Sallie Ann Glassman is a Vodou

Louisiana Voodoo

Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...

 practitioner, author, and artist, born in Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 of Jewish–Ukrainian

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 heritage.

Vodou

Glassman has been practicing Vodou in New Orleans since 1977 and in 1995 became one of few White Americans to have been ordained via the traditional Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

an initiation. She owns "Island of Salvation Botanica

Botánica

A botánica is a retail store that sells folk medicine, religious candles and statuary, amulets, and other products regarded as magical or as alternative medicine...

", a store and art gallery

Art gallery

An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...

 with religious supplies, medicinal herbs, and Haitian and local artworks.

She was quoted in the New York Times in November 2003:

"It's nonstop 24 hours a day... I get people from all walks of life, from street people to professors to psychiatrists to political leaders. They aren't looking for hexes or charms to make someone's nose fall off. It's something much more basic. They turn to voodoo because there's an increasing desperation in our culture for spiritual meaning and direction."

Art

Glassman's art is both esoteric

Esotericism

Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...

 and syncretic

Syncretism

Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...

. She has produced two major non-traditional Tarot

Tarot

The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...

 packs: the Enochian Tarot is derived from the Enochian

Enochian

Enochian is a name often applied to an occult or angelic language recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his seer Edward Kelley in the late 16th century. The men claimed that it was revealed to them by angels...

 magical system of Elizabethan magician Doctor John Dee

John Dee

John Dee was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I.John Dee may also refer to:* John Dee , Basketball coach...

, and the New Orleans Voodoo Tarot replaces the standard four Tarot suits with depictions of the spirits of the major strands of Vodou (Petro, Congo, Rada) and Santería

Santería

Santería is a syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin influenced by Roman Catholic Christianity, also known as Regla de Ocha, La Regla Lucumi, or Lukumi. Its liturgical language, a dialect of Yoruba, is also known as Lucumi....

 practices.

Media

Glassman has lectured extensively and has received international television, radio and magazine coverage, including a front page article in the New York Times and a feature on World News Tonight. She has received mention in other publications including Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, Wall Street Journal,, National Geographic and the Washington Post.

In an MSNBC interview Glassman claimed to have cured her own cancer using Vodou in 2003:

"I was willing to be healed and the essential nature of voodoo is to be healing, to heal cultures, to heal individuals,"

She appears in the film Hexing A Hurricane

Hexing A Hurricane

Hexing a Hurricane is a 2006 documentary film about the effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. It has been billed as the "First Katrina documentary" released by a New Orleanian. The film is directed by Jeremy Campbell and distributed by the National Film Network...

. Her New Orleans Voodoo Tarot was also a major influence on the first album by the band SunGod.