Marie Laveaux the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans

 

Her aura is surrounded in mystery. Legends circulate about her well after he demise. She herself left now written record but the stories about her are numerous. While many of the real facts are hidden the stories told about her conform not to reality but to our own imagination, desires and fears. It takes a lot of research to get the real picture. In fact there may not have been just one but three in fact. Legend and fact are mixed. Who was this famous Voodoo priestess everyone is gabbing about?

Her name is Marie Laveaux the famous voodoo queen. As mentioned earlier fact and legend are mixed and it is hard to tell the difference between the two.  The authoress of this book set to work on doing just that to give us the real picture of Marie Laveaux.  Legends have it that she is descended from a line of Voodoo queens or was indoctrinated in secret from a family member  In fact her Father was Henry Laveaux a mixed race freeman. Her great grandmother all thee way to her mother were born in slavery. Only her mother was man united. Legend further states that she owned a hair salon which had a back room which she did her working. This cannot be verified.  What can be verified is that she cared for prisoners and consoled those about to be put to death. She also used herbs to heal others. Her first husband was named Pari and it is believed that he was a freed mulatto. They had two children together and then he exits the scene. Her second husband was Christophe Glaca or something like that. .  While not legally married they were together and had 4 children together. He was a white French man with aristocratic blood. Back in those times Caucasian and African could not legally be married. Laveau reigned as voodoo queen until her early eighties and when she passed rumor and fact begin to blend yet again.

Most prevalent is that her daughter also with the first name of Marie took over giving the impression that she reigned longer than she really did. This seems most likely.  Voodoo ceremonies were held out in the woods away from society. Sometimes they were held discreetly in some building. It was attended equally by both white people and those of African descent. She was highly influential. Unconfirmed legend also has it that she was a procures . Arranging for rich white men to hook up with mullatoes or women of pure African descent. Sometime this lead to Placage where In the man maintained another house for his mistress and many times they shared children.

The authoress goes deep into the New Orleans culture and history with this book to give the reader a good backdrop to the story of Marie Laveaux. Finding the Voodoo queen was a challenge.  She left behind no writings, so court records, church records and funeral records to find the real Marie Laveaux

The Pauline Origins of Christianity

The Christianity that many people practice today is not the Christianity that Jesus authored but rather it is Paul’s revelations that gave birth to the Christianity practiced today.

Paul’s Christianity veers sharply away from it’s parent religion Judaism. In fact is was meant to supersede and replace it.

Jesus and his original follower were Orthodox Jews who firmly believed in the Torah and ways of Judaism. After Jesus was crucified the movement beacame a Jewish Christians sort of religion. They believed that Jesus was the messiah born from a human mother and father. Jesus himself was most likely a rabbi. After the death of Jesus his brother James took the helm.

Paul came about like a decade after the death of Jesus. Paul was originally Saul who was from the tribe of Benjamin. Himself a practicing Jew, originally he had been a persecutor of the Jewish Christians .  It was coming back from/Damascus That he had his revelation. He met Jesus in the spirit as opposed toJesus in the flesh.

Paul’s revelation was from Jesus’s spiritual body.Paul brought a revelation that salvation could come through accepting Jesus. Jesus was not just a messiah but he was also so new Adam. He was the first of spiritual being that God created . He would bring heaven on earth and everyone would have spiritual bodies. The leadership In Jerusalem adhered more strongly to Jewish traditions and were opposed to Paul. There was a break between the two. In fact it was open hostility.

Most of it has been glossed over in favor of Paul’s version with the Christianity of Jesus being lost in a literary battle. Most of the New Testament in Pauline rather then but traces slip out like in the Q source and in Didache and Jerome.

If trying to figure out who Jesus was challenging enough try figuring out Paul. Only seven original letters of his exist. Other writing that are attribute to him are written in a different style, vocabulary and used of setting.

Djinn Among us

 

Bijou means Jewel in French . Bijou is also a very beautiful girl who tends to get pidgin hold as exotic looking or rare. She is also super smart and her academics are years above grade level. Having never met her mother as she died giving birth to her ,  Bijou was raised by her grandmother who she calls “Gigi” Gigi writes for living, using a pseudonym and for some strange reason they tend to move around a lot. Bijou has also been homeschooled most of her life. This is her first year trying out regular school.

Bijou is also plagued by a certain ability which threatens to overwhelm her. Her coping mechanism is to shuffle a deck of cards. As an empath she can read the emotions and feel them off of other people. Most people are typicals who can be read real easily by the non typicals are not so easy. Needless to say such a unique person tends to stand out. Upon her first day of school she befriends Sebastian and his twin sister Amina.

Bijou uniqueness comes out during swimming practice . She is a damn good swimmer. Too good. Everyone takes notice. Grandmother who was never so hot about her going to school in the first place wants her off the swim team. Like Superman she has got to stay hidden.

Sebastian and Amina are rather hot blooded and by that it is meant that when they touch Bijous skin it leaves burned hand marks. All her life she has had dreams of a hooded figure and I. This new town she actually meets this guy and it is not pleasant.

The town is plagued by a mystery. Every 17 years a whole bunch of girls end up going missing. This has a lot to do with Bijou. The djinn are everywhere and an organization called Solomon knights want power over them and the Djinn want something as well.

What follows is a face paced exciting story that will not let you go. The story is filled with faery lore from Europe and numerous faery types make an appearance. I hope she writes more of these kind of books.

Enter the Trance World

 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53324.Supernatural" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390171021l/53324._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53324.Supernatural">Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18520.Graham_Hancock">Graham Hancock</a><br/>

My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3496379926">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />

There are caves in France that are really hard to access so hard that it is like why even bother? Going in through difficult passages you end up in like a room that has hybrid animal / human painting along with picture of hunting. Several picture show a hybrid man being hung up by arrows as though they are piercing through him. The caves are a mystery. No one has a reason to go down there. These painting are 50 thousand years old. They seem to have popped up all of the sudden. Modern man has been on earth for 200 thousand years. Why the sudden spate of developments what does this mean?<br /><br />Author Graham Hancock takes the reader on a journey through several different worlds. All of them are very similar. His main contention is that 50 thousand years ago man started consuming Psychadelic plants that caused him to hallucinate. Such drugs under discussion are Ibogain, ayahuasca and psilocybin just to name a few. These substances enable mankind to enter into a trance or altered state of consciousness . This altered state of consciousness caused man to see different kinds of spirit beings. Among them are these Theranhropic figure who are part man and part animal. There were also short being with big heads and large eyes. These being taught mankind .<br /><br />Shamans in South America are usually initiated after a certain illness. The shaman will venture to the spirit world and be ripped apart or eaten by the spirits. After which the shaman is reborn. His purpose is to get healing knowledge for the people . He sees being as well as therianthropic beings. Shamans Wouk consume Psychadelic substances which felt like pins going through you.<br /><br />The reader is also taken on a journey into faery lore of Europe and the modern ufo abductions. There are many parralels between the two including abductions, mating between humans and these beings. At times the human parent is brought in to take care of the child. The author believes that the faery abductions and the UFO abductions are one and the same. If you like faery lore , UFO abductions and spiritual growth through Psychadelics then you will enjoy this book. The author himself experiments with Psychadelic.<br /><br />The main ingredient in ayahuasca is dmt. Ayahuasca has other chemicals like harmaline. Dmt is also produced in the body naturally. Roughly two percent of the population can enter an altered state of consciousness at will. There are other ways of entering an altered state of consuousnes like through rhythmic music, dancing to exhaustion and fasting. As was mentioned earlier the author himself is experimented with these substances.<br />Ibogain let’s the user contact the dead that was what it was used in Africa for. Ayahuasca allowed them user to access almost another dimension and contact spiritual beings to gain knowledge and bring it back, strait dmt put the author in a a technological classroom so he could learn new things.<br /><br />The author also covers the relationship between our DNA and these altered states of consciousness. The information could be in our DNA. What is the purpose of these trips. Some say it is connected to the after life.

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How to Raise a Dragon

Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the almost desert all desert planet of Austraria 4 in perhaps a time in the distant future when mankind has colonized other planets in the galaxy, there exists dragons. They were almost extinct when humans arrived but then they began breeding them. The purpose was for fighting in fighting pits. Not all dragon are domesticated , to be sure there are plenty of feral dragons. Our hero Jekkin lost his father to a feral dragon while trying to tame it. This planet is seemingly medieval despite being well into the future. People can sell themselves into bond servitude for money to pay off debt and survive. Only thing is you have to buy your way out if you ever want to be free. Some of the dragon slaying weapons are futuristic and require a power source.

Jekkin as mentioned earlier lost hi father to a feral dragon. His mother in order to make ends meet sold herself and her son into bond servitude. She dies while he is young. He is a one servant to Sarrukhan a master dragon breeder and owner of fighting dragons. Jekkin has only one shot at freedom and That is to steal an uncounted egg before it hatches in hopes of raising a dragon in secret strong enough to fight. Which he does. All through out the year in secret he raises, feeds , trains and protects the dragon until it is big enough for the pit.

A perfect book for young adults. It explores the relationship of a young orphan bonding to a pet that both needs his protection and he needs it. A bond developed . There is also some romance with what appears is a bond nurse. She nurses Jekkin back to health on several occasions.


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The Secret is Out: The Straight Dope on Secret Societies

Secret Societies: Inside the Freemasons, the Yakuza, Skull and Bones, and the World's Most Notorious Secret Organizations: Inside the Freemasons, the Yakuza, Skull and Bones, and the World's Most Notorious Secret Organizations by John Lawrence Reynolds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If this was a book about secret socities then we would not know they exist. Everyone knows about the Mason, Illuminati, Knights Templar and Skull and Bones . They are not secret if everyone knows about you, rather they are societies with secrets.

What is the point of secrecy? Many a times groups of people will go underground due to persecution and discrimination . Hiding so to speak. Sure it keeps you safe but in the end it can backfire. People will speculate behind what is going on behind close doors.

One prime example is a religion that is very prominent today. They went underground due to persecution. THey were accused of having orgies in the woods, eating babies and drinking blood. What group was this. Christians said this about witches but it was the Romans who said this about Christians. This is a result of secrets and the tidbits that do get out and then things get twisted by limited knowledge and half truths.

This is what did the Templars in . Starting off as a holy mission to protect CHristians in the Holyland. THe knights had a strict code to live by. They did not always adhere to this perfectly. After all they were humans with flaws. They had a banking system and acquire great wealth. Becoming a knight Templar could be prerofitable. In the end they had secrets and Sony enough a French king was in debt and with a corrupt pope in Cahoots they destroyed the Templars with claims of Blasphemy and idol worship. The society was destroyed . Some say that the Templars or survivors morphed into the Masons. THey have their own history. Read the book and find out.
The book covers a whole gamut of these societies. There is the usual Illuminati, Masons and your Templars etc. Among them are the Triads, Tongs and Yakuza and let us not forget the Mafia. Many of these criminal organizations started out with good intentions, like protecting people from oppressive outside forces only later they turn themselves into vehicle of suppression and crime.

These days peopple are overly paranoid about secret societies and they control over their lives. In reality they do not have that much influence over our lives. People network all the time. We call that friendship or alliances happens in all/ organizations. How secret are these secret so0cieties. May of us know their rituals and secret handshakes . The secret is out.

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The American Witch

American Witches: A Broomstick Tour Through Four Centuries by Susan Fair
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

American witches were both the same and different from their counterparts is Europe. Like in Europe witches were blamed for catastrophes especially after a feud with a neighbor. Usually the witch craze swallowed up old women who where considered cantankerous and had no one to protect them. Witches also rode people and their their neighbors animals to their gatherings. Absent from the American witch is the rides out to the sabbath and the solstice celebration.

Quakers were prone to be accused of witchcraft, after all they were dissident Christians . It was not safe for old women to travel from Europe to the new world. If the sea turned stormy everyone looked for a scapegoat. An old woman with no one to look after her became the perfect target. Often times the woman would be thrown over board or hung.

The Salem Witch trials were the epicenter of witch hunting history. Lead by the famous witch finder General Cotton Mathers. Cotton was the son of Increase Mathers. Both were hot on the tail for witches. The first episode involved a washer woman staring at her mistress daughter and exchanging harsh words. Later the daughter started having fits. The washer woman would be punished. Another incident involved a preacher who was accused. On the flimsiest of testimony he has hung. Then there is Tituba and the girls.

The usual method for punishing witches. Was hanging . History would judge harshly those who put innocent women to death. Many would have heavy guilty trips over the stuff. The last chapter ends with a note about the Blair Witcu trials and how a fictitious witch changed life in the small town.

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