Most indigenous religions contain a magical or medicinal aspect that is intrinsic to that tradition. In New Orleans Voudou, the magical tradition is what is referred to as Hoodoo (also referred to as conjure and rootwork) and gris gris. At some point in the early 1900s - likely spurred by both the onset of a viable commercial Hoodoo sector as well as practitioners going underground to avoid harassment and prosecution by the police - Hoodoo was separated from Voudou and was reduced to a stand-alone ethnobotanical folk magic tradition that spread throughout the country. A person could practice Hoodoo, conjure and rootwork and not work with the saints or spirits if they didn’t want to. It was not necessary for conjure workers to be Voudouists; in fact, many conjure workers today are Christians and divorce themselves completely from Voudou.

Hoodoo, conjure and rootwork is an African American system of healing, harming and protection. It relies on spiritual powers harnessed through ritual actions to affect change. Slaves used the system to cope with oppressive environments and the harsh conditions of slavery, as well as a means of dealing with slaveholders and conflicts between members within slave communities. Illness was often believed to be the result of conjuration and so finding forms of spiritual protection was necessary to achieve and maintain good health. Healing and harming methods were employed to establish dominance within a community, to exact revenge when necessary, to conserve resources, to seek justice and to achieve balance. The system of healing, harming and protection continued to serve folks post slavery as change was not at all immediate and the same basic human needs were present, whether one was enslaved or not.

Today, people will say that what Marie Laveau practiced was Hoodoo, not Voudou. I say what she did was Creole Voudou, which resembles and includes what is considered Hoodoo today. The New Orleans Voodoo Museum differentiates the two by stating Voudou is what came from Africa while Hoodoo is an American-made phenomenon, born out of African tradition. A more succinct explanation is that Hoodoo, like Voudou, has its roots in ancient African Dahomean cosmology and is connected to Legba and forest spirits called Azzizas who taught him the sacred use of herbs (gbo). Legba gave this knowledge to people in the form of a spiritual science – Hoodoo - that taught our ancestors hand in hand with the Voudou how to manage day to day life and personal destiny. As can be seen, the primary loa of New Orleans Voudou, Legba, is directly connected to Hoodoo (gbo). Those who practice New Orleans Voudou and Laveau Voudou are working within a unique African framework because the practice does not separate the Voudou spirits from the Hoodoo spiritual science. We acknowledge and embrace the two in their totality.

Years ago, I began to study the available literature for magickal activities related to Marie Laveau to see if they matched up with present day practices. In doing so, I observed a pattern of specific types of conjure workings emerge, so I placed them into categories. Though not exhaustive, I concluded the following twelve categories of conjure can be found in the Laveau Voudou magickospiritual  lineage over time:

1. Bottle spells and container spells
2. Candle magick
3. Catholic conjure
4. Coffin conjure
5. Death conjure  
6. Fetishism: Doll Baby Conjure and Ju Ju
7. Front porch conjure
8. Graveyard work
9. Gris gris
10. Magick lamps
11. Supplications
12. Water Rituals