Celebrating
the
Goddess RISING!

Biography of Sallie Ann Glassman Sallie Ann Glassman was born in Maine in 1954. She is of Jewish-Ukrainian heritage. Ms. Glassman has been practicing Vodou in New Orleans since 1977. She is the owner of the Island of Salvation Botanica, a store and gallery specializing in Vodoun religious supply, medicinal and magical herbs, and Haitian and local artworks. The shop was awarded the "Best of City" award by National Geographic Traveler for their Insider series in 2004. She traveled to Haiti in November, 1995 to undergo the week-long Couche initiation. During the initiation, Ms. Glassman was ordained as Ounsi, Kanzo and Manbo Asogwe, or Priestess of Vodou, and is one of the few white Americans to have been ordained via the traditional Haitian initiation. Glassman is the founder of La Source Ancienne Ounfo in New Orleans, where she presides over weekly Vodoun ceremonies. Ms. Glassman is the author of Vodou Visions, published by Random House in May, 2000, which has received acclaim from Vodou practitioners around the world. She is co-creator and artist for The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot, published by Destiny/Inner Traditions, and is the illustrator of The Enochian Tarot, published by Llewellyn. As a Manbo, Ms. Glassman has led her neighborhood in annual community Vodoun rituals to fight crime and to ask for protection from hurricanes. She performs annual public ceremonies for St. John's Eve on Bayou St. John, and for The Day of the Dead on Nov. 1st. In 2005 she completed construction and dedicated the Achade Meadows Peristyle - the first dedicated Vodou temple in New Orleans. She has received international television, radio and magazine coverage, including a frontpage article in The New York Times and a feature on The World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Ms. Glassman has lectured extensively on Vodou and visionary art, and has performed rituals at Tulane University, UNO, Loyola University, The Louisiana State Museum, at the Goddess Conference in New Orleans, at the International House Hotel, for numerous private groups, including the Bayou St. John Neighborhood Association and at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, where she participated in rituals in the Haitian Pavilion that captivated hundreds of people daily. In March 1997 she was invited on a two-week lecture tour of Australia, where she gave workshops on Vodoun ceremony and ritual. She returns to Australia in August of 2007 to give the keynote lecture at Queesland College's symposium on "Approaches to the Numinous." She also conducted a Vodou workshop and retreat at the Omega Institute in June, 2001, and has sat on panel discussions and lectured at the Contemporary Art Center, The Tennessee Williams Festival, The Faulkner Society, Barrister's Gallery, and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Ms. Glassman's interest in the esoteric arts began at age thirteen, with the study of tarot and crystal ball. She has studied and taught Hatha and Kundalini Yoga at the Un-School of New Haven, CT, the Satchidananda Vedanta Center, New Haven, CT, and with Guru D'Aishan and Michele Baker in New Orleans. She was a high initiate of the Ordo Templi Orientis, an international fraternal order of Ceremonial Magicians. She has studied Santeria under her Santero, Antonio Gil, and is the daughter of Olokun and Oggun in that tradition. An alumna of the New Orleans Art Institute, Ms. Glassman is an award-winning artist whose work has been exhibited in one-woman and group shows that have received significant critical reviews in local newspapers and international art magazines. She is represented in New Orleans with on-going exhibitions of her paintings and assemblage art altars at Les Carillons, Coffea, and Barrister's galleries. She created a permanent altar exhibit for Baton Rouge's new cultural museum. She had the first one woman show at Barrister's Gallery in post-Katrina New Orleans. Ms. Glassman is the founder of The New Orleans Hope and Heritage Project, a non-profit whose vision is to help rebuild New Orleans, person to person, neighborhood by neighborhood, and to reinvent what community means to the citizens of the city. The website, www.nolahopeandheritage.org, features cultural videos and information about the Healing Center that the organization is building. Sallie Ann Glassman has been featured in numerous documentaries and on the following television and radio programs: ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings The CBS Evening News NBC (National) MSNBC CNN PBS Fox Family Network Discovery Channel Discovery Travel Channel Discovery Medical Channel Discovery Civilization Channel The Sci Fi Channel CPB Turner Boradcasting Sitings The Angela Show (New Orleans, CBS affiliate) New Orleans Cable Access Crimewatch (New Orleans ABC affiliate) Motorweek WGNO News (New Orleans) WVUE News (New Orleans) Channel 6 News (New Orleans) National Public Radio Canadian Public Radio CKNW (British Columbia) The BBC Milwaukee Radio Univision VOA TV/Radio The Carolyn Casey Show The Joan Rivers Show And received press coverage in the following publications: The New York Times The Los Angeles Times The San Francisco Chronicle The New Yorker The Wall Street Journal The Washington Post Harper's The Smithsonian The Atlanta Constitution The Times-Picayune National Geographic National Geographic Traveler Caribbean Week Conde Nast Traveler Off-Beat Mahogany Review Architectural Digest The Sun The National Enquirer Maxim Black Book Contemporania The Bywater News The BywaterMarigny Current Fate Tribe Time Asia New Orleans Magazine Gambit