When people hear the word voodoo, they often envision dolls stuck with pins, zombies, and hideous rituals carried out in darkness. But voodoo is simply a belief system. Voodoo was first brought to Haiti by African slaves sometime during the sixteenth century. It emerged in Louisiana two hundred years later.

Voodoo involves the interaction of humans with spirits. Legba, the spirit in charge, serves as a mediator between human beings and the spirit world. Other loa, or high gods, include Damballah, a snake god imbued with virility; Guede, goddess of love; and her darker sisters, jealousy and vengeance. Many lesser gods and innumerable spirits play parts in voodoo's elaborate rituals and spells.

In a traditional voodoo ceremony, worshipers work themselves into a frenzy through music, chanting, and dancing, sometimes accompanied by various forms of drugs and alcohol. During an altered state of consciousness, worshipers become possessed by one of the spirits and collapse to the ground, writhing and speaking unintelligibly. Once possessed, a worshiper is believed to be able to bring about a cure, good fortune, or some other human desire. During a typical ceremony, animal sacrifices are offered to the loa to win their favor.

The dark side of voodoo, however, is what has captured the collective imagination. The extremes of voodoo's black magic can include control over others, ritual murders, and cannibalism. Some practitioners curse the recent dead and turn them into zombies, reanimated corpses who are slaves without wills of their own.