THE NEW ORLEANS GHOST TOUR
THAT SUCKS THE LEAST.
“Ghosts, Gods, and Gangsters” Tour
Wanna get weird? Walk with us, fam.
Experience our “City of a Million Dreams” through the bruised lens of its broken past. Rotting behind the boozy veneer of revelry lies a history haunted by disturbing tales of blood, spirits, sex, and magick. Oh, and a few mafia hits darker than any Bayou swamp pit.
Curated by parapsychologist Dr. Edward Simon, this adults-only walking tour time machine transports you back through the minds of the city’s most wicked and to the lantern-lit streets once ruled by a Voodoo Queen without equal. Steep your imagination in stories and scandals from the ill-fated settlement that famed occultist Aleister Crowley referred to as the “Quartier Macabre,” a city lost between life and God, a place that even time has overlooked. You’ll be glad you did.
Book fast, or forever rue, boo.
Masters of the Morbid
Praise Spirit Empire
Star of Mindhunter & Gotham
Michael Cerveris
“I’ve taken quite a few different walking tours in New Orleans and elsewhere over the years, and the several I’ve taken led by Edward Simon were hands down the most interesting, surprising, thoughtful, hilarious, deeply creepy, and absolute BEST. Yes, I went back more than once, and I send everyone who comes to town.”
Star of Ghost Adventures
Nick Groff
“If you’re going to New Orleans, you have to check out Spirit Empire; they’re the ones to follow and learn from…the number one ghost tour in New Orleans and possibly the country.”
“Spirit Empire,” a moniker bestowed upon New Orleans by the venerable Bob Dylan decades ago, is a dark tourism company that awakens the dead to inspire the living. Led by renowned parapsychological expert and demonologist Dr. Edward Simon, Spirit Empire escorts curious guests through spellbinding walks back in time. With meticulous research and captivating narrative, Dr. Simon resurrects the city’s legendary haunted history, sharing its mercurial magick with thrill-seekers from across the globe.
Passing hidden corners and forgotten spaces lost amongst the urban rush, guests are transported to bygone centuries alive with tales of enduring unrest: crimes never brought to justice, family curses spawned by jealousy, forbidden affairs that ended too bitterly or passionately.
Dr. Simon and Team Empire unravel these human entanglements with understanding and whispered wit, making the past feel intimately present. For a few slow hours, the city's fiery personalities of eras ago burn beside you. Their memories imprint upon your imagination until you, too, are part of the secret living history known only to those who linger here among shadows and sorrows.
Come see New Orleans through the eyes of long-passed souls with no voice left, save our own. With Spirit Empire Tours as your guide between worlds, the “City that Care Forgot" is certain never to forget you.
Look, we know the deal. New Orleans has like, six million ghost tour operations. They all promise exclusive access to the city's legendary haunted history. But peel back that gossamer veil, and it's mostly canned fables and fluff.
These cookie-cutter tourist traps bleed together like rudderless spirits. But amongst the graveyard of carbon copy experiences cluttering those freebie maps, we’re here to offer you a tour that won’t make you want to walk into traffic.
At Spirit Empire, we resurrect the dead through chilling, cinema-worthy tours designed to raise goosebumps. Led by real-world ghostbuster Dr. Edward Simon, our spellbinding tales trace the lurid disasters and tempting transgressions buried in the Big Easy’s scandalous past.
As we tour the city’s hottest ghostly hotspots, you’ll feel those icy fingers from the grave get handsy across the centuries to caress your racing heart. Before you can yell, “Get out of my personal space, phantom!” the memories of the city’s doomed casualties imprint upon your mind until you practically stand alongside them in the forgotten past.
We Take Our Ghosts Seriously So You Can Take Our Stories Seriously
Unlike other tourist traps sharing campfire fables and playing supernatural make-believe, we stand behind our one-of-a-kind experience with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. We aim to please both living AND dead!
We’re also proud that our proceeds help preserve local crumbling cemeteries, which is only fair since they host the very souls we sic on your imagination.
And most crucially, our guides hail straight from the wrought-iron balconies and bewitched bayous of our tales, born of the very same streets we lead you through. We ARE New Orleans’ lurid past incarnate.
So, see America’s most haunted city through knowing native eyes. As your conduit to the restless spirits of New Orleans' shadowed past, we conjure up forbidden history guaranteed to linger in your memory and imagination long after the tour's end.
Tour with ‘Them’
Tours led by anyone with a pulse
Hate the tour? Too bad, NO refunds
Owned by some dude living states away
Zero concern for historic preservation
Tours filled with kids and teens
Sadness
Tour with ‘Spirit Empire’
Tours curated and led by Dr. Edward Simon
100% risk-free, money back guarantee
Owned & operated by NOLA natives
Donations made to cemetary restoration
A true adults-only experience
Opposite of sadness
Do You Like Feeling The Opposite Of Sadness?
The Creepy Chic and Boo-geoisie roll with ‘Spirit Empire’:
“The past doesn’t pass away so quickly here (New Orleans). You could be dead for a long time.”
Spirit Empire Presents:
Human F*ckery
So you need more Spirit Empire in your earholes? Then, take us home with you by subscribing to the award winning "Human F*ckery" podcast.
In each hair-raising episode, our intrepid hosts - a shrewd doctor of psychology and an investigative journalist - compete to unearth the most jaw-dropping, unbelievable, you-can't-make-this-up stories buried in the dung heap of human history.
We're talking shocking, true tales of depravity, true crime, and paranormal phenomena that will captivate you one minute and horrify you the next, like a crash course in morbid curiosity.
A rotating cast of judges (perhaps even you, dear listener) crowns each episode's most masterfully-told specimen of historic Human F*ckery.
Spirit Empire Presents:
Pay homage to local lore and NOLA’s centuries-old embrace of the supernatural with Spirit Empire's "Bone Orchard" apparel.
Inspired by haunting histories and playfully dark influences woven through the Crescent City, each Bone Orchard design spotlights iconic regional themes from ritual symbols to our cities of the dead.
Want insider tips?
Our travel guide breaks it down from wax-stained dive bars blaring jazz 24/7 to restaurants luring you in with voodoo vibes and Creole flavors almost too wickedly divine to stand. Top it off with steamy swamp nights filled with mysteries under the cypress trees.
So come ready for your soul to get shook up and woke up as the spirits move you! We got ya covered from ghost huntin’ to getting downright spellbound touring the hottest haunts and cultural icons cooking up NOLA’s spicy spiritual gumbo daily.
The Spooky Nerd Reading List
For the dead-icated haunt stalkers and supernatural sightseers, we dish all the chilling stories, creepy secrets, and paranormal happenings going down in the Big Easy like ghoulfriends at a slumber party. From phantom-filled French Quarter haunts to cemetery spirits who refuse to RIP, our blog brings the boo to the Big Easy's ghost scene.
Want More? See All Our Entries