A perfect blend of practical magic and inspiring, down-to-earth advice, this one-of-a-kind book includes magic rituals, charms, aphrodisiacs, and spells, as well as helpful relationship tips regarding communication, self-esteem, intimacy, sex, breakups, and forgiveness--written by a relationship counselor and voodoo initiate.

As a new resident of Togo in 1985, Judy Rosenthal witnessed her first Gorovodu trance ritual. Over the next eleven years, she studied this voodoo in West Africa's Ewe populations of coastal Ghana, Togo, and Benin, an area once called the Slave Coast. The result is Possession, Ecstasy, and Law in Ewe Voodoo, an ethnography of spirit possession that focuses on law and morality in "medecine Vodu" orders. Gorovodu is not a doctrinal set, but rather a lingusitic, moral, and spiritual community, with both real and imagined aspects. In medecine Vodu possession, the deities evoked are spirits of "bought people" from the savanna regions, slaves who worked for southern coastal lineages, often marrying into Ewe families. Drumming and dancing rituals, replete with voluptuous trances and gender reversals, bring these "foreign" spirits back into Ewe communities to protect worshippers, heal the sick and troubled, arbitrate disputes, and enjoy themselves as they did before they died. (Rosenthal employs Bakhtin's theory of carnival to interpret the openly festive element of Gorovodu.) The changeable nature of the religion echoes the lack of boundaries of the Gorovodu family and the residents' belief that communal and individual identity are fluid rather than fixed. Numerous name changes early in this century indicated a strategy for resisting colonial control. Writing from a background of anthropology, Rosenthal carefully monitors her own role as narrator in the book, aware of the cultural distance between her and the Africans she is writing about. She intends this ethnography to mirror the "texts" of voodoo itself, a body of signifiers and meanings with which the reader must interact in order to make sense of it.

"While the witchcraft mania that swept through Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 was significant, fascination with it has tended to overshadow the historical records of other persecutions throughout early America. Colonial Virginians shared a common belief in the supernatural with their northern neighbors. The 1626 case of Joan Wright, the first woman to be accused of witchcraft in British North America, began Virginia's own witch craze. Utilizing surviving records, local historian Carson Hudson narrates these fascinating stories." --Back cover.

In 2005, a four-man PsyOp team was assigned to Sadr City, a violent Baghdad neighborhood of more than 2.5 million residents. The mission? Turn the ideological tide against insurgent leader Muqtada Al Sadr and his Mehdi militia by the promotion of pro-democratic messages among the Iraqis. The means? Use of psychological operations: non-kinetic force. Written in boots-on-the-ground-real time, Boone Cutler unveils basic principles of psychological warfare, illustrating the effectiveness of real-world tactics that he and his team implemented to reach that part of the Iraqi consciousness that has long been the victim of learned helplessness. Boone's miniscule attention to detail and vivid storytelling ability allows the reader to track the effectiveness of non-kinetic warfare in Sadr City, encounter by encounter. Ultimately, Boone makes the case that non-kinetic warfare is, perhaps, the most overlooked tool in the United States' arsenal for legitimate, successful, and long-term nation-building.

"Interesting investigation and straightforward handling of sensational times and tricksters, of the cult of voodooism in all its manifestations. From its first known appearances in New Orleans of 200 years ago, here are the fetishes and formulae, the rites and dances, the cures, charms and gris-gris. Here were the witch-doctors and queens, and in particular a Doctor John who acquired fame and fortune, and Marie Laveau, who with her daughter dominated the weird underworld of voodoo for nearly a century." -Kirkus Reviews "Robert Tallant speaks with authority." -The New York Times "Much nonsense has been written about voodoo in New Orleans. . .here is a truthful and definitive picture." -Lyle Saxton Originally published in 1946, Voodoo In New Orleans examines the origins of the cult voodooism. The lives of New Orleans's most infamous witch doctors and voodoo queens have been re-created in this well-researched account of New Orleans's dark underworld.

Drawing on the great love poet Jalaluddin Rumis writings, Sufi teachings, and shamanic techniques, Ross Heaven presents an utterly unique spiritual guidebook to love and relationships. Llewellyn

A guide to the practices, tools, and rituals of New Orleans Voodoo as well as the many cultural influences at its origins • Includes recipes for magical oils, instructions for candle workings, and directions to create gris-gris bags and Voodoo dolls to attract love, money, justice, and healing and for retribution • Explores the major figures of New Orleans Voodoo, including Marie Laveau and Dr. John • Exposes the diverse ethnic influences at the core of Voodoo, from the African Congo to Catholic immigrants from Italy, France, and Ireland One of America’s great native-born spiritual traditions, New Orleans Voodoo is a religion as complex, free-form, and beautiful as the jazz that permeates this steamy city of sin and salvation. From the French Quarter to the Algiers neighborhood, its famed vaulted cemeteries to its infamous Mardi Gras celebrations, New Orleans cannot escape its rich Voodoo tradition, which draws from a multitude of ethnic sources, including Africa, Latin America, Sicily, Ireland, France, and Native America. In The New Orleans Voodoo Handbook, initiated Vodou priest Kenaz Filan covers the practices, tools, and rituals of this system of worship as well as the many facets of its origins. Exploring the major figures of New Orleans Voodoo, such as Marie Laveau and Dr. John, as well as Creole cuisine and the wealth of musical inspiration surrounding the Mississippi Delta, Filan examines firsthand documents and historical records to uncover the truth behind many of the city’s legends and to explore the oft-discussed but little-understood practices of the root doctors, Voodoo queens, and spiritual figures of the Crescent City. Including recipes for magical oils, instructions for candle workings, methods of divination, and even directions to create gris-gris bags, mojo hands, and Voodoo dolls, Filan reveals how to call on the saints and spirits of Voodoo for love, money, retribution, justice, and healing.

A novel on Haiti during the regime of Francois Duvalier. The protagonists are a group of women in the countryside who bear the brunt of reprisals against revolutionaries by the Tontons Macoutes.

During the 1920s and 1930s, anthropologists and folklorists became obsessed with uncovering connections between African Americans and their African roots. At the same time, popular print media and artistic productions tapped the new appeal of black folk life, highlighting African-styled voodoo as an essential element of black folk culture. A number of researchers converged on one site in particular, Sapelo Island, Georgia, to seek support for their theories about "African survivals," bringing with them a curious mix of both influences. The legacy of that body of research is the area's contemporary identification as a Gullah community. This wide-ranging history upends a long tradition of scrutinizing the Low Country blacks of Sapelo Island by refocusing the observational lens on those who studied them. Cooper uses a wide variety of sources to unmask the connections between the rise of the social sciences, the voodoo craze during the interwar years, the black studies movement, and black land loss and land struggles in coastal black communities in the Low Country. What emerges is a fascinating examination of Gullah people's heritage, and how it was reimagined and transformed to serve vastly divergent ends over the decades.

Kathleen Charlotte invites women to embrace the powerful, healing essence of sex--Voodoo style. Provocative and unapologetically candid, this saucy sex guide offers Voodoo-Tantric practices to invigorate ones sex life and enrich sexual power. Llewellyn