THERE ONCE WAS A BEAUTIFUL WITCH QUEEN IN OLD NEW ORLEANS: THE STORY OF MARY ONEIDA TOUPS

By Alyne A. Pustanio
Original Article 2010 alynepustanio.com - All rights reserved

Mary Oneida Toups is recognized to this day as the most powerful witch to have practiced in New Orleans in the 20th century. She was the founder of a powerful coven The Religious Order of Witchcraft - the first to be recognized by the State of Louisiana as an official church, and formed the central axis of a powerful network of

practitioners dedicated to the pure, unfettered study and practice of Old Style European witchcraft that still exists in New Orleans today. Many things about Mary Oneida (she preferred just Oneida) are shrouded in mystery, such as her origins. She is said to have been born in Mississippi, in the heart of Delta country, in April 1928 and, like many youths of her generation, when she reached her teens she began to feel restless and took to the road. Hitchhiking, exploring the back roads and byways of the rural South, her path eventually brought her to New Orleans, where she soon became part of a burgeoning bohemian movement already thriving there. The New Orleans of the early 60s was filled with a current similar to that moving through cities such as San Francisco and New York, a youthful current of exploration and discovery, sometimes aided by drug use that culminated in the Summer of Love and Woodstock moments. In New Orleans, where everything has always been more laissez faire or laid back, the moment crystallized in an Age of Aquarius kind of esoteric awakening. Oneida arrived here just as this new awareness was about to bloom. Always attracted to the supernatural and unexplained, and possessing tremendous innate psychic gifts, Oneida plunged deeply into esoteric and occult studies. Soon she met a man whose interests in the occult complemented her own; they hit it off immediately; this man was Boots Toups. The couple quickly set up house together and after a whirlwind courtship, they were married. They shared several mutual friends, and this tight-knit group of like-minded individuals became Oneidas most loyal followers and the core of the coven she and Boots were about to form. The Toups and this circle of friends Oneida called them her Scribes would meet every Friday night to discuss witchcraft and the occult, to practice rituals and magical workings, to share spells and increase their overall knowledge of the occult through this sharing. Oneidas Scribes, many of whom still live in New Orleans, remain loyal to her to this very day and describe the bond linking them to Oneida, though dead, as something still very active and real. In other words, Oneida still visits with them regularly. A true occultist, Oneida assumed the objective reality of witchcraft and the supernatural and it was this approach that she applied to her studies. Because of this openness, she could as easily work from a mostly-harmless Gardnerian spellbook as she could summon demons with Crowleys Goetic grimoire. To Oneida it was all the same, all a learning experience; she did not fear the results of the magic she was working, but she had a hefty respect for it, and taught this to all her adherents. In 1971 Oneida and Boots opened The Witches Workshop, the first shop of its kind in New Orleans. Where other shops were essentially botanicas that predominantly served the New Orleans Voodoo community, the mission of Oneidas shop was to support individuals studying the path of traditional, Old Style witchcraft. Although she acknowledged the power of Voodoo, and was often called upon to fight her share of nefarious hoodoo spells, Oneidas shop was dedicated to her passion for the traditional witch practices of Europe exactly the kind that got so many people burned in the years of the Inquisition. Oneida also offered education, classes usually held in the rear of her shop, and seeing a growing interest and need in those who came to her, she decided to

form first a coven and ultimately an organization that became the first church of witchcraft in Louisiana.

The Religious Order of Witchcraft was launched by Oneida and Boots Toups on Candlemas, February 2, 1972, and immediately there was a flood of requests for membership. A simple dues system members paid $100 per year and an agreement to participate in a set number of rituals was all that was required; additional education was readily made available to all members. By this time Oneidas personal practice had evolved to encompass all the High Ritual and ceremonial practices of the Western and Judaic Traditions (Qaballah). Oneida was an expert in the works of the Golden Dawn, Crowleys Thelemic tracts, and the Enochian magic of John Dee. Oneida worked with many of the great practitioners of modern times such as The Chicken Man, Sister Margaret, Sister Miriam, and many others, and her reputation as the reigning Witch Queen became well-established. Oneida could command enormous fees for personal readings and rituals, but she always kept to the stricture that a true Witch will not demand payment for the practice of her craft; she accepted whatever donations her clients wished to make. Thus, she was always busy. One incident in particular still remains prominent in the minds of her Scribes, her inner circle, because it brought Oneida into contact with one of the prevailing legends of Old New Orleans the Lalaurie House haunting. At the time, the Lalaurie Mansion was still subdivided into apartments, and a resident living there, a young woman referred by one of the Scribes, called upon Oneida to sort out a troubling haunting she was experiencing in her small apartment. Queen Oneida, accompanied by one of her most loyal friends, explored the apartment and other parts of the old home, identifying several specters present at the location. She decided that in order to identify the actual culprit responsible for the womans encounters, the best thing to do would be to hold a sance. Members of her closest inner circle joined her in

the courtyard of the old Lalaurie house at the hour of 3 a.m. and watched as Oneida went into a trance state. Almost at once she was in contact with a variety of entities, ghosts of people who had lived there over the years since the house had been broken up into apartments. Soon, however, the layer of years began to peel away as a worriedlooking, bedraggled man in 19th century clothing approached her in her minds eye. His look was sad, and Oneida was overcome with a melancholy and a need to cry. Then, the man appeared to step aside and from the misty depths behind him a woman stepped forward. Oneida cried out for a pencil and some paper. She felt the overwhelming desire to write or draw at this point she didnt know which, but as the woman came closer, she knew she had to commit what she was seeing to paper. Oneida not an artist - made a rough drawing of the beautiful, dark-haired woman and made her best effort to get the womans visage and clothing correct. Again she felt the overwhelming feeling of melancholy; the woman withdrew and the man stepped forward again, reaching out his hands in an imploring manner, as if asking or begging for help. Oneida said out loud, So sorry.

No one at the table knew what had happened, nor had anyone seen anything, although there was a notable temperature change during the time when Oneida was interacting with the apparitions. Once out of the trance state she looked at her drawing and, though

exhausted, had to laugh, calling it pathetic. Among her inner circle was one individual who was an excellent artist and she gave him the spirit drawing and asked him to do the best you can with it. The result was a portrait of the infamous Madame Delphine Lalaurie, in a look and pose never before seen, provided entirely by spirit interaction. Oneida had a strong feeling that the woman in the portrait could affect a positive influence in the apartment of the young woman who had originally called for the Witch Queens help, so the spirit drawing and the original charcoal portrait made from it were given to the young woman who had both framed and hung them for years in her apartment and later her home. The artist had, however, made an additional copy of the portrait, now known to be of Madame Lalaurie, and kept it in his personal collection. That portrait is now one of the most eagerly sought-after and highly-demanded images of Madame Lalaurie ever made available to the public, and it would not exist except for the psychic skills of Oneida Toups. During this heyday of her work, Oneida met with her coven in various locations. Sometimes it was at the home of a coven member; often, however, Oneida held her rituals outside. She loved the location near the now-destroyed Shelter One on Lake Pontchartrain, which was very near the original spot where Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau used to host her own ritual ceremonies. But another favorite of Oneidas was located in City Park. The crumbling, neglected beauty of Popps Fountain had always attracted her; unlike today, in the 1970s the fountain was open unfenced and easily accessible. Oneida would go there alone to meditate in the quiet beauty of the place, sitting amidst the wisteria-covered columns, the sun playing on the vibrant fuchsia of the azalea blooms nearby. Eventually, Oneida began to bring her coven to the location because it was perfect for their workings. Built in the round, with the derelict fountainhead at the center, surrounded by a low wall, it was the most perfect circle any coven could wish for.

In all seasons, throughout the year, Oneida led her coven to Popps Fountain where they conducted some of the most powerful magical workings they had yet done. Lost in the

darkness, with only an empty City Park surrounding them, they could work unhindered and did so for several years. Today, in the post-Katrina rebuilding of City Park, Popps Fountain is surrounded by a fence and is off-limits to visitors. The wild wisteria and azaleas are all gone; the place is stark and sterile and set aside for use by corporate types and big-wigs as an event venue. But in the years prior to Katrina, when Popps was still abandoned and ignored, though Oneida had been dead almost two decades, visitors to the fountain were still claiming to have strange experiences there. Most common, according to some reports, is a sense of losing time, of spending hours there but feeling as if one has only been there a few minutes. No explanation has been offered, but those who knew Oneida, who participated in the rituals that took place there years ago, do not need further explanation. They know the reasons for the weird experiences near Popps are just the result of so much of Oneidas powerful magic still lingering over the place. Perhaps, they speculate, theres a portal still left open through which things come and go. Recently, someone offered as proof of this theory a photograph* of the iron bars of the fence bent outward as if someone or something had successfully escaped the fountains magical hold. In 1975 Oneida published her first and only book. Entitled Magick, High and Low the book was a compendium of Oneidas personal system along with highlights from those systems that had resonated with her along her Path. Copies were given to each of her Scribes, who had all participated in the books creation in one way or another, and it was sold at her shop. Now out of print, Magick, High and Low is considered a rare collectible. About this same time, Oneidas marriage to Boots came to an end, as did her lease on the French Quarter location of The Witches Workshop. Seeking a change of outlook, Oneida leased a new shop on Broad Street near Orleans Avenue and planned for her reopening. According to sources who helped with the move, an unnamed man arrived at the near-empty shop with a going-away gift for Oneida a hat box with something rolling around inside. When Oneida opened the box she was shocked to find a fullyintact preserved human head; thinking it a prop of some kind, she showed it to her friends and even pretended to chase them around with it. In the end, the head and the hat box were forgotten, that is until a story appeared in the local paper about a severed human head being found in the old Witches Workshop; locals assumed someone had used it for a ritual. No one from the police department or the newspaper bothered to track Oneida down, which is one lesson about how legends are sometimes born in New Orleans through pure laziness on the part of local authorities! Oneida soon remarried a ranking Navy officer and with him was able to travel around the world. She turned over management of her new Witches Workshop to a close friend, but ultimately the shop was not as successful at the new location and it soon closed. Her second marriage also ended in divorce, but Oneida took it all in stride and prepared to settle into a quiet life as the local eccentric, the witch on the edge of town. But she was soon about to face a new and final challenge. In early 1980 Oneida was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Around this time she moved in with a close friend who offered to care for her during her illness. A certain individual in New Orleans these days likes to take credit as the woman who nursed Oneida Toups,

but in reality Oneidas nurse was a dear friend named Carol, a woman she had known since her earliest days in New Orleans. As Oneidas health declined, Carol remained staunchly at her side. Then in September 1981 Oneida, the one and only Witch Queen of New Orleans, succumbed to her illness and died. Mystery still surrounds the disposition of the Witch Queens remains. Even her closest circle of friends is still not sure what happened to Oneidas body; no funeral was ever held. Most believe that her caretaker Carol had some standing arrangement with Oneidas family back in Meridian, Mississippi and that Oneidas body was returned to them for burial. Some will swear that they know for a fact that Oneida was cremated at the Schoen Funeral Home and that they even saw her ashes before they were sealed in an urn; but that is the extent of their knowledge. Others say that Oneidas ashes were given into the keeping of one of her closest confidants, a member of her coven who had been at her side in all her endeavors during her entire reign as Witch Queen; if this is so, the person in question has never confirmed it. And then there are those others, some of them friends of Oneida in life, others who discovered her and came to admire her after her death, who insist that Mary Oneida Toups still walks the stony streets of New Orleans, still lingers near her old haunts the old Witches Workshop and the locations where she ruled over her covens activities. Many claim to have seen Oneida, or the ghost of Oneida, walking in the Quarter, and there are some who even claim to have had long conversations with a woman very like Oneida, a woman they only realized was a ghost when she disappeared into the shadows of the Quarter as she walks away. Members of Oneidas inner circle only smile when they are asked about reports like these. They will look at you strangely when you say the words Oneida and dead in the same sentence because apparently for them Oneida is nowhere near dead. I see Oneida all the time, says one old female friend. She comes and goes whenever she wants to. And shes still the Queen no doubt about that.

*Authors Note: I have seen the referenced photograph and also went to City Park to inspect the Popps Fountain fence. It was just as shown in the photograph. Unfortunately, the owner of the photograph wishes to remain anonymous and would not extend permission for reproduction to us. THE RELIGIOUS ORDER OF WITCHCRAFT TODAY The Religious Order of Witchcraft founded in New Orleans by Mary Oneida Toups still exists today and is currently operating from its base in Manchester, CT An overview of the groups profile shows that the organization is vastly different from that envisioned and created by Oneida. It has, apparently, moved from its tradition of the practice of genuine, Old Style European Witchcraft to a practice indistinguishable from the multitude of other Wiccan, white witchcraft or neo-pagan groups on the scene. This, at least in my opinion, takes the Oneida edge off the group and seems to deviate from her original intentions. Oneida Toups is sadly missed.

Haunted New Orleans