New World Witchery – The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft – Page 2 – A show about magic and witchcraft in North America

Special Episode – Folk Magician’s Notebook – August 2025

Ghost Pirate Brides Have More Fun

Summary: We head to the seashore to gaze up at the moon, hear tales of ghostly pirate brides, and collect some seashells for magical purposes!

Please check out our Patreon page! You can help support the show for as little as a dollar a month, and get some awesome rewards at the same time. Even if you can’t give, spread the word and let others know, and maybe we can make New World Witchery even better than it is now.

Producers for this show:

Elle, Bree, Victoria & Keifel of 1000 Volt Press, Lauren, Cate, Sierra, Lisa, Donna, Liz, Meg, Vee, Mark, Kels, Benjamin, AromaG’s Botanica, DanielKnits, Abbi of Morningstar Coven, Stephanie, Jenna, Donna, Jennifer, Fergus, Heather, Christopher, Ralph of the Holle’s Haven Podcast, Jamie, Catherine, Achija Branvin Sionach, Jen Rue of Rue & Hyssop, AthenaBeth, and Conjured Cardea!

Our sincere thanks to everyone supporting us!

Play:

Stream: Special Episode-Folk Magician’s Notebook-August 2025

Download (right click to save): Special Episode – Folk Magician’s Notebook – August 2025

-Sources-

We highly recommend that you find an almanac or lunar-oriented datebook to help you with planning out your own magical year. Some we can recommend:

The Witches Almanac

Llewellyn’s Astrological Pocket Planner

Writual Planner

Or your local Farmer’s Almanac!

You can find a transcript of this episode at our Transcripts page.

Folktale of the Month: “Ocean-Born Mary” (From S.E. Schlosser’s American Folklore and Spooky New England)

A bit on diloggun divination from Ejeife

We also reference Magic Charms from A to Z from The Witches’ Almanac, LTD.

You can find more lore on blacksmithing and our sources for that information at our post on the magical properties of iron.

In our cartomancy section, Laine will read for Cory, and Cory for Laine, but we’ll also share general information on the cards we pull, too. If you are interested in playing card divination, you can check out our Cartomancy post or pick up Cory’s book, 54 Devils.

You can now buy Cory’s book, New World Witchery: A Trove of North American Folk Magic! (also available from Amazon). We also have a new book, Conjuring the Commonplace: A Guide to Everyday Enchantment and Junk Drawer Magic (1000Volt Press) (also available from Amazon).

Image via Pixabay (CC 2.0)

Don’t forget to follow us at Twitter! And check out our Facebook page! For those who are interested, we are also on TikTok now. You can follow us on Instagram (main account, or you can follow Laine as well) or check out our new YouTube channel with back episodes of the podcast and new “Everyday Magic” videos, too (as well as most of our contest announcements)!

Promos and Music:

Title and closing music are “Runaround (AM Radio),” by Aaron Solomon, and is licensed from Audio Socket. (License #1273). Additional incidental music Kevin Macleod, from Free Music Archive and used under a CC 2.0 license.

Sound effects from Freesound.org and in the Public Domain. Additional “rooster” sound effect from Darina Evstafeva from Pixabay.

Please consider supporting us by purchasing our promotional items in the New World Witchery Threadless shop or by joining our Patreon supporters.

If you like us AND you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you will love our new show: Myth Taken: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Podcast, now available through all the podcatchers! You can also check out Cory’s folklore show, Chasing Foxfire, where he explores the intersection of folklore and topics like history, medicine, science, nature, literature, pop culture, and more!

Please think about checking out our Audible Trial program. Visit Audibletrial.com/newworldwitchery to get your free trial of Audible, where you can download over 180,000 titles (including some narrated by Cory). Your purchases help support this show, and there’s no obligation to continue after the free trial

Episode 262 – All in the Cards

Shuffle and Spread ‘Em

Summary:

Laine and Cory sit down to talk about their experiences and methods for reading cards, including playing card divination, oracle decks, and tarot.

Producer for this show:

New World Witchery is a Patreon supported podcast. This episode is sponsored in part by listener Donna. We’ve done a reading and it looks like you’ll be getting a fantastic raise this year! So congratulations and thank you!

Play: Episode 262 – All in the Cards
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2GOLDhLHbRNWXdqktMPtc9?si=xv44SzjzTzadrNgjP6dd5w

Sources

We talk about a lot of decks and resources we recommend, incluidng:

Decks mentioned:

The Mutable Oracle by Glitter and Toadstools is a favorite for both Laine and Cory
Cory loves the darkly witty Mildred Payne Oracle from Deviant Moon
The Winterseer Animal Oracle by Siolo Thompson gets some praise from Cory
Laine loves her Buffy Tarot!
We highly recommend following the Instagram account 3am tarot for some amazing spreads (and she also has a book out now!)
Jessica Roux’s Woodland Wardens oracle gets a mention
Portable Fortitude by Corina Dross (a neat magical/art fusion deck Laine got for Cory)
Wylie Beckert – Wicked Kingdom (one of Cory’s favorite decks)
Laine and Cory describe decks of cards found in Central and Eastern Europe that use hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns for the suits, better-known as “German Suited Decks“
78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack (our favorite Tarot book)
Cory’s releasing his solo RPG – The Lost Cartomancer very soon, stay tuned! (Patreon supporters get it for free!)
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis was suggested to us by listener Abi! Thanks Abi!

Books and Things:

Please consider ordering our collaborative book Conjuring the Commonplace: A Guide to Everyday Enchantment and Junk Drawer Magic from 1000Volt Press! It’s available for purchase on Bookshop, Amazon, or from your local bookstore!

You can now buy Cory’s book, New World Witchery: A Trove of North American Folk Magic! (also available from Amazon) and the recent release Llewellyn’s Complete Book of North American Folk Magic as well (also available on Amazon)!

Please note that clicking on links may provide some monetary compensation to New World Witchery.

Image via Pixabay (Used under CC 2.0 License, modified by New World Witchery)

If you have feedback you’d like to share, email us at compassandkey@gmail.com or newworldwitcherypodcast@gmail.com or leave a comment at the website: www.newworldwitchery.com . We’d love to hear from you! Don’t forget to follow us at Twitter! And check out our Facebook page! For those who are interested, we are also on TikTok now. You can follow us on Instagram (main account, or you can follow Laine as well) or check out our new YouTube channel with back episodes of the podcast and new “Everyday Magic” videos, too (as well as most of our contest announcements)!

Promos and Music: Title music is “Woman Blues,” by Paul Avgerinos. All music is licensed from Audio Socket (#35954).

Please consider supporting us by purchasing our promotional items in the New World Witchery Threadless shop or by joining our Patreon supporters. If you like us AND you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you will love our new show: Myth Taken: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Podcast, now available through all the podcatchers! Please think about checking out our Audible Trial program. Visit Audibletrial.com/newworldwitchery to get your free trial of Audible, where you can download over 180,000 titles (including some narrated by Cory). Your purchases help support this show, and there’s no obligation to continue after the free trial

Special Episode – Folk Magician’s Notebook – July 2025

Have a Happy Himphamp

Summary: We jump into July (a little late, sorry!) and look at the lunar forecast, divining with ashes, some card pulls for the month, a little blacksmithing lore, and…himphamps?

Producers for this show:

Our sincere thanks to everyone supporting us!

Play:

Stream: Special Episode-Folk Magician’s Notebook-July 2025

Download (right click to save): Special Episode – Folk Magician’s Notebook – July 2025

-Sources-

We highly recommend that you find an almanac or lunar-oriented datebook to help you with planning out your own magical year. Some we can recommend:

The Witches Almanac

Llewellyn’s Astrological Pocket Planner

Writual Planner

Or your local Farmer’s Almanac!

You can find a transcript of this episode at our Transcripts page.

Folktale of the Month: “The Smith and the Priest” (Germany

Spodomancy (Wikipedia)

You can find more lore on blacksmithing and our sources for that information at our post on the magical properties of iron.

Image via Pixabay (CC 2.0)

Promos and Music:

Sound effects from Freesound.org and in the Public Domain. Additional “rooster” sound effect from Darina Evstafeva from Pixabay.

Please consider supporting us by purchasing our promotional items in the New World Witchery Threadless shop or by joining our Patreon supporters.

Quick Update – Cartomancy Class Scholarship (July 2025)

Hi all!

For those who are interested in attending the upcoming 54 Devils Cartomancy Class but who may not be able to do so for financial reasons, we have a solution!

We’re offering a lottery-style scholarship to five (5) people that will let you attend the course for free. There are a few general conditions you’ll need to be able to meet:

You must be able to attend at least the first live session (on July 7th from 7-9pm Central Time). You can do the video recordings for the last two if you need to, but are highly encouraged to attend all live sessions.
You must be able to access the Google classroom independently (have your own Google account) and agree to not share the information from the class with anyone outside the class without express written permission.
You must abide by class rules which will be sent out to all students (of course).
You are requested to participate in at least half of the discussion posts in the Google classroom.
I would very much like you to fill out the end-of-course survey as well!

With this you’ll get access to the class, a digital copy of 54 Devils, and all the bonus content that comes with the course, too.

We’ll pick five random winners from the pool of applicants by Sunday, July 6th, and contact you via email with further information (please make sure to enter your email address correctly when you apply). You do not have to disclose any financial information to be eligible for this scholarship, either.

If you’d like to apply, just fill out the Scholarship Application by no later than midnight on Friday, July 4th!

Episode 261 – Cunning Folk with Tabitha Stanmore

Best. Road Trip. Ever.

Summary:

We get to sit down and chat with Dr. Tabitha Stanmore, author of Cunning Folk and historian of folk magic and service magicians in the Early Modern period! We chat about missing spoons, modern service magic, and just which of the cunning folk she’d slap with a fish given the opportunity. It’s a wonderful chat so we hope you enjoy!

Producer for this show:

This episode is sponsored in part by listener Pretty Poisons Witch. We’ll be sending along several itinerant magicians with our thanks to perform some spells on your behalf shortly! Thank you for your support!

Play: Episode 261 – Cunning Folk with Tabitha Stanmore
Download (open and then click “download” to save): Episode 261 – Cunning Folk with Tabitha Stanmore

Sources

Links for our guest:

You can buy Cunning Folk at bookstores everywhere (and we highly recommend it!)
You can find out more about Dr. Stanmore and her work at her website
Cory also mentions Euan Cameron’s Enchanted Europe in this episode

Books and Things:

Please note that clicking on links may provide some monetary compensation to New World Witchery.

Image via Pixabay (Used under CC 2.0 License, modified by New World Witchery)

Promos and Music: Title music is “Woman Blues,” by Paul Avgerinos. All music is licensed from Audio Socket (#35954) or used under CC 2.0 license (from Kevin Macleod).

Special Episode – Folk Magician’s Notebook – June 2025

All A-Buzz with Magic

Summary: We’re showing how much we bee-lieve in magic this month with tales of mythical bees, bees in a bag, and…divination with tiny stones? It’ll all make sense, we promise!

Producers for this show:

Our sincere thanks to everyone supporting us!

Play:

Stream: Special Episode-Folk Magician’s Notebook-June 2025

Download (right click to save): Special Episode – Folk Magician’s Notebook – June 2025

-Sources-

We highly recommend that you find an almanac or lunar-oriented datebook to help you with planning out your own magical year. Some we can recommend:

The Witches Almanac

Llewellyn’s Astrological Pocket Planner

Writual Planner

Or your local Farmer’s Almanac!

You can find a transcript of this episode at our Transcripts page.

Folktale of the Month: “The Thriai” (Theoi.org) and “Samson’s Wedding” (Torah)

Bees in a Bag from the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic (Bocastle, UK)

Image via Pixabay (CC 2.0)

Promos and Music:

Sound effects from Freesound.org and in the Public Domain. Additional “rooster” sound effect from Darina Evstafeva from Pixabay.

Please consider supporting us by purchasing our promotional items in the New World Witchery Threadless shop or by joining our Patreon supporters.

54 Devils Cartomancy Class – Summer 2025

Have you ever wanted to learn practical cartomancy (fortune-telling with playing cards)? Well here’s your chance!
We’re running a 3-class course on card reading (and more) and you can sign up at our website! Link in bio or visit http://www.newworldwitchery.com

Image of red card outlines on black background with text describing a cartomancy class

Greetings all!

As some of you may know, Cory wrote a book some ten-plus years ago called Fifty-four Devils: The Art and Folklore of Fortune-telling with Playing Cards. Last year, he released the Tenth Anniversary revised edition, which expanded the original text to include more depth on readings, revised options for non-binary readers and clients, ways to read playing cards in conjunction with other divination methods, and even some guidance on spellwork with cards!

Early in 2025, Cory also test-ran a three-session cartomancy course for New World Witchery Patreon supporters, which got some great reviews!

Cory Hutcheson’s The Fifty-Four Devils cartomancy course was a delight from start to finish. Cory is a very knowledgeable and experienced playing card reader who has devised a method that is simple, effective and practical. He also teaches the system in a clear and engaging manner with lots of humor and charm. Besides learning the card reading system, you get history, folklore, mythology, and magic! It is a great way to expand your cartomantic reading skills -Karen C.

So now we’re opening that course to the public! Here’s the details:

Dates: July 7, July 14, July 21 (Monday evenings 7pm-9pm Central Time) – All classes are held by Zoom and recorded so if you miss one you’ll be able to watch it later

Cost: $64 per student*. That includes:

Three live and video-recorded sessions covering the history, folklore, and practice of playing card cartomancy
Access to our online classroom which will include discussion forums, practice prompts, no-pressure quizzes to self-check your learning progress, and more!
A copy of the e-book version of the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Fifty-four Devils
Additional bonus materials like video sample readings and printable PDFs

How Do I Register?

Good question! All you need to do is go to our Patreon page and purchase the post “54 Devils Cartomancy Class.” (You don’t have to be a monthly Patreon supporter to purchase this class, as you can do just a one-time purchase). When you purchase that post you’ll be able to open the entire thing and get the link to our online classroom to join us!

Registration will stay open until the first day of class, July 7th, 2025.

I already knew that Cory is an exceptional teacher and storyteller, but I was still pleasantly surprised by how skilled he was at engaging with the class and making cartomancy feel accessible and fun. The after-class lessons and quizzes he provided made me think carefully about readings and how to practically apply these new skills. -T. King

The course will be limited to a cap of fifty students for the sake of manageability. If you want to take the course but know you can’t afford it at this time, never fear! We’ll have a scholarship option available soon and open up five no-pay slots for students who will be selected at random from our pool of scholarship applicants.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to do practical cartomancy with someone who’s been reading cards for decades while also engaging with a cartomancy learning community and getting some additional bonuses and perks, this class will be the one for you!

I hope to see you there!

Be well,

-Cory

*Please note that while the flat fee for the class is $64, some apps and platforms (such as iOS apps) may charge additional processing fees. The best way to ensure you get the $64 price is to visit the Patreon purchase site from a web browser.

Episode 260 – All Them Witches with Judika Illes

Who’s at your Witchy Dinner Party?

Summary:

We are chatting with one of our favorite witches, Judika Illes! We talk about the past 15 years of witchery, the nature of magical publishing, and much more.

Producer for this show:

This episode is sponsored in part by listener Jamie. We are thankful that Jamie is helping us support our quest to enchant our bookshelves so that they can hold an infinite amount of witchy books. Thank you for your support!

Play: Episode 260 – All Them Witches with Judika Illes
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3FhAoz106Ceil0fahmUMGe?si=YyclNktwRnyfYlytmWvJMw

Sources

Links for our guest:

Judika’s website and author page at Weiser
Her new deck (Protection Spells) and latest book (Witches: A Compendium) are also available now!
Some favorite books by her include The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, the Encyclopedia of Mystics, Saints, and Sages, and The Encyclopedia of Spirits

Books and Things:

Please note that clicking on links may provide some monetary compensation to New World Witchery.

Image via Pixabay (Used under CC 2.0 License, modified by New World Witchery)

Promos and Music: Title music is “Woman Blues,” by Paul Avgerinos. All music is licensed from Audio Socket (#35954).

Episode 259 – Folk Magic Reflections

We Don’t Go Back

Summary:

We reflect on our podcast’s 15-year history, our own journey with folk magic, and some of the evolutions in witchcraft generally during the past decade-and-a-half. Then we discuss what the future holds for New World Witchery.

Producer for this show:

This episode is sponsored in part by listener Jamie. We greatly appreciate the efforts you have made to warp the fabric of time to keep us young and beautiful podcasters forever, Jamie! Thank you!

Play: Episode 259 – Folk Magic Reflections
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5uipid8m47L6x0hAn2SeXf?si=CfU4eo7kTsO0_SN9bWRoZA

Sources

Just us for all these past 15 years! But you can visit our website to find all of our previous episodes.

Books and Things: