Tag: history

Blog Post 134 – Brujeria and Curanderismo: A (Very Brief) Overview

I’ve been combing back through a number of different posts lately, and seeing what areas we’ve covered in some detail (hoodoo, rootwork, and Pow-wow, mostly), which ones we’ve done some basic delving into (mountain magic and general witchcraft), and which ones we’ve only just barely touched upon (pretty much everything else). I was very surprised that I’d not covered today’s topic more, as it’s one of the topics with which I have a good bit of practical experience. But for some reason, I’ve only mentioned curanderismo and its ‘darker’ sister brujeria a few times.

And so today, I thought it might be good to remedy that deficiency somewhat. We’ll be giving these traditions only the most basic of examinations, as a deeper exploration of either could easily fill several dozen books and websites. Yet there are relatively few texts or webpages which look at these practices. Partly this may be a linguistic barrier (my Spanish is intermediate-level at best), but honestly I think this may just be an area where research is thin on the ground. I’d love to be proven wrong in that, though, so if you know of some good research on these traditions, please leave a comment and/or link.

To begin, let’s look a bit at curanderismo. This is a system of magical healing, blessing, and cleansing largely centered around Catholic prayers and rituals, with a heavy infusion of folk religion and magic and a bit of herb lore in some cases. A male practitioner is a curandero, while a female practitioner is a curandera. Many of the rituals within this tradition have to do with detecting and undoing evil witchcraft (which is called brujeria by curanderos, which gets a bit confusing…more on that later). In Mexico, where this practice is centered—though there are ever-increasing numbers of practitioners in other Central and North American locations, a person might call upon a curandero if a family member seems to be plagued with some uncommon illness, or if their house seems to be exhibiting symptoms of a haunting, or if they are feeling as though a general run of bad luck has settled onto them. One of the best resources on curanderismo on the internet is Dona Concha of the Curious Curandera website. In the introductory material for one of her many excellent courses, she includes this summary of the practice:

Curanderismo is not only a form of folk healing, it also includes the practice white magic, ritual, cleansings, energy work, spirit contact, divination, and a vast amount of prayer just to name a few. While some practitioners prefer to engage only in one area, others work in all areas.
Curanderismo is a very spiritual practice with strong religious faith. Practitioners use a variety of objects including herbs, spices, eggs, lemons, limes, Holy Water, Saints, Crucifixes, prayer, candles, incense, oils and divination tools. Most include spirit assistance. Not all practitioners work in the same way. For example, one person may perform a spiritual cleansing with a raw unbroken egg while another may employ a bundle of herbs for the cleansing tool.

While a curandera might perform rituals that help remove bad luck or might contact specific spirits (usually angelic or “holy” ones), they tend to shy away from any ‘dark’ magics.

Brujeria, on the other hand, means literally “witchcraft,” and is frequently perceived in a negative light. This system, however, is not entirely dissimilar from hoodoo, with a focus on practical, earthier types of magic: love, money, sex, etc. What gives brujeria its bad reputation is its association with “magia negra” or “black magic.” While both curanderismo and brujeria can work with “magia blanca” (“white magic”) to provide cures, healing, and good luck, only brujeria works with things like spirit summoning and necromancy to achieve its aims. Brujo Negro, who runs a fantastic site on brujeria (and whose name means “black witch”), explains magia negra as an extension of the grimoire magic imported by the Spaniards during the 16th century. He also points out that the native peoples of Mexico—the Nahua, the Xolotl, etc.—did not particularly have concepts of “good” and “evil,” and so the concept of a branch of magic entirely in the service of evil would have been alien to them. Instead, the “healer physician” figure (anthropologically referred to as a “shaman” in many circles) would use his or her knowledge of natural materials and forces—herbs, roots, stones, and animal parts—to craft specialized remedies for community members struck with strange illnesses. The Spaniards did not always understand what the natives were doing, and viewed them and their practices warily.

The use of grimoire magic, talismans, spirit invocations, and other spells which did not explicitly call upon Christian paradigms to accomplish their goals led to opposition between the brujos and the curanderos. This is not all that different than the supposed wars between the benandanti and the witches of Italy, which Carlo Ginzburg has catalogued incredibly well in his book The Night Battles. In truth, both groups were likely working—in general—for the good of their communities, though the brujos might occasionally use more aggressive magic to do their work and likely were a little saltier about the spiritual side of their practice. Another group of magical practitioners (which may be the equivalent of fairy-tale witches or malevolent wizards or folklore) may well have engaged in exclusively cursing practices and malevolent magic, in which case either a brujo or curandero might be called in to do battle with the wicked sorcerer, again demonstrating that the line between the two camps is a fuzzy one at best.

The historical presence of folk magic among Hispanic communities goes back centuries, and while it shares certain commonalities with the European colonial experience along the Atlantic, it also strongly resembles the African experience in America. Contact between native peoples and the new arrivals was relatively high, and cultural exchange was fluid, if not officially indulged:

New Mexico witchcraft cases reveal a variety of features of colonial life in New Mexico that did not exist in other colonized areas of North America. For example, they show the physical proximity in which the Indians and Europeans lived and the increasingly intertwined beliefs they shared—about power, about magic, about healing, and about witches. These characteristics of New Mexico society were especially pronounced after the Spanish returned to the colony in 1706. Witchcraft was so much a part of New Mexico in the eighteenth century that Ramon A. Gutierrez has suggested that it was one of the three main issues that affected life there…Nothing comparable exists among the surviving records in British or French North America, at least as far as indigenous people are concerned” (Games 34-5).

This is not to say that relations were necessarily sunny between the natives and the conquering Spaniards, but the level of integration between Old World and New World beliefs seemed to flow both ways, with people like the Xolotl eventually adapting to the Catholic pantheon of saints and the rituals of the church, while the Spaniards sought out community healers for their ethereal gifts. Witch trials can and did erupt, but seldom with the vigor found in New England (or even old England). The veneer of Catholicism covered a variety of magical practices and set them in an ‘appropriate’ religious context, though in practice healings were still being done through the agency of plants, spirits, and other magical tools.

So just what does a curandero or bruja do nowadays? Much of what brujos and curanderas do resembles another magical practice heavily rooted in Catholicism, that of stregheria (or, more specifically, the cousin tradition of streghoneria), which come from Italy. I hope to dig into this question a bit more in other posts, but it might be good to look at some earmark practices common to one or both traditions, so that you can recognize it when you see it. In both, you are likely to find:

  • Divinatory practices – Sometimes by cards, but just as often by very specific items like eggs broken into a glass of water or the ashes left by a smoldering cigar.
  • Saint magic – Calling upon the intercessory power of saints to accomplish specific tasks. This is usually accompanied by rituals such as candle-burning and prayer.
  • Statuary or charms – This goes hand-in-hand with saint magic for the most part, though other types of charms like milagros (little pewter, silver, or gold charms shaped like hearts, body parts, animals, etc. and used as devotional offerings) are also frequently used.
  • Ritual cleansing – Especially using holy water or natural elements, like eggs, limes, lemons, etc. This can be done on a person or on a specific place.
  • Liturgical prayers – These are used outside of the orthodox liturgy, and are usually repeated several times to gain their benefit in magical settings. Examples include the “Our Father,” or “Ave Maria” prayers.
  • Novena candles – These are easily found in places with large Hispanic populations, and usually have a pillar candle encased by glass with a picture of a saint, angel, or other holy being on them. On the back they typically have short prayers (often in Spanish and English) which are recited while burning the candle.

In the individual practices, the magic may lean more heavily towards one or another of these categories. Certain folk saints are deeply revered by one group and not the other, or sometimes revered by both groups in different ways. A great example of this different-but-the-same relationship is Santa Muerte (“Holy Death”), a powerful spirit both loved and feared throughout Mexico. She’s a big enough topic for her own post at some point, so I’ll just leave that mention as a tease for the moment. As I mentioned earlier, brujeria resembles hoodoo fairly strongly, so there are lots of roots, bones, and rusty nails found in it, while herbal preparations for healing and cleansing tend to be more heavily emphasized in curanderismo.

All of this is simply the lightest scratch across the surface of a very deep subject. I hope to provide more and more information through other posts at other times, and even then I’ll only really be getting at a fairly superficial understanding of this incredible set of traditions and practices. For now, though, I hope this has been a useful magical appetizer.

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 133 – Summer Reading List

Hi there!

Today I thought I’d share some of the various books and other texts I’ve been reading over the summer, both for school and for pleasure. Most everything I’ve read has had something I could take from it and apply to magical or folkloric study, though in many cases the connection might be a bit tenuous.  What I hope to illustrate is that reading across broad categories (and, by extension, having broad experiences), can provide you with a lot of good material and insight. At the very least, I hope to wow you with my lexical engrossment. Women dig guys with big libraries, right?

All kidding aside, I hope you find this useful or interesting, and that I am able to show the relevance to New World Witchery. So here we go!

African American Literature

Knowing the culture from which a tradition or practice develops is important, and a large portion of my summer involved becoming deeply familiar with African-American literary culture, which in turn helped me better understand things like hoodoo.

Slave narratives: I read a number of these for my African American Literature course, and then even found myself reading additional titles in this genre as well. Nearly every one I read mentioned at least some magical practice, varying from the presence of a fortune-teller in William Wells Brown’s story to Frederick Douglass’ use of a magical root to keep from being beaten (according to Douglass, who was dubious of its powers, it did seem to work). The attitude in these texts varies pretty widely when it comes to magical practice. Some condone it, some treat it with ambivalence, and some are hostile towards it. Some of the works I read included:

Folklore: We read several authors renowned for their folkloric contributions, and several writers deeply influenced by folk tales. In nearly every case, some element of conjure or rootwork is present, though often only incidentally or tangentially (as in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon). Through studying these works I found new sources of magical lore which function as old fairy tales often do—preserving the folklife information in fictional form. A selection of suggested texts:

I’m sure there were dozens of references to conjure culture I missed in these as well as the other works I read for this class, but in each of them I found something of value related to my magical, spiritual, ancestral, or simply scholarly practice.

Bible as Literature

I’m planning on exploring the magical connections in the Bible elsewhere (it actually wound up being a major component of my final paper for the class, a 20-page monster that essentially argued “no magic=no Bible”). But I thought it might be good to list a few of the major sources I used on that paper, as they revealed a tremendous amount about historical magical practices related to this keystone cultural text.

There were plenty of scholarly articles on the topic, too, and a number of entries in reference books like The Cambridge Companion to the Bible and the Anchor Bible Dictionary. Trying to list all of those, however, would probably be tedious, so I’ll leave them be for the moment.

While I’m not one to say all North American folk magic is biblically based (in fact much of it is completely unrelated to the Bible), the Bible has had an impact on multiple magical systems here, and so I find learning more about it useful. I especially find learning more about it in a magical context useful!

Creative Non-Fiction

This was supposed to be my “fun” course, a writing class in a workshop-style setting. It was actually fairly reading-intensive, too, though. I wound up writing a piece on a somewhat famous conjure personality as part of the course, and got an excellent response to it. I can only think of one book, though, that falls into the New World Witchery camp of texts: Salvation on Sand Mountain, by Dennis Covington. This book is about snake handling churches in southern Appalachia, and the portions of it we read for class were eerily magical at times. The author of the book starts off as a non-believer, and even engages in the handling as a non-believer, but finds that a mystical power overtakes him when he’s ‘in the moment,’ so to speak. I definitely recommend it based just on the limited amount we read.

In addition to my school work, I was also spending time reading a number of books for fun, which I’ll hopefully get around to reviewing soon. I’ve already put up a review of Charles De Lint’s Promises to Keep over at the Pagan Bookworm site, and I’m working on reviews for about 3-4 other titles as well. I’m also planning to restart Moby Dick when the fall weather hits, and possibly re-read some Hawthorne, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

At any rate, I hope you’ve been having a fun and useful summer, too! What’s been on your reading list the past few months?

All the best, and thanks for reading,

-Cory

Blog Post 127 – Summoning Devils

In Blog Post 126 we looked a little bit at the Devil as a folkloric figure in American witchcraft.  One of the questions I received in response to that post was, “but how do I meet him?”  Is the Devil an entity anyone can just summon up?  Do you have to be careful to call the “right” devil so as not to wind up with more on your plate than you can handle?  And if you do meet the Devil, how do you come away with your soul intact (assuming you want to)?

Today I thought I’d look at some of the ways, folklorically speaking, that people have been known to get into contact with the Devil or other “dark” spirits.  Some of these are based on old European folk traditions, and some call a figure which may or may not be the Devil, but which certainly shares traits with him (trickster nature, otherworldly knowledge, granting of gifts, etc.).  A word of warning before we dive in, though: Do NOT attempt any spiritual summoning work or diabolical contact without the proper precautions—while dark spirits can be powerful allies, they also can have a dangerous side and should be treated with respect and caution.

So, with that being said, let’s look at some of the main ways to meet your devil.

Invocation & High Magic

If you’ve ever read Christopher Marlowe’s Faustus, you’ll be quite familiar with this method.  In this late 16th century play, Dr. Faustus (quite possibly based on a real person), learns the art of high magic and uses a magic circle to call forth a devil named Mephistopholes, who will act as his servitor on Earth in exchange for his soul.  He seals his pact with blood, and pretty much gets what he wants for a while (including Helen of Troy), then gets dragged off to hell for his final punishment.

In Marlowe’s version, the imp is a distinct entity, and in some versions of the legend he takes on the form of a dog or other animal to serve Faustus as a familiar.  Shakespeare, contemporary to Marlowe, also knew a bit about diabolic invocation through high magic.  In his Henry VI, part 2, Shakespeare demonstrates a different version of how such a meeting might go.  In Act I, scene iv, a conjurer named Bolingbroke summons the spirit of a devil named Asmath into a witch named Margaret Jourdain (based on a real woman and accused witch named Margery Jourdayne), then proceeds to interrogate the demon for information.  He dismisses the devil just before royal authorities break in and arrest everyone present for heresy and treason.

So here we have two methods inherited from the grimoire traditions of old Europe: direct appearance and possession.  Owen Davies gives an excellent overview of these traditions in his appropriately titled Grimoires: a history of magic books.  These late-antiquity and medieval methods of making contact with nefarious forces also found popularity in the New World, mostly through grimoires like the Grimoire Verum, Albertus Magnus’ Egyptian Secrets, and derivative texts drawn from such sources.  These tomes influenced magical systems like Pow-wow and hoodoo, though the specifically diabolic elements were often highly diminished by the time they reached the hands of folk practitioners.  The exception to this is that the seals found in the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses were still used for magical purposes, and several of those seals are specifically designed to invoke diabolic aid from entities like Mephistopholes and Leviathan.

Should you get the urge to perform any of these types of invocations—and I reiterate my warning about being prepared and knowing what you’re doing first—here are several rituals you might try:

  • The Grimoire Verum – This text says that America is ruled by the devil Astaroth, whose sigils are included for your invocational purposes.  Please note that you should probably learn a little bit about basic Solomonic invocation and banishing from the Key of Solomon first, though the Grimoire Verum does give a little instruction in these areas as well.
  • The Sixth & Seventh Books of Moses – There is a lot less instruction here than you would find in some of the other grimoires, so if you’re not versed in summoning and dispelling, you may need to look elsewhere.
  • Dr. Faustus – Here is the text used by Marlowe for his Faustian invocation.  Bear in mind that this was designed to be staged, so use it more as a guide than a rote ritual to be followed.
  • Henry VI, part 2 – Shakespeare’s text for invocation and bansishment.  Take with the same grain of salt you used with Marlowe’s work.

Meeting the Devil

On the more folkloric side of things, the common method for contacting a devil of some kind involves a journey to a liminal or wild place where he is thought to reside.  In most cases, the Devil can be found either at a crossroads or in a forest of some kind, though there are exceptions (many modern stories of meeting the Devil involve transportation or big cities, e.g. Robert Bloch’s Hell-Bound Train, Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way Comes, and the cult film Rosemary’s Baby).  Probably the most famous ritual is the crossroads ritual, which I’ve mentioned here before.  As I’m planning to do an article on the crossroads as an independent magical space, I won’t go into great detail, but rather just say that Cat Yronwode has a great entry on the crossroads for those who are interested.

The forest or wild place meeting is a common folkloric theme across many cultures.  There are, of course, the Teutonic tales of meeting various wild spirits or devils in the forest, as in the Grimms’ tales of the Devil (see “The Devil’s Sooty Brother,” or “The Devil’s Grandmother”).  There are biblical precedents for these sorts of meetings as well—Moses encounters the burning bush in the desert, which is at least terrifying if not outright diabolic.  Three of the gospels also recount the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert (an analog for wilderness in biblical terms).  American folklore picks up this thread, and stories of meeting the devil in wilderness are quite common.  “Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, features such a meeting, and at least one scholar has brought the idea into the twentieth century by suggesting that “Men in Black” sightings associated with UFO’s in rural areas may be connected to devil lore.

The other alternative to the forest meeting is the graveyard meeting.  Usually in this version of the story, the person meeting the Devil must also do battle with him.  It can be a battle of wits, but just as often it is a physical wrestling match which parallels the interior struggle of the person confronting his or her fears by meeting the Devil in a graveyard in the firstplace.

So how does someone put this kind of meeting into practice?  Will devils always show up in graveyards after dark?  Will someone wandering in the forest or through a crossroads inevitably meet a Man in Black of some kind?  Sadly, I have no answers here.  All I can say is that if you’re truly moved to attempt these sorts of rituals, the Devil tends to show up in some form or fashion.  So if you’re interested in pursuing this line of contact, you could:

  • Attempt the Toad’s Bone ritual, which terminates with a graveyard wrestling session or a bout in a river
  • Give the Greased Plate method a try (mentioned in Blog Post 50 and found in The Silver Bullet, p.24)
  • See what happens if you do a Crossroads Ritual for a certain amount of time
  • Or, just wander to any of these kinds of places, swear yourself to the Devil (or in many cases, against God), and call out to the Devil to come and offer you terms of some kind—a new skill, riches, knowledge, etc. in exchange for service or something intangible like, oh, say, your soul.

One final thing I should mention is that the best-case scenario in many of these stories usually involves a person quick-witted enough to outsmart the Devil.  So always be aware of just what you say to any devil you meet, and make sure you leave loopholes for yourself if you promise them anything.  They seem to enjoy a good trick, so it’s a win-win if you can outsmart them.

Again, please be careful with this sort of magic. It has the potential to be dangerous, and at the very least it’s a little intense and can run you afoul of the law if you’re not cautious (loitering at crossroads or in graveyards tends to get the police rather grumpy).  If you do have any good experiences with this sort of work, though, please share!  I’d love to hear it!

Thanks for reading,

-Cory

Podcast 25 – Divination and Destiny

-SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 25-

Summary
In this episode, we look at different divination systems from the New World.  We have a conversation about Destiny, and Laine talks about spinning wheels as magical tools. Cory discusses bibliomancy at the end of the show.

Play:

Download:  New World Witchery – Episode 25

-Sources-
New World Witchery Guide to Cartomancy
It’s All in the Cards by Chita St. Lawrence
A great collection of links on the History of Tarot at Aeclectic.net
We mentioned the “Portable Fortitude” Mojo cards which Laine bought for Cory (also on Etsy)
Cory mentioned the I Ching
Laine mentioned the fortune-telling poem, “One for Sorrow”
You can read about the history of the Ouija board and the Magic 8-ball at Wikipedia
We highly recommend Juniper’s divination system at Walking the Hedge
Laine got a bit of her lore from the “Start Spinning” video with Maggie Casey
Arrow has a great series of posts on magical keys and bibliomancy at her Wandering Arrow blog

Promos & Music
Title music:  “Homebound,” by Jag, from Cypress Grove Blues.  From Magnatune.
Promo 1 – Inciting a Riot
Promo 2 – Lakefront Pagan Voice

Blog Post 118 – Four Thieves Vinegar

Greetings everyone!

I recently received an email regarding a topic we discussed on the podcast a while back:

“Cory, on one episode you mention 4 thieves vinegar and was wondering if you had the recipe. I totally want to make some! I heard what items go into it, but don’t know the proportions.”

I was surprised that I actually haven’t done a post on this yet, as it is such a fundamental formula, and so easy to make.  So today I thought I’d put up some information on this particular recipe.

Let’s start with the history.  The legend is that sometime during the plague years of the 16th and 17th centuries, a story went about that four spice merchants had discovered a secret formula which made them immune to the plague and which they’d rub on their bodies before robbing corpses ravaged by the disease.  That formula was eventually revealed to be a strong red wine vinegar with a number of different spices—reputedly one for each thief—most notably a lot of garlic.  Vinegar and garlic have some strong antiseptic properties, so it’s not hard to imagine that in a time before Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of microorganisms in 1675 any application of anti-microbial formula would help prevent a communicable disease.

Of course, the history provided is the stuff of legend, and may or may not have a basis in fact.  The earliest English reference to the Four Thieves and their famous concoction appears in 1825, in the publication Pharmacologia, where it is referred to as Four Thieves Vinegar or Marseilles Vinegar, after the French region where some legends claim the Thieves operated.  A 1939 article published in Pennsylvania History by Mulford Stough notes that the formula was used in Philadelphia during the outbreak of a plague during the 1790’s.  Stough blames the outbreak on the huge influx of immigrants from Santo Domingo (basically the Haitian Revolution concurrent with that time period sent a large number of Dominicans and Haitians fleeing to America, through major centers like New Orleans and Philadelphia).  While there’s no explicit link between the use of the vinegar formula to battle the disease and the immigrants themselves, I’m inclined to allow myself a bit of speculation here and say that there is a connection.  Whether the European formula entered the immigrants’ magical systems here, or whether the arrival of the immigrants (who may already have been using the formula magically) spurred its resurgence, I cannot say.

What I can say is that the potion did enter into the folk magical practices of America, and has continued to remain popular.   It’s also a flexible formula, one that has been adapted and changed many times over the years, depending on the need of the practitioner.  Here I’d like to give you my own personal recipe and method for making it and tell you a bit about how I use it, then look at some variations from other recipes and magical folk.

Cory’s Four Thieves Vinegar (please feel free to copy, use, distribute, etc. with attribution)

Ingredients

  • One pint mason jar, filled to just about 3/4 full with good cider vinegar
  • One head of garlic, peeled of skins (around 8-12 cloves)
  • One large handful of red chili flakes (probably about 2 tbsp, though I don’t measure that way when I make this stuff)
  • One large handful of black mustard seeds (again, around 2 tbsp, and if you can’t find black mustard, brown will be fine, though you might want to toast them to release their oils and blacken them a bit)
  • One handful of salt (not quite as much, maybe 1.5 tbsp)–kosher or sea salt are best
  • Optional ingredients include: a sprig of rue (I usually include), black peppercorns (small handful of these), rosemary, other types of chilies such as habanero or jalapeno, guinea pepper grains, galangal root, ginger root, etc.  You only need a little bit of any of these to boost the overall strength of the mix.

Put your ingredients into your mason jar, making sure it doesn’t overflow.  Cap and seal, then shake vigorously for 30-60 seconds.  Put it a cool, dark place or a refrigerator.  Shake daily for 2 weeks, then keep stored in a dark pantry or a fridge.

If you want to time your vinegar production magically, set it up to begin when the moon is waxing and finish when the moon is full if you intend to use it  for protection.  Go from full to new moon if you want to use it to banish someone/thing.  If you can make it while the moon is “in Aries,” “in Leo,” or “in Sagittarius” that might boost its power, too.

The ways I use FTV tend to be protective and for uncrossing work.  A little can be added to a bath to help knock off any evil eyes or general bad luck.  During spring cleaning, I usually add a little urine (in a separate bucket, please!) and red brick dust to a wash that I use on the front door and porch steps of my home to repel any harm sent my way.  One of my favorite ways to use FTV is to mix it with some olive oil and put it on a salad as a sort of spring tonic to clear out any lingering malevolence that might have accrued in my body.  Adding a tablespoon of it to a glass of water and drinking every morning is another good way to go (I’ll admit that I did this for a while but eventually let it slide and now just use the salad dressing method instead).

If you want to use it for banishing someone, you can break a bottle of it on their property (much like War Water) or stick their name paper in a jar of the vinegar—maybe with an extra handful of red pepper flakes to really heat up the spell.  Or, and this is probably going to blow your mind, give it to them to eat.  But wait! you say.  I’ve been eating it all along and it’s protecting me.  What’s going on here?  This is one of those weird circumstances where intention seems to play a part.  If you serve it to them with the desire to get them to leave you alone, that seems to be enough.  Of course, if you’ve timed the production to make the vinegar essentially banishing anyway—in which case I hope you’re not eating it—then intention may or may not really be what’s causing the results.

Okay, so now for the variations.  Of course, there are lots of folks who follow the older French recipe and use red wine vinegar instead of cider vinegar.  I just use the latter because it’s more typically American and thus something I have a stronger connection to, but feel free to use either version.  Other variations include one from author Ray T. Malbrough’s Charms, Spells, & Formulas in which he says: “To a gallon of strong cider vinegar add a handful of the following: rosemary, wormwood, lavender, rue, sage, and mint.  Add 1 ounce of powdered camphor gum.”  He goes on to recommend shaking and heating the mix for four days before finally straining it and bottling it, and that would definitely speed up the process.  I would say, however, that ingesting this version might not be a good idea with the camphor gum in it (camphor is poisonous if swallowed).  Malbrough recommends the vinegar as a cursing agent, one that can be used to cross someone’s luck or break up their home.

Cat Yronwode speaks of its uses, saying “Four Thieves Vinegar is used for protection, because it contains garlic, and also to cause confusion and discord among enemies, because it is sour” (p. 203).  Jim Haskins mentions it as “bad vinegar” in his book Voodoo & Hoodoo, and talks of it being used to curse and break up homes.

Draja Mickaharic gives a recipe in his book, A Century of Spells:

“To make the original Four Thieves Vinegar, peel a number of cloves of garlic.  Place the garlic in a clean glass bottle.  When the bottle is full of peeled garlic cloves, wine vinegar is poured over the garlic until the bottle is full.  The bottle can then be capped and placed in the refrigerator, root cellar, or spring house for a week or so.  The vinegar should be used a little at a time, with new wine vinegar being added as some is drawn out.  It will last a year or so before a new batch needs to be made” (p. 130-31).

Mickaharic also says that “Purists use a red Bordeaux wine, and wait for it to turn to vinegar before using it…Apple cider vinegar is not the ‘real thing’ but it works just as well in magic and better for some healing work,” which is basically how I feel about the topic.  He recommends it as a spring tonic and calls it a great salad dressing, too!

Northwoods witch Sarah Lawless says that her FTV uses “the old school recipe which is more a tonic than a crossing blend – onion, garlic, thyme, oregano, rosemary, lavender, peppercorns, bay leaves, and red wine with red wine vinegar”  (Thanks Sarah!).

One of the more unusual recipes I’ve found for this mixture is from Dorothy Morrison’s Utterly Wicked, which lists the recipe as including Adam & Eve Root (a type of endangered orchid found in the eastern U.S.), John the Conqueror root, black pepper, and vetivert.  This is a recipe I also would probably never eat, as the High John root comes from the Ipomoea genus which has demonstrated toxicity.  However, this recipe is very unique as it does not contain most of the key ingredients found in other blends: garlic, red pepper, rosemary, etc.  About the only ingredients it has in common with other recipes are black pepper and, well, vinegar.  I’ve not tested the efficacy of this version, so if anyone out there has, I’d love to know what you think of it!

Four Thieves Vinegar continues to be popular among occultists and witches, but it’s got a broader appeal, as well.  One of the best sites I found while researching this article was Secret of the Thieves, a website which tells the history of FTV and offeres a wide range of products based on the recipe such as toothpaste, mouthwash, hand sanitizer, soap, and even dental floss!

So if you’re looking for a good, widely-used folk-magical formula, I recommend making this rather simple one yourself.  It’s easy, has protective and cursing applications, and keeps for a long time.  If you have other variants, I’d love to hear those, and if you find new applications for the vinegar, please let me know those as well!

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 117 – Favorite Non-magical New Media

Hi everyone!

Today’s post is actually not much concerned with witchcraft or magic, so if you usually read for those reasons, you might want to skip it.  Instead, I thought I’d share a few of the things I’m listening to or reading when I’m not focused on purely magical pursuits.  It’s no secret I have a deep love for folklore and Americana, but I’m also deeply interested in science and history as well.  I think they’re very important because they are two of the best references for understanding the world and our place in it we have available.  They are balanced by folklore and magic, I think, and so I tend to get very into them.  So here are some of my top new media (i.e. blog and podcast) sites:

History

The History of Rome – Podcast – Mike Duncan’s magnificent podcast has been going on for well over two years now, and shows no signs of slowing down.  Each episode, which can range from 15 to 35 minutes long, covers a segment of Roman history, from the mythical origins to the military victories to the day-to-day life Romans endured or enjoyed depending on their station.  I’ve learned so much from this show.  Of particular interest to those who read this blog might be episodes 86, 87, and 88, which touch on the daily life of Romans, including their religious doings.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.
12 Byzantine Rulers – Podcast – This series from Lars Brownworth, a noted historian and also the voice behind the Norman Centuries podcast, is a wonderful overview of the Byzantine Empire.  Brownworth covers the rise and fall of one of the most interesting and oft-misunderstood empires in history with depth and narrative enthusiasm.  If all history were this interesting, we’d have a lot more historians around.  I also recommend his excellent book on Byzantium, Lost to the West.
Appalachian History – Podcast & Blog – This is a wonderful site and show which has the feel of an audio newsletter, complete with short tales, historical notes, and anecdotes about life in Appalachia, particularly during the Depression.  The production is quite nice, with little filmstrip-soundtrack bells between each segment, and a brief overview of the topics covered in audio abstract format at the top of the episode.  The site is updated more frequently than the podcast, but both are well worthwhile, and even occasionally touch on magical topics, as in the post on the Blood Verse.
The Blind Pig & the Acorn – Blog – This is a lovely and well done blog which looks at not only historical Appalachia, but modern-day mountain life, too.  There are a number of topics covered, from gardening and self-sufficiency to medicine to music to storytelling.  There’s even a wonderful series of posts about planting by the signs, which might be of interest to folks here.
Backstory with the American History Guys – Podcast – This NPR-produced show features three professors of history with different specialties (18th, 19th, and 20th centuries) tracing the course of particular topics throughout American history.  Topics have included a history of courtship and romance, a history of ghosts and the supernatural, and even a history of climate control and air conditioning!  The rapport between the hosts is stellar, and the information is always fascinating.  If you have any interest in American history, give them a listen.

Science

RadioLab – Podcast – This deeply fascinating WNYC/NPR show features two hosts with a lot of good questions tackling some very big topics in science.  For instance, shows cover topics like dreams and Sleep, conceptions of the Afterlife, the nature of Words and language, finding Limits of human performance, the wonderful world of Parasites, and Stochasticity (I’ll let you look that one up).  Jad and Robert make the universe seem like a playground, albeit a big, terrifying one sometimes, and their probing show really unearths a lot of new questions for the curious listener.  The production values are phenomenal, too!  Plus they often have great music (this is where I discovered the amazing cellist Zoe Keating, and They Might Be Giants are apparently fans of the show, too).
Earth & Sky – Podcast & Blog – This is a wonderful short series on the many different aspects of physical science that influence our daily lives.  They cover everything from asteroids and space dust to the shifting coastlines of major continents to the influence of rare earth elements on our economy.  You can subscribe to particular feeds following particular topics, or get your fill of the whole shebang if you prefer.
The Naked Scientists – Podcast – This show, which also features offshoot programs on Africa, Archaeology, Engineering, etc. is loaded with lots of short, fun, interesting segments.  It primarily deals with the basic processes of science and how they relate to understanding our world today, but there are occasional segments related to historical science as well which are quite fascinating.  They feature guests, field reports, and lecture-style deliveries on a wide range of topics, which should certainly whet the appetite of any eager science aficionados.
Nature – Podcast – A group of scientists connected with the journal of the same name host this very informative show which doesn’t focus on current events in science, but rather spends a lot of time looking at the natural world and trying to understand it.  It gets some criticism because it is definitely aimed at scientists, but usually it’s not that hard to follow and the more difficult stuff just makes me more curious.  Give it a listen if you have an interest in natural science!
Borealis Meditation – Podcast – Okay, okay, this IS a pagan podcast from one of our own, Kathleen.  But let me be frank here in saying I get a huge education in earth science every time I tune into the show, and actually find myself listening more for that angle than any other.  Great science, great host, very enjoyable show!

Folklore

The Moonlit Road – Podcast – A delightful podcast which tackles individual tales from American folklore in every episode.  Master storytellers recount these famous stories, like “Taily-po” and “The Blue Girl.”  It has relatively high production values, and always makes me happy when I see a new episode available (though I could do without the cricket noises on the webpage).  A great listen!
To the Best of Our Knowledge – Podcast – This one is not strictly folklore, but also covers things like science, sociology, literature, etc.  However, I’ll be honest, I don’t always listen to the episodes on topics I’m not interested in, so I primarily hear the information on literature and folklore.  Some of the great episodes in that vein have been the episodes on Magic and Fairy Tales.
Librivox – Audio Archive – I’m a huge fan of this project, which aims to take all public domain literature and provide volunteer-created audio recordings of it to everyone.  I’m working on getting a few tales together myself for this site, and I love listening to all sorts of folklore, including the Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the Arabian Nights.  As it is volunteer-based, the quality of the audio varies a bit, but overall it seems to be audible and there are a variety of voices to experience, which is very nice in my opinion.
Hometown Tales – Podcast – This show really focuses on listener-submitted lore, and as such, doesn’t get a whole lot of scholarly points.  However, as far as fun and interest go, this podcast is really solid.  The hosts have a good chemistry together, and the stories are presented with a little bit of humor and a sense of combined belief/unbelief that makes each topic more intriguing.  If nothing else, it usually sends me scrambling for a pen so I can look up some of the lore they present and find out more about it, which is always a good thing.
The Moth – Podcast – Another show from NPR which isn’t so much about folklore as it is about storytelling.  As such, I can’t really say it’s folklore in the way I usually mean it, but it still fits as storytelling is a major folk art and one I particularly love.  And the stories are often very fun, funny, or poignant, with occasional forays into the magical.  It’s a grab bag, really, but I think it’s worth listening to.

Religion

Speaking of Faith – Podcast – Host Krista Tippett discusses religion with some of the most fascinating religious figures out there.  If you’re into comparative religion, I highly recommend this show.  Some highlights have included episodes on ethical eating, a discussion on Ojibwe language and story, and a wonderful show about Haitian Vodou.
The SaintCast – Podcast – Dr. Paul Camerata does a marvelous job exploring the Catholic faith through the lives of the saints.  While he would probably not be thrilled to see his show linked from this particular site, I personally love his show, which features “Saint Jeopardy!” and a weekly saints calendar.  You get historical information as well as the lore surrounding the saint, often from primary sources, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to, if you happen to like saints.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, if you can’t tell, but I also have a heck of a commute to work every day.   And I’m not even including things like my foreign-language podcasts which I use to help improve my Spanish and German vocabulary!  I don’t know if this post will turn anyone on to some new listening material, but if it does, that’s great!  Of course, I’m really hoping none of these shows will replace New World Witchery on your mp3 player…but that would be impossible, right?  Right?

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 114- Magic Books in the American Colonies: Witch-hunting Books

This is the second part of the series on magical texts in America that I started way back in Blog Post 105.  In that article, we looked at the different criteria for “Devil’s Books” that were often cited as a key component of witchcraft during the Colonial era.  Today, we’ll be looking at a few of the tomes that were used by witchhunters in that era to determine just who was a witch, and what to do with one.

In general, witches were viewed as a very real phenomenon during the Colonial period.  In New England, the belief in witches was prevalent enough that “witchfinding” was a legitimate career, just as it was in England (Matthew Hopkins, the “Witchfinder General” being a prime example of this profession).  Other colonies, such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, took a more publically liberal stance towards witchcraft, and regarded it as “bad behavior” rather than any indication of diabolic allegiance.  William Penn once ordered a woman accused of witchcraft to simply “practice good behavior” and insisted to her accuser that there was no law against “riding a broom” (SC&W).  The Calvinist influence on the upper Appalachian colonies may have made them more willing to regard witchcraft as superstition, at least publically.  However, the prevalence of anti-witchcraft charms, talismans, and amulets in all the colonies demonstrates that in private, many folks believed much as the Puritans did—witches existed, and they were dangerous.  Naturally, those who feared malefic magic wanted to know how to figure out just who might be bewitching their cattle, stealing their milk, and spoiling their butter (an awful lot of witchcraft seemed to revolve around dairy products), and so they turned to the manuals available at the time.

Some of the key texts used to seek out, identify, and punish witches were:

The Malleus Maleficarum (Witch Hammer) –  This is probably the most famous of the witch-hunter’s manuals, a heavy tome which set out to prove witches exist, that the were dangerous, that they were (usually) women, and that they could be stopped.  Published first around 1486 in Germany by Swiss-German priest Jacob Sprenger, the Malleus was a central tool of the Inquisition as it pursued those it considered heretics.  The book may also have been co-authored (or potentially solely authored) by Heinrich Kramer, but Kramer was later denounced by the Inquisition, and so authorial attribution has generally gone to Sprenger.  The Malleus is divided into three basic sections:  the first section tries to prove that witches must exist, the second describes how witches are made or how one becomes a witch, and the third section examines methods for detecting and punishing witches.

To give you some idea of what the Malleus contained, here is a section on how one forms a “Devil’s Pact” (I like that subject, if you haven’t noticed):

“Now the method of profession is twofold. One is a solemn ceremony, like a solemn vow. The other is private, and can be made to the devil at any hour alone. The first method is when witches meet together in the conclave on a set day, and the devil appears to them in the assumed body of a man, and urges them to keep faith with him, promising them worldly prosperity and length of life; and they recommend a novice to his acceptance. And the devil asks whether she will abjure the Faith, and forsake the holy Christian religion and the worship of the Anomalous Woman (for so they call the Most Blessed Virgin MARY), and never venerate the Sacraments; and if he finds the novice or disciple willing, then the devil stretches out his hand, and so does the novice, and she swears with upraised hand to keep that covenant. And when this is done, the devil at once adds that this is not enough; and when the disciple asks what more must be done, the devil demands the following oath of homage to himself: that she give herself to him, body and soul, for ever, and do her utmost to bring others of both sexes into his power. He adds, finally, that she is to make certain unguents from the bones and limbs of children, especially those who have been baptized; by all which means she will be able to fulfil all her wishes with his help” (from the Montague Summers translation).

If any of that sounds familiar, well, that’s probably because the Malleus basically served as a repository for folklore about witches and their powers.  Based on stories and legends, an entire system of witchcraft was extrapolated, and then used to seek out and punish those who fit certain molds set by the Malleus.  Punishments for witchcraft could be relatively light, requiring the accused to produce character witnesses: “assigning to you such a day of such a month at such hour of the day, upon which you shall appear in person before us with so many persons of equal station with you to purge you of your defamation.”  Or they could be rather severe, including torture with red-hot irons and eventual execution by fire.  Folklore is serious business when it’s taken too literally, it seems.

The Discoverie of Witchcraft – Reginald Scot’s 1584 treatise on superstition and attack on the Catholic Church became central to witchcraft persecutions not because it advised how to detect and destroy witches, but rather because it set out to completely disprove them.  Scot, who considered the persecution of the poor or elderly which so often occurred during witch-hunts to be abominable, penned this small work in order to prove that any “witchcraft” being performed was pure charlatanism and that only the most foolish of magistrates and judges would subscribe to such ideas.  His method for doing this, however, was to basically lay out in detail a grimoire’s worth of magic.  As scholar Owen Davies puts it:

“Scot, a rather unusual demonological writer in that he was not a clergyman, lawyer, or physician, propounded a rationalist view of religion that went beyond [fellow demonologist] Weyer’s own more cautious view on diabolic intervention.  Yet Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft was a treasure trove of magical information, providing spells, Catholic prayers, exorcisms, charms, talismans, and rituals on how to communicate with angels, demons, and the spirits of the dead.  There were detailed instructions on conjuring up treasure and how to enclose a spirit in a crystal…So Scot produced what amounted to the first grimoire produced in the English language, and while he did so to prove the worthlessness of its contents he unwittingly ended up democratizing ritual magic rather than undermining it” ( Grimoires p. 70).

The Malleus Maleficarum had spelled out a number of magical rituals and spells, too, and so it seems that many of these guides to witch-hunting became, instead, roundabout guides to witchcraft.  Scot’s work, however, ran afoul of King James I of England upon his ascension to power in 1603.  James, who was a fervent believer in witches and demons (and authorized the translation of the Bible which contained the phrase “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” in Exodus 22:18 rather than a more accurate “sorceress” or “person who does evil magic,”  although that is neither here nor there), ordered all copies of Scot’s Discoverie burned.

Wonders of the Invisible World – What sounds like a rollicking travel guide is, in fact, a defense of one of the most notorious witch-hunters in early American history.  Cotton Mather (1663-1728) is best known for his role as a goad and “expert” during the Salem witch trials of the late 17th Century.  When his part in that particularly tragic series of events (which I hope to explore more in a future article or show) came under criticism, he wrote his work as a means of proving that honest-to-goodness witchcraft was happening in Salem and everyone was darn lucky he was there to help stop it.  After all, witches were blasphemous and diabolical creatures who not only used wicked spells—and okay, occasionally healed the sick, sure, sure—but did so as an intentional affront to Christian dignity and belief.  For example, in a section entitled “The First Curiositie,” Mather says:

“The Devil which then thus imitated what was in the Church of the Old Testament, now among Us would Imitate the Affayrs of the Church in the New. The Witches do say, that they form themselves much after the manner of Congregational Churches; and that they have a Baptism and a Supper, and Officers among them, abominably Resembling those of our Lord.

But there are many more of these Bloody Imitations, if the Confessions of the Witches are to be Received; which I confess, ought to be but with very much of Caution.

What is their striking down with a fierce Look? What is their making of the Afflicted Rise, with a touch of their Hand? What is their Transportation thro’ the Air? What is their Travelling in Spirit, while their Body is cast into a Trance? What is their causing of Cattle to run mad and perish? What is their Entring their Names in a Book? What is their coming together from all parts, at the Sound of a Trumpet? What is their Appearing sometimes Cloathed with Light or Fire upon them? What is their Covering of themselves and their Instruments with Invisibility? But a Blasphemous Imitation of certain Things recorded about our Saviour, or His Prophets, or the Saints in the Kingdom of God” (p. 246)

Mather’s book did not have quite the same effect that Scot’s book or the Malleus did.  Instead, it merely capped the end of some of the most ferocious witch-hunting in New England.  Nor did Mather’s work become a grimoire unto itself as the other texts mentioned here did.  While it certainly offered some ideas of how one might become a witch and what powers might then be gained, there was little in the way of magic actually in its pages.  All in all, that is probably for the best, as Mather seems a bit stodgy and reading a grimoire by him would probably prove a bit dull.

There are other witch-hunting manuals and texts on just how to pursue and prosecute suspected witches, of course.  James I had his own (likely ghost-written) catalogue of the supernatural, Daemonologie. The Malleus was likely influenced by other manuals of its kind like Formicarius, by Swabian priest Johannes Nider.  Modern witch-hunts in places like Africa and India tend not to rely on weighty guidebooks to the world of the unseen and diabolical, though the influence of these texts certainly lingers in the identification and punishment of supposed witches.  I have even heard well-educated American Christian missionaries returning from Tanzania describe entire villages of witches.  While they were cautious not to present witchcraft as the Harry Potter-esque phenomenon that those in the attending congregation might have mentally pictured, they absolutely believed that people with dark, uncanny powers lived in that particular enclave, and that the area was best avoided if at all possible.  Somehow, such admonitions made me want to visit that particular village.  But maybe that’s just me.

While witch-hunting manuals are, mostly, a thing of the past, it is worth noting that websites abound with information on finding and purging witches from one’s community.  I’ll not list them here, as I really don’t want to entangle this site with links to those sites, but a quick Google of terms like “how to get rid of a witch” and “neighborhood witch” will yield some results, including one site which actually says:  “I just read the first booke [sic] of Daemonolgie by King James and I found it highly instructive.”  So, in all fairness, witch-hunting manuals aren’t gone—they’ve just upgraded to digital.

At any rate, I count my blessings that for the most part I live in a place where my magical practice is an asset (albeit a fairly secretive one) rather than a genuine liability.  Hopefully books like the Malleus will one day be historical relics, rather than active references.  Until then, a few extra protection spells can’t hurt.
Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 111 – The Meaning of Christmas?

Hi everyone,

This is just a short post today looking at a recent discussion from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/12/101223_christmas_meaning_nh_sl.shtml

In this broadcast (which I heard via Oraia Sphinx, many thanks to her), the origins and meaning of Christmas are discussed by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association (aka. The AFA—an evangelical group which leads many initiatives to instill religiously conservative values into Americans) and Professor of Pagan History/well-respected author Ronald Hutton of Bristol University.  While it’s not really fair to pit a scholar and historian against a spokesperson, the overall conversation is interesting, if a bit charged at times.  I’m not posting it to stir up controversy (though I suspect it may do so), but more because I thought it was interesting, and because I always enjoy hearing Hutton speak on history and theology.  Also, Fischer makes an interesting point for those of us who are American witches—can we celebrate “Christmas” without making it (at least primarily) a religious observance?  And do we need to?  Is our country so deeply tied to its Christian roots that we acknowledge Christianity by acts as mundane as writing a check with an “A.D.” date on it?  Or, as Hutton proposes, is America a collection of pocket communities each defining their own values based on their cultural, ethnic, and social histories?  Food for thought.

There’s a rather neat musical montage in the piece, too, which outlines the different angles from which Christmas (and the winter holidays in general) can be viewed.  Religious, Hopeful, Commercial, or Sad, there does seem to be a universal draw to set aside this time of year, whatever feelings it inspires.

So what about you?  Do you have a “reason for the season” that you’d like to share?  What does Christmas mean to you?

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Blog Post 101 – Book Review

(This review is also posted at The Pagan Bookworm, which hosts many great reviews and booklists of interest to magical folk)

Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz
Bantam Books, 2009 (304 pages)

This popular history of metaphysical thought in the United States has brought mainstream attention to many of the esoteric underpinnings of American culture.  Fueled by films such as National Treasure, the “secret history” trend seems to have greatly informed Horowitz’s Occult America.  In this text, the author traces several key lines of occult thought through the pages of American history, starting primarily in New York and working his way south and west across the landscape.  He spends a good deal of time examining the “Burned Over District” near the Erie Canal, which spawned a number of new religious and spiritual movements during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Mormonism, the Shakers, and even Spiritualism all have roots in this particular region, according to Horowitz, who treats the area as an incubator for esoteric thought.

The author then follows these nascent movements and some of their most visible members as they impact and shape American culture during the formative years of the new republic.  Joseph Smith, Henry Steel Olcott, Jemima Wilkinson (aka the “Publick Universal Friend”), Helena Blavatsky, Andrew Jackson Davis, and Edgar Cayce are just some of the myriad personalities Horowitz examines in his whirlwind tour of historic America’s spiritual scene.   He devotes pages to hoodoo mail order merchants and Voodoo worshipers in New Orleans.  He introduces the phenomenon of correspondence-course religions, such as Paul Foster Case’s Builders of the Adytum, which saw a flurry of popularity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Horowitz also does all of his examining with an infectious enthusiasm which keeps the reader turning pages to see the next dizzying connection between occult America’s disparate streams.

Occult America has its faults, too.  Horowitz so enthusiastically pursues the movements eminating from the Burned Over District that he neglects other key influences on magical and spiritual thought.  For instance, he spends little time looking into the Appalachian Mountains and the many religious and folk magical traditions which stemmed from the Pennsylvania-to-Georgia portion of that range (a subject wich is explored very well in Gerald C. Milne’s Signs, Cures, & Witchery).   He also gives short shrift to the occult legacy of places like Chicago, and devotes a relatively small amont of text to New Orleans—though that may be because it could be a book unto itself.   He focuses more keenly on new philosophical movements and areas which might be classified as “New Age” rather than looking at the on-the-ground practical elements of American occultism.  Even with all of that being said, however, the areas in which his focus is sharpest are often quite marvelous.  His chapter on Manly P. Hall, author of the profoundly world-shaking The Secret Teachings of All Ages, is worth reading and re-reading for any student of esoteric thought.    His chapter on the Ouija board is a delight as well.

Mitch Horowitz’s Occult America makes a good starting point for understanding the wide-ranging influences which have fed American spirituality since before the Declaration of Independence existed.  While its net is broad and therefore sometimes it only shallowly explores major topics, it can easily provide a reader with enough good questions and resources to explore those topics on his or her own.  It is far from comprehensive, but it is accessible and energetic, and will likely whet the intellectual appetite of any curious occultist.

Thanks for reading!

-Cory

Podcast 14 – An Interview with Cat Yronwode

-SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 14-


Summary
Today we are truly blessed to have an interview with renowned rootworker and teacher Catherine Yronwode of the Lucky Mojo Co.  Then we briefly discuss Christianity in hoodoo.  Laine tells us about Magical Soap in WitchCraft, and Cory talks about Spiritual Cleansing Baths in Spelled Out.

Play:

Download:  New World Witchery – Episode 14

-Sources-
Some of Cat’s many wonderful sites:
Lucky Mojo – Her main site and online store
Lucky W Amulet Archive – A repository of info on lucky charms
Southern Spirits – Her site on Southern folklore and history
Arcane Archive – An archive of magical lore and practice from around the net
YIPPIE – The Yronwode Institute for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
Herb Magic – A site on magical plants and roots
Missionary Independent Spiritual Church – The world’s smallest church, and part of the long tradition of Spiritual Churches in the United States
Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers (AIRR) – A body of trained, professional rootworkers with experience and accountability
Hoodoo and Rootwork Course – One of the definitive training programs in traditional hoodoo
And, of course, her book Hoodoo Herb & Root Magic is often referenced on the blog and in the show.

Cory also reference’s Draja Mickaharic’s Spiritual Cleansing, a definitive guide on the topic.

Promos & Music
Title music:  “Homebound,” by Jag, from Cypress Grove Blues.  From Magnatune.
Promo 1- Inciting a Riot
Promo 2- Pagan in the Threshold