James Duvalier

For time to time I like to share experiences and stories that show the power of Voodoo, magic and the Spirit World.  This is one such story that I heard personally in the early 2000's which reportedly occurred in the the late 90's. This is a story of love but more importantly a story of the power of voodoo.

Voodoo is so powerful, the voodoo woman warned her that one should not undertake such workings lightly...

In 2000, I found myself staying in New York for a couple months, the guest of a fiercely intimidating Russian man named Andrei.  A few days after my arrival, I began to wonder about the source of his income.  He never mentioned work, but yet his apartment was filled with antiques, plasma TVs, expensive artwork and the champagne and vodka flowed endlessly every evening.  I was convinced that he was involved in some form of organized crime, but dared not raise the subject.  In those days, I was quite nocturnal and would awaken around three o’clock in the afternoon and idle away the afternoon curled up in bed watching Oprah and Sally Jessy Raphael until Andrei arrived home to begin our nightly parties, which did in fact occur almost every night of the week.

During those two months I met people from all the former Soviet republics except Kyrgyzstan, and I heard many interesting stories ranging from dealings with Russian bureaucracy to events involving the supernatural.  Every evening, shortly after sundown, Andrei’s guests would arrive; mostly young Eastern Europeans decked out in designer clothes who medicated themselves with Oxycodone and Stolichnaya and traded compliments when in earshot of each other, and replaced such pleasantries with words like “Блядь” and “Сука” and other offensive utterances when their backs were turned.  One night, I found myself sitting next to a Moldovan woman named Rodica who told me of an incident involving Voodoo that she had experienced firsthand a few years earlier – a story of love and the power of voodoo.

Originally from a village in southern Moldova bordering Romania, Rodica immigrated to the United States in the mid 1990’s along with her elderly mother.  They settled in Brighton Beach, New York where there is a considerable Russian population from recent waves of immigration.  Rodica was in her mid-forties and felt completely and desperately alone, since her mother had raised her to believe that her destiny and purpose of being was to care for her in her old age and thus discouraged her from ever marrying or seeking a male companion.  Now experiencing a sense of freedom and anonymity that she had lacked in Moldova, she began a relationship with another Moldovan immigrant named Constantin, who seemed to enjoy spending time with a bottle of vodka more than with Rodica.  Desperate to turn him into the passionate lover that she so desperately desired, she sought the help of a coworker who was a Voodoo worker originally from New Orleans.  The Voodoo woman warned her that one should not undertake such workings lightly, but Rodica said she had waited all her life and wanted to bind Constantin though a Voodoo working.

One evening, Rodica invited her coworker to her apartment and the two women set about constructing a Voodoo charm, while her mother sat glued to the TV set watching a Russian soap opera.  Rodica supplied the two items requested: a lock of her own hair and a photo of Constantin.  The Voodoo woman took the photo and pasted it to the reverse side of a Saint Anthony prayer card and proceeded to tie the lock of Rodica’s hair to the two images, binding the entire package together with green ribbon.  The holy image was then placed upside down in a mason jar into which she blew cigar smoke and dropped seven pennies.  She told Rodica to bury the jar at a crossroads and she would see results immediately.  Rodica did as she had been instructed and awaited the results.  It worked.  Constantin turned into a doting lover overnight barely leaving Rodica anytime to herself.  At first, she enjoyed the attention, but then it became tiring and scary.  He would not leave her alone and while he worshiped her, he was still madly in love with his vodka and with alcoholism came depression and violent rage.  He became belligerent and abusive when Rodica failed to reciprocate the attention he showered upon her.  She began avoiding him all together, not even accepting his calls.  Several months later, Constantin succumbed to alcoholism and died from cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure.  Even death did not stop him from tormenting Rodica.

He began to appear nightly in her dreams.  At first, she attributed this an over stressed, over active imagination, but then she began to see him in waking hours and once he even materialized in the bathroom mirror.  These ghostly apparitions went on for several weeks and Rodica was sure she was losing her mind, until one day Constantin appeared in the living room in front of both Rodica and her mother and stood there for several minutes staring coldly at the two women huddle together on the sofa clinging to each other out of sheer fear.  Rodica’s mother was convinced that Constantin had been cursed in death to become a strigoi or vampire and must be dealt with in the manner prescribed by tradition.  Rodica knew this was not possible given strict laws in America regarding disinterring the dead, but then she remembered the Voodoo charm prepared by her coworker and early one morning, at the first sign of dawn, he rushed to retrieve the jar from its burial place at the crossroads and promptly broke it on the side of the road.  She exclaimed, “May God forgive me for binding you to me, but now go to Him and leave me in peace!”  From that day on Rodica never again saw the restless spirit of Constantin.

Let this story serves as a cautionary tale regarding the power of Voodoo which is so strong that it can even work from beyond the grave.  Also, this tale is important because it shows that belief in Voodoo is not limited to a geographic location, but flourishes in the soul of the practitioner.  I first heard the above tale almost twelve years ago and I have since lost contact with both Rodica and Andrei, but there is no doubt that this story occurred exactly as it was told to me since I know firsthand the power of the spirit world.