occult

13 Strange But Awesome Places To See In New Orleans

June 27, 2017 By J.F. Penn

So far, my ARKANE books have largely focused on the ancient world and Europe. But ever since Jake went to America for One Day in New York I’ve wanted to explore the legends and occult traditions of the New World.

What better place to start than The Big Easy, New Orleans?

Especially as I visited the city in early 2017 as part of the research for American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice. You can see some of my pictures in this article and the whole album here on Flickr.

Founded in 1718 by the French, New Orleans passed to Spanish control in 1763. It finally joined the United States in 1803. This change of hands, along with its history of slavery and connection to the local Chitimacha tribes, makes New Orleans a unique place to visit.

It’s suffered many disasters over the decades, including devastating epidemics and hurricanes. More recently, Hurricane Katrina took 1,836 lives in 2005. Thankfully, the city recovered and is open to visitors.

st louis cemetery — Graves in St Louis cemetery, New Orleans

Here are thirteen strange places to see in New Orleans if you’re lucky enough to find yourself in this very unusual city.

1. The Tomb of Marie Laveau

Vodou is never far from the surface in New Orleans. While we're used to spelling it as Voodoo in the West, it’s originally Vodou. Otherwise, you're confusing a legitimate religion from Haiti with the West African folk magic practice of hoodoo.

Either way, one of its most famous priestesses, Marie Laveau, continues to draw the crowds.

Born around 1801, the half Creole hairdresser became famous as a purveyor of charms and gris-gris bags, fortunes and advice. According to legend, she even saved condemned men. But rumours also imply she ran a popular brothel – which could explain her fame.

She died in 1881 and allegedly rests in St. Louis Cemetery No.1, one of the top places to see in New Orleans. Her burial place is named in her obituary though some scholars say she lies elsewhere. Visitors used to scribble an X on her mausoleum in the hope she'd grant their wish. But after a restoration in 2014, the authorities now fine visitors for writing on the grave.

St. Louis Cemetery No.1 opened in 1789 and is the oldest cemetery in New Orleans. It has over 600 tombs and preservation work began in 1975.

If you'd like to visit St. Louis Cemetery No.1, then you can only gain access with a tour guide, unless you have family buried there.

2. Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo

Vodou Priestess Marie Laveau gave birth to a daughter in 1827, also named Marie. A museum and shop now stand on the site of the house where Marie Laveau II lived.

voodoo altar, new orleans — Voodoo altar

You can see a Vodou altar and associated items while the owners hold spiritual readings in a back room. You can even buy various Vodou items and books.

But perhaps Marie Laveau II isn't happy with the commercialisation of her home. Many believe her ghost still haunts the property. Visitors report cold fingers kneading their shoulders. Others have seen her in the back room during readings.

3. New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum

Marie Laveau's shop isn't the only museum dedicated to Vodou. A local artist named Charles Massicot Gandolfo founded his own small museum in 1972. It focuses on New Orleans Vodou and is a fascinating place.

Vodou priest John T offers psychic readings and fortune telling, which start at $40. You can also book onto a walking tour of St. Louis Cemetery No.1.

The gift shop sells many products, including chicken feet and snake skins, as well as the famous Voodoo Love potion and the New Orleans Voodoo Coffin Kits.

If you're not that brave, then you can buy books and candles instead.

jfpenn nuawlins nate new orleans voodoo — J.F.Penn with Nu'Awlins Nate, New Orleans voodoo tour guide

You can find the Historic Voodoo Museum at 724 Dumaine Street. I did a great walking tour which included the museum with Nu'Awlins Nate, a regular tour guide of the city.

4. Boutique du Vampyre

New Orleans is full of vampires, at least it has been since Anne Rice set some of her Vampire Lestat books in the city.

There is a very cool shop full of vampire gifts and if you get chatting to the (pale) staff, you might get invited to one of the private clubs where entry is only allowed if you are invited by or accompanied by a vampire.

You can check out the shop at 709 St Ann St, or visit their online shop here.

5. New Orleans Pharmacy Museum

Not everything in New Orleans is devoted to the supernatural. The Pharmacy Museum in the French Quarter is an important monument to the development of scientific medicine.

You can see pharmaceutical ingredients in apothecary jars, original wheelchairs, medical instruments and tools, and even old eyeglasses. It’s one of the more unusual places to see in New Orleans.

A recreated pharmacist's lab lies at the back of the shop, while exhibits explain the original role of the ‘soda fountain' in Victorian medicine.

Though it wouldn't be New Orleans without at least a handful of Vodou potions.

6. Séance Room at Muriel's Jackson Square

Head to 801 Chartres Street if you'd like to combine Creole cuisine with paranormal activity.

Muriel's Jackson Square was a holding facility for slaves before it became a family home after the Great New Orleans Fire of 1788. Its owner committed suicide in 1814 on the second floor after losing the house in a poker game.

Once the building became a restaurant, the second floor became a séance room after guests reported a lot of paranormal activity. Despite stories of disembodied voices and breaking glasses, the owners claim the spirits are harmless. They even lay a table for the previous owner every night.

Of course, if you're in the area, you need to get a muffuletta from the Central Grocery, followed by beignets and cafe au lait from Café du Monde. Sugar rush!

7. LaLaurie Mansion

While many houses in New Orleans claim to be haunted, not all of them boast the pedigree of the LaLaurie mansion. Standing in the French Quarter, the cruel Madame LaLaurie allegedly tortured slaves in the house.

Fans of American Horror Story will recognise the house and Madame LaLaurie from the Coven series. Kathy Bates played the Madame.

Actor Nicolas Cage even bought the house and lost it to foreclosure in 2009. Few were surprised since legends of curses surround the house. The imposing mansion is one of the must-see places to see in New Orleans.

You can hear more of the ghost stories by doing an evening Ghosts, Legends and Lore walking tour with Strange True Tours.

8. Metairie Cemetery and Lafayette Cemetery

If you like visiting graveyards (as I do) then Metairie Cemetery is another recommended visit. It's notable for having been built on the site of a race track. The cemetery even follows the original contours.

Like the other city graveyards, it boasts fantastic monuments to house the above-ground burials. Some believe the trend to bury above ground comes from problems with the city's water.

But it was a popular burial style in the Mediterranean due to the rocky soil in southern Europe. French and Spanish colonists introduced the tradition. Paupers were buried in any available ground, so tombs act as a sign of status in the community.

Or you can travel to the Garden District to find the Lafayette Cemetery. Established in 1833, you can find it at 1400 Washington Avenue. It’s one of the definitive places to see in New Orleans.

The cemetery holds over 7000 inhabitants and will be familiar if you've read any of Anne Rice's vampire novels. She even staged her own funeral here in 1995, complete with horse-drawn hearse and brass band, to publicise the release of Memnoch the Devil, book 5 in her Vampire Chronicles.

You'll find plenty of monuments honouring Civil War dead and those lost to regular epidemics of yellow fever.

9. The Museum of Death

With perhaps the most striking name in the history of museums, this weird museum lies in the French Quarter and is one of the more disturbing places to see in New Orleans.

You need a strong stomach because they include plenty of photos from morgues and crime scenes, body bags, antique mortician equipment, coffins, and car accident photography.

It offers a self-guided tour that lasts for around an hour. But if you're of a stronger constitution, you can stay at the Museum of Death as long as you can stand it. I wouldn't recommend taking your Mom!

10. St. Augustine Catholic Church

Found at 1210 Governor Nicholls Street, the church itself isn't the destination. The rusting cross made of thick chains outside is what you need to see. This is the Tomb of the Unknown Slave, installed in 2004. It honours the nameless slaves who died and rarely received proper burials.

chain cross — Cross made from slave shackles, New Orleans

Officially, no one is buried under it, but a bronze plaque nearby explains that slave labour built a lot of the parish. A number of unmarked graves likely lie beneath it.

It's an important memorial in the city and it’s worth seeing it to pay your respects.

11. Backstreet Cultural Museum

Many associate New Orleans with a range of African American celebrations, including jazz funerals and Mardi Gras.

If you want to know more about them, then pop along to the Backstreet Cultural Museum (though it's closed on Mondays and Sundays).

It holds permanent exhibits related to the community-based processional traditions. But it also holds an archive of filmed records of over 500 events. It hosts public music and dance performances and chronicles the jazz funerals held every year.

shotgun houses — ‘Shotgun' houses in New Orleans

You can also visit the House of Dance & Feathers on Tupelo Street to learn more about the Mardi Gras Indian costumes.

12. Escape My Room

If you believe the stories, the DeLaporte mansion stood on the site now occupied by the hospital complex near the New Orleans Superdrome. After the last owner, Odette DeLaporte, became a recluse, the house fell to rack and ruin. In 2005, urban explorers broke in, later describing the house and its fabulous contents.

But when the neighbours returned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, they realised the house was completely empty. Where did everything go?

If you believe the website, Escape My Room recreated two of the mansion’s rooms using the items from the house in the remains of a former perfume factory. Players wait in the cabinet of curiosities styled waiting room, furnished with antiques and weird taxidermy. It's typical of the legends and eeriness that hang around New Orleans.

Players get to choose the Jazz Parlor or the Mardi Gras Study. You get one hour to solve a mystery using the clues in the room. There are 8 of you in a group, so it's advisable to work together.

If you solve it without help, you learn something new about the occult in New Orleans that you couldn't have found elsewhere. Only 1 in 3 players solve the riddles unaided. If you're one of the 2 in 3 who can't, a guide will reveal everything you've missed.

If you want to play, you can find it at 601-699 Constance St. Just make sure you book in advance – it's fiendishly popular.

13. House of the Rising Sun

The infamous brothel that inspired the song by the same name isn't open to the public, but I was lucky enough to be taken round by some locals.

These are just some of the awesome places to see in New Orleans.

Because of the diverse range of faiths, lifestyles, and beliefs of the people of New Orleans, you should always be respectful. The whole city is a community, so take an open mind with you.

Who knows which stories you may tell when you leave?

I'm going to be writing an ARKANE novel set in the city, but in the meantime, check out American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice, which I co-wrote with three other authors there after we took the train from Chicago down to New Orleans in March 2017.

A Walk Around The Historical And Occult Sites Of Oxford, England

June 7, 2017 By J.F. Penn

Oxford holds a special place in my heart. I read Theology at Mansfield College 1994 – 1997, so I spent formative years cycling around the streets, spending my student loan on books from Blackwells, rowing on the river, and studying in the Radcliffe Camera library.

I first dreamed of Oxford after reading Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure back in my teens, and the experience of living in the city of dreaming spires has certainly shaped my life … and my fiction!

Oxford is a key location in the ARKANE series. Home to Morgan Sierra, it provides a point of stability in her hectic life of international travel and defeating the bad guys! With its own ARKANE field office, Oxford also sees the start of Morgan’s life as an agent in Stone of Fire. You could say it's the intellectual balance for her supernatural adventures.

So Oxford has links with the occult through ARKANE, but what other weird tales lurk in the city of dreaming spires? Let’s take a walk around some of the historical and occult aspects of Oxford.

Oxford as the capital of England?

mansfield college oxford — Mansfield College, University of Oxford, where I read Theology 1994 – 1997

Oxford was briefly the capital of England during the English Civil War. The town supported the Parliamentarians, but the University supported the monarchy. King Charles I moved his court here in 1642 and he stayed at Christ Church College until 1646.

Local legends claim the tragic king still haunts the college, both with and without his head. Civil War ghosts also appear elsewhere in Oxford. A bedroom at Merton College was so haunted that no one could spend an entire night there. The library at the college is reportedly haunted by a former Royalist colonel, shot after surrendering to Parliamentarian forces in 1645.

There’s even a legend that Hitler intended to use Oxford as his capital if he invaded England so deliberately avoided bombing it. There’s no evidence to support the theory, but it certainly fits in with the occult leanings of the city. (Morgan comes up against the occult side of Nazi history in Gates of Hell.)

Divine power supported the founding of Oxford University

An interesting legend surrounds the founding of the university. A princess named Frideswide wanted to dedicate herself to the Church, but the king of Mercia wanted to marry her, so Frideswide fled to Oxford to escape him.

When the king entered the city in hot pursuit, a divine power struck him blind. His sight only returned when he begged forgiveness and released Frideswide from her betrothal. The king left empty-handed and Frideswide founded a nunnery. According to the legend, the first colleges were built for monastic scholars.

Despite the legend, women were only admitted in 1878. The university awarded degrees to women in 1920. The last all-male college opened to women in 1974.

oxford natural history — Interior of the Museum of Natural History, Oxford. Is the ARKANE base really underneath?

What would the old male founders of the colleges make of Morgan Sierra's Krav Maga skills?

Learning and knowledge

Oxford is most famous as a seat of learning. Evidence suggests the university has operated since 1096 AD and only the University of Bologna has been in operation for longer.

My Theology degree included some of the oldest subjects studied including the New Testament in ancient Greek, Israel before the Exile and Patristics, the study of the early church fathers. These papers shaped a number of my ARKANE books, and I spent much of my study time in the Radcliffe Camera, part of the Bodleian Library.

It is second only to British Library in terms of its holdings and the Bodleian stocks over 11 million items across several sites. It even extends into underground stacks, which I visited once, and became the inspiration for the underground ARKANE headquarters. A tunnel connects the Weston Library, the Old Bodleian and the Radcliffe Camera.

The famous Ashmolean Museum first opened to the public in 1683, the first museum in the world to be accessible to the public. It's one of the best things to see in Oxford, and it hosts an enviable collection of art and archaeology from around the world. Its Egyptian collection is one of the largest outside Cairo. Visitors can even write to the Ashmolean a week in advance to request access to the original drawings of Raphael and Michelangelo.

The Ashmolean is a perfect hiding place for one of the Seals of Revelation needed to resurrect the Great Serpent at the End of Days.

Elsewhere in Oxford, the Pitt Rivers Museum holds an amazing collection of archaeological and ethnographic objects from around the world. Founded in 1884, the museum has over half a million items. In my books, it’s also the public face of the Oxford branch of the ARKANE Institute, which nestles below the museum.

Most museums arrange their objects by geography or culture, but the Pitt Rivers Museum creates displays using types of object. That way, visitors can see how a range of cultures across a range of time periods have approached textiles, weapons, and even musical instruments.

Who knows what fascinating relics might lie among their Japanese Noh masks and Tahitian mourner's costumes?

Underground Oxford

In Stone of Fire, Jake alludes to the sprawling underground network below Oxford.

As well as the tunnels beneath the Bodleian Library, there's also a Norman crypt beneath St. Peter-in-the-East, now the college library of St. Edmund (Teddy) Hall. According to rumours, the crypt hides the entrance to a tunnel network that was used until the 1960s.

There are also legends about an underground passage that led into the crypt. King Henry II apparently used the tunnel when he visited Oxford. He passed through the tunnel to avoid his Queen while seeing his mistress. Sadly, no evidence has been found … yet.

Another series of underground tunnels connected the homes in the Oxford Jewish quarter. They lurk behind a medieval doorway below Oxford Town Hall.

Wells and gardens

blackwells — Blackwells bookshop with student bikes outside, Oxford. Booklovers get lost in there …

Wells and spas provide handy clues to the pagan roots of old English towns, including Oxford. The wells mark the sites of springs, often worshipped by earlier inhabitants for their magical properties. The town of Bath, where I live now, is a famous example.

St Margaret's Well lies in Binsey, 1.5 miles north-west of Oxford. Dedicated to Frideswide, its legend claims her prayers brought forth a healing spring when the king of Mercia was struck blind. The well became a site of pilgrimage during medieval times. Cured cripples would leave their crutches to adorn the nearby church when they left.

Pilgrims visited for its power in curing eye complaints and infertility and Katherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII, was even rumoured to pay the well a visit. Legend has it that Lewis Carroll based the treacle well in Alice in Wonderland on St Margaret's Well. It’s one of the more peaceful things to see in Oxford and some still believe in the curative properties of the water.

Oxford also boasts the oldest Botanic Garden in the world. Founded as a physic garden in 1621, the Botanic Garden was always intended as a learning resource. Nowadays the Garden works within plant conservation, as well as conducting research at Oxford University.

Oxford and strange fiction

Oxford is important to my ARKANE books, but it also has (more famous!) literary links, particularly with fantasy fiction. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) taught at Christ Church College. He was friends with the Dean and immortalised his daughter in fiction as Alice in Wonderland.

Writer Kenneth Grahame attended St Edward's School in Oxford. He's buried in the city’s Holywell Cemetery. Perhaps his time in Oxford inspired the otherworldly atmosphere of The Wind in the Willows.

JRR Tolkien photo from the Eagle and Child, Oxford

The Great Hall at Christ Church inspired the dining hall of Hogwarts, while the staircase leading to the hall appears in the Harry Potter films. The locations around the college are some of the more popular things to see in Oxford.

Given that Oxford has the highest number of published writers per square mile, maybe there's something in the air that seeps into fiction.

Charles Williams must have thought so. He was part of the Inklings, a group of Oxford writers that also included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Williams wrote poetry about the Arthurian legends and supernatural novels about the spiritual realm breaking into daily reality.

He was also a member of The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, a secret Rosicrucian fraternity. Arthur Edward Waite founded the group in 1915 and blended spiritual esotericism and Christianity. Unlike the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the FRC rejected magic. A lot of its members were Freemasons and they sought knowledge more than power.

The occult in Oxford

Charles Williams couldn’t have picked a better city if he wanted to explore the occult. There's something about the city that inspires the spirit. The word ‘occult’ means ‘knowledge of the hidden,’ so what better place than this seat of learning for occult traditions?

Students have dabbled in the occult across the centuries. Adam Squier, a Master of Balliol College in the 16th century, was almost expelled after he sold demons to help his clients win at gambling. The famous Tudor magician, John Dee, thought highly of another student, Thomas Heth.

In recent years, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn inspired the founding of the Oxford Golden Dawn Occult Society (OGDOS). It's a magical order that teaches a more modern form of magic than the older Golden Dawn system.

The OGDOS are working to re-establish a resource centre in Oxford. They want to provide a space for ritual gatherings. Its founder, Mogg Morgan, is the CEO of the Mandrake of Oxford publishing press, specialising in occult titles. Elsewhere in the city, the Inner Bookshop on Magdalen Road carries occult books.

Part of the northern end of All Souls College was re-designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, 18th-century architect and Freemason. A series of architectural conspiracy theories surround his London churches and his work often includes obelisks, pyramids and other elements hinting at pagan influences at odds with ecclesiastical buildings.

While they can’t be attributed to Hawksmoor, many of the college buildings are also home to a host of gargoyles. Some are just faces and others are whole people. The comedy grotesques are some of the more unusual things to see in Oxford.

blackfriars — The door to Blackfriars, where I used to have Theology tutorials, and where Ben Costanza from the ARKANE series lives and teaches

Elsewhere in the city stands Sir Christopher Wren’s first major commission – the magnificent Sheldonian Theatre. Like his apprentice Hawksmoor, Wren was a Freemason. He used the traditions of the Kabbalah and sacred geometry from the Old Testament in his work. Perhaps the journey of Wren and Hawksmoor into the occult began in Oxford.

Morgan Sierra investigates the Freemasons' Grand Lodge of England in the hunt for the Ark of the Covenant in Ark of Blood.

You can plot your own plan of esoteric things to see in Oxford

Try following in Morgan’s footsteps and start with the museums. Explore some of the nooks and crannies of the colleges for a small fee. Seek out ancient springs or keep your eyes open for hidden entrances to secret tunnels.

Keep an open mind while you wander. Who knows where those winding alleyways may take you?

Begin your journey into Oxford’s ARKANE side with Stone of Fire, or binge the whole series in ebook, print or audiobook.

Magic And Occult Las Vegas. The Daniel Faust Series By Craig Schaefer

June 17, 2015 By J.F. Penn

I recently discovered the Daniel Faust series by Craig Schaefer, fantastic books about magic and the occult set in Las Vegas which I highly recommend. Today I interview Craig about his writing.

Where did the idea for Daniel Faust come from? Do you enjoy magic yourself?

I've been a lifelong fan of both horror and crime fiction, especially the works of Elmore Leonard and Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark. The Daniel Faust series grew out of an urge to blend those genres, much like chocolate and peanut butter. The results have been satisfyingly tasty so far.

I saw Harry Blackstone, Jr. perform when I was a child, and it kindled a lifelong love of the magical arts. A well-done illusion is a drama in miniature, a story with rising peaks, mystery and surprise. (I dabble in sleight-of-hand myself, but I've never been good enough to perform — unless that performance is in front of good friends, preferably after a few glasses of wine.)

Why Las Vegas? What is it about the city that made you want to set the books there primarily?

Because it's a beautiful fake. The tourist parts of Vegas are a carefully, precisely engineered façade, and the average casino is a testament to the power of psychological warfare: they're literally designed to disorient you and skew your sense of time and scale, to make it easier to part you from your money. For a series that hinges on deception, lies, and the art of the con, it's the most natural setting in the world.

That, and the stark class divide. You can walk out of Crystals, lined with boutiques where nothing has a price tag and they bring you champagne while you browse, and pass the homeless panhandlers on the skybridge outside. Money is everywhere, money is everything, and it flows in obscene amounts or it doesn't flow at all. In other words, the perfect stomping-grounds for Faust and his gang.

Why do you love the supernatural/occult world? What draws us as writers and readers to the darker side?

There's a certain romance to it, isn't there? The idea of these vast, unseen mysteries and horrors, lurking just beyond the veil of the everyday world — and with one slip, one step to the side, you could find yourself among them. There's fear, but there's the promise of adventure, too. It certainly makes an argument with the boss or the bill for a broken-down car seem less scary by comparison.

There's also the implicit promise that if horrors are real, there's also a way to beat them. Demons can be banished, curses can be broken. That's reassuring, in a world where we're confronted with very real evils on a daily basis and so many of them seem so insurmountable.

What are the themes that keep coming up in your writing? What obsesses you?

According to the TVTropes page for the Faust series, the universal characteristics of my novels are dominant women and gourmet food. I'd like to think I'm a bit deeper than that, but no promises.

Devotion fascinates me. What drives a person to take up another's banner, and give their all for a leader or a cause, even to the degree that this devotion becomes the core of who they are? I'm also enthralled with questions of power (what people do to get it, what they do with it, and how it changes them), and, in relation, themes of dominance and submission.

I'm also drawn to the concept of taboo: how some acts or boundaries can somehow both allure and frighten us at the same time. What happens to people who break taboos, and are they left stronger or weaker for it? Lastly, a great deal of my writing touches on the bonds of friendship and family (by blood, or by choice), and — embarrassing to admit, for a cynic — how anything is possible, when people put aside their differences and work together.

Also I write about food.

The books have some great fight scenes and explosions, definitely a thriller element. What's the most exciting thing you've done?

Non-research-related, probably scuba diving in Key West and the Cayman Islands. It helped that my instructor was a former Navy SEAL who regularly ensured I was ready for emergencies by, among other things, cutting off my air supply without warning. By the time he was done with me, I felt ready for anything. Book-research-related, I'd say it was the Haitian Vodou ritual a friendly mambo invited me to; it wasn't quite as dramatic as the magic in my books — no ghostly apparitions or walls of fire — but it was an experience that stayed with me for some time.

What does your writing room/setup look like?

I'm actually between writing rooms right now, staying with a friend while my new house is under construction, so mostly I work at the cluttered end of a dining-room table. I'm in Joliet, a Chicago suburb most famous for being the setting for the classic movie “The Blues Brothers” (in fact, I'm a stone's throw from the walls of the Joliet Correctional Center, which today is largely used for television and movie shoots).

Once I can move into my new place, I'll have a dedicated writing-room with space for my reference shelves, assorted inspirational curiosities, and virtual-reality gear (because every writer has to take a break sometime…)

Where can people find you and your books online?

My home on the web is www.craigschaeferbooks.com.

Talking Cults, Religion And Maine With Mystery Writer Jen Blood

March 24, 2014 By J.F. Penn

My obsessions with religion, psychology and the supernatural are clear in the books I write, and I'm always thrilled to meet other authors who share the same interests.

Today I interview Jen Blood, the best-selling and award-winning author of the Erin Solomon mysteries. We talk about the Erin Solomon books, cult suicides, our obsession with religion and the supernatural as well was walking the line between belief and respect for people's faith, plus how Jen does research and her love for Maine.

You can watch the video below or here on YouTube, and the full transcription is below the video.

13 Strange But Awesome Places To See In New Orleans