Voodoo Wisdom: Belief, Practice and Power with Lilith Dorsey

Step inside the sacred circle as host Tony Sweet sits down with author, anthropologist, and Voodoo priestess Lilith Dorsey to explore the real roots of Voodoo—far beyond the myths, movies, and misconceptions. From the Loa and ancestor spirits to the heartbeat of ritual, rhythm, and reverence, Lilith reveals the beauty, complexity, and deep cultural legacy of this often misunderstood spiritual path. Discover how Voodoo blends African, Caribbean, and Indigenous wisdom into a living, breathing tradition—and why it’s more about healing and connection than fear and folklore. Whether you’re a skeptic, seeker, or spiritual explorer, this conversation will challenge what you think you know about Voodoo and open your eyes to its true power.

✨ Truth Be Told Paranormal — where the supernatural meets the truth.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
When most people hear the word voodoo, they think of
dolls and dark magic. But the truth is it's far older, deeper,
and far more spiritual. Well, today we're going to be
diving into one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented spiritual
traditions in the world. Voodoo often sensatialized in pop culture,

(00:25):
its true roots lie in profound wisdom, cultural resilience, and
sacred rituals. Joining me today is Lilith Dorsey. She's a
renowned author, filmmaker, and priestess who has dedicated her life
to preserving and sharing the authentic traditions of African and
Afro Caribbean spirituality. Lilith is initiated in multiple spiritual paths,

(00:48):
including Haitian Vudhao, New Orleans, Voodoo in Santoria, and it
brings over three decades of scholarly and experiential insight to
the conversation. We explore the true history of voodoo and
how it evolved with Africa, Yes Peru, and Lila's personal
journey as a Voodoo priestest, teacher, and cultural bridge between

(01:08):
academia and sacred practice. I'm tony, sweet with truth be told.
Please welcome to the Truth be told studios for the
first time, the one and Only Lilith Dorsey.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Hello, Hello, Hello, thank you so much for having me on, Tony.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm excited too, because you know, Halloween is just a
week away, and you know the spirits are, they're getting
their costumes ready to and uh. And I've always wanted
to speak with somebody. It's been a long time since
I've had somebody on that was really knowledgeable about voodoo.

(01:46):
I mean, we've talked to Patty and some other people,
but you know your specifics of voodoo and that's what
you practice on a daily basis. I'm excited to have
you here, and so I just want to dive right
in where you know, voodoo is often described as a
living religion rather than a set of superstitions, and I

(02:10):
would I really want to know how you define true
voodoo practice and its spiritual and cultural context.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
It's hard, you know, even if we look at the
linguistic history of it, right, like some people say, it
means spirit or deity or that which is unable to
be known, which I think is a beautiful way of
framing it. So anything that we don't really fully know
and understand that's voodoo, right, So I think that that's
but if we look at the practices, it's centered around

(02:42):
ancestral worship, it's centered around living in harmony with nature,
and that's not the picture you're going to get from
mainstream media, right Like So, so I think that it's
very skewed most people's ideas of what the tradition is.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yes, and somebody that's been working in podcasting for sixteen
years in the heart of Hollywood, we all know how
Hollywood or television or movies can really depict voodoo and
any paranormal genre topics. So I even remember, and you're

(03:21):
probably way too young for this, but James Bond Roger
Moore when the voodoo priestess she used tarot cards and
then they were in New Orleans where they showed a
side of voodoo that was very scary. And so I

(03:43):
don't know if you remember that or not.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
I do.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
I do Live and Let Die, right, Yeah, seventy one
we had Jane Seymour as Solitaire, a priestess, and surprisingly enough.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
There's a couple of tiny things that that movie gets right.
Geffree Holder, who a lot of people remember as the Ah,
like you know, dark Baron Samdy figure in the film
and then later on the Steven Up commercials, right what
I grew up with. He was actually an initiated priest
from Trinidad to being a choreographer. So all of those

(04:17):
ritual scenes he choreographed them, I guess, to the best
of his ability, right, like we know what it's like
working with you know, large corporations, but tried to make
it as accurate as possible. So yeah, no, I do
remember that film. I do. I do. It was probably
my first like actual pictures of New Orleans that I saw.

(04:37):
You know, I had an aunt that was constantly channeling
Marie Leva. You know, she kind of had one foot
in this world and one foot in the other, which
helped her sometimes and didn't help her other times. But
she was constantly you know, singing the Marie Lavaux song
when I was growing up and all of that. So
I had a very early exposure I'll be it a
weird one to New Orleans voodoo and Marie Levou the

(05:00):
most famous queen of voodoo ever. So yeah, I think
it was sort of they planted the seeds when I
was young, and I just had such a fascination for
it and I live here now, So.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
When did you really stick your toe into the water
of wanting to You know, it's one thing of kind
of you know, watching it on television or reading a
book about it, but really starting to dedicating not necessarily
your life at the time, but dedicating to just getting

(05:33):
to know what voodoo was about at a deeper level.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah. I think that there were always things that my
family did growing up that I didn't realize were voodoo things.
But I suppose I started dedicating my life to it
maybe or more serious study of it when I was
an undergrad in college. I started out doing my undergrad
in film at NYU, and then I left to go
get my undergrad in anthropology, and I had an anthropology

(06:01):
teacher who said, there's no such thing as magic in
the United States. This guy was completed idiot. He's probably
dead now. I was like, that's not true, you know.
I mean, I grew up in New York with magical
child and enchantments and all those like legendary witch stores
that I used to frequent, so I knew he was
already wrong. And my daughters were young at the time,

(06:24):
and I thought, I don't want them growing up with
this idea of voodoo, that it's evil or bad or
anything like that. So I just decided that there's nothing
else out there, you know, written by a practitioner, written
by somebody, a person of color. At that point. There
wasn't anything written even by a woman, even at that point,

(06:45):
you know. So I think that I sort of wanted
to just be another voice out there, and I started
studying very early on. After that, I met my priestess,
Priestess Miriam, who runs the Buddha Spiritual Temple here in
New Orleans, and I've been with her ever since. And
I think I've lost count, but I think it's probably
about thirty two thirty three years that I've been going

(07:07):
there and helping her out and everything like that. And
I have my own spiritual house now. But really the
impetus to begin with was just to provide an alternate
narrative for all those little black and brown kids out there,
that their ancestors were not bad, their ancestors were not evil,
their ancestors were not hateful, and that what this isn't

(07:28):
something that should be feared, it's something that should be embraced.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
No, I honestly, I totally agree with you, just because
from the work I've done over almost seventeen years working
in the genre, that I've got to learn about so
many different cultures and religions and spirituality and people like

(07:57):
you that give us the insight, not just learning it
from television or from our religious leaders in the Christianity
or wherever you grew up in UH. You know, I
even one time interviewed a guy with.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
UH.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
He was a priest of Oh gosh, oh my gosh,
I'm trying to think of the church. UH. Anyway, he
changed my mind, not saying I would ever follow that religion,
but it really showed me that I had nothing to
fear about that religion. So I hope people listen to

(08:39):
this and really have come in with an open mind
and maybe some people that want to learn more about this.
And and speaking of that, you you've studied and been initiated,
was into several African uh and I'm and apologize my
pronunciations for most of these things. Is that.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Poora diaspora diaspora.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, diaspora religions, and that's from Haitian to some centeria
and New Orleans voodoo. You've been initiated and studied all
of these and how did you come to walk this
multiple journey path journey? Uh? Yeah, and how do you

(09:26):
and how do you hold integrity in each of these paths?

Speaker 3 (09:31):
It's not easy? Uh, it's it's funny. I spent last
summer in Benian in Africa, birthplace of voodoo, right wow.
And they all practice several different things, you know. Several
of them go to a Christian church in the morning,
they go to the Vodu temple in the afternoon, and
then for divination they use ifa, which is sort of
the parent tradition of Lariglo Lakumi, which most people call Santaia.

(09:55):
So I think that it's not if we look outside
the US, it's not a uncommon. But people hear that
and they think, oh, she just wanted to run around
and connect initiations, And you know, that's not what I did,
as with a lot of people I was. I was
living in New York when I first started studying the religion,

(10:15):
and I was coming down here to New Orleans four
or five times a year and things like that. And
I'd had a tragedy occur and it turned out in
order to get justice, I got a reading from a
friend of mine and she said, Okay, you can get
justice in this situation, but what you have to do
is initiate after you get justice. So I was like, okay,

(10:36):
that's fine. You know, at that point, I would have
done anything and everything to get justice, and for me,
it seemed like a fair trade off, right, And so
laigue lakumi or santo that primarily my practice with that
is for divination. I'm not an initiated issa or babaalawo
obviously because I'm you know, have female parts, but I

(11:00):
still do. I have a good friend who is a
bab blau who I consult for you know, spiritual divinations.
Occasionally I do do divination for myself, but that's how
that kind of works out, you know, unless there's a
really big thing that shows up in the reading that
I need to go back to lukumi and practice that.
Although I do, I have my warriors for those of
you who are also in the tradition, So I do

(11:22):
my weekly offerings and my prayers and I keep you know,
clean in that way according to the religion New Orleans
vood do I practice all the time. That's the type
of house that I have here. I've had my own
spiritual house for about probably fifteen years. Now I've got
about twenty god children. We call them god children instead
of students because it's kind of like a parent child relationship,

(11:44):
which is really beautiful. I think, you know, some people
have parents that don't welcome this alternative spirituality or welcome
what their spiritual gifts may be. So it's nice to
be able to be that person for them and to
consult them in that way. So that's beautiful. And then
Haitian Bodu. I was living in New England and I

(12:04):
was teaching you know, tarot and intro to astrology and
stuff at the Unitarian Universalist Church because Unitarians are wonderful
welcoming other traditions. And they said to me, we've got
a new minister and she's a Haitian Mambo. And she
went to Harvard Divinity and I met her. Her name
was Bonnie Devlin. She's no longer with us, but I

(12:25):
just loved her and she loved me, and she decided
to initiate me. You know, I was the first person
she initiated. And again because of the tragedy that I
was going through, she thought it would be helpful to me.
So I started with her and she was I'd still
contact her even though she's not alive anymore, but it
was very special to me.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
You know.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
She also had multiple initiations, and I think that's because
she was a drummer. So lots of times what you
see is musicians and dancers traveling through the traditions because
there is some similarity already with the rhythms and the
dances and things like that in the different systems.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Actually, I was going to ask you about that about
how how does ritual and ceremony in voodoo differ from
Western forms of worship and what purposes do dance and
drumming and possession possessions serve and within a ceremony, it's.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
All very regimented, right, Like I think people think it's
all out there and wild, abandoned and everything like that,
but it's all there's very specific rhythms, there's specific songs,
and people really train for their whole lives to learn
these rhythms and these songs and these dances and to
do them properly for ceremony, because that's part of the
thing we have to do in order to get it

(13:43):
right and be dedicated. And then you mentioned possession, if
everything goes right during a ceremony, then the spirits can
come down. To use Ortneel Hurston's word, they mount people
like a horse, right, and they use them to sort
of just bless them community. You know, I've had people
in rituals that I was doing. You know, whenever anybody

(14:06):
acts out in my ritual, I'll tell you story. Whenever
anybody acts out in my ritual, I give them a
job because I just instead of just yelling at them
or shushing them or something like that, I'm like, okay,
spirit has put this person in my space, right. And
one time this person was talking when I was doing
the opening ceremony part and the invocations and things, and
I was like, come here, you know, so I gave

(14:27):
him a machete to dance with and use to bless
the space. And he was an older gentleman, and he
spent the next two hours leaping around with this machete,
dancing with it, doing all these things. And he came
up to me afterwards and he said, you know, I
was talking at the beginning, not to be disrespectful, but
I have really bad back pain and I was wondering
if I'd be able to stay for the whole ceremony,

(14:48):
and as soon as he had the machete and as
soon as he was in that ritual space, there was
no pain and he could just leap around and do
whatever he needed to in that space. So there's lots
of stories like where, you know, whatever the person needs
in that moment is presented to them. I think there's
a little bit of a sort of misunderstanding about possession

(15:09):
and speaking in tongues and things like that. What I've
seen most often is sometimes you know, one time I
had a possession experience where I, at the time, I
did not speak French. So I'm speaking this like Quebeque
French to somebody whose ancestors were actually Quebequa, and I'm
yelling at him in French, and I was like, I
had no idea what I was saying. And I was like,

(15:30):
did you understand any of that? He's like, yeah, I
got it, I got it. He was being very like
bold and sort of like trickster ish, and his grandfather
kept yelling at him, you're not Napoleon. Sit down. It
was hysterical. But yeah, it's those things that like, okay,
you know what when my grandfather said, when he was
around you would have told me to sit down and

(15:52):
you know, behave myself. So it was that kind of
a thing. But that's usually what a possession experience is,
you know, and they do things that are extreme. Right
at the time, I didn't speak French, and here's me
speaking perfect epicua French, you know. Or this person is
you know, almost bent over and can't move, and then
they're leaping through the air. You know. I've seen little, tiny,

(16:16):
ninety five pound women pick up three hundred pounds men
and throw them across the room.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
So you know, there's this display that they have so
that they show everybody who's there that the spirit is
in attendance. And that's one of the hallmarks of how
you can tell if it's fake or not, right, like
is this person just doing something they always do or
are they just you know, we call it, I don't
know how good your Spanish is, but we call it

(16:42):
being possessed by Santa baraca, which is the word for drunk.
Sometimes people use it as an excuse to just get attention,
and that's not valid. But you know, people gonna people.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Well that's people are people. And like in some dances,
you know, like dances with the stars. The movement's very regiment.
You know, we kind of work together, we know what position,
but then you have so you think you can dance
is very free, kind of free flowing. Is there dances

(17:14):
that are like that in Voodoo that where one you
can just kind of let your body do what they do,
And then there's some dances where I'm going to teach
you the movement almost like a tai Chi type of
movement pretty.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
Much with everything in their religion and dance is certainly
no exception that you have to learn the moves first,
and then once you know exactly what it is you're doing,
you're allowed a little teeny bit of leeway to take
it where you want to go. But everybody, I just
taught a dance class last week in New York City
and people are like, what, I can't just do what
I want? And I'm like, no, no, this is very
important that we have these very simple, repetitive movements that

(17:52):
then freeze up our spirit to go somewhere else. So
it's kind of like almost I explained it to the dancers,
like isolations, right like, so if you're concentrating on this
arm goes up and down, and this arm goes left
and right. Then your mind is going to be concentrated
on that, but your real thinking mind is going to
go off somewhere else once you get your body into

(18:13):
the habit of doing it, and that sort of freeing
moment where your mind goes somewhere else is what we're
going for.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
That's pretty amazing. I always when I was younger, I
love dancing. But my spouse actually teaches you know, dance
well more zoom, But still most people dance is such
a I think vital part of just being a human.

(18:41):
The spirit just you know, can kind of be free.
And I think that's probably through voodoo. It's even though
it's precise on movement, but the freedom of just the
spirit and probably opens up possession even easier. But possession,
how do you go into it knowing that that spirit

(19:03):
is a good spirit? And how do you leave the
ring or the space and know that that spirit has
gone back to where it came from so it doesn't
come home. How do you protect yourself?

Speaker 3 (19:18):
Well, first you protect yourself by setting the space. It's
very and in a lot of ways, I think that's
really more important than the actual ritual. You know, people
show up, oh, Okay, well we're going to hurry up
and get everything done before people show up. And my
thought is always no, whoever shows up should see what
goes into setting the space, because you're setting a protected

(19:40):
space the same way at night you check your windows,
you check your doors, like it's that kind of a thing.
We're not setting a circle, but will lay down corn
meal with the special symbols. They're called veves for the loa,
and these symbols are kind of like calling cards for them.
Will bless the space with incense and candles and herbs,
and it's all very complicated sacred geometry that's happening here right.

(20:04):
So you're setting up this space. And I had a
babalawo in the tradition. He's renowned and even from when
I back in the day when I was a kid,
Baba John Mason, he started the Yurob Theological Seminary in
New York in the I want to say, late seventies
early eighties, and he said, voodoo is like a fractal,
which means it can be as small or as large

(20:25):
as we need it to be. So what you're doing
is setting this space where it could just be you
and me doing a ritual, or it could be I've
done rituals of two three thousand people and that's the
size of the space where the ritual is, so you
can scale it up or down and it's still intact.
The other thing you do is very often you'll see
voodoo people or La regular Lacuni Santo people wearing all

(20:48):
white with a head covering that's also designed to make
sure nothing unnecessary goes in or out of your head
or gets in there. And then the priest or the priestess,
the Santaerro Sentera, both kuhan, they're guiding the ritual to
make sure there's none of that unwanted energy. And when
you start out, it's kind of a little because for

(21:08):
years I would go to things and I wasn't initiated.
You kind of have to stay separate from the ceremony.
You know, it doesn't matter to them that you had
a dream about Oshoon or you know, I've been praying
at home and I made an altered They don't care
until you have that initiation. Whatever you're hearing is is
not it's not going to be accepted by the community,

(21:29):
and it's even questionable for you whether or not you
should listen to it, right, Like, so part of the
process of the first initiations is to make sure what
you're hearing and what's contacting you is what needs to
hear you and what needs to contact you, as opposed
to you know, old uncle whatever who died last week,
who really can't find his teeth of some crap like that.

(21:49):
So that's not important right now, Old uncle whatever. You know,
you're dead. You don't need your teeth. But so it's
really that kind of a thing, and all of the
those things are very you know, complicated. I think we
also don't have this idea of dismissing them. You know,
I remember going to my early you know, wicking circles

(22:10):
and things like that. Okay, now go home. You know,
Like I've had parties where I told people to go home,
and it always seems a little like, you know, pushy.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
You know.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Usually I'll just be like, well, I'm going to go
to bed. You can just you know, you stay out
here and drink, clean up, you know, lock the door
when you leave, you know. So it's kind of more
that way, like, Okay, you know, I'm going to end
this ceremony. But if there's something else you need to
do in order to protect me, you know, please do
that and take care of it and go when you

(22:40):
feel like it's the time to go.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
I love that. I love that well. I think when
people think of voodoo, I feel New Orleans is like
the Vegas of voodooism. Why why is New Orleans so
known for that? And in it seems like all around
the country. Could they could be in other cities, But

(23:04):
first people, first things people think of is voodoo, New
Orleans are knowledge. Whatever you want to say, why is that?

Speaker 3 (23:12):
I think New Orleans is the sort of hub of
voodoo for a lot of different reasons, right, Like it's
on the Mississippi, which is such a powerful body of water,
and as I mentioned, the religions deeply connected to all
the elements, and water probably is at the top of
the list because our plant. I wrote a book about water.
The planet's mostly water, your body's mostly water. So water

(23:35):
is everywhere, whether you want to admit it or not.
You've got water in your body. You need water to live, right,
So all of that is really there. So I think
because we're on the water, and also because we're underwater,
you know. I was talking to a good friend of
mine who said they had come to New Orleans and
they didn't contact me because they were too you know,
taken aback by the energy here. And I was like,

(23:55):
I think that's because it's underwater. You know, we're below
sea level or most houses, but most of New Orleans
is because I lived next to the canal and they
dug out the canal and put the dirt over here.
So technically I'm above sea level, but most of it
is below sea levels. So you've got a whole different energy.
And then historically, you look at the Haitian Revolution, there

(24:18):
was an insane influx of people. I'm not good with numbers,
but I want to say probably eighty to one hundred
thousand people somewhere around there that migrated to the city
after the Haitian Revolution in the late seventeen hundreds. So
you've got the population of New Orleans almost doubling at
that time. And that's still the population of New Orleans now.

(24:39):
So you know, you're looking at two hundred and fifty
three hundred thousand permanent residents of the city. So you're
even if they weren't practicing voodoo before then, they certainly
were practicing voodoo after that because there was such a
huge influlux of Haitian people. Then you've got queens like
Marie Levo. I think if Marie Levau wasn't who she was,
that we would not be as popular as we all.

(25:00):
Her grave is the second most visited in the United
States after Elvis, and I think that's fascinating because I've
been to Graceland and they've got like a plane and
like elbos Is, you know, there's all this other stuff
going on at Graceland. So I see why people go
to Graceland. You know, it's like Disneyland, but for Elvis fans.
So New Orleans going to see Marie Levo's grave, and

(25:23):
now you have to pay to get in because somebody
defaced it. So now there's only one tour company that's
allowed to go, and you have to go with the
recognized tour company, which is sad because you know, back
in the day when I started traveling down here, you
I mean, they still locked the cemetery, but you could
go and do whatever you wanted, which was a lot
nicer than it is now. But she was the first

(25:44):
person to hold public ceremony in the United States, like
you know, Witchy Magical ceremony. She had amazing clients and
said she did readings for Queen Victoria, which I think
is you know, like, oh wow, look at that, right, like,
you know, here's this you know, voodoo priests in New Orleans.
And basically she was just a hairdresser. But she was

(26:05):
so good at what she did and so good at
being the public face of voodoo that it's carried on
all these years, you know, and everybody here in New
Orleans has a Marie la Vau story. Yeah, I think
that's beautiful. I had a friend that had a show
that like she just ask everybody their Marie le Vau's story.
I have a few, right, Like I have one where

(26:27):
I had gone with a friend of mine who's a drummer,
and we were going to do a ritual for her.
I was going to dance for her and they were
going to drum and you know, so we're doing this
and then the tour guide comes by and goes, this
isn't a real voodoo ritual. First of all, it's during
the day. And I almost fell over. Lad. I was like, oh,
you can't practice voodoo during the day, now, okay, fine, right,

(26:50):
Like it's just the things they make these people take tests,
but the things they say are so inane and ridiculous.
I don't know how they get away with it.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
That that's funny. That's funny. Yeah, I like I said,
I honestly, I've been to New Orleans when I was
a kid. I really want to come back and just explore.
And I would love to meet with someone like you,
or for sure meet with you and just get to
know a little bit more about the voodoo practice and
see firsthand of what you go through and what you do.

(27:24):
So one of these days I might give you a
call and say, and I'm in town or coming to town.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
So yeah, definitely, definitely. I'm always doing classes and stuff
for people to come and visit. And we have a
little voodoo B and B here that's open friends and
guests and things like that, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
So definitely, Okay, that's on my list. But you mentioned
you mentioned you written a book, but you've written many books. Uh,
we have water magic, got us, got us? I think?
And then what is now when you go in to
start writing these books? What what inspires you to choose

(28:05):
the subjects and what what are the big questions that
you want to answer? People? You know, answer in your
book that people are asking.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
I think that well, Arisha's Goddessys and Vooted Queens. That
was sort of my gimme book from the publisher because
they had wanted me to write a book about love magic.
They're like, it's going to sell so much. It's going
to be, you know, at Urban outfitters. I don't know
why this is what I'm doing it. Yeah, I'll be
an Urban outfitters. We never got an Urban Outfitters. But

(28:39):
and it didn't sell very well my Love Magic Book.
And I think because basically what I said in the
Love Magic Book is, you know, it's not all about
trapping somebody or tying them up or making this person
love right. It's about loving yourself and drawing the right
love for you to you right like. And people aren't
trying to hear that. They just they want no one
to want no. Yeah, and they want who they want.

(29:00):
It doesn't matter if that's a bad person, it doesn't
matter if that's a sick person, it doesn't matter if
any of those things. They just want what they want, right.
So when that didn't sell really well, they said, what
do you want to write? And I said, I said
I'll just be honest with you, because that's how I
feel today. They said, I said, I want to write
a book about Marie Levo. They're like no, And then
they hired somebody else to write a book about Marielevo

(29:21):
a month later, and I said, okay, so how about
this book Arisha's Goddesses and Voodoo Queens, which has a
lot of stuff Voodo Queens has a lot of stuff
about Marie Levo in there. So that was the book
that I kind of always wanted to write about the
divine feminine in the African pantheon because there's so much
of what I mean, I grew up as a kid

(29:41):
in school learning like Greek mythology and Roman mythology about
Athena and Minerva and all of these other and I
think that's great, but like you know, you ask most
people to name five African you know, deities what like,
you know, and that's that just seems like there's a
great disparity there. So I always want wanted to write
this book about the African divine feminine birthplace of civilization Africa, right, Like,

(30:06):
we've got a lot of divine feminine that was suppressed
over the years and still is not known. So I
you know, people say, oh, can I read the book
if I'm a white person, I'm like, yes, how many
of us black people had to read about Athena and
ancient Greece and all of this stuff, Like, let's equalize
the whole thing out there. So that's why I wrote that.

(30:27):
Water Magic was pretty much my editor had come to
me and they were doing an elemental series and they
wanted me to do the first one in the series.
So I thought, well, that's ridiculous, because you know, I
have no planets in water. I'm I'm an Arias with
a libramoon and a liver rising, all fire and air.
So I'm just like, how's this going to work? But

(30:49):
as I said, the more I looked into it, it
made sense. You know, I grew up in New York
right next to the in Brooklyn, right next to the
East River. I'm here in New Orleans living right next
to the Mississippi and the Canal, you know, so I've
always been next to these really long urge bodies of
water that impacted me a lot, a lot of locked.
So and my tarot book I was reading to that

(31:10):
was my most recent book i've been reading Taro for
you know, I don't even want to say, like oh decades,
and and I had come up with a system for
equating the cards with different recipes or different crystals, or
different musical notes, so people can access the cards however
they want to. And I thought that was something I'd

(31:32):
never seen anywhere before, and it was all of my books.
You know, it's something that you can use even if
you're you know, ten years old, or if you're one
hundred years old. Right, Like a kid's not going to
understand what the hyrafin is, but they understand how they
feel if they hold a crystal, or if they eat
this food, or if they hear that musical note. So
that way it allowed Taro to be accessible to anybody

(31:54):
wherever they're at.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
I love that, And I I'm curious on how women
priestess are viewed in Voodoo. You know, there's certain religions
to this day, men are still the the powerful ones,

(32:16):
the one that hold all the cards. You know, Christianity,
you know they've opened up a little bit. Catholic they're
barely opening up. I know, wi Can they're very much
you know the women that their influence and can how
is voodoo when it comes to I mean, it seems

(32:38):
like they would be very open to the femininity of
uh uh the wicked, not voodoo priestess.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, they are, they are, And I think it's just
sort of a consequence of history. You know, technically, you know,
you have a priest and a priestess or a mambo
or hoan, so you have both of those figures there
to lead the ceremony. But we've got this phenomena of
voodoo queens. And I think that's because if you look

(33:09):
at enslaved people, very often you had the older black
women in the community taking care of the children, teaching
the children and telling them the stories. So because these
older black women were the keys of knowledge, they ended
up with that kind of spiritual power and that sort
of carried over into the tradition.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Hmm. Wow. Yeah, I think. I mean, just you like,
people like you and some people you've mentioned are great
examples of women that that that are powerful. And you know,
you you can tell your energies amazing and but you
have the strength to really kind of break down walls

(33:55):
men and women. So I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think it also comes from
the religion in general. You know, as I said, I
spent last summer in Benin, and you know, they've got
the Amazon warrior women. The women came right that it
was based on that, and so you've got again inherent
in the tradition and this history or her story of
these powerful women that really didn't answer to men, that

(34:22):
really were you know, originally I think they were lion
hunters or something for the community, and then eventually they
got co opted to work for the government and things
like that, but they really were this kind of protectors
of society, and they would file their teeth like knives,
and they would just you know, all of these things
that they did were just so fierce and intense and
powerful that I think again that carried over too, right,

(34:45):
Like if the religion came from this place that's used
to having these strong females, then it's going to carry
over in the diaspora to all the places that the
religion landed. I'm thinking about Obeya in Jamaica. Very often
the main figure they talk about his queen Nanny, and
she was a hero of the Maroons, and it said
when she was fighting, you know, all the evil colonizers

(35:07):
and everything like that. There was a sacred well and
there was a battle at the sacred well where she was,
and she shot bullets out of her behind, and I
think that is just like damn right.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Well I got my attention, So I definitely, I mean.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Sure, I'll join a religion where I can shoot bullets
out of my behind, right, I be colonized.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah, I love that. I mean I've shot some other thing,
but definitely not bullets. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, Like that's fantastic, right, Like, so she's legendary. She's
the only woman on Jamaican money, you know, So.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
Queen Nanny, Queen Nanny. I love that. Okay, Well I
have to look her up.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
And yeah, yeah, it's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Maybe do a story on her.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Well, before I'm going to ask this question, then I
want to go over some miss of of the voodoo.
But you've you've noted on your website and in other
areas that the importance of correct technique and lineage and
magic and ritual. For example, you warned a case of

(36:16):
a person throwing jewelry into a river without guidance. What's
the biggest misunderstanding you've encountered and what advice do you
give to avoid it? And then I want to get
into the myths of voodoo that are not true. So
let's start with the first one.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Okay, I mean I think there's a lot that story
definitely comes to mind, you know, And this person is
a best selling author, and they just keep it up
with their bad ideas. I don't know, I don't know
how they get to live. But there's a lot of
things I found like that. You know. I had another
person that, like, you know, decided they were going to
leave an offering for one divinity and the different divinities

(36:57):
they don't like each other. They have a lot of
human characteristics. There's certain ones. We don't leave offerings at
the same time or do ceremony at the same time.
And this person had done an offering for one that
apps in the place of where the hated you know
a person was. So I was like, well, that's a
horrible idea, right, like, just because again they were going

(37:17):
without guidance, they didn't have direction, they were making it
up like that. None of that is a good idea
in the tradition because like anything, it can be dangerous,
you know. I have I always use him as a
bad example. I have a godson and he was doing
a blessing as part of an initiation for his gods sister.
And he gets the blessing stuff already and he's like

(37:38):
makes up the stuff to you know, rub on her skin,
and it's full of hot peppers. Now any witch would
know that, yes, hot peppers is good for protection, but
you don't run. He had basically made like pepper spray
and rubbed it on her skin and she's running around
screaming as and I was like, yes, they're for protection

(37:59):
and you can eat them, do not put it on
your skin. That's not gonna work.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
You know, that's funny.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
So yeah, I'm still making fun of him for that.
I mean, she's fine, you know, he's fine. I just
saw him. He's fine, she's fine. We're all good. Yeah,
neither of them are ever going to do anything like
that again, right.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Like and could you yeah, yeah, well, well tell us
some other myths, because again, when people think of voodoo,
they may think of it in negative terms. Can you
give us some myths that are not true.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
There's kind of people that are doing something like voodoo
dolls today, but traditionally that's not attached to the religion
at all. Really the worst thing.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yes, I've always I thought that was a part of voodoo.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
No, no, what you get. In Nigeria, among the Yoruba people,
they have the highest incidents of twins in the world.
So what they will do is if you're a twin
and one of the twins dies, they'll make a doll
that twin and that twin will be like, Okay, the
birthday party, the doll sits in a chair at the table,
you know, holidays, the doll is there, you know. So

(39:08):
it's like and the other twin carries the doll, cares
for the doll. So it's like a physical representation of
what you've lost. It's not this kind of mad chucky
kind of thing, you know, it's it's not that at all.
It's really just a remembrance and a way for the
family to have that memory and that energy of the
person that they miss so dearly still there with them
in some way, shape or form. Right, So that's a thing.

(39:32):
But no dolls. I mean, you know it comes from
Celtic magic poppets doing that kind of sympathetic magic where
you know, I'm going to act something on somebody by
doing it on the doll as opposed to doing it
to them. But no, that's not Africa at all, even
though every student by Buddha dolls in the airport. It's
one of my pet peeves because it really has nothing
to do with the tradition. So that's a big one.

(39:56):
I think that it's highly sexualized. That's another thing. There's
actually a whole bunch of taboos about, you know, sex
and the tradition. Sex is supposed to be kept completely
separate from the tradition. Even if you have like a
sacred space or a shrine or an altar that you know,
you can't have any sexual activity in front of it.

(40:16):
People even build special cabinets or a special room in
their house to keep their sacred items in so no
sexual activity occurs anywhere near it. I usually say to people,
it's like, you know, if you had your grandmother come over,
would you do that in front of her? No, you wouldn't,
So like you just keep that separate, separate from them.
And there's things that you have to do to even cleanse.
I mean not big things, but like have take a

(40:37):
shower or something. If you had that kind of intimate
encounter before you go, do your spiritual stuff.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
What about chickens, because we that's another one I've I've
seen a lot of in movies and where they use
chickens a lot. How how how do chickens play a part?
Like is this like a ritual or a sacrife or
is it even tied with voodoo?

Speaker 3 (41:04):
I mean in Haitian Vodo and Santo or Santo Ria.
Very often people will have animal sacrifice. Chickens probably the
animal most commonly sacrificed that people are familiar with. I
think just because of the ease. It's just easier to
get chickens. And when you when you figure out what
animals are supposed to be sacrificed, usually there's a reading
and you know, you're not going to ask the first thing,

(41:27):
oh should I go get this? You know, should I
get an emu? You you're going to ask that. It's
going to be hard to get any The first question
is going to be can I use a chicken? And
very often it will say yes, because that's the thing
that's easiest. I think that there's a lot of I mean,
I get people that are you know, wearing leather shoes
yelling at me about animal sacrifice and I'm like, well,

(41:49):
it's okay to have an animal for your shoe, but
it's not okay for you to have it for ritual.
And the question I ask people is, if you knew
that the medicine to cure your your spouse, your child
of this deadly disease was a chicken gizzard and you
had to kill a chicken for it, everybody'd be like, yes,
give them the medicine, this will heal them. But when

(42:10):
it's for spiritual reasons, people have like, oh, no, we
can't do that, and that for me seems like they're
just not they think it's fake or they don't think
it's real. You know. So very often when people use
animal sacrifice, it is to heal somebody from some huge
problem or illness or something like that. And if it's
just done as regular as part of a ceremony, the

(42:32):
meat is almost always.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Eaten or it I was going to ask that, yeah,
or it's.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Cooked up and given to, you know, a homeless shelter
or a food bank or something like that. Very often
that's what happens after ceremonies. So you'll be going through
I've been at Santo ceremonies where you're there for like
ten hours doing the things and the things, and then
after it's all done, you're cleaning up, and then you've
got to cook the chicken, and then you've got to
bring the chicken over to the homeless people and oh
my god.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Yeah, well that'd be two birds with one stone, pun
and ten. So we'll take we'll take that.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah, yeah, no, totally, no, it's it's just used because
that's the spiritual medicine that's needed, you know, And it's
kind of like a battle of This is how what
I was taught in the very beginning. It's a battle
of wills between you and the animals. So if you're
going to take that animal's life, you have to be
willing to have your life taken instead. So priests and

(43:23):
priestess says, are notorious for just dropping dead in the
middle of the ceremony. So that to me was always
the kind of footnote for that, like, Okay, you're walking
in here, and you know, in order to do this
ceremony to save your community or to save you know,
somebody's life, you're willing to give your own in that situation.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
I don't know, I don't know. If I was, i'd
be ready for that.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
Ready, it's a lot, it's a lot.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
But I give kudos for people that do that. Just
a couple more questions, So we talked about some of
the myths. How do people use voodoo to enhance their lives?
What can they do to enhance their lives with voodoo
even if they don't want to practice on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
I mean, I tell everybody to get in touch with
your ancestors. You know. I had a client come for
a reading and his child again, his child was sick,
and I said, well, your ancestors understand a sick child,
right like your grandparents understand a sick child, right. Anybody
who has kids understands a sick child. And I said
to him, I said, what do you have of your
grandfather's And he said, I have my grandpa's batchela. I

(44:28):
use it every Saturday morning to make pancakes. And I said, okay,
we'll take that. Spachela. Put it on your ancestor. Author
Light a candle, explain what you're going through, Explain that
you know you have a kid that's really sick in
the nick you and that you want their help and
their guidance as to whatever's best in this situation, you know,
because sometimes, especially in those things, you feel so powerless,

(44:49):
right like, so turning to your ancestors, maybe asking them
for their assistance and getting the right doctor or getting
the right treatment or getting the right diagnosis literally can
mean life death. So I think that giving somebody something
to do to connect with their ancestors and a potential
helpful voice in that situation is you know, invaluable.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
So actually I have so you can use any object.
So I have a diary from my great great grandmother.
I have a picture of my great great great grandmother.
I've had a it's like an elephant with ivory from
my great grandmother. So can you use any objects to

(45:33):
connect with your ancestors?

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Sure? Sure, I mean, like I said, it's better if
you have something that they actually touched. But yeah, all
those things you mentioned would be absolutely wonderful, you know.
And what I do is I keep them on the
ancestor alter. It's Halloween salent time, right, I keep them
on the ancestor alter all year. I'll do special offerings,
cook food for them for you know, Halloween time and

(45:57):
stuff like that. But then it becomes like a spiritual bank.
So then when you do need them and you go
to them, Oh my gosh, I'm having this issue right like,
can you please help give me guidance and knowledge around
this in order to improve the situation. You've already put
in the time and energy and effort and strengthen that
bond between the two of you and it'll be easier
to connect to them when you absolutely do need them.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
That's good to know. People take notes, so you know
people that have passed down from generation to generation, you
can you can use that. Speaking of Halloween, how does
voodoo embrace Halloween and what is there any particular practices
or rituals that they do this time of year.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, Haitian Vodu has the huge ceremonies this time of
year for the ancestors. They're called Fet gay dat Fet
meaning party and gay Day being the spirits of the
unknown dead. So everybody who died and isn't getting remembered,
everybody who died and doesn't have somebody put in their
bachelor or their wallet or their diary on the altar,

(47:03):
all the ones that we've forgotten. It's kind of just
a collective time to honor them, and it's a big
party to honor them. Because they can get really braunchy.
They like to curse, they like to smoke, they like
to drink. So what they do in Haitian Bodu communities
at this time is have huge fat Gay Day parties
and people love to join in the parties. My friend

(47:24):
Rivenery Priestyl runs a huge fat Gay Day party coming
up in New York City. There's dance classes where you
can learn the dances for the Gay Day, which are
really kind of wild and intense. You know. There's one
of them that's like a spider dance because obviously insects
and spiders are associated with the dead, right because you're
in the ground and you've got insects and spiders and

(47:46):
all this stuff crawling on you. So they're just they
come together. So there's a fantastic spider dance where your
hands are like spider hands and you're just sort of
reaching different stuff from out the universe and pulling it
towards yourself. So if anybody has a chanceance to take
a get a dance workshop, I highly recommend it. So yeah,
that's that's two things that people do, big parties, big dances,

(48:09):
you know, drinking, hooping and hollering, the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
I'm sure people just said there's there's booze and dancing.
I'm there.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's fun. It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
I bet. Well, Okay, yeah, we've got to get out
of here. But I know voodoo is being rediscovered by
younger generations. And like I tell people with ghost hunting,
with anything bigfoot, you need to prepare yourself to respect

(48:42):
and to go into a situation or a home or
a place, and even a religion with knowledge. Can you
kind of give us just a quick rundown of how
can somebody begin to discover voodoo and doing it respectfully?

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Yeah, I would try and seek out a teacher. I
would read what you can. Obviously, my books are helpful.
I've got a book called Voodoo in African Traditional Religion
that sort of breaks down the differences between this is
how they do it in Haitian Vodu, this is how
they do it in Cuban, and Lookumi, this is how
they do it back in Africa, in Nigeria or the
need so people can understand the different paths that it

(49:25):
took because each place it landed, you've got the indigenous
people there that also blended with it. And you know,
appreciation not appropriation. What's happening in the two cultures. So
that will help them understand it. And then you know,
find a teacher. Get a reading. Start with getting a reading,
Start with talking to other people, the other students from
this person, you know, I don't. Somebody asked me, what's

(49:48):
okay to ask them? I said, you can always ask.
They don't have to answer, you know. You know, Oh, okay,
what's it like being a student of this person? You know,
but really trust because you're choosing a parent and you
can't just the same way you can't change your parents.
You're kind of stuck with these people, you know. So
if you are going to take that leap and begin

(50:08):
studying with a spiritual family, do what you can to
find out, you know, talk to people and just do
your research.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Do you take on new students, sir?

Speaker 3 (50:18):
It's a process, but yes, I do. I do, And
again I usually I usually recommend people get a reading
for anything, you know, like, oh, I want to spell
for this job. Well, how do you know that's the
best job for you? Get a reading. Let's get a reading.
We'll see what we need to do to get you
the best job, and we'll see if this job you're
trying for is the best job. So, you know, I

(50:39):
usually ask people to get a reading first. Oh, okay,
is this the best place for you? Maybe you need
to stay home. I had one woman it was like
her kids were really young, and traditionally in this religion,
when your kids are really young, you don't join the
religion because there's so much time and energy and effort
that you have to divert to the religion that if
your kids are little, they need your time in a
time so help me say that. So it turned out

(51:02):
that she was supposed to, you know, just focus on
the kids and not focus on, you know, initiating or anything.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
I love that. I love that. Uh that I remember
now the Church of Satan, that's and I was really
surprised how they're so helpful in the community and raising
money for homeless and so many things. And I was
like scratching my head, like what really, Yeah, And they
did not indoctrin people. You know, if you're under eighteen,

(51:31):
they did not allow you to come into So I
appreciate that because even in Christianity, from time you were
come out of the womb, they're ready to put you
into you know, if you want to be a Christian, wonderful,
but you know it's just they're they're pushed into Christianity.
So I really appreciate that. Well, little thank you so much.

(51:51):
You're you're, you're a delight. And like I said, Patty
Negre's want that referred me to you, and and uh,
anything she says is who's a person I'm all in.
So well, people can go to Lilithdorsey dot com and
you can pick up her books there on Amazon or
I'm sure in bookstores. So any inning parting words for

(52:14):
this Halloween season for people.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
I never know what to say to people, so I
resort to village head be excellent to each other.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Right, Yeah, I honestly say that after every show, and
you'll hear me. Hear me say it just a second.
But thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
I must be thank you well, thank you everybody for
tuning in. And I hope you enjoyed Lilith. She's just
the delight. And I hope if you're in New Orleans
you stop in and see her, and uh, I definitely
know I will. But every Friday you have us right here,
and Halloween is a week away and we want to
hopefully bring you another episode before Halloween season comes to

(52:57):
an end. But the spirits are always there, so we're
always going to be here too. Until next time, take
care of yourself and each other. Bye.