Mary Oneida Toups
Mary Oneida Toups (April 25, 1928 – September 1981) was an American occultist. As the founder and high priestess of the Religious Order of Witchcraft, she was known as the "Witch Queen of New Orleans". Her order was the first coven to be chartered as an official religious organization in the state of Louisiana. In 1975 she published an instructional occultist book titled "Magick High and Low". Biography. Toups was born on April 25, 1928 in Meridian, Mississippi to Arthur Hodgin and Mary Ellen Killing. She moved to New Orleans in 1968. Toups was married to Albert Toups , a Cajun who was a high-ranking Freemason and ran a bar on Decatur Street. On February 2, 1972, she chartered the Religious Order of Witchcraft, the first coven to be registered as an official religious organization within the state of Louisiana. The order, which often gathered at Popp Fountain in City Park, practiced Western ceremonialist magic, not Afro-Caribbean rooted practices like voodoo and hoodoo that are commonly associated with New Orleans. Later in 1972, Toups caught the attention of writer Howard Jacobs, who wrote about her in his column "Remoulade", after she publicly defended witchcraft when the practice  had been blamed for a murder in Opelousas. She ran two witchcraft shops in the French Quarter, opening her first store on September 1, 1970. Toups also published the occult text "Magick High and Low" in 1975. Toups died in September 1981 of stomach cancer. Legacy. Toups is mentioned in the 1994 memoir "Under A Hoodoo Moon: The Life of the Night Tripper". She is also mentioned in the book "Real Zombies, the Living Dead, and Creatures of the Apocalypse" by Brad Steiger. On the first episode of "" Jessica Lange's character, Fiona Goode, references Toups and her coven practicing  witchcraft at Popp Fountain in City Park.