Rating: 
Summary: great bogus!
Review: Sallie Ann Glassman is not a Mambo! She does attempt to pimp Lwa for her performances and for her weekly "ceremonies". Any serious Mambo and Hougan (and even practitioner of Haitian Vodou) will laugh when they hear the following: Sallie Ann Glassman's "house" does not have grades! Traditional Haitian Vodou knows 3 grades of initiation! Sallie Ann Glassman does not perform the Priye Ginea because it was Catholic... she opted for an invocation to the four directions and four elements lifted from either the OTO or Wicca or Enochian tradition, but done in French, to sound like Creole - so the average tourist would not know that it was just some invocation from another tradition that had nothing to do with Vodou. When she takes people to Haiti for initiation (remember: no grades!) she gives them Pot Tets filled with a feather and 2 or 3 other items. She does not teach passwords or handshakes to her initiates - who, again, have not received any grade! To make a long story short, this book and the author are great bogus and have NOTHING to do with real Haitian Vodou!
Rating: 
Summary: Truly fabulous!
Review: This book is a great general introduction to Vodou. I'd recommend it for the novice and expert alike. A fine general read, this book is much better than the tourist books you will find in New Orleans. For something more detailed I would recommend Maya Deren's Divine Horsemen. Glassman, a Mambo and Vodou convert who lives in New Orleans, presents the religion here as sort of a Haiti-New Orleans synthesis and introduces a spiritual practice without orthodoxy (if there is such a thing as Vodou orthodoxy). The book is illustrated with the artwork from Glassman's previously published New Orleans Tarot deck.
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