The source of this power is the voodoo religion, and its queen is Marie Laveau, the notorious voodooienne, worshipped and feared by blacks and whites alike.

    Beneath the indulgence and revelry of the Crescent City lies a long history of the dark and mysterious. From the famous "Queen of Voodoo," Marie Laveau, who is said to haunt the site of her grave, to the wicked LaLauries, whose true natures were hidden behind elegance and the trappings of high society, New Orleans is filled with spirits of all kinds. Some of the ghosts in these stories have sordid and scandalous histories, while others are friendly specters who simply can't leave their beloved city behind. Join supernatural historian Troy Taylor as he takes readers beyond the French Quarter and shows a side of New Orleans never seen.

    According to local lore, the troubled spirit of society belle Ladell Allen, who had mysteriously committed suicide in the master bedroom in 1948, still roamed the grand historic mansion. Yet, Mark remained skeptical--until he and his family began encountering faceless phantoms, a doppelganger spirit, and other paranormal phenomena. Ensuing ghost investigations offered convincing evidence that six spirits, including Ladell, inhabited their home. But the most shocking event occurred the day Mark followed a strange urge to explore the attic and found, crammed under a floorboard, secret love letters that touchingly depict Ladell Allen's forbidden, heart-searing romance--and shed light on her tragic end.This haunting true ghost story includes several photographs of the Allen House.

    But the CD-ROM in this new edition allows the reader to cast his or her chart in just a few minutes by inputting the date, time and place of birth into the computer, producing a personalized astrological chart in just a few minutes. In addition to revealing the planets' influence on romance, health, and career, The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need takes a closer look at the inner life of each sign. Celebrated astrologer Joanna Martine Woolfolk offers abundant insights on the personal relationships and emotional needs that motivate an individual, on how others perceive astrological types, and on dealing with the negative aspects of signs. Readers will also welcome the inclusion of new discoveries in astronomy.

    Now, beyond the manicured gardens and ballrooms of Regency London, an alluring underworld available only to those with power is revealed to the cousins. By claiming their power, the three cousins have accidentally opened the gates to the underworld. Now ghouls, hellhounds—and most terrifying of all, the spirits of dark witches known as the Greymalkin Sisters—are hunting and killing young debutante witches for their powers. And, somehow, Emma is connected to the murders…because she keeps finding the bodies. Can the cousins seal the gates before another witch is killed…or even worse, before their new gifts are stripped away?

    There are still witches who whisper upon tied knots to curse or heal, sorceresses who shapeshift into animals or household objects, magicians who cast spells for love or good fortune, and common folk who seek their aid for daily problems big and small. Sharing the extensive knowledge she inherited from her mother and grandmother, including spells of the “Old Believers” previously unknown to outsiders, Natasha Helvin explores in detail the folk history and practice of Russian sorcery and Eastern Slavic magical rites, offering a rich compendium of more than 300 spells, incantations, charms, and practical rituals for love, relationships, career success, protection, healing, divination, averting the evil eye, communicating with spirits and ancestors, and a host of other life challenges and daily situations, with complete step-by-step instructions to ensure your magical goals are realized. She explains how this tradition has only a thin Christian veneer over its pagan origins and how the Slavic pagan gods and goddesses acquired new lives as the saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church. She details how the magical energy for these spells and rituals is drawn from the forces of nature, revealing specific places of power in the natural world as well as the profound power of graveyards and churches for casting spells. She explores the creation of amulets and talismans, the importance of icons, and the proper recital of magical language and actions during spells, as well as how one becomes a witch or sorceress. Offering a close examination of these two-thousand-year-old occult practices, Helvin also includes Slavic folk advice, adapted for the modern era. Revealing what it means to be a Slavic witch or sorceress, and how this vocation pervades all aspects of life, she shows that each of us has magic within that we can use to take control of our own destiny.

    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.

    Using common household and outdoor items--such as herbs, spices, dried flowers, plants, stones, and candles--she offers a down-to-earth approach to creating an enchanted home.From specialized spells and charms to kitchen conjuring and color magick, this hands-on guide teaches Witches of all levels how to strengthen a home's aura and energy. Readers will learn how to use begonias and lilacs for protection, dispel bad vibes with salt and lemon, perform tea leaf readings, bless the home with fruit, invite the help of home faeries, perform houseplant magick, and create a loving home for the whole family.Praise: The queen of everyday witchery has outdone herself with this tome.--Retailing Insight

    Discover the history, folklore and scientific evidence surrounding all psychic phenomena - from poltergeists, mediums, and haunted places, to clairvoyance, astrology, and teleportation. Lift the veil on a world of supernatural mysteries, ghost stories and methods of divinitation... and discover if you might be psychic yourself. With information to intrigue and fascinate both believer and sceptic, this is an indispensable map of the psychic world.

    What she doesn't realize is that the girls are about to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment and execution of countless innocent people. Susanna faces a painful choice. Should she keep quiet and let the witch-hunt panic continue, or should she "break charity" with the group--and risk having her own family members named as witches? Reader's guide included.

    and covered in blood!Demonic possession! Haunted condominiums! Murderous babies! Man-eating moths! No plot was too ludicrous, no cover art too appalling, no evil too despicable for the Paperbacks From Hell.Where did they come from? Where did they go? Horror author Grady Hendrix risks his soul and sanity (not to mention yours) to relate the true, untold story of the Paperbacks From Hell.Shocking story summaries! Incredible cover art! And true tales of writers, artists, and publishers who violated every literary law but one: never be boring. All this awaits, if you dare experience the Paperbacks From Hell.

    Except his agency is a front for the CIA. It’s 1959 and the cold war is going strong. But Will doesn’t think he’s a warrior—he’s just a good-hearted Detroit ad guy who can’t seem to figure out Parisian girls.Zoya is a beautiful young woman wandering les boulevards, sad-eyed, coming off a bad breakup. In fact, she impaled her ex on a spike. Zoya, it turns out, has been a beautiful young woman for hundreds of years; she and her far more traditionally witchy-looking companion, Elga, have been thriving unnoticed in the bloody froth of Europe’s wars.Inspector Vidot is a hardworking Paris police detective who cherishes quiet nights at home. But when he follows a lead from a grisly murder to the abode of an ugly old woman, he finds himself turned into a flea.Oliver is a patrician, fun-loving American who has come to Paris to start a literary journal with the help of friends in D.C. who ask a few favors in return. He’s in well over his head, but it’s nothing that a cocktail can’t fix. Right?Add a few chance encounters, a chorus of some more angry witches, a strung-out jazzman or two, a weaponized LSD program, and a cache of rifles buried in the Bois de Bologne—and that’s a novel! But while Toby Barlow’s Babayaga may start as just a joyful romp through the City of Light, it quickly grows into a daring, moving exploration of love, mortality, and responsibility.

    Pendle Hill, Lancashire.A mysterious gathering of thirteen people is interrupted by local magistrate, Roger Nowell. Is this a witches' Sabbat?Two notorious Lancashire witches are already in Lancaster Castle waiting trial. Why is the beautiful and wealthy Alice Nutter defending them? And why is she among the group of thirteen on Pendle Hill?Elsewhere, a starved, abused child lurks. And a Jesuit priest and former Gunpowder plotter, recently returned from France, is widely rumoured to be heading for Lancashire. But who will offer him sanctuary? And how quickly can he be caught?This is the reign of James I, a Protestant King with an obsession: to rid his realm of twin evils, witchcraft and Catholicism, at any price...

    Now, with a new introduction and full-color artwork, this passionate and important text shows even more clearly that the religion of the Goddess—which is tied to the cycles of women’s bodies, the seasons, the phases of the moon, and the fertility of the earth—was the original religion of all humanity.

    Salem Possessed explores the lives of the men and women who helped spin that web and who in the end found themselves entangled in it.From rich and varied sources--many previously neglected or unknown--Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum give us a picture of the events of 1692 more intricate and more fascinating than any other in the already massive literature on Salem. "Salem Possessed," wrote Robin Briggs in The Times Literary Supplement, "reinterprets a world-famous episode so completely and convincingly that virtually all the previous treatments can be consigned to the historical lumber-room."Not simply a dramatic and isolated event, the Salem outbreak has wider implications for our understanding of developments central to the American experience: the breakup of Puritanism, the pressures of land and population in New England towns, the problems besetting farmer and householder, the shifting role of the church, and the powerful impact of commercial capitalism.