intro – New World Witchery – The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft

-SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 1-

Summary

For Episode 1 of New World Witchery, Cory and Laine try to come up with a quick and simple definition for New World Witchery, including a brief overview of the traditions we consider to be under the umbrella of American Witchcraft.

We talk a bit about ourselves, our path to witchcraft, and how it has brought us to where we are today. And later on, Cory will give you a little bit of history on witchcraft in America.

Play:

Download: New World Witchery – Episode 01

-Sources-

Websites

An extensive and very interesting list of witchcraft trials in America can be found at: http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~Marc-Carlson/witchtrial/na.html. This site also does the reader a service by providing direction to original source material and making it clear when details are too vague to make definitive statements about the trial.

Two websites which reveal a great deal about Hispanic magical practices are the Curious Curandera and Brujo Negro. While they may seem diametrically opposed in some ways, they actually have quite a lot in common, and a good overview of Hispanic magical traditions can be worked out between the two.

Lilith’s Lantern, a site dedicated to the Feri & Vicia branches of Anderson’s witchcraft, is a wonderful resource for learning more about this tradition.

Books

Narratives of the witchcraft cases, 1648-1706, ed. by George Lincoln Burr. Dover, 2002.

Signs, Cures, & Witchery, by Gerald C. Milnes. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 2007.

Her Hidden Children, by Chas S. Clifton. AltaMira Press, 2006.

Promos & Music

Title music: “Homebound,” by Jag, from Cypress Grove Blues. From Magnatune.

Promo 1-The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast

Promo 2-The iPod Witch

Promo 3-Witchery of One

Hello!

Welcome to New World Witchery, the Search for American Traditional Witchcraft. This is a show/blog about magic, specifically the magic practiced in North America. Your hosts are Cory & Laine, practicing witches who work with several New World systems. If you like magic, particularly American folk magic, this is the show for you.

What is this Podcast/Blog About?

This project is—hopefully—going to help all of those magical practitioners out there who identify with their New World roots make sense of magic as it happens on the American landscape.

Some of the magical praxes we’ll be covering include (but are not limited to):

Hoodoo/rootwork
Pow-wow (PA Dutch Magic)
New Orleans-style Vodou
Appalachian Granny Magic
Ozark Mountain Magic
Brujeria/Curanderismo
Victor Anderson’s Feri Tradition/Vicia
New England Witchery

In addition, we’ll be having discussions about things like:

Effective spell crafting
Spell crafting successes and failures
Magic for oneself and magic for others
Magical terminology
Hexing
Being in or out of the “broom closet”

This show will be semi-monthly, with (hopefully) one podcast early in the month and one closer to the end of the month. One podcast will be our regular discussion & banter, plus a segment on lore, history, and/or practice of New World Witchery. The second podcast will have more discussion & banter, then an interview segment with a notable witch, scholar, or expert on some aspect of American traditional witchcraft.

We’ll also be trying out segments from time to time which we think might enhance the show. Some of the ideas we’re kicking around are a handicrafts segment, poetry or stories related to American witchcraft, book recommendations, and highlights on magical ingredients and tools. If you have a suggestion for one of these short segments, please contact us. We’d love to hear from you!

The blog will be updated more frequently than the podcast, probably once or twice per week. It will have show notes, short essays, links, and various odds and ends that we think might be worth a look. Again, suggestions are welcome.