Vodou Visions: An Encounter with Divine Mystery

For readers of Lilith Dorsey and Mambo Chita Tann, a beautifully illustrated guide to the Lwa of New Orleans and Haitian Vodou and the Orishas of Santería, by a Manbo with nearly fifty years in the tradition."Vodou is an adventure of the soul and spirit. It requires daring, wise leaders like Sallie Ann Glassman." — Martha Ward, anthropologist and author of Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau Vodou Visions is the rare practitioner's guide that is also a work of art — 150 of Sallie Ann Glassman's own paintings illustrating a Vodou path she has walked for nearly half a century. Vodou has a rich and powerful history. This beautifully illustrated, hands-on book introduces Vodou's ceremonies and the vibrant Spirits known as the Lwa, and is written for everyone from first-time seekers to experienced practitioners. Initiated as a Manbo Asogwe in Port-au-Prince in 1995 and practicing New Orleans Vodou since 1977, Glassman is the founder of La Source Ancienne Ounfò, where she presides over weekly ceremonies, and the owner of Island of Salvation Botanica. In Vodou Visions she walks readers through Vodou's cosmology and its families of Lwa — Legba, Damballah, Ezili, Gede, Ogou, Lasirèn, Ayizan, and their kin — alongside the parallel pantheon of the Santería Orishas: Obatalá, Yemayá, Oshún, Shangó, Elegguá. Litanies are presented in Kreyòl, French, and English. Step by step, Glassman shows how to honor, invoke, and communicate with the Lwa and Orishas; how to build altars and make offerings; and how to work the purification, protection, and empowerment rituals at the heart of Vodou practice — head-washing, spiritual cleansing, and the marking of sacred passages. Vodou Visions opens a doorway into one of the Americas' most vital — and most misunderstood — spiritual traditions, and into a lived practice you can carry into your own daily life. Read more