In our latest show, we talk about what our plans are for the coming year; about getting out of our heads and into our incantations; and about the exploding presence of witches in media lately. We also have our NOLA swag bag contest winners announced!
Other recent media featuring witches includes: Beautiful Creatures, Rob Zombie’s Lords of Salem, Witches of East End, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, The Magicians (by Lev Grossman), Frozen (okay, she’s not a witch, but a sorceress/queen, and a good one at that!), Maleficent, Once Upon a Time, and Grimm. I mentioned and linked many of these in a recent cartulary post, too, if you’re interested.
We announced a NOLA swag contest winners in this episode! Listen if you want to know who the lucky three were.
If you have feedback you’d like to share, email us or leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!
Today I thought I might share a few of the things from my holiday stocking, as well as other treats and delights I’ve been enjoying lately. I got a very lovely and eclectic selection of books & music, some of which might be of interest to folks here, so if you find something among the pile that you like, I’d love to know!
The first thing I want to mention is a beautiful copy of Crossway’s Four Holy Gospels. It’s the English Standard Version (ESV) of the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John illuminated using contemporary art by Makoto Fujimura. It’s a big, gorgeous clothbound edition and conveys a great deal of the mystical nature of these texts. I know it’s a bit odd to recommend a Bible of sorts on a site with so much magic and all, but if you’ve been around us for a while you know that we’re equal opportunity when it comes to mysticism and magic. So if you’re looking for a good heirloom version of the gospels with a little artistic magic, this is a good one to have.
In addition to the gospels, I got a copy of an excellent book called Kanaval: Vodou, Politics, & Revolution on the Streets of Haiti. It’s a photojournalistic look at the Haitian carnival costumes, parades, and traditions, and it will be of extreme interest to anyone captivated by the rituals of Vodou(n) or other African Traditional Religions. A number of lesser-known loa show up in the text, and there are oral histories from participants in the celebrations that are simply unmatched in recent history. In addition to the book and its magnificent photos, there are two accompanying CDs (one of which I received along with the gospels from my in-laws—I have an amazing family). One is called Spirits of Life, which has a number of ritual songs, and the other is Rara in Haiti and plays some of the more celebratory carnival jazz-style music. I also bought myself a simply wonderful new magical psalter from Troy Books: The Charmer’s Psalter, by Cornish witch Gemma Gary. It has fast become one of my favorite magical books and travels with me everywhere now.
Shifting from the authentic to the entertaining, I’ve been very much enjoying this year’s run of American Horror Story, subtitled Coven and set in a world of New Orleans Voodoo and witchcraft. I actually introduced Laine to the show, and she’s taken off running with it, consuming the first two seasons as well (subtitled Murder House and Asylum). I’m sure we’ll wind up discussing it more elsewhere, and it’s generating some controversy around the Pagan blogosphere, but if you’ve not checked it out and enjoy good, immersive horror, it’s fun to watch, in my opinion.
In that same vein, I’ve also been enjoying the kitschy-but-witchy antics of Witches of East End on Lifetime. I can’t say it’s a must-see, but the episodes I’ve seen have been enjoyable and if you’re a fan of things like Charmed, this might be fun, too. Might.
A lot has been going on in the podcasting universe lately, too. I’ve been tuning in to a couple of new shows, including The Kindle Witchwith Faelyn, Pagan Life Radiowith Brent/Raven, and one called Disney Story Origins. The first two offer some nice new elements to the Pagan podcasting world. Faelyn uses her show to explore books in a sort of book-club format, while also sharing a lot of neat moments from her own practice. Brent/Raven uses his show to create a really neat community space for talking to Pagans working on specific goals, or just get into good discussions about the role of Paganism in contemporary society. The Disney origins podcast is a gem, where the host compares and contrasts the stories that inspired Disney movies to the films and explores how that translation happens. The most recent episode gets into the excellent recent film Frozen and its inspiration, “The Snow Queen,” by Hans Christian Andersen (a section of which was included in our Yule show this year).
I’m also sad to say we’re losing at least one of our podkin for a while. Gillian at Iron Powaqa recently announced she’s taking an open-ended break from recording to focus on other projects. I completely understand her reasons, but she will definitely be missed. I fear this will be a trend, as several podcasters have disappeared this year. On a happier podkin note, Fire Lyte has published his first book of poetry, The Playground, which is available in several formats now. If you’re a fan of his poetry, this is definitely a book to get (plus it supports Pagan podcasting, which is always a noble cause). Finally, if you’ve not been listening to Peter Paddon’s revitalized podcast, do so! It’s the reason New World Witchery even exists, and he’s an absolutely charming fellow (all puns intended).
That’s all the news that’s fit to print for me this week! What was under your tree this year?
Don’t forget to enter our contests! We’ve got a NOLA Swag Bag contest finishing this Friday, and a Three Questions contest which will finish up next week. Give ‘em a go, and maybe win something fun!
There’s a bit of folk superstition about New Year’s Day that says whatever you want to be doing for the next twelve months, make sure you’re doing it on January 1st. You’re also not supposed to start anything you can’t finish, which brings me to this quick-n-dirty little blog post. I intend (dare I say hope?) that I will be doing a tremendous amount of writing over the coming year, including finishing several writing projects I’ve been working on for a while, so I wanted to make sure I wrote something for New World Witchery before midnight tonight. But I also have been using the day to accomplish a dozen other New Year’s magical traditions (cleaning, black-eyed peas, collard greens, etc.) so I thought a short and simple giveaway post might just kill the proverbial twin birds.
For this giveaway, we’ll be handing out a doozy of a divination prize pack. It includes:
A mini-altar kit and pair of mini-dowsing rods from Franchesca at The Texan Heretics
A bottle of Psychic Boost Oil from the lovely Magnusons of Candlesmoke Chapel
A stunning javamancy board from Chas Bogan of Carnivalia
A five-card email card reading from me, complete with card report
Pretty stellar, huh?
So what do you have to do to get an entry into this contest? It’s incredibly simple! Just answer one or more of the following questions:
What are your magical/witchy/Pagan New Year’s resolutions? What magical projects do you hope to get off the ground? Are there areas you want to learn more about? Are you going to get more involved in the community? Just give us a brief snapshot of what you hope to accomplish from a magical standpoint in the coming year.
What is your favorite magical/witchy/Pagan holiday and why? What do you do for it? Has it always been your favorite? What will you be doing to make it special this year?
What (if any) practices, spells, etc. has New World Witchery been able to add to your cauldron? Are there specific regions of folk magic you’ve begun to explore more (like Conjure or Powwow)? Do you find the info here useful on a practical level or is it more of a general information site for you?
That’s it! All you have to do is write to us at compassandkey@gmail.com and answer a question or two or three. You get one entry per question answered, so you have a chance to get up to three entries just by writing to us (you can combine all answers into a single email, as long as you make it clear you’re answering multiple questions somehow). Make sure to use the subject line “Three Questions Contest” so I know what you’re writing us about.
The deadline for this contest will be Friday, January 31st, so get your answers to us by then!
Also, please check out and/or enter our other current contest for one of three NOLA swag bags, which will be ending January 17th!
Thanks everyone for a great 2013, and here’s looking forward to a very enchanted new year!
The Comet of 1680, by Lieve Verschuier (via Wikimedia Commons)
“Like a comet burn’d That fires the length Ophiuchus huge In the Arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war” (Milton, Paradise Lost)
With the ISON comet drawing eyes to the night sky, I started thinking a lot about the superstitions and magical beliefs surrounding the appearance of comets in the sky. Comets have long inspired people in strange, occasionally beautiful, and sometimes disturbing ways. Mark Twain’s life was framed by the appearance of Haley’s Comet, a point the author himself noted. The Heaven’s Gate cult engaged in a group suicide surrounding the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet.
Increase Mather, famed early American religious writer, dedicated an entire work to explaining the spiritual importance of comets in his Kometographia of 1683. He was responding to the presence of the Great Comet of 1680, which had captured the attention of most of the Western world, and felt that many people would be afraid at this sign and misunderstand it as a phenomenon which directly influenced the course of events on earth, rather than a sign from God of some important event to come (see more here). Generally speaking, comets have historically been associated with strife and woe to come. My Opie/Tatem Dictionary of Superstitions gives a laundry list of examples of ill-omen presaged by what the Venerable Bede called “long-haired stars”:
A comet as portending a change in governance (Tacitus, Annals)
Famine or pestilence or war or “fearful storms” (Byrhtferth, Manual)
A comet [the Great Comet of 1680] appeared two days before the Duke of Monmouth died, and all over Europe before the death of Charles II (J. Case, Angelical Guide)
An appearance before the plague struck London (Defoe, Journal of a Plague Year)
A wry observation that those who laugh at comets as tokens of disaster will studiously insist on “times and situations proper for intellectual performances” (Johnson, The Idler)
In the New World, comets seem to have retained much of their wicked reputation. In some cases the danger foretold by the comet is vague and ill-defined: “When a comet appears there will be trouble” (Roberts, “Louisiana Superstitions”). In other places, the significance of the hairy star was more direct and its consequences very clearly understood: “A comet is a sign of war” (Thomas, Kentucky Superstitions). Why should these astronomical phenomena, which had been showing up in night skies for ages, have such a bad rap? Considering even Classical authors like Tacitus cite the comet as woeful, the impulse must run deep. The unique cosmological view of Calvinism, though, which influenced much of Atlantic American colonization, both denigrated occult practices like witchcraft and supported an enchanted view of a univers under Divine direction:
“The Calvinism of the colonial awakenings also paralleled important occult ideas. The fatalism inherent in Calvinism’s concept of predestination found an occult equivalent in the idea fundamental to astrology that motions of star and planets revealed a future that individuals could not control. Calvinist evangelists and occult practitioners also explained catastrophes in similar ways. Believers in occult ideas thought the coming of comets and eclipses had inescapable and usually disastrous consequences; not even kings and queens escaped their verdicts. No one escaped judgment by the Calvinist God either. Sometimes He damned seemingly model Christians simply to demonstrate His sovereign” (Butler, “Magic, Astrology, & the Early American Religious Heritage”).
The shared cosmology of the colonists saw the universe as inhabited by spiritual consciousness, and an intelligence that wished to convey its meaning to human beings for one reason or another. Signs, omens, and portents were one such method. Comets, with their placement among the stars, their strange and ill-understood movement, and temporary nature made perfect fodder for prognosticators of all stripes—religious, occult, and both (they did exist, even during the Colonial period).
Lest we make the mistake of thinking that the observation of comets was the purview of only a few dusty old white occultists or a lot of fiery former Englishmen with strong religious convictions, I’d also like to point out that the cosmology which imbued comets with significance stretched across a broad swath of New World denizens, including Native Americans, Spanish and French colonists, and of course, the imported Black slaves.
“English Protestants often read unusual events as evidence of the divine presence in everyday life, acknowledging the activity of a creator deity who operated through omens and portents within the natural order, or signs and wonders in the heavens, philosophy known as Providentialism. “Comets, hailstorms, monster births and apparitions” and other disruptions of the ordinary were demonstrations that foretold God’s will or signaled His displeasure withhumankind. Africans’ understandings of the universe were also inspired by visible manifestations of spiritual forces within nature. They too viewed thunder, lightning, and other elements as heralds of sacred hierophanies,the awesome presence of numerous divine beings.” (Chireau, Black Magic).
The Providentialism Chireau notes fits the cosmology of the English and other European settlers, but it is clearly not unique to them. A world with Divine presence not only innate to its component parts, but in which those component parts act as mediums for communicating with humans, is also very much an African perspective. And while it is tempting to think that such beliefs can be relegated to history’s dustbin, we should also remember that in our time comets stir up a lot of strange excitement. Religious scholar Camile Paglia notes, for example:
“The Children of God, founded in 1968 as Teens for Christ by “Moses” David Berg in Huntington Beach, California, were negligible in number but came to public attention when they loudly prophesied that the us would be destroyed by Comet Kohoutek in January 1974. The group continues under the name “The Family” and is regularly excoriated by conserva tive Christian watchdog groups for its practice of free love (called “Flirty Fishing”) as well as its heretical beliefs that Jesus was sexually active and that God is a woman. (Paglia, “Cults and Cosmic Consciousness”)
Paglia also references the Hale-Bopp comet mentioned earlier, and Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate cult. I have, so far, not heard of any particularly distressing phenomena surrounding ISON’s appearance, but if nuclear war breaks out, I may have to blame that particular “long-haired star.”
If you have comet lore you’d like to share, please do so in the comments!
If you’ve listened to the latest episode, you know we’re having another big contest right now. We had such generous sponsors this year we were able to put together a few extra swag bags for fan giveaways, so you have the opportunity to win one of these stuffed full of magical goodies!
What’s in the bag, you ask? Well, specific contents will vary a bit (due to the personalized nature of the sponsor items in some cases), but I can tell you about our fantastic sponsors and what they sent along to give you a good idea what would be in there:
Javamancy Kit – Carnavalia/The Mystic Dream – Chas Bogan and Storm Faerywolf created a fun and clever play on geomantic divination with a Victorian flair.
Three Venezuelan Powers Holy Card Sets – Camino de Yara– The lovely Carolina Gonzalez shares a beautiful bit of South American folk magic with us.
Stay with ME Bath – The Curio & Candle Shop – Ms. Melanie made these simply beautiful (and wonderfully scented) magical herbal baths.
Lucky Green Rice Sachets – Draconis Arcanum – Rebecca sends you luck and good fortune, and invites you to share the promo code attached to her samples with your listeners (and use it yourself if you like!)
Handcrafted Conjure Condition Oils – Candlesmoke Chapel– The Magnusons (Sara & Joseph) are sharing some of their incredible and all-natural hoodoo oils.
2014 Witches’ Companion – Llewellyn Publications – This almanac/annual magical compendium has oodles of lunar dates, spells, and articles.
Horsetamer CD – Julia Ecklar & Prometheus Music – This lovely CD crosses Pagan, folk, and pop genres. Music can be used in podcasts, and especially recommended are tracks “With the Trees” & “The Troll King’s Dream.”
Traditions Download Card – Kellianna – A beautiful new record with an old soul! Feel free to listen and use the songs from this excellent album in your shows. Features many fabulous duets, including Wendy Rule, and a number of great old songs with Kellianna’s gorgeous vocal updates.
Enchantment – Pendraig Publishing– Peter Paddon (in attendance with us this year) sent his latest excellent book, all about the use of physical movement and beguiling in witchcraft. I bet he’d even sign it for you if you ask him.
Banshees, Werewolves, Vampires, & Other Creatures of the Night – Red Wheel/Weiser Books– Weiser supplied this Varla Ventura title all about the beasties of darkness which is sure to keep you up late at night!
The Candle & the Crossroads – Red Wheel/Weiser Books– Weiser also supplied this energetic look at Southern folk magic written by Orion Foxwood (who is one of the teachers at the Folk Magic Festival this year).
Fifty-four DevilsCartomancy Kit – New World Witchery – Cory & Laine give you his book on cartomancy, a fun deck of playing cards to try it out, and Laine’s hand-made card pouches to keep your fortune-telling deck safe!
Witches & Pagans Magazine – BBI Media – Anne Newkirk Niven & her team at BBI are providing us with the premier magazine in Paganism today.
Herbal Healing Salve – Rue & Hyssop/Three Brooms & a Cat – Jen sadly couldn’t make it this year due to last-minute problems, but sent along these gorgeous hand-made herbal salves in her place.
Magical Miscellany Oil & Incense – Magical Miscellany– The lovely Velma Nightshade (also in attendance this year) has provided us with a sampling of her magical wares from her newly launched business venture, Magical Miscellany.
Coconut Oil & Obsidian – Kathleen Borealis/Borealis Meditations – Raw coconut oil and hand-selected obsidian chips from our brilliant globe-trotter, Kathleen!
Mini-Altar Kits/Dowsing Rods – Franchesca/VampRaven’s Nest– These super-cute little boxes contain a complete miniature altar set with candles, matches, incense, etc., plus a second box with little custom-made dowsing rods!
Scarlet’s Deck – Scarlet’s Treasures/Lakefront Pagan Voice– Scarlet surprised us with copies of her own very special and highly limited-edition tarot deck! These aren’t available for purchase anywhere, so only a few people, including us lucky podkin, have a copy!
And let’s also do our best to say thanks to Anna, owner of Erzulie’s Voodoo in New Orleans, who hosted us for our event (even if we were our own meet-and-greet, it was still nice of her to let us have the space for a couple hours).
A pretty fabulous haul, eh? There’s definitely at least $100 worth of stuff inside, but really the money side of it doesn’t begin to cover the quality, thought, and love in these items.
So now that you’re eagerly clawing at your scroll button, eyes big as saucers as you see all these amazing things that *you* can win, how do you go about getting your name in the hat?
Official Rules
Purchase something, anything really, from one of the sponsors (preferably from one other than us, and preferably your purchase would have come after November 1st, but we’re not going to be incredibly rigid on those points). You could buy a wanga doll from Erzulie’s, or a copy of one of Peter Paddon’s books from Amazon, or pick up a copy of Witches & Pagans at your local bookstore…pretty much anything you want to buy. It can be for you, it can be a holiday gift, it doesn’t matter. Really we just want you to support our sponsors! [Edit: Dutiful listener Jasmine noted that requiring a purchase could land us in hot legal water. While the spirit of the contest is to encourage business with our sponsors, we will, of course, allow entries from folks who cannot purchase a product. No purchase necessary, simply email us and state you’d like to enter the contest and we’ll put your name in the hat.)
Once you’ve purchased your item, take a photo of you with your purchase (or a copy of the receipt, or a screengrab of your digital receipt, etc.). Send that picture and a brief message asking to enter the contest and saying what you bought to compassandkey@gmail.com (or tweet it to us @NWWitchery).
EVERY item you purchase gets you a new entry (as long as you send us a picture & message), so enter as much as you like!
Contest ends at midnight, Central Time, on Friday, January 17th, 2014! Get us your picture(s) before then!
We will draw three names at random from all the entries, and each of those three names will win a swag bag!
Due to some of the items in this bag and potential international restrictions (as well as international shipping costs), this contest will only be open to listeners in North America. Sorry! 😦
Winners will be announced in the late January show (our 4th pod-iversary!).
Not too complicated, I hope! If you happen to let the sponsors know you found them through New World Witchery, we’d love that, too!
So that’s the basics of this contest. We’ll keep some reminders going throughout the next month and a half, but entering early and often can’t hurt! We’ll also have a few other small contests running between now and then for books and extra swag items, and most of that will happen via Twitter and Facebook, so make sure you’re watching us at those places, too.
In this extended episode, we revisit our recent trip to the magical city of New Orleans. We’ll discuss the most recent Pagan Podkin Super Moot, places to see in the Crescent City, and hear some music, travelogues, and even a tea leaf reading or two!
CONTEST!
We announced a new contest in this episode! Details are coming in a separate post, but the basic rules are: 1) Buy something, anything, from one of the sponsors in the list below; 2) Take a picture with that item (or a a picture/screengrab of the receipt); 3) Send your picture to compassandkey@gmail.com and let us know to enter you in the contest. You could win one of three fully-stuffed PPSM Swag Bags, full of items from these great sponsors!
PPSM Sponsors! (We love them!!!)
(We’ll be posting more on these items in other places, but here’s a short list of the swag items and sponsors)
New World Witchery - The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft 