Vodou Visions: An Encounter with Divine Mystery [Paperback]

Sallie Ann Glassman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 23, 2000

A completely accessible guide to practicing Vodou and deepening your connection with this bountiful life force

"Vodou" is the spelling preferred by practitioners who revere this powerful, ancient tradition--and Vodou Visions is the first book to provide an inspirational and authentic guide to its history, practices, and creative applications. It describes the tools and techniques for developing the magical mind and honoring the soul, while revealing how Vodou can release creative spirituality and open doors to self-awareness.

Comprehensive and inviting, this book introduces readers to Vodou's rich history, powerful ancestors, and vibrant spirits, known as Lwa. With more than one hundred breathtaking illustrations, Vodou Visions reveals how to honor and invoke the Lwa with specific ceremonial offerings and litanies. Using methods drawn from more than twenty years of practice, Vodou priestess Sallie Ann Glassman shares purification and empowerment rituals for individuals, communities, homes, and spiritual spaces. For more advanced practitioners, Glassman describes ways to deepen communication with the Lwa and to give thanks for an ongoing spiritual relationship. The visions of the Lwa bring a living experience of the Spirit into daily life.

Glassman welcomes readers to a community of faith and--above all--to a journey toward a creative spirituality that will enrich and affirm their lives.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like many native religions, Vodou (often referred to as "Voodoo") has been scorned and ridiculed in mainstream Judeo-Christian communities. "The word 'Vodou' sends chills down the spines of most people, and conjures up age-old terrors of sorcery, black magic, and bogeymen lurking under the bed," writes author Sallie Ann Glassman (New Orleans Voodoo Tarot/Book and Card Set). This enticing compendium of the origins and practice of Vodou makes for a fascinating read, explaining how music, dance, and artistic expression are the heart and soul of this complicated religion. "What I discovered was a vibrant, beautiful, and ecstatic religion that was free from dogma, guilt or coercion," says Glassman, a thoughtful and articulate Jewish woman who first began studying New Orleans Vodou in 1975.

Its sophisticated spiritual philosophy has absorbed rituals from every place it's entered. The dances and customs of French Colonial New Orleans mix with the Native American Indian use of rattles and cornmeal. Yet many of its numerous magical deities come from the west coast of Africa, where Vodou originated. It is now reported to have 50 million followers worldwide, but with compelling invitations such as this one, it is bound to attract many more converts. --Gail Hudson

Review

Sallie Ann Glassman has written an extraordinary book about an extraordinary subject. VODOU VISIONS gives a most cogent, accessible, and moving view of a body of sacral thought -- really, an entire imaginative culture -- that is of profound importance, rarely studied, and almost invariably exploited or aligned. Ms. Glassman's approach is unqiue. She frames her exegesis and celebration of Vodou as a spiritual autobiography. Her persoanl journey helps us understand the religion that she studies, and appreciate its intensely personal transformative power. VODOU VISIONS is appropriately and vividly personal. But Ms. Glassman also places Vodou in its culture, and in world culture. Her work demonstrates both the singularity and the centrism of Vodou. This is a book that is scholarly in its essence, and historical in its scope. It is also a book that is remarkable in its art. Ms. Glassman is a stunningly gifted writer. Her prose is brilliantly intelligent, and entirely original. Her artwork is breathtaking, and sublimely interrelated with her thought and her uses of language. Almost everyone who has reviewed VODOU VISIONS has praised it in appropriately warm and respectful terms. One reviewer, whose comments generally are highly positive, maintains that VODOU VISIONS replicates Ms. Galssman's earlier book. I have reread Ms. Glassman's earlier book (which is superb, and I cannot understand the reviewer's charge. The two works seem to me to have nothing in common, other than high distinction and exceptional scholarship and artistry. VODOU VISIONS is without question the most compelling work on its subject to appear in recent years. Experts and readers new to the subject will relish this utterly wonderful book. --Amazon.com

I approached Ms. Glassman's book with tremendous excitement, having benefitted greatly from her work in The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot, and was not disappointed. The book has taken the basic principles of vodou, and made them accessible and practical to serious practitioners and newcomers alike. With an extremely warm tone and a welcoming voice, Ms. Glassman invites the reader into a wonderful world of mystery and healing. The book eschews tawdry spells for love and revenge and concentrates instead on the real essence of vodou--deep spiritual communion and communication. The book encourages the reader to explore the world of spirit on many levels and provides ample information in order to establish effective contact with the lwa. It also explores the history of the religion and details rituals from the simple to the extravagant. These rituals can provide a new peace and sense of awe that will leave the reader breathless. For those who have worked with Ms. Glassman's tarot deck, the information provided relating to the various lwa will heighten and strengthen knowledge of and communication with the lwa. Adding to the descriptions featured in the tarot book, the book takes one that much further on the road to understanding and communicating with the powerful and beautiful lwa. You will not be disappointed in this book. I give it my highest recommendation --Amazon.com

I came away from "Vodou Visions: An Encounter with the Divine Mystery" with eyes opened to a fresh point of view. Sallie Ann Glassman is a creative genius. A wonderful artist who artfully presents the Vodou cosmology in word and image, in a way that wets the appetite for more. As an ATR (African Traditional Religion) practitioner I found the work respectful, inclusive, insightful, entertaining yet smart. Glassman is a true talent by creating such a concise work on a very elaborate cosmology and deep subject. "Vodou Visions" is a passport to a fascinating world. Kudos, for a job well done! I highly recommend this book as an introduction to the mysterious world of the lwa and the Vodou vision. --Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1st edition (May 23, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375753702
• ISBN-13: 978-0375753701
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #738,692 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sacred Writing, September 8, 2000

By 

Polarisprc (San Francisco, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vodou Visions: An Encounter with Divine Mystery (Paperback)

Sallie Ann Glassman has written an extraordinary book about an extraordinary subject. VODOU VISIONS gives a most cogent, accessible, and moving view of a body of sacral thought -- really, an entire imaginative culture -- that is of profound importance, rarely studied, and almost invariably exploited or aligned.

Ms. Glassman's approach is unqiue. She frames her exegesis and celebration of Vodou as a spiritual autobiography. Her persoanl journey helps us understand the religion that she studies, and appreciate its intensely personal transformative power.

VODOU VISIONS is appropriately and vividly personal. But Ms. Glassman also places Vodou in its culture, and in world culture. Her work demonstrates both the singularity and the centrism of Vodou. This is a book that is scholarly in its essence, and historical in its scope.

It is also a book that is remarkable in its art. Ms. Glassman is a stunningly gifted writer. Her prose is brilliantly intelligent, and entirely original. Her artwork is breathtaking, and sublimely interrelated with her thought and her uses of language.

Almost everyone who has reviewed VODOU VISIONS has praised it in appropriately warm and respectful terms. One reviewer, whose comments generally are highly positive, maintains that VODOU VISIONS replicates Ms. Galssman's earlier book. I have reread Ms. Glassman's earlier book (which is superb, and I cannot understand the reviewer's charge. The two works seem to me to have nothing in common, other than high distinction and exceptional scholarship and artistry.

VODOU VISIONS is without question the most compelling work on its subject to appear in recent years. Experts and readers new to the subject will relish this utterly wonderful book.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vodou Visions educates and inspires, October 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Vodou Visions: An Encounter with Divine Mystery (Paperback)

I had the privilege during my own years in New Orleans, of having Ms. Glassman do several readings for me. Her wisdom and knowledge impressed me then, so I was an early and eager reader of Vodou Visions when it was published. It more than met my expectations and this review is long overdue. I agree with other reviewers--more prompt than myself--that Ms. Glassman's scholarship, art work, writing style and ability to integrate her own spriritual journey with a presentation of the wider Vodou experience make this a first rate book and a must read for anyone interested in this rich and often misunderstood belief system. Other readers, like myself, may also respond to the subtext. Whether or not one is moved to further study of Vodou, the example of Ms. Glassman's journey shows us clearly the courage, hard work and diligence that must accompany successful spiritual growth.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning can be Wonderful, June 9, 2000

By 

Nick (Beverly Hills, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vodou Visions: An Encounter with Divine Mystery (Paperback)

I'll be honest... I didn't know what this book was going to be about, or why I even ordered it... I am amazed how much I learned.

Glassman has a fantastic voice, and manages to offer her own experiences not as a way to show all she has done, but as a way to inspire us all to go on a similar journey. If you are someone who has a strong faith, or curious about worlds you have never seen, the book will be well worth your time.