MYSTICAL: Marie Laveau

Around the 1820s, New Orleans residents whispered of a mesmerizing hairdresser turned Voodoo Queen named Marie Laveau. Legends claim she bewitched judges to halt convictions, performed love spells from her candlelit altar, and healed the sick with her mystical powers. And some say Marie never truly died, as she still haunts the French Quarter today.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Yvette Gentile?

  Toda la ciudad tiene una cosa por la que se conoce. Si quieres un poco de romance en tu vida, puedes ir a París para cenar en Montpellier y luego tomar un taxi a medianoche a la Eiffel Tower para un último beso parisiano bajo el brillo de París. Si estás buscando liberarte de un fin de semana, puedes reservar un viaje a Las Vegas, tal vez ver a Bruno Mars o J Lo. O si estás hinchado por la antigua historia y la comida más deliciosa del mundo, sube en un vuelo a Roma y se dirige directo al Pantheon y luego se desplaza a Piazza Navona para un refrescante spritz de aperol y una pasta de carbonara.

• 0:43Yvette Gentile?

  Pero si estás buscando un poco de espeluznación y magia en tu vida, junto con los mejores beignets del planeta, hay un lugar que supera a los demás: Nueva Orleans, Louisiana. Durante siglos se ha conocido como la ciudad de misterio, un lugar donde las leyendas se desvelan en cada esquina, donde la línea entre la realidad y el supernatural se siente particularmente fina. Una ciudad donde en el corazón de todo está la música, los ritmos, los drummers, la cultura, los milagros, los espíritus y las fuerzas inundadas que han estado en la vida durante generaciones.

• 1:28Yvette Gentile?

  Y por encima de todo, hay una forma de magia que se ha convertido en sinónimo de Nueva Orleans: el voodoo.

• 1:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  El voodoo es una tradición religiosa que utiliza milagros, los chismes de magia y el suministro de espíritus para ayudar con los problemas diarios. Desde curar enfermedades, a ganar dinero, a conseguir tu encantamiento para enamorarte de ti. Pero no se convirtió en una parte importante de la cultura de Nueva Orleans hasta el inicio de los años 1800. Eso es cuando una reina de voodoo llamada Marie Laveau se levantó al poder. Ella era tan buena en ello que ganó toneladas de seguidores y ayudó a hacer que el voodoo fuera una parte permanente de la herencia de la ciudad. Porque según algunos registros históricos, ella podía sanar a los enfermos, aprender los secretos más profundos de la gente y controlar a sus enemigos.

• 2:25Rasha Pecoraro?

  I'm Rasha Pecoraro.

• 2:27Yvette Gentile?

  And I'm Yvette Gentile. This is So Supernatural.

• 3:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  If you're like me and have visited New Orleans recently, you probably took a trip to the historic French Quarter, a neighborhood that got its name after a wave of French immigrants settled there in the early 1800s. Maybe you were lucky enough to sample the city's most famous sandwich, a po'boy. And my favorite is actually the shrimp po'boy. Or maybe you had their famous jambalaya. And no offense to our beautiful mama's version of jambalaya that we ate growing up, which of course was delish. But nothing compares to the jambalaya in New Orleans.

• 3:43Yvette Gentile?

  Rasha, can I just tell you something? So Mom actually learned how to make jambalaya and seafood gumbo from my babysitter, Mrs. Borkins, that used to take care of me back in the day. And she actually was from Louisiana. So that's where it started. So Mom knew how to throw down.

• 4:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  She did, she did. But every day I was in New Orleans, I ate jambalaya. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Or maybe you're in town for Mardi Gras. I hope you got to see one of the world famous parades. And I know it's a little scandalous, but I hope you even caught a string of beads or two. But let's imagine you had access to a time machine and you wanted to visit New Orleans, not as it is today, but as it was back around the mid 1850s.

• 4:36Yvette Gentile?

  Well, there you'd find New Orleans as a thriving port city, the fourth busiest in the world at the time. Sailors and traders from all across the globe regularly visited those docks, seeing as the city was part of several major trade routes. Visiting sailors shopped in the local stores, they ate and drank in the restaurants, and let their cultures mix freely. It was a true melting pot for locals and visitors alike, which meant many New Orleans residents had progressive attitudes about race and nationality. It's hard to stay biased against someone when you're sharing a pint with them at a local pub or worshiping next to them in the same church.

• 5:20Yvette Gentile?

  But to be clear, there were many racist laws in the books, and slavery was still legal in the United States. People of color certainly dealt with bias and discrimination. But New Orleans was known for being a fairly liberal city. Many Black people lived there, including those who had been born free or escaped from slavery. Interracial relationships were also common. This was the world Marie Laveau was born into.

• 5:54Rasha Pecoraro?

  It was also a time when record-keeping wasn't so great, meaning we don't know many confirmed details about Marie's life. She was born sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s. Most historic sources agree that her birthday was September 10th, but no one is entirely sure of the year. Records also say Marie was multiracial. Her father was a businessman with both white and Black ancestry, and her mother was part Black and part Choctaw, a local indigenous tribal nation. Marie was born free and remained so for her whole life. She was also a devout Catholic who went to church every single day.

• 6:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  We don't know much about Marie's childhood or early adulthood, until about August 4th, 1819, when she was in her late teens or her early twenties. On that day, she married a free black man named Jacques Perri. Very little has been reported about their marriage, but we know about five years after their wedding, Jacques disappeared. Rumors said Jacques just up and left Marie. But anytime someone asked, Marie insisted he was dead. She even gave herself a nickname: "The Widow Perri." Needless to say, Marie needed a fresh start after this, and a way to support herself now that she was single again.

• 7:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  Many historical accounts say she became a hairdresser around this time. Other rumors claim this is when she began practicing voodoo.

• 7:34Yvette Gentile?

  Voodoo was an underground religion in the early 1800s in New Orleans. It combined elements of African folk traditions, Haitian beliefs, and Catholicism. And because of that, it was seen as very dangerous in some circles. Many white enslavers were afraid of enslaved black people congregating and sharing their cultures with one another. And they worried that they would team up and then revolt or riot against them. So the enslavers spread a lot of nasty rumors about voodoo and those who believed in it. Officials claim voodoo was an evil religion, and that practitioners were worshiping demons or putting curses on their enemies. But in reality,

• 8:20Yvette Gentile?

  voodoo teaches that there are a ton of spirits that can help people if you perform the right rituals or make the right offerings to them. These spirits aren't necessarily good or bad. Instead, they may do good or bad things depending on what the believer actually asked them to do.

• 8:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  Marie was not discouraged by what the white enslavers were saying about voodoo. Instead, she sought out the most respected and established priests, begging them to teach her everything they knew. And with their help, she became an expert at voodoo. Her mentors taught her secret rituals she could use to summon spirits, or as they're called in voodoo, loa. Each loa is in charge of something different, and you'd call on different spirits depending on what you're asking for. Take Papa Legba, for example. He's a loa who controls keys and locks. So you'd summon him if you wanted to open a door

• 9:21Rasha Pecoraro?

  or get rid of a roadblock, literally or figuratively. He was also associated with social justice, because many people thought Papa Legba could symbolically break the chains of slavery and finally set black people free.

• 9:38Yvette Gentile?

  When Marie learned about Papa Legba, he may have reminded her of Saint Peter. In Catholic tradition, Saint Peter also controls doors, removes obstacles, and brings justice to his people. And in Marie's mind, there was no conflict or contradiction between being a devout Catholic and a voodoo priestess. Papa Legba and Saint Peter were just two different names for the same spirit. So she became very comfortable performing voodoo rituals while still going to church each day. And at some point in the 1820s, she also began booking clients, people who would come to her looking for help with their problems. Sometimes, she'd summon loas on their behalf,

• 10:23Yvette Gentile?

  and other times she'd create magic potions, or she'd sell gregory, which are basically these little good luck charms powered by voodoo magic. Mostly, though, people went to Marie for advice. She seemed unusually wise and often knew things she shouldn't have.

• 10:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  For instance, people might have gone to Marie to ask about a certain business arrangement in their life, only for Marie to tell them, "No, they shouldn't commit because a colleague was pocketing more than their fair share," or maybe they're lying about how many investors they had. And sure enough, weeks or months later, the dishonest businessperson would be exposed for fraud. Sometimes, women would go to Marie to ask if they should accept a marriage proposal, and Marie would either bless the union or reveal their partner was cheating. No matter what they asked, Marie always seemed to know exactly what to say,

• 11:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  and she knew details that weren't public knowledge, which is why so many people believed she consulted with Loas to learn their secrets.

• 11:36Yvette Gentile?

  Aside from giving advice, Marie sometimes got very involved in solving her clients' problems, like this one incident that happened early on in her career. So as the story goes, there was a rich man who went to visit Marie one day. We'll call him Pierre, since his real name was never recorded. Well, Pierre had a son who we'll call Bernard, and Bernard had fallen in with a bad crowd. While he was generally well behaved and law-abiding, his friends often committed crimes and got into trouble. Well, recently, the police had caught and arrested Bernard, and now they were charging him with all the crimes

• 12:16Yvette Gentile?

  his friends had committed. Unfortunately, there's no record of what those crimes were or what kind of sentence Bernard was facing. All we know is that Pierre felt that his son was innocent, even though there was a lot of evidence against him. Pierre was terrified Bernard would go to prison, so guess who he went to for help? He went to Marie. Very early on the day of Bernard's trial, Marie put three chili peppers in her mouth and then walked to a nearby church to pray for him. For hours, she sat in the sanctuary without chewing or swallowing the peppers.

• 12:57Yvette Gentile?

  Instead, she kept them tucked in her cheek the entire time. Now, this church happened to be right next door to the courthouse where Bernard's trial was being held. So Marie watched and waited. And at one point that day, when the courthouse was empty, Marie slipped into the building and down to the courtroom. There she hid the three chili peppers under the judge's chair. And then she slipped out again before anyone spotted her. Later that day, Bernard's trial began. The judge walked into the courtroom, sat right on the chili peppers, and it was like this change instantly came over him. He seemed a lot less stern

• 13:42Yvette Gentile?

  and was actually friendly toward Bernard. Even though the prosecutors had a ton of evidence against him and the defense's arguments were weak, the judge found him not guilty. He ordered Bernard be released immediately. There was no logical explanation for it, except that Marie had controlled or influenced his decision with those enchanted chili peppers, suggesting her power went far beyond the potion brewing and charm-making that she advertised. And as the word of her success spread, it was only a matter of time before she'd come to be known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

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• 15:06Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 15:07Speaker 05

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 15:44Speaker 05

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 16:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  It's impossible to say how many clients Marie Laveau had, in part because records of her life are few and far between, and also because voodoo was considered very taboo and controversial during Marie's time. So she had to be very, let's just say, discreet about her business, which was probably why Marie worked from the privacy of her own home most of the time. But she was also said to throw huge voodoo events in public places, like on the shores of a nearby lake or a big central park called Congo Square.

• 16:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  It was there that she'd host worship services, like the voodoo equivalent of Sunday morning church. People would get together to pray, sing and dance, and talk about their beliefs. Everyone was welcome at these events, whether they were rich, poor, black, white, or multiracial. And we know the services were very popular. No other voodoo priest or priestess had as many followers as Marie did at the time, which was why the locals called Marie "the voodoo queen of New Orleans." Or is it "the voodoo queen of New Orleans"?

• 17:18Yvette Gentile?

  Well, you know what? We had to phone a friend because we needed to know the right pronunciation.

• 17:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  We've heard it many ways.

• 17:26Yvette Gentile?

  We've heard "New Orleans", we've heard "New Orleans", and we've heard "Nahland". So y'all can chime in, let us know how you pronounce it. But regardless of Marie's maybe rhyming nickname, she didn't only earn that title by being good at spellcasting. She was also good at keeping her rivals in check. And she didn't mind that other priests and priestesses existed. There were too many practitioners for any one leader to help them all. And it was normal at the time for multiple voodoo leaders to work alongside each other. The problem was, Marie wanted to be the top priestess, the most powerful one in town.

• 18:12Yvette Gentile?

  So whenever someone else started to gain notoriety or attention, Marie could be, let's just say, vicious about shutting them down.

• 18:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  In 1850, when Marie was in her 50s or so, a younger, more powerful priestess was on the rise. She was known only as Rosalie. Evidently, Rosalie got her powers from a voodoo doll she'd imported straight from Africa. It was carved from a piece of wood which came from a tree that had grown somewhere on the continent. Rosalie told her customers that this made her magic more pure and stronger than Marie's. Because through this doll, she had physical connection to the land her ancestors had come from. Which, of course, was an issue for Marie, because her clients started going to Rosalie instead.

• 19:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  She was losing business and relevance. So one day, Marie decided she had to do something about Rosalie and her voodoo doll. She marched over to her house, where Rosalie did her work, and Marie knocked on the door. And when no one answered, Marie saw an opportunity. Rosalie's voodoo doll was right there on display in her front yard. So Marie grabbed it and just walked off. She knew that if Rosalie's powers came from the doll, she wouldn't be able to do much work without it. When Rosalie came home and saw her doll was missing, she asked her neighbors what had happened.

• 19:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  And all of them said Marie Laveau had stolen it, right in broad daylight. So with her own powers stripped, Rosalie had no choice but to contact the authorities. She had Marie arrested and charged with theft. Marie later went on trial, where she pleaded not guilty to the charges. But several witnesses were called to testify, each one saying that Marie was indeed a thief.

• 20:18Yvette Gentile?

  Well, on top of that, Marie openly admitted that she'd taken the doll and still had it. All to say, this case against her was rock solid. And yet, the judge ruled in her favor. We don't know how Marie pulled this off. If she cast a spell over them, or if Marie was just that influential that the judge just didn't want to rule against her. But that wasn't all. The judge also agreed that the doll was rightfully hers because she was the voodoo queen. Not only did Marie not have to pay any fines or serve a single day in prison, she got to keep the doll.

• 21:02Yvette Gentile?

  And according to Marie, this helped grow her power even stronger. Because now she was the one with a physical connection to the motherland. And she also said she absorbed all of the power that it had once given Rosalie.

• 21:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  Now, you'd think accounts like this about theft, magic, and voodoo would make Christian leaders turn on Marie. But instead, many of them actually supported her. That's because Marie said Catholicism and voodoo fit each other like a glove. And she used a lot of Catholic practices in her voodoo spells. When she was summoning loas, she'd pray to Catholic saints as part of her ritual. She'd blend holy water with her other gree-gree ingredients. And she had an altar in her home where magic charms sat right alongside church candles, incense, and a statue of Saint Peter. And each time she performed a secret ritual or gave someone a magic potion,

• 22:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  she'd tell them to go to the church regularly, remember the saints, and devote themselves to Jesus. Sometimes, the local priests would even let Marie do voodoo rituals right on the front lawns of their churches. They figured as long as she was encouraging people to worship God, there was no harm in letting her do a little bit of magic, too. It probably helped that Marie practiced what she preached. She made a lot of money performing voodoo. But then she made generous donations to the poor. And she often visited prisons and talked to the incarcerated people about God and Jesus.

• 22:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  She told them that they were worthy of forgiveness, no matter how serious their crimes were. And then she encouraged them to dedicate themselves to the faith and pray every single day.

• 22:59Yvette Gentile?

  But most importantly, Marie used her magic to heal the sick, especially during a massive wave of yellow fever, which is a life-threatening illness that was spreading through mosquito bites at the time. And these days, like in the United States, it's very rare. But in 1796, around the time Marie was born, it began infecting people in New Orleans. And it took until 1905 for the city to get the disease under control. At that time, doctors, you know, they didn't understand germs or infections as well as they do now. So they didn't know how it was spreading or even how to treat the sick patients.

• 23:41Yvette Gentile?

  Add in the fact that New Orleans is very swampy and marshy with lots of breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and it quickly became an epidemic. Marie never studied medicine or received any formal training as a nurse or a doctor. But throughout her lifetime, she regularly visited hospitals offering to treat yellow fever patients for free. And in the hospitals, she'd move from bed to bed, chanting, offering prayers to different Loas and slipping the patients the grigrees and charms under their bed or pillows. She also brewed teas and made healing potions, but refused to tell anyone what was in them.

• 24:25Yvette Gentile?

  Whatever it was, it worked. Many of the people Marie treated supposedly got better. And it's hard to put an exact count on it, but many historians believe she cured hundreds of yellow fever patients. And her track record was better than many professional doctors. Lots of physicians came to Marie and asked how'd she done it? But of course, she refused to answer, claiming it was a, I'm sure, ancient old voodoo secret. And all of this is great for PR because when the word got out that she knew something trained medics and doctors didn't, even more people came to her for healing.

• 25:11Yvette Gentile?

  And as time went on, she became almost as famous for her charitable work as she did for her voodoo powers.

• 25:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's actually pretty amazing, if you think about it.

• 25:22Yvette Gentile?

  It is, it is.

• 25:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which, as you can imagine, was a problem for the rich and powerful white people of New Orleans. They didn't like that a respected, accomplished black woman was becoming so prominent and beloved. So they began spreading nasty rumors about her to try and take her down. For example, sometimes Marie let her followers participate in voodoo rituals along with her. These were sacred, intimate, and private, only for the truest of believers. Except they happened in public places like parks and lake shores. So sometimes her haters would try to sneak in anyway.

• 26:06Rasha Pecoraro?

  Or they'd climb onto rooftops or tall trees to watch the ritual from afar. Even if they never set eyes on the ceremony, some people would spread vicious lies about whatever they thought they had seen there. Some even said she was hosting orgies, or that they were summoning evil demons at the rituals. To this day, no one's certain what happened at these ceremonies, but it's safe to say the rumors weren't based in reality because they were primarily spread by Marie's enemies. In fact, there was so much misinformation about Marie in general that it's hard to say what's true and what wasn't about her life, professional and personal.

• 26:52Yvette Gentile?

  Well, we do know that after her husband went missing, Marie became romantically involved with a white man. And since interracial marriages weren't legally recognized at the time, they never had a wedding. But they did have a lot of children together, and depending on the source, Marie gave birth to somewhere between seven and 15 kids. And that's, that's a lot of kids, I'm trying to say. But I just have to say, it's unclear if they were all by the same father, or if some were conceived during her first marriage. We do know that she had two daughters who were also named Marie. And one of them bore a striking resemblance to her mother.

• 27:33Yvette Gentile?

  And many gave her the nickname of Marie the Second to distinguish her from her mom. The Marie we've been discussing all episode was known as Marie the First. And it's said that as Marie the First aged, she often asked her daughter Marie the Second to dress in her clothes and meet with her clients, and just basically help run her business. When people saw a young woman handling Marie the First's business, they assumed she had a magical power to stay young forever. The truth was, they were just mistaking Marie the Second for her mother.

• 28:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  But eventually, time catches up to us all, even those of us who are said to be magic. Because in the summer of 1881, Marie the First became ill, and she didn't get any better. By this point, we believe she was in her late 70s or early 80s. She passed away peacefully in her home on June 15. Then she was laid to rest in a local cemetery in a big above-ground stone tomb.

• 28:40Yvette Gentile?

  It's said that Marie the Second then followed in her mother's footsteps, continuing to do voodoo in her place. And rumor has it, she wasn't as kind or compassionate as her mother, and she may have used her powers for evil. But there are also historical records saying, both of the daughters named Marie died young, and neither one of them ever had much interest in voodoo. So it's possible the stories about Marie the Second were completely false.

• 29:12Rasha Pecoraro?

  We do know that Marie's legend only grew after her death. And while she was said to be gone and buried, people still had encounters with the voodoo priestess, and continue to, to this day.

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• 29:41Speaker 02

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• 30:03Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 30:04Speaker 05

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 30:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 30:41Speaker 05

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:57Yvette Gentile?

  Some people think Marie Laveau is still at work today, haunting the city as a ghost. And people say you can recognize her spirit because she always wears a handkerchief on her head, one that's tied with seven knots. Travelers often say that late at night, especially in the many graveyards that are throughout New Orleans, they'll see an elderly woman walking around, and her hair is always tucked under a handkerchief that's been knotted seven times. She's also been spotted in the home she used to live and work in. But eyewitnesses have seen her all over the city.

• 31:37Rasha Pecoraro?

  Take this fascinating story from sometime in the 1930s. By this point, Marie had been dead for at least 50 years. One evening, a man named Elmore went to the drugstore to pick up some necessities. He was chatting with the cashier when he saw an older black woman walk into the store. She was wearing a white dress and a blue headscarf, tied in seven knots. As soon as the cashier saw the woman, his face went pale. He was so nervous, and without any kind of warning, he turned and ran toward the back of the store, leaving the register unattended. Elmore had no idea why he was so uneasy and why he took off,

• 32:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  but the old woman apparently found this all very funny because she just laughed. And then she asked Elmore if he knew who she was, and Elmore admitted that he didn't. The woman then asked Elmore where the store employee had gone. Once again, Elmore said he didn't know, which is when the woman shocked him by slapping him across the face, completely unprovoked. Next, she turned and ran out of the store. Elmore watched stunned through the window as she sprinted across the street, all the way to the historic graveyard on the other side of the road. She climbed the stone fence to get into the cemetery,

• 33:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  and when she got to the top of the fence, she just vanished into thin air. Elmore was so startled by all of this that he reportedly fainted from the shock. When he woke up just a few minutes later, the cashier was pouring him whiskey. He gave some to Elmore, who was grateful for something to steady his nerves. Then Elmore explained what had happened to him. He said he still didn't know who the woman was or what she'd wanted. But the cashier replied, quote, "That was Marie Laveau. She been dead for years and years, but every once in a while, people around here see her. Son, you have been slapped by the queen of voodoo," end quote.

• 33:50Yvette Gentile?

  Oh my goodness.

• 33:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  I know.

• 33:51Yvette Gentile?

  What a great story. Well, as creepy as that story is, there are certain times and places where Marie shows up more regularly. So if you want a ghostly encounter with her, it might help to make your way to New Orleans on St. John's Eve, which falls every year on June 23rd. And that's the night before St. John's Day, which in Catholic tradition is said to be the birth date of John the Baptist. It's also considered the holiest day of the year for voodoo practitioners and the best time to perform magical rituals. So every year on St. John's Eve, a bunch of voodoo priests and priestesses and believers all gather on the shores

• 34:36Yvette Gentile?

  of a huge lake just outside of New Orleans called Lake Ponchatrain.

• 34:42Yvette Gentile?

  Local legends say if you're among the faithful, at some point during the night, you'll see an elderly black woman walk out of the water. She always wears a headscarf with those seven knots in it, and she carries a lit candle that burns brightly, even though she just came out of the water. The woman walks to shore, then looks at the crowd of voodoo practitioners gathered there. If she nods at you or pays you any special attention, it means you have a special purpose in life. Afterwards, she'll join everyone for their Saint John's Eve rituals and a feast. And once they're done,

• 35:25Yvette Gentile?

  she'll just disappear right back into the lake. I gotta say, we need to go to New Orleans to go to this, because I want to see this.

• 35:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  I want to see this, but I am not a practicing voodoo priestess.

• 35:39Yvette Gentile?

  But you still can go. You don't have to be a voodoo practitioner.

• 35:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  We just have to believe.

• 35:44Yvette Gentile?

  You can look from afar.

• 35:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  I'll admit it. There are a lot of fascinating stories about Marie, both from her life and after her death. But there are a lot of rumors and misinformation, too. So it's hard to say what to believe. But if you know Yvette and me at all, and you have been with us from the beginning of So Supernatural, you know what we believe. But I'll just play devil's advocate here and say, many of the stories about Marie Laveau might actually have a logical explanation. Take, for example, the story about Bernard, the one where she hid magical chili peppers in a courtroom to get him off for his charges.

• 36:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  It's possible the judge saw the chili peppers and decided to let Bernard go, not because of Loa or magic, but because of his own superstition.

• 36:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  As the theory goes, voodoo rituals were starting to come into the mainstream around that time, and a high-ranking judge might have been familiar with them. So maybe the official saw the peppers and realized someone was trying to magically influence his rulings. If he believed in voodoo, he might have been worried that whoever cast the spell could put a curse on him, especially if he didn't do what they wanted. Rather than take that risk, maybe he gave the verdict he thought the voodoo practitioner wanted, just to keep himself safe.

• 37:19Yvette Gentile?

  Or he may have known Marie was the one who placed the peppers there, and he might have been damn scared she'd hurt him in other ways, say by destroying his reputation and spilling his secrets. Because we know that she had dirt on everybody. Like we mentioned before, Marie was said to have worked as a hairdresser, and if you've spent any time in a salon, especially someone like me who has spent hundreds and thousands of hours in a salon—I just got a shout-out to Fritz, my amazing hairdresser—you know how clients love to gossip with the person who is doing their hair.

• 38:01Yvette Gentile?

  Well, I mean, some believe Marie paid extra close attention to everything her customers said, not just because she was a good listener, but because she wanted to gather every scrap of information that she could. And since some of her patrons were rich and powerful, or they were housekeepers, tutors, or laborers who worked for wealthy and connected people, Marie had dirt on just about everyone, especially the upper crust elites of New Orleans. So when people came to her and asked for advice, she could claim she was going to consult

• 38:42Yvette Gentile?

  with the Loas or pray for guidance, but in reality, she may have been using her own understanding of what was going on in the city and what people had said during their hair appointments against them. So she could have also used her bad reputation to her own advantage, because a lot of her harshest critics were hypocritical. In public, they'd talk about how terrible voodoo was and how sinful Marie's work could be. But when those same people needed spiritual advice, or healing, or good luck, who do you think they turned to? They turned to Marie Laveau. So she may have told people,

• 39:25Yvette Gentile?

  "If you don't do what I say, I'll reveal to the world that you're one of my customers, and they'll all know you're not the kind of person you pretend to be."

• 39:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  I mean, that could be possible, but there's one thing you can't cure with a little bit of hairdresser blackmail, and that's yellow fever. Historians believe Marie saved hundreds of lives during the outbreak, and we cannot explain those cures away. It definitely wasn't the placebo effect, because while our minds are incredibly powerful, you can't just will yourself into recovering from a serious illness like yellow fever. Marie's treatments, whatever they were, worked all on their own. And sure, she could have been very good at using potions and home remedies,

• 40:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  but still, you got to wonder, how did she know which herbs to give people when even the best doctors of the time didn't have a clue how to help them? Call it magic or divine intuition, but Marie definitely had abilities that other people didn't.

• 40:40Yvette Gentile?

  Right, and she came from a long lineage of voodoo practitioners. You know, when you do your research on her, you look at her grandmother, her great-grandmother. So it started a long time ago. Well, even today, people from all over the world turn to Marie for help with their problems. For decades now, tourists have been visiting her grave in New Orleans. But when people come, they often scratch three X's into the stone walls of her tomb, because local rumor says this will get her spirit to grant you a wish. For what it's worth, that idea has never been a major part of voodoo belief. In fact, many practitioners say it's bad form to vandalize someone's grave.

• 41:25Yvette Gentile?

  I mean, just, period. Do not vandalize anybody's grave. Full stop. It's unclear where the legends of the three X's came from, but many city officials and historians have begged people to stop writing on Marie's tomb. But that hasn't kept vandals from making their mark, quite literally.

• 41:46Rasha Pecoraro?

  Eventually, Marie's descendants got so sick of the disrespect, they moved her body to a different tomb in another cemetery. Or at least, that's what some rumors say. But once again, it's impossible to verify this story. Historically, New Orleans didn't keep very good records of who was buried where. So if her family did move her remains, there's no official paperwork to prove it. Today, there are two different tombs that are both considered to be Marie Laveau's final resting place. The original one and the alleged new one.

• 42:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  And unfortunately, they're now both covered in X's and graffiti.

• 42:32Yvette Gentile?

  Regardless of where she may or may not be buried now, what I can say for sure is that Marie gained a lot of respect and social standing at a time when that was incredibly difficult for women of color to do. She rose to prominence in a city where the rich and the powerful were literally trying to keep her down. Some might call it supernatural, but I believe it's a mix of the supernatural and Marie's deep spiritual belief in Catholicism and magic that made her so powerful.

• 43:11Yvette Gentile?

  Marie Laveau changed the character of her beloved city, transforming religious life in New Orleans forevermore. And she showed the world that it's possible for anyone and everyone to be able to break barriers around race, gender, and spirituality.

• 43:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at so-supernaturalpodcast.com. Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 44:06Rasha Pecoraro?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 44:11Speaker 06

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing: Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.