Blog Post 233 – Getting into Folk Magic (Videos)

Greetings all!

A number of you probably know this already, but we’ve got a YouTube channel for New World Witchery. I had intended to make sure I was posting here every time I released a new video there, but I’ve actually been so active with the videos I have sort of let them slide here.

But fear not! Because most of the more recent videos have been themed on the same topic, and so I can share them with you here in sort of a cartulary fashion (for those who don’t remember us doing the cartulary posts, they are essentially collections of interesting ephemera and notes from my readings and research…we really need to bring those back!).

The videos I’ll be sharing here are focused on getting started with folklore and folk magic research. I’m actually going to present them slightly out of order from how I posted them over on YouTube because I think they’ll make more sense in this order. The main idea here is that these videos will let you start pursuing your own line of research into folk magic and finding all sorts of great books like Hubert Davis’s The Silver Bullet and Aaron Oberon’s Southern Cunning, among so many others!

The first video I’m sharing is a general orientation into folklore studies. It will give you a high-level overview of what the field is, some guiding principles and definitions, and then go into what magic is as related to folklore a bit as well:

Next, I’m going to point you away from the theory and heady stuff a bit and let you see some of the books I’d consider “101” or beginner books for those interested in both studying and practicing folk magic (and please note, these are all just my opinions):

And next I’m going to point you to the latest video, which looks at some books that cover folk magic in North America from a historical and regional perspective (note: these do look primarily at the post-Colonial history of folk magic here, as Indigenous Peoples’ magic is a much bigger subject that I’m not qualified to write extensively on).

And finally, since we’re talking about books and all that, I’ll throw in a video promo I did for my own book, New World Witchery (because shameless self promotion is really sexy, right?).

There are going to be a lot more videos coming in the future, including more on books and folk magic research, as well as practical topics such as those from our “Everyday Magic” series. If you’re interested in this sort of stuff, please feel free to subscribe to the channel! And if you really enjoy it, comments and shares are definitely welcome!

Thank you so much for reading (and watching)!
Be well!
-Cory