The Many Faces of Marie Laveau

EXPLORING “BLACK MAGIC”

Throughout February, we’ll be profiling Black figures and features in magic. Every day will be a new entry into our “Black Magic” series. This isn’t going to be about magics from Africa, the fascinating use of magic against colonial powers, nor about syncretic traditions across the African continent. While endlessly fascinating, our focus this month is specifically on “Black” – which is a very amorphous term on its own. Many of our subjects throughout this series wouldn’t have identified with that word in their time, most often because it didn’t exist. “Black” is fairly new and has come to differentiate between “African American”, more specifically describing the experience of immigrants from Africa. The line blurs over time, as immigrants naturalize and inherit the racial legacies of their new cultures which makes “Black” nearly impossible to pin down and similarly immediately identifiable. Mercurial in nature, “Black” is both an acknowledgement of the racial hierarchy and a self-defined, self-policed identity of “outsider”. It is to be without a history and of a shared history, to be unplaceable and immediately identifiable, to be an outsider at the center of everything, to be invisible and alarming all at once.

I will not attempt to speak to the Black experience as lived, but the abundance of literature, scholarship, personal narratives, and historical texts that emphasize this duality of self-being at the center of the Black experience is part of why I find “Black Magic” so fascinating. I am fortunate to have studied magic under and alongside a number of Black practitioners, each coming from radically different bodies of practice. As a White man getting a glimpse outside my walled garden, I found one thing very consistent in all their magics: they “opened” things. Whether the rootworker humoring a little boy in over his head online or a friend showing me how to Pathwork through the multiverse, I am forever entranced by Mercury’s adoration of Black magicians. I have heard people say Black people are ruled by Saturn and while well-acquainted with the Lord of Misfortune, I will insist and do my best to prove here that if there is any Power that has aligned itself with Black people, it’s Mercury.

Given His favoritism, it should come as no surprise that as much as oppression and violence can be used to frame Black History, so too can elation and liberation. There is the story from the perspective of the guilty oppressor, the one that fills our textbooks and which we will take to greater task in our discussion of “The Magical Negro” later. My goal with this project is to tell the story from that second lens, telling the story of people I would call magicians using the mystical experience to transform Reality.

I firmly reject the idea that “pain is the source of magic” or any other sort of karmic compensation narratives for magic. Magic is born of Will and certainly spite and pain are powerful motivators. I have no doubt there were many who worked magic against their captors and against the systems of oppression that afflict Black people still today. I know many such practitioners personally! The reason Black people are more likely to be aware of magic innately is more complex, best captured b W. E. B. DuBois’s quote:

It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness…one ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two un-reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder

And said more sharply a century later in this James Baldwin’s quote:

Any White man in the world says “Give me liberty or give me death!” and the entire White world applauds. When a Black man says exactly the same thing – word for word – he is judged a criminal and treated like one and everything possible is done to make an example of this bad [n****r] so they don’t make any more like him.

To be Black is to be made aware from your earliest days that you live in another Reality, that your experience and the rules and operation of the world around you are in disconnect, and that you must learn to operate in both worlds if you are to survive. That awareness which takes some White people decades to reach is a necessity of existing for Black children. We should hardly be surprised that mysticism and an awareness of powers beyond the world set out immediately before us is deeply woven into the Black story. It’s why spirits like High John the Conqueror and Papa Legba are at the center of Black magics, cheeky and charming figures who “make it happen” with a grin and a good laugh. When you are supposed to be suffering eternally, bound and dehumanized, what greater rebellion is there than laughter and song? What greater magic than to weave together heroes who strike not from a place of rage and hatred, but justice and joy? To yours truly, very few come to mind.

I will wrap up this very long intro by complicating the definition I’ve laid out. While I want to explore “Black Magic”, this is not a search for “authentic” Black magic nor to pin down any particularly authentic/legitimate expressions. “Black” is a broad category, encompassing cultures from across the world with dynamic, distinct histories each. In the same way that “White” or “Western” are useful signposts but not particularly distinct, I want to show as diverse and broad an array of Blackness and magic as possible. That said, I only speak English for languages helpful with Black histories and am shamelessly American. Here’s the schedule so far:

WEEK ONE Shaping Black Magic

Marie Leaveau – Blackness & the Magical Othering

Tituba – American images of Black magic

Sara Mix – Magic & Black life

First African Baptist Church – Material Spaces and Black Spirituality

Rosa Maria Egipcíaca da Vera Cruz – Catholic Black saints

James Haskins – Accounting for the Black Mystical Experience

“The Magical Negro” – Morality & Obligating the Minority

WEEK TWO Authority of the Mystic

Howard Thurman – A Mystical Life

Amanda Smith – The Magician’s Obligation

Julia Foote – Black Girl Magic

Elder Lucy Smith – Faith as Taking Space

Malcolm X – The Power to Claim Power

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WEEK THREE Outside the Norm

Yvonne P. Chireau – Hoodoo & Black Syncretism

angel Kyodo williams – Black Buddhism

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum – Black Bodies in Jewish Spaces

Elijah Muhammud – Radical Black Mysticism

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The final week I’m hoping to interview seven Black practitioners on their work, their practice, and whatever would be fun! If you can think of anyone you’d like us to interview or would like to share your experience, reach out at instituteofmodernmagic@gmail.com! I’ll be filling out the rest of the calendar as I read more sources and delve deeper into the subject, but am more than happy to take suggestions or recommendations in the meantime!

Now, without further ado, let’s get to the most famous Black magician there is: Marie Laveau.

THE VOODOO QUEEN OF NEW ORLEANS

Marie Laveau continues capturing the public’s imagination, as much an attention-grabber now as she was throughout her life in the 19th Century. Like any great figure of magic, Laveau’s history is complicated and at times, purposefully obscured. Her history, even in her own life, serves a purpose when retold and her image has become both a literal deity and the archetype for Black women mystics in popular culture for the last 200 years. Beautiful, entrancing, powerful, and above all else, merciless: Marie Laveau can be anything you want and in that Mercurial visage, she takes everything she desires. Of course, there is also the less romantic reality: she was a real person who had diarrhea and picked her nose. This dichotomy – the “Satanic Principle”as described by Anton LeVey – is essential in understanding Marie Laveau’s contributions to Black Magic and her role in informing the practices of Black magicians for centuries to come. Both the reality and the exaggerations are at play here and untangling them is a pointless exercise. Part of what makes Marie Laveau such an enduring figure is the impossibility of ever truly knowing which of the many Marie Laveaus was real.

To help navigate this massive figure of magical history, I’m using Denise Alvarado’s “The Magic of Marie Laveau” (2020). An intimate exploration of the magical workings of Laveau, her impact on voodoo in New Orleans, and a practical instruction on those magics, Alvarado doesn’t skimp on the scholarship in making space for personal experience and perspective. The book is an easy read and strikes a nice balance between the more academic histories of Laveau and the inflated, touristy narratives that cloud the truth as much as exalt it. I haven’t tried any of the specific recipes listed and won’t blow up the whole book in this article, but they seemed promising at first glance! Ask your local occult shop if they carry it and if not, see if you can get it on their shelves and get a copy for yourself. There’s also the library where I was able to check out my copy.

The first third of the book is a biography of Marie Laveau told through the different lenses: from her life as a slave owner to her complicated image as both healer and hexer. Each section helps to both illuminate and complicate Laveau. Alvarado herself seems to almost purposefully cultivate conflicting imagery in the text, giving Laveau a well-deserved richness in her character. Backed by modern scholarship and primary sources from the time, Alvarado also gives context to the racial and political climate of the time. The American Revolution radically expanded slavery across North America. While the French had shamelessly embraced slavery across their empire, the British had less access to African slaves directly and their Protestantism alienated them from the Catholic, slave-trading nations. Given early America’s alliance with Catholic Europe against England, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that from 1780 to 1810, the same number of people were newly enslaved in the U.S. as had been for the entire 150 years prior. While the American Revolution certainly spelled the beginning of freedom for some, it also marked the beginning of chattel slavery in North America and the cementing of the U.S. as a slave state.

Born amidst this cultural shift and before Louisiana was sold to the burgeoning U.S., Marie Laveau was born to Charles Laveaux and Marguerite Henry (Laveaux). The nature of her parents’ relationship is unclear: Marguerite had children with a Frenchman named Henri Darcantel but used Charles’ surname on Marie’s birth certificate. Regardless, both her parents were Black despite popular myths claiming Charles to have been a wealthy white planter. He was fairly well-off, but both her parents were freeborn. While the 1800s would cement much uglier race relations, practicality in early Louisiana necessitated some blurring of the lines when it came to mixed race children. The debate continues today on how to define mixed race people but many children of slaves inherited their white father’s property and carried on their estates as recognized heirs. As would be a recurring theme in American history, whites would institutionalize discriminatory laws to strip that wealth away from those heirs later.

Part of that complex history is freemen owning slaves, as Laveau and her later partner, Louis Christophe Dominique Duminy de Glapion. Cpt. Glapion was white and could not technically marry Laveau at the time, instead using one of the many circuitous legal arrangements to allow for marriage in everything but name, here “Palçage”. Literally “to place with”, the arrangement is not unlike the more recent legal compromise of “civil unions” for gay couples. Effectively a means of allowing and acknowledging the commonality of these relationships while still maintaining strict legal discriminatory distinctions. While Laveau is rumored to have had more than a dozen children, only seven are on record with two surviving to adulthood. During their ‘marriage’ together, Laveau and Cpt. Glapion owned eight people. Alvarado discusses rumors that the two were working to help free slaves and points to stories of Laveau arming slaves with charms to help in their escape to bolster the idea. That Laveau’s grandmother was ultimately able to purchase her freedom from a Black owner and owning slaves was expected for a couple of their station, I find the idea compelling! They certainly wouldn’t have been the only people to do such a thing and given Laveau’s willingness to use whatever face she needed to achieve her objectives, I’d like to think this was the case.

As for her magical prowess, Laveau has since been deified so we will limit our discussion to the mortal magician and what we know about her working. Both a devout Catholic and an accomplished Voudou practitioner, syncretism is necessary to understand her worldview and the magical workings of the American South as a whole. Incorporating a mixture of Indigenous, West African, and European symbols, figures, and methods, Alvarado emphasizes that Catholicism was legally mandated during her time and suggests her performative Catholicism was a way to make her working palatable or at least keep heat off her. Whatever exactly Marie believed is unimportant: what she did is the question of our search! Many stores claim to be of her lineage in New Orleans, but most accept Marie Laveau House of Voodoo to be the legitimate successor. There are two shrines inside: one to Satan and one to Laveau. Amusingly enough, she wouldn’t have had an altar to their in her own magical working.

HER PRACTICE AT A GLANCE

While fertility spells and avenging her staff are some of Marie Laveau’s best magical moments on television, her actual magical working is more in healing and protecting. An herbalist of great skill, Laveau helped treat the sick and that her knowledge came from outside the White medical institutions of the time. Both unable to replicate the success of marginalized women healers and drawing on the imagery of folk healers as witches, it didn’t take long for the helpfulness of Laveau and Creole healers to be evidence of their malice and danger. That Laveau was providing life-saving care to people who otherwise had no chance of hope but is remembered as a peddler of love potions speaks to the injustice of the magical record. To be sure, Laveau knew how to cause harm as any magician worth their salt does, but the bulk of her practice was clearly elsewhere.

What didn’t make it onto “American Horror Story: Coven” but should have is Laveau’s success in court cases! In voudou, “gris gris” refers to enchantments and are the basic form of magic. Their particular shape and structure varies depending on the tradition and your particular objectives, but the idea is fairly straightforward: enchant the object and possession of the object triggers the effect. Laveau was well-known for using gris gris to help clients in court cases. She even went to the prison and in a newspaper article from 1881 is noted as having freed/gotten pardons for a number of the men who earned her favor behind bars. Alvarado details one such story where Laveau creates an altar at a prison to work magic on behalf of the condemned men. The newspaper account is one of the few we have of voudou altars from the time. Modern altars aren’t too far off from the description in the book, if not more elaborate and less overtly Catholic in imagery.

For more on Laveau’s life and in particular, a deeper look at her specific ideas around Voudou and how Alvarado interprets “Laveau Voudou”, give her book a read!

MARIE LEVEAU’S LEGACY

A woman of many faces and names in her lifetime, Laveau has only become more complex in death. As mentioned before, she has become a Loa, a God within Vodou. Hoodoo conjurers also call on “The Voodoo Queen” and I imagine every teen witch in Louisiana has at least thought about whispering her name in a spell or two. Her tomb is so popular that the Archdioceses has had to largely close off the cemetery, allowing only for guided tours to prevent further vandalism. Naturally, which tomb is hers is also a mystery that divides scholars. Most point to the Tomb of the Widow Paris as her final resting place and after the City worked with the Archdioceses to restore it in 2014, stories of Laveau’s power from beyond the grave made it into the public record.

Her cottage is another famous pilgrimage site. Purchased by her grandmother and housing her descendants for nearly a century, the cottage at 152 St. Anne Street is no longer standing but that doesn’t stop people from visiting the new home built on the original’s location. Claims of her ghost wandering down the street or powerful residual energy are commonplace. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any location even mildly associated with the Voodoo Queen that doesn’t have a few different paranormal stories attached to it. This profound impact on the space is part of why her deification is such an easy given to accept. Multifaceted, many-faced, and yet clearly identifiable as a specific presence: she’s got all the makings of a goddess!

As we begin to unpack the history of Black Magic, it only made sense to start with a successful, verifiably magician whose work continues to shape magical practice. Now both a literal goddess and he pop culture “goddess” of Voodoo Leveau is probably one of the best known Black magicians in the world. While I adore Angela Bassett’s depiction of her, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Underground Railroad, mystical lawyer version of Laveau on TV either. I am delighted by the depth of character I uncovered in reading “The Magic of Marie Laveau” and will be coming back to this book for more richness and stories about Marie Laveau. Commentary about her own life from the magician herself is scarce, a running theme in our discussions to come. Still, unlike the more ancient mystics of the past who have since become the centerpieces of their respective religions, Laveau lived only a century divided from us today. We can touch her works and know without question she was flesh and bone.

And anyone who has used her Name or practiced her magics knows full well that the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans is even more powerful now as a spirit than she was as a mortal.