Voodoo dolls may bring to mind needles and revenge, but your much-abhorred ex will be relieved to know that pinpricking has no part in most serious practitioners' repertoire. "We try to dissociate from that," says voodoo mama Denise Alvarado (planetvoodoo.com). The New Orleans-born "Dear Abby of Voodoo," who held her first séance on the bayou at the age of six, explains that dolls are used as focusing tools, the way other religions use meditation or prayer. Voodoo, which means "spirit of God," accepts one deity and thousands of spirits, called loa, which are responsible for daily matters like family, romance and wealth. Alvarado's dolls represent these spirits: "They're meant for healing, finding love or spiritual guidance."

How to: Choose

Each loa-and doll-serves a different purpose. "Look at your options and see which one speaks to you," Alvarado says. Baron Samedi, pictured, is known for his dirty mouth, overtly sexual behavior and drinking habits. He favors rum infused with exactly 21 hot peppers (in traditional Haitian ceremonies you can tell who has been possessed by Samedi based on whether they can stomach the superhot booze). As the spirit of death, contact Samedi if you'd like to chat with an ancestor. He is also the loa invoked for infertility.

How to: Use

To contact a loa, first ask the gatekeeper of the spiritual world, Papa Legba, to open the door for you. Then, light a purple candle and ask for what you want. "The loa will do whatever we ask them, but we have to pay them for their services or else they'll get pissed off," Alvarado explains. Set up an altar of offerings: Baron Samedi likes grilled peanuts, black coffee, cigars, bread and, of course, spicy liquor.

Time Out New York / Issue 609 : May 30, 2007 - June 5, 2007

Voodoo vévés are symbolic designs used in ritual, drawn on the ground with cornmeal prior to or during a Voodoo ceremony. These designs represent the various powers and attributes of the Loa (God, Goddess, Spirit, Orisha) to be invoked, and serve as a focal point for invocation and offerings. Several vévés of different Loa may be drawn for one ceremony. The designs incorporate well recognized traditional elements, but reflect also the individual intentions and creative skill of the Houngan or Mambo.

There are literally hundreds of loa. The symbol shown is Baron Samedi's vévé.

The Guede Barons by voodoomama
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Baron Samedi stands at the crossroads, where the souls of dead humans pass on their way to Guinee. As well as being the all-knowing loa of death, he is a sexual loa, frequently represented by phallic symbols and noted for disruption, obscenity, debauchery, and having a particular fondness for tobacco and rum. Additionally, he is the loa of sex and resurrection.

He is New World in origin, not African. His wife is the loa Manman Brigit

Maya Deren retells the story of many Guédés dressed in top hat and smoked glasses descending on the presidential palace.

It seems that some years ago, under the regime of President Borno, there suddenly appeared in the streets of Port-au-Prince a crowd of Ghedes (all of them houngans possessed by Ghede) wearing the "formal" costume of the lord: the tall top-hats, long black tail-coats, smokedBaron Cimitere glasses, cigarettes or cigars, and canes. An enormous crowd naturally collected about them, and joined them in their march to the National Palace. They all took the guards by surprise, and, singing, swerved through the gates and up the drive and to the door itself, where they demanded money of the President. President Borno, who is reputed to have been sympathetic to Voudoun ritual (secretly so) and yet feared bourgeois opinion was in great dilemma. He finally gave in, ostensibly merely to quiet the mob, and the Ghedes with their supporters left the grounds. But Ghede had made his point. Death, who has consumed so many heroes, bows before no man and will remind even the most illustrious that one day he too will be consumed. So Ghede had gotten his money and went off to gorge himself, singing...

From Divine Horsemen by Maya Deren [p107]