the Voodoo Society may be found today in towns such as Virginia City and Tombstone. 

Today, the Voodoo Society is regarded by many as the last of the old orders of authentic New Orleans Voodoo, hoodoo and occult practices, in the face of new-age “watering down“ of traditional occultism and cultural re-invention. 

For the first time in its history, the Voodoo Society is opening its doors to a wider membership while still retaining its secret and elite status.