S2 Ep 7: Dark Mirrors, Folk Magic, and a Seriously Rad Witch: A Conversation with Sara Mastros

In this episode, I speak with Teacher Sara Mastros about her book Introduction to Witchcraft. Drawing on her Greek and Jewish heritage and years of occult practice, Sara shares insights into witchcraft as a living tradition. Known as a dedicated teacher, she has a remarkable gift for explaining complex magical ideas with clarity, making deep esoteric concepts accessible to students and practitioners alike. 

Sara L. Mastros is the author of The Big Book of Magical Incense, Orphic Hymns Grimoire, The Sorcery of Solomon: A Guide to the 44 Planetary Pentacles of the Magician King, and the forthcoming Sefer HaOtot: A Hebrew Book of Seals. Recognized by her peers as a brilliant and original thinker, an engaging and inspiring teacher, a compelling and clever writer, and a generally decent human being, Sara spends a lot of time dreaming, thinking, enchanting, writing and teaching about witchcraft, magic, and myth. But, her true passion is raising up an army of inspired, educated, empowered witches prepared to weave weird new ways of Being in a world that desperately needs us. Rise up! 

 Sara's Links:

https://witchlessons.com/

https://www.instagram.com/saramastroswitchlessons/?hl=en

https://www.youtube.com/@SaraMastros

Buy Sara's Books!

https://www.crossedcrowbooks.com/shop-crossed-crow-books/p/introductiontowitchcraft

https://bookshop.org/p/books/introduction-to-witchcraft-thirteen-lessons-in-the-practice-of-magic-sara-l-mastros/cdff2045dbd31496?ean=9781964537573&next=t

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Witchcraft-Thirteen-Lessons-Practice/dp/1964537576

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Thank you so much for coming on today, Sarah.

unknown 0:19

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I was really excited to chat with you about many things, especially your new book, Introduction to Witchcraft. Really fantastic. And I have to tell you, by the time I got to chapter two, I immediately added it to all of my my students' online book suggestions.

unknown 0:37

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

I'm glad you like it.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

If you don't mind, just giving her a brief introduction.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Well, my name's Sarah Mastros. I currently live in Braddock, just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm a witch and a sorceress. I'm like an all-around wonder worker. I think I'm most well known for my teaching, right? I, you know, before I quit to be a degenerate with no real job, as I currently am, I taught high school math for a long time and then I taught university math before that. And I honestly just really love teaching as an activity, right? So I really feel like, at least for right now, my calling is raise up witches, right? Like I make witches in the world. That's my current sort of practice. And, you know, I quite enjoy teaching beginners, right? And I quite enjoy teaching like fundamental material, like an introduction to witchcraft, but I also like doing sort of deep, nerdy stuff. People maybe know my work with Salomonic Pentacles. I do magic with plants. I wrote a book about incense. I translated the Orphic hymns from the Greek. I know that from the outside, it must seem like I do a lot of different things. To me, I have one coherent practice, right? That is really rooted in sort of my ancestral Greekness and Jewishness, and rooted in the place where I grew up and the place where I live, and like a connection with the ancestors and with the land. And all of those things sort of come together in my practice. And then, but because of the nature of teaching, a lot of times I'm like pulling out like one very specific sort of piece of it and focusing on that. And I think that's why it sometimes looks like I had a lot of different things going on, but it's really all one coherent thing. An introduction to witchcraft, I think, is the best way to understand how all those different pieces fit together for me and more generally.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Most people I know who have resided in the Keystone State or Pennsylvania for any length of time are affected by the landscape and by also by just the history of the land and the people and the land spirits in this area. So that makes sense to me that every part of where you grew up and you know the religion and culture of your parents just kind of shapes who you are and how it's all part of why we're sitting here chatting and rambling today. So, for listeners who are new to you and who don't know much about you, what prompted you to write Introduction to Witchcraft?

SPEAKER_02 3:07

So I've been teaching beginner witchcraft classes for about 10 years now, right? Sort of formally and sort of on and off to just like friends and stuff before that. And I kind of wanted a textbook, and I I tried a lot of different introduction to witchcraft books, like beginner witch books, and none of them were exactly what I wanted, right? Some of them were very much about like witchcraft as a religion, which like I have no issue with, but is not what I wanted, right? And a lot of them were like they would say they were for beginners, but actually, if somebody didn't have some kind of witchcraft background before that, I felt like they were hard to follow, like a lot of different options. And so slowly over the course of teaching those lessons, I just de facto wrote a textbook, and that's what that book is, basically.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, I really do understand that. I I teach a lot of workshops about folk magic and just my ancestral experience and what I was raised with. It is really hard to find those books that we recommend. And there's there's a lot of good ones, but you know, you need 20 of them in order to kind of make up a the broad tapestry of information that you need for for anybody that would call themselves a beginner. So this is a very welcome, welcome text.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

I enjoy teaching beginners, like even math. You know, in math it's strange because by you know, I taught high school. So by the time people get to high school, really nobody's a beginner at math. They've been force-feeding it to you for like eight years by the time I get you in high school. But I I quite like the classes that sort of start over with a new topic, right? So like algebra is like different than classes that came before it, right? So I really like teaching the most very fundamentals calculus. Again, you sort of start this new thing. And I quite like those chapter zero, is what we would call it in math, like teaching those fundamental skills. And I think for almost everybody, in almost any kind of learning, I think shoring up fundamentals is usually the best way to improve at something. Thus an introductory book.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

I like beginners too. They're always wide-eyed and you know, bushy-tailed and excited. And I've learned so much from just a random unique perspective. Uh, you know, you have some awesome weirdo that joins your group, which I'm also a weirdo, and they come up with new perspectives and ideas. I like that too.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

This book is is different from Sorcery of Solomon, obviously. But how did the how did writing this differ from that?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Well, Sorcery of Solomon is a kind of book that I quite enjoy writing that I think of as basically a very good book report. I'm writing about a specific topic that like historically already has boundaries around it, right? So, like Orphic Hymns Grimoire is that kind of book. What am I writing about? I'm gonna write about the 88 Orphic Hymns. So there's no outline for that book. As soon as I knew I was writing with the Orphic Hymns, I kind of knew what it was gonna look like. Like it was gonna be translations, and then it was gonna be like notes on those translations, and then the notes got big and turned into like some more con, right? And similarly with the Salomonic Pentacles, like there's already an existing structure. And so, you know, Sorcery of Solomon, I wrote the second half of the book first. So I wrote the part about the pentacles first, and then I was like, oh Sarah, you need to write an on ramp because this is dense, this is hot. It's quite technical, there's a lot of Hebrew and a lot of source. There's it's quite technical, like wizard shit. And I was like, let me write an on-ramp for this that lays out how people can approach that. Once I decided it was a book on the pentacles, that kind of determined what it was gonna have to be about. Like the structure of it was pretty right. Whereas like the intro book, as all of us who have read meant multiple beginner witchcraft books know, there's no set format. It's not like teaching algebra two, which is a pretty set curriculum. So for this one, it really started off as a course, right? So the textbook came grew out of the course. And for the course, really what happened was I thought to myself, like, what's the first thing I learned that really made me feel like, oh, I am a badass fucking witch now, right? And it was dark mirror conjuration. Like for me, that's what it was. It was the first time I like conjured a spirit into a mirror, had a conversation with it. I was like, yes, fucking witches. Right. And then I just kind of like went backwards from there, like, well, what do people need to be able to know in order to do that? Right. And so I sort of wrote I thought out that ritual and I just sort of worked backwards. Like, here are all the fundamental skills that I think build into that. And then I started talking to other people, like, hey guys, what do you consider? Like, what are the skills that you think somebody needs to have before you consider them not a beginner anymore? Right. And like I talked to a bunch of colleagues, and it was actually like pretty widespread agreement, right? That there's some basics like you kind of need to know how planets work, you kind of need to know how plants work, you need to know how to cast a circle, you need to know some divination, you need to know a little bit of energy moving around, right? And I sort of just I don't know, structured those in a way that made most sense to me, right? And there was a lot of like rearranging. So if you for people who take the course, you know, you get all the back videos. So at this point, like I moved it, I was teaching in person, and then during COVID, I moved it online, which like from a business standpoint that was great, but like that did well for me because now you didn't have to be in Pittsburgh to take this class that you could do it anywhere. And but if you go back and look at like the older versions of the course, you'll see that the biggest difference is just that things move around, right? So, like over time, like for example, in the book, chapter three is symbols and chapter four is divination. But for a long time, I was teaching divination before symbols, which is obviously stupid. Like, obviously, if you think about it, why am I teaching people how to divine with symbols before I teach them how to use symbols in like less complicated context? And just a lot of things like that, sort of about like individual pieces coming together. So I would say that's the biggest difference between like the two kinds of books I write, right? Is that the like book report books, it's mostly about curation and like contextualization and expo and exposition of things that added make up, right? And then there are these more like free form books, which are harder to write, but I also enjoy writing them, where it's a lot of like really thinking about how to arrange things to make it things.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah. When I was reading Dark Mirror Conjuration, I mean I've heard so many other practitioners talk about that we all carry one with us, right? Our phone. You know, when it's off, it can be considered a dark mirror. You said that LCD screens are great for stealth scrying.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah, I would not conjure a spirit in my phone. That feels like a recipe for a phone not working anymore.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

It feels like a mess, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:21

I mean, I'm just saying my experience, and look, I'm not, I'm sure some people have like a better talent for like tech magic than I do. But my experience is like having electronics in range of big magic tends to fry out those electronics. So like I would scry on a broken phone that didn't work, but I would not scry on my regular phone. That just feels like my phone's not gonna work. I have trouble keeping electronics working in close proximity to my body, truthfully.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah, that's not uncommon. That's not uncommon.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

So, like, I'm not gonna do like TVs, which are giant, they're like giant black mirrors.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

They're so much like giant black mirrors that when I'm in a hotel, I ask for an extra sheet and I cover the TV up because I don't like that portal staring at me when I sleep because I'm a crazy person.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

No, and but even now, from even from a practical standpoint, it it just makes sense because a lot of them have built-in surveillance anyway.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, so don't like them spying on me, but I'm pretty sure that NSA can basically spy through walls from space.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Oh, for sure, for sure. Although I like to just plant interesting seeds and confuse the bejesus out of my FBI agents. That's kind of my go-to.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

I actually talk to my surveillance agent. I call him Scott, I remind him that if he narks on me, he's gonna have to go back spying on boring people. And I also remind him that he too is my comrade in the global proletariat struggle and he has nothing to lose but his chains.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

I haven't quite used those words, not nearly as eloquent, but I have reminded my FBI agent that I'm just researching things because I'm a nerd. Like, don't worry, don't worry. I'm I'm just looking this up for writing purposes or book research purposes. That's hilarious. I was really gobsmacked by, and I already told you this, but getting back into it, chapter two, which is sympathetic magic, because I don't know that I've ever read a better explanation for what sympathetic magic or physical witchcraft or whatever you want to call it is, and how to just kind of start. Because when you are a beginner and the beginners that I've taught, and when I was a beginner, it was difficult to understand why we were doing what we were doing. And it's actually a really complex thing to explain. And the fact that you were able to do it so simply is very impressive.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Well, Oppenheimer, the physicist, says that there's nothing so practical as a good theory. And I'm a big believer in that in witchcraft. Like, I think one of my goals in the book is to get people practicing magic like right away. And I do, right? You're casting spells in the prologue. But I think that a lot of people, especially now, but always, like this was also the case when I was coming up in like the 90s and even earlier, like they're learning magic as if it is just a list of like unconnected spells. And for people who have a talent for witchcraft doing that, eventually you sort of develop this understanding of how spells work and how the pieces go together. Just like that, people who are like naturally good at cooking, if they just cook from recipes for a while, they will eventually just sort out how cooking works for themselves. But actually, having now taught a lot of people to cook, that is not true. There is a facility for like cooking, like a talent for it. The same way there's a talent for mathematics or a talent for music or whatever, right? My musical genius friends can listen to like seven songs and suddenly put together how that genre of songs. And I cannot do that because I am the least musically sophisticated person on earth, but I can do that for spells, like I do have a gift for witchcraft, right? But I think most people don't, just like anything else, right? And so I think that people want a little more like direct instruction on like the theory that underlies all these different spells. And I can tell that people need that based on like random shit that people say on the end about certain kinds of spells that indicate that like they don't really understand how that spell works. But in its essence, like sympathetic magic is playing with dolls, like you're like acting out little things. I mean, not like that is the most straightforward use case of sympathetic magic, right? Is like a voodoo doll or a puppet, right? And you're seeing things out with it that you want to have come true. Broadly, all sympathetic magic is that, and it gets more abstract. So, like the cord cutting rituals that I see people do, you're playing with dolls. There's a you doll, a candle, and a them doll, and they're tied together, and you want to get them apart. But people sometimes set it up in such a way that actually they're tying those two candles together. Spell designed to take things apart. Step one should not be to tie them together. Which is the first step I see in a lot of cord cutting rituals. And like, no, no, my sister in Witchcraft, you are doing it wrong. I don't mean that I'm not gatekeeping, like they can do it however they want, but it's not on them, it's because nobody taught them how that spells. Yeah, that's either the essence of sympathetic magic is quite straightforwardly like acting out what you want to have.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah, and I think that some beginners are practicing sympathetic magic and don't know it, and or maybe don't have the confidence to call it that, and then reading it in in this setting, they that does help them develop that confidence.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Sure. Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

I also love spooky magic at a distance because you were talking about the causal link, and that was a phrase coined by Albert Einstein about quantum entanglement. You can I quote you, would you be uncomfortable if I quoted your footnote because this is one of the funniest things. No, but ever. So you say that this is a phrase, uh, so spooky action at a distance is a phrase coined by Albert Einstein to describe certain kinds of quantum entanglement. You can Google the theory, the paradox to learn more, which is the Einstein-Podolsky Rhodes and Paradox. And you write, however, I strongly caution people who do not have advanced training in math and physics to avoid using quantum mechanics as an metaphor for magic. In my experience as a mathematician and magician, people who do usually look like idiots. And I actually wrote a note to myself because that is something I need to remember. I have tried to limp through this several times and have indeed looked like an idiot. But I get what you're saying. It's a it's a valid reference.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Um, here's what I believe to be the best teaching on quantum mechanics I ever got. Okay. Right? So this is from my freshman physics advisor, a physicist named Kip Thorne, who is a quite prominent physicist. I I like you can Google Kip Thorne. That was my freshman physics advisor, my freshman physics teacher at Caltech. Um, and he said, you know, nobody understands quantum mechanics. As soon as someone tells me they understand quantum mechanics, I stop listening. Probably the effort one of the most prominent physicists in the world. And I think that's true. So you shouldn't use something you don't understand as a metaphor to try and explain something else that probably they do understand. Like, I think typically people who are using quantum mechanics to describe magic, usually, my experience is that they don't know anything about quantum mechanics, but like the things they're saying about magic would have been clearer if they had just not made recourse to quantum mechanics at all in their exploit.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Keep of mind, like it's not explaining magic only in the sense that it like provides explanatory power for the physics of how our human experience of space and time works.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

But that was a pretty damn good summary, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Well, no, you're welcome. And I wasn't trying to shame myself or anything like that, but I have briefly brought it up and then limped through it like an idiot because I was like, oh, this doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

And it's because I don't have a good enough understanding of it, but it's but no one, I technically no one has a good like quantum physicist. I I know more than one person who is a magician and a quantum physicist, and they never try and explain one with the other one. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Well, it made me cackle out loud because it was very funny. And your footnotes are in general, like everything, your your sass and your wit comes through, but your footnotes are my favorite. Like, I just I can't.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

So I I quite enjoy like I think of those footnotes as like just me giving myself the side eye.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

It's been a long time since I've laughed out loud when I read a book because of wit, and it was very much appreciated. It was probably a Douglas Adams book, honestly, that I that I actually audibly laughed out loud. It's so well written. I wanted to ask, you were talking about how this is a comprehensive guide. What essential skills do you think are being skipped by a lot of modern practitioners?

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Dreaming. If I had to say one thing, I think that like dream magic, for whatever reason, I just don't see people talking about. And maybe it's because I'm like in the wrong circles, I don't know. But I think of dreaming as such an important component of witchcraft and magic. And so traditional, historically, the interpretation of dreams and working magic in your dreams and like the spirit flight into the dreaming, those are all very classically in the mix for witchcraft. And yet I just don't hear people talking about them a lot. So that's one thing I would say. I think group magic. So when I was coming up, like it's not that there wasn't such a thing as solitary magic, there certainly was, but there was definitely a lot more emphasis on not just learning magic from people, but doing magic together in groups with co-magicians. And I think that is so powerful and so important. And I think a lot of people are missing out on it. And I don't think there's any substance. There's there's stuff that you will never be able to learn until you are working magic in a room, holding hands, sharing breath with other magicians. And I would say working with the dead. Two or three years ago, I would have said working with the dead, but it seems like that's gotten very trendy right now. So thankfully, that's something I think people weren't talking about enough, right? Working with ancestors, working with the mighty dead, like all that stuff. But it seems like that's sort of corrected itself. Like I think people are talking about that, which is good. People are talking about and doing that a lot. And then working with the land, but I understand why. Like, as a person who talks about magic on the internet for a living, I understand that talking about local magic on the internet is kind of tricky because most of the audience is not. So that's one of the reasons I'm excited about this Pennsylvania witch.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

When I found out you grew up in Lancaster, I was like, oh, so you are you familiar with Braucharaye?

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

So I had a family friend who was a Braucheran.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

A friend of my dad's when I was young.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Okay, that's really fascinating. So did you learn from them directly or no?

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Well, I mean, that was a human being that I interacted with, right? And like talked to, but certainly I was not like an official student of theirs in any way.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Okay. So it's kind of this hidden in plain sight thing in Pennsylvania: Hexcraft, Hexarai, Brahara in general. There are different understandings and different perspectives. I have some really good mentors and friends that are starting a tradition. They have started a tradition, I apologize, called Uglava. And they're wonderful human beings. Uh, they've recently written a book about Pennsylvania Dash Magic. And it just is something that is so deeply embedded in. Pennsylvania in general, because of course of the Germanic people that settled here, um, and the Scots-Irish people that settled here, and kind of the melding of all of all of those different belief systems, including the indigenous people that were here. I do think that some of it has been romanticized, some of the you know, uh learning from the indigenous people because they were very much, very much mistreated, abused, killed. But I do believe, you know, when there weren't towns, there weren't road signs, there weren't even roads, there were some paths and deer trails. I do think that there was some actual cooperation, collaboration, and kind of neighborly actions with the local indigenous people.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Particularly in Pennsylvania, which so for people who don't know, Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers, which sort of gave it a bit of a different flair from like the predominantly Catholic Southern colonies and the like predominantly sort of hard-line Protestant New England, right? It sort of had this different character and it did have like a different relationship with native populations. And I'm not suggesting that that was all like love and light and everything, but it was a better relationship than many other pre-United States colonies had, in a way that actually was devastating for the Native people here, because when Pennsylvania joined the United States and started to behave like the other states, natives here were like not prepared for that, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

And I think a lot of the stories. So some of the people that are currently researching, they're going around, like Robert Schriver, for example, is going around and has interviewed so many people, just getting stories, accounts, and stories. Because part of the reason why I think that we're all so anxious to preserve this is a lot of it is an oral tradition. It hasn't been written down. And if it has, it's been written down in code or coded into gospel or psalms or things like that. But I just think it's so interesting when the indigenous people and the Germanic settlers coordinated, it was just really the reason why we're able to trace some of those stories back is because of them teaching us about the plants, the local plants, because they were very different from where they came from. Um, so I thought that was fascinating too. And I wasn't sure if you knew anything about that.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Some about it. I'm certainly not like an expert in that in Broccoli and Powell, nor in like colonial Pennsylvania history. But yeah, I mean, certainly I know some about that. Like, okay, so I'm not sure how much the audience, like, I know this is a Pennsylvania podcast, so maybe people already know this, but I'm gonna just like talk a little bit about like what we're talking about, right? So Bracharai is what I was taught to call it, but there are a lot of different names. Powell, hexarai. I'm gonna come back in a second and talk about like the distinctions between broccoli and hexarai, are like broadly a category of Christian folk magic from Anabaptist German settlers in eastern Pennsylvania, is what I would say. And it really blends together a couple of different things. It has a surprisingly strong Ashkenazic Jewish influence, it's got a lot of like German Catholic folk magic and German Protestant folk magic mixed in. It's got a lot of made indigenous Pennsylvania herbalism, and then there's also some material from enslaved peoples coming in from Africa, sort of all mixes together with this sort of underlying foundation of a grimoire tradition, yeah. Uh, to sort of build into this sort of coherent-ish structure that is called brachari, like the blessing art, the needful things, right, that you do. Uh, or hexeri means more like witchcraft. Basically, what's the difference between brachari and hexarai? Well, if you approve of it, then if you approve of a person doing it, then it's brachari. And if you don't approve of the person who is doing it, then it's hexarai. So, like when your witch does it, brachari, but when the other witch does it, hexerai, I would say is the basic difference. Pow is basically in the same category. And then Urglow is like a modern pagan reconstruction of like a Germanic paganism in that same way, but growing out of those Pennsylvania Dite truths, I would say. So that's kind of like what we're talking about, is this kind of tradition. I mean, I don't have any kind of training in it really at all. Um, I had a book when I like I found a book called, I think in English it's called The Long Forgotten Friend. Oh, Long Lost Friend. Yeah. Sorry, I did not read that book in English, so I had to think about it. Like I read that the copy I had was in German, which I was learning in high school, so that was fun, right? And so I like I have some exposure to it, but there is also like an oral tradition associated with it, which is extremely Christian and not really my jam. Right on. I agree. But I mean I grew up in that area, yeah, right, sort of like exposed to it a lot.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Well, it's it's interesting that you, I guess you maybe because you were in the Lancaster area that you were more exposed to it, because I grew up in Cumberland County-esque area in the Appalachian Mountains. Like I literally lived on um one of the outcroppings of the Appalachian Mountains, but I had no idea this existed, absolutely no idea.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Like Rauchari, the center of Ralkarai is in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Also, my dad was really into local history, yeah. And also, I was just really into witchcraft. So, like anything that seemed like witchy hex signs. I was like, hmm, that's witchcraft. I know witchcraft when I'm looking at it. So like I'd be into that.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

And then, like I said, I found a Powell Grim bar, but oh yeah, I didn't, I mean, until I was what 12 or 13, I hadn't even been to Lancaster, you know. We yeah, we didn't go around much, and so that was just really cool because obviously those symbols, um the hex signs and that sort of thing, they are um they're beautiful, and there's a rich history. I have this really good book called the Pennsylvania German uh factor. I it's just a book of the beautiful Germanic artwork in this area, and so I remember the first time I went to Lancaster, it was um there's a farm that's a working Amish farm. We were we were learning about all kinds of things and all of the traditions, and my sister was really big into anthropology, so there were definitely some. I was skeptical. I was like, hmm, that sounds a little animist flavored, and then come to find out later on that it very much was steeped in those like animistic or pagan roots.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Sure, absolutely. So I'm sure we got taught to make hex signs in elementary school.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Did you really?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah, I mean, that was like a random project and we would do an art class, and did they quickly lean into the witchcraft, get like a handout with traditional signs and their meanings? And like I said, if you're by nature a witchy person, you can kind of like extrapolate from there how they especially because you know it had come up Jewish and like the foundations of that magic. I don't want to say the foundations of that magic are Jewish, right? Ashkenaz magic and that magic share a lot of foundations, but that magic is like not illegal or even like sus in Judaism, so it's like a much better preserved and coherent tradition. So there's like a commonality there, yeah. But they're not hiding the fact that it's magic, okay. Like they're holding other things, like exactly how it works, and you know, there's a nerdiness to Judaism, like there's a high bar of entry to understand anything in Judaism, but right, like the magic in particular, yeah, it's not hidden because it because why would it not be hidden? Like European magic is hidden because Christians don't care for magic, but that's like a fact about Christians and not a fact about magic.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Oh, yeah. Well, they tried to stamp that out pretty hard, you know, pretty, pretty thoroughly. Yeah, my my experience with being a witchy person in central Pennsylvania was vastly different and very much steeped in pop culture and Wicca. And I didn't realize it because in my early 20s I encountered a Gardenerian group who they were they were fine. I learned a lot, and I do enjoy ceremonial magic, but researching where those rituals and magical rites came from sent me down interesting wormholes where I learned quite a bit and realized that I didn't necessarily align with with this brand, uh, but it was a good place to start. And I really dig the ceremonial magic.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Like I also came up as a magician, like through Wicca and through pop culture. Like I didn't, I wasn't like a brokerin's apprentice, I was just into witchy shit wherever I found it. So I was learning it from like handouts about hex signs in electric school, but also from the TV show Gargoyles, which has surprisingly good spells. Like I really think I really think that there's a magician on that writing stuff because the spells in that show are quality.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Right on. I I don't remember, I remember seeing that one, but I don't know if I ever watched that one. Now I'm kind of I'm gonna have to look it up. I'm gonna have to buy a random VHS tape if I can't find one online.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

An adult, so I don't know, but I would imagine it holds up pretty well. Like the writing is good on that show.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah, that's awesome. But Pennsylvania is is definitely a really interesting kind of amalgamation of cultures. I mean, just because of where we're at, number one. Um, and and the fact that, you know, who settled here and the fact that it's a crossroads between, you know, the north and the south and the east coast, but also the mountains here and the Susquehanna River, and it's a very powerful, powerful area. Have you had a lot of experiences, you know, just being around the Susquehanna River?

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah, absolutely. Like we were on the river all the time as kids. My back, we had a boat for a while, like a little speedboat for a little while when I was a kid. That obviously really know how or why we had a speedboat. I feel like there's some story about how my dad got a speedboat that we didn't seem like the kind of family that would have a boat, but we did for a little while have a speedboat. And you know, we'd go picnic on the banks of the river. And then as I got older, once I learned to drive, my BFF, her grandmother, had like a cottage in Peckway, so in southern Lancaster County, right along the river at like. So, like that was where I really like cut my teeth as a magician, was it?

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah, because it's so potent. Like, I don't know how to explain it. If for people who are listening who are not from Pennsylvania, or even people who are, you know, I I can sense it when I'm near it. Um, there's a little town called Marietta. I don't know if you're familiar. Yep. But it just where it is um in relation to the Susquehanna River is very powerful.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

And it's just so like I didn't, you know, I've lived a lot of different places. And like I do, like I agree with you that like Pennsylvania broadly, right? But the Susquehanna Valley in particular is like a deeply magical place. Yep. Which is partly about the place itself and partly about the way that people who live there, at least when I was growing up, right? Like I haven't lived in Leicester now for 20 some years, almost yeah, like 20, almost 30 years at this point, right? Like, but at least when I was coming up, like most people still had this connection to the land where we lived, right? I'm not saying everybody was a farmer, but like there wasn't an understanding that this was a particular place and there was a way to like be from and of this place. That people who were when I was growing up, there was just starting to be like a lot of people moving in from elsewhere. A lot of times, rich people who were like commuting to Philadelphia or like commuting to Harrisburg, who didn't really live there, if that makes any sense. Like they just wanted like a cheap suburb that they could commute to wherever they wanted to commute from, and they didn't really have like a connection to the place, right? In a different way that like, you know, there were lots of waves of immigrants who did live there, like made a home in our community of that place in a way that these like bedroom community commuters weren't really doing. Yeah. And that was just starting to happen when I was coming up. And there was like, but there was definitely that understanding that people just understood that this was like a special place where we live.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yeah. Well, I mean, I have I have Scots Irish ancestors that would have settled in this area. That so many there are so many accounts of people from that that part of the world saying that it felt like home, and we know why now, but they wouldn't have known. But that's how powerful the energy is here. Back when Pangea was a thing, right? That would have been connected to the this area, the mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains, would have been connected to the Scottish Highlands. I mean, it's literally the same thing, and the rocks are the same.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

You know, my brother's been living in Britain for 20 some years, for all with his partner is a British woman, right? There are definitely parts of southern England driving around that feel a lot like Maxwell, that have the same sort of rolling hills. And I'll tell you, like Wales, which is like has captured my heart, like similar has a similar feel, right? And I've never been to Scotland. I hear that Scotland is very much like where I now live in Pittsburgh, but again, I've never I've never really been in the northern way. But yeah, I agree. Like I'm I'm very happy to have grown up in Pennsylvania. Yeah. But look, there are problems, right? I'm not saying Lancaster was like a wonderful fantasy land. I also grew up in the heartland of the clan. Like there are different bad parts about Lancaster. It's not a great place to have grown up to it. There are problems with it. But in terms of like the land itself, it was an amazing place to live.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

And I really give thanks for having grown up in such a place, which I didn't know was weird until I moved away. It wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles to go to school that I realized like nobody in Los Angeles felt that way about Los Angeles. Like first of all, nobody in Los Angeles grew up in Los Angeles. At least that I knew. But I mean I was at like nerd tech school. But even when when people were talking about where they had grown up, it it didn't have I mean, not everybody, like some people did, but most of them didn't have that sense of rootedness and sense of place. I thought just everybody felt that way about where they grew up.

unknown 37:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

And I mean Pittsburgh is very much the same, right? That people here have that feeling of being Pittsburghers and like Pittsburgh having its own vibe. In a way that like when I lived in Connecticut, people who lived in Connecticut did not seem like at least the parts of Connecticut that I was in, which was like Bridgeport, New Haven, Stanford Park. The kids I taught who grew up there, they they did not have that kind of connection to that place where I live. Right? Like other places I've lived had less of that. I think, which but again, I didn't know that until I moved away. I thought everywhere was like that.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Yeah. Oh yeah. What did you say about what I think it was you in one of your books? A fish doesn't realize it's in water. Was it this book or was it hold on here?

SPEAKER_02 38:00

I don't know that I've said that, but I think that's a that is certainly a good metaphor.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I'm pretty sure maybe you said it in an interview. I did tell you I was stalking you pretty thoroughly before this conversation, so who knows where that's from. You know, when you grow up a weird neuro and I'm gonna project a weird neurodivergent witchy kid in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, you tend to respond differently to the world around you. You're more perceptive. And I don't know if it's I don't know if it's the pseudoscience of ley lines or like the rocks that were around me at that time. I don't know if it's just the magic of this land, but it really does, it shapes you.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Yes, I think that is very much true.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, very cool. Well, I'm excited that I'm excited that you're in Pittsburgh. Have you ever been to the Pittsburgh Witches Ball? I went twice, I think. It's in Bridgeville.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Yes, I have so a lot of times I'm out of town doing like big events that Halloween. So I'm actually rarely in town for that witches ball, but I have been and it's a good event.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Yeah, it was fun.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

It was fun for work, right? So, like in two and a half weeks, I'm gonna be in Michigan for convocation. I actually just got back from the UK like a week ago, not even. I got back on Wednesday, right? Um, like I do a lot of traveling, so when I am not traveling, I just don't want to go places. So I put four couches in a circle, and now all social events in our friend circle happen in my living room, and I believe that to be like the grown-up dream because I never want to go anywhere. Like I don't have to put shoes on to go to a party most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Shoes are terrible, they're feet prisons.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

And uh, I mean, it's it's it's super cold out, there's like a foot of snow on the ground. So I right now like fully appreciate the use of boots, but yeah, I would never wear I don't understand people who wear shoes inside. Yeah, I don't they're like prisons for your feet.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

I totally agree. Uh thanks for thanks for rambling with me about Pennsylvania because I it is really unique and very near and dear.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

And you know, like I'm a big fan of local magic, right? So like wherever I am, I always want to work that local magic. And I will definitely miss like grandmother Monongahela, the river in my backyard. You know, I do think that that even though we're so excited about Pennsylvania magic, I don't want to I don't want to make it sound like people can't do that anymore. Everywhere does have its own magical spirit. I think a lot of it about Pennsylvania is that it's a magical spirit that's actually like pretty in keeping with our lover culture, right? So like the fairy tales that we grew up with as Americans, they're not set in America, but they're also not set like when I was a kid, I just kind of assumed they were set in fairyland, but they're not, they're set in like southern Germany or like Wales, right? And Pennsylvania geologically has this connection to this place, like there's similar ecosystems in a way that I think makes it easier for those of us who grew up in the white settler colonialism American overculture. It's like maybe a little easier to connect with the magic here than it is other places. Like I am not suggesting that Los Angeles is not a deeply magical place, I just think that that magic is harder to find, or at least it was for me. Right. And I'm sure that everywhere has its own magic, and I encourage people to find it. And the best places to find it are to one, just be outside in nature, near where you live. Two, like learn about your native plants. Yep, three, learn about your local history as far back in time as you can go. Oh, I heard that I think, and like that's how you get to know those local spirits, but you do have to actually go outside.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yeah, that's really sit and and actually attune with your surroundings. As a weird neurodivergent little kid in the woods of Pennsylvania, the first time I was able to get into a yeah, I'll call it a trance state, was on a swing set, and that was because of the repetitive movement.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

I'll tell you now, as like a not fully able-bodied adult, like a rocking chair, which is just like old lady swings, basically. Yeah, the first time it was it was Alison, my friend Alison Chaikosky's house. So some people know Allie's, she makes pentacles, like Alison Chaikosky for practical. But I was at her house, I don't even remember like why or when, but she had this rocking chair, and I did like a trance journey in the rocking chair, and I was like, Oh, I need a rocking chair. Yeah, no, I'm a big believer in like so I teach it in chapter two, just a repetitive, it's a kind of repetitive motion trance. So, like swaying back and forth while you're reading or like knitting in a rocking chair, anything where you're combining the swaying, a large swaying movement with like a smaller perpendicular movement. I am a particular fan of that kind of trans movement.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Oh, absolutely. And in anything you need to do to get there. I I love how in all of your spell work, too, in this book, that you say whatever you need to do to get there, get to that state of mind that you need to be in to be receptive and aligned or or whatever to be able to do this working.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Yeah, teach a lot of different trans induction methods because I know not everything works for everybody. Like, yeah, although okay, so like the kind of like really hard shamanic drumming. No, I'm sorry, I'm too autistic, it's so loud, I like don't like it. I don't like and like like I've had transurity teachers who are very insistent that like you had to do it that way, and I can, I learned to do it. Honestly, that is not good for me. It's so loud that like I just as an autistic person just want to like cover up my ears and hide from that noise, like a nice little soft rattle. Yes, please. I'll tell you my very favorite transduction noise is I have this giant metal mixing bowl that I put in the dishwasher. I like discovering it accidentally, like there's a big Steel mixing bowl in the dishwasher. So you get the combination of a like running water. My dishwasher already makes a kind of like ocean rain noise, right? And then the it hitting the big metal bowl makes like a tinka tinka tinka like kind of noise. And I just fought that noise puts me in the zone right away. And I said that once on Facebook of my aunt was, oh, you know, that's how your mom used to put you to sleep when you were a kid. Like if you couldn't sleep, that dishwasher noise put you right out. So yeah, I think everybody is just like find the kind that works for you. So that's one of the reasons that I taught. There's like a different kind of trans induction in every chapter.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Particularly in chapter two, it's called granny trance.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

Yeah, that's my go-to trance method, I would say. I like it. I got a lot of them, but I like that one. Magic writers. I feel like witchcraft books, magic books broadly, do not have enough illustrations. Please, everybody band together and tell your publisher that you want more illustrations. I feel like magic books. I mean, historically, magic books are heavily illustrated.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

So now we live in like a golden age of printing.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Well, I really like the resources in your book. I was actually hoping to find some of them on your website to purchase, you know, for downloadables and that sort of thing. Like the tables, uh, specifically the symbols, seals, and sigil table. And then I think you have an elemental one. And they're just they're basic that you know most people have, but yours are really well done.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

I like them.

SPEAKER_02 45:47

People are welcome to photocopy the table. Like if you want to teach a course or teach lessons and use my book and a textbook, as long as you tell people where they're from my book, like feel free to photocopy it out. I will say the handouts that I make when I teach live are actually all free on my website.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Right on, right on. Well, your website's really great though.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

And I like your courses are I mean, I feel like the content of my website, I'm happy about the website itself, perhaps less it's witchlessons.com for anybody who's listening and will not be reading. You can find everything from there. Yeah, you can sign up for the newsletter, you can find free handouts.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

And it's really great. And you do private instruction too, which was I didn't know about that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 46:36

Yeah, I teach private lessons. I which really like you're paying me by the hour, so you can get any kind of combination of private teaching and like tarot reading and like strategic consulting, and it's by the hour, so you can kind of split it up however you yeah, that's awesome. But yes, I'm happy to do, and I also do small group if your coven wants to like, for example, work through introduction to witchcraft, right? If you guys all buy the course, that will give you like some private instruction for free.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Yeah, it's really awesome, though. I mean, it I would absolutely take the course. It looks like it started in January, though. Are you gonna be doing another one?

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Yeah, so I'm pretty much always teaching them. You can also join anytime. So whenever you join, you get all the back videos, not just for this semester, but you'll get like three or four years worth of me reteaching the material. So, like it's you could start, I would say, anywhere up through like lesson seven and just start and you'll be fine. And then once you're in the course, you're in the course forever. So like you can just cycle back and take it again when it's well.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

I mean, it's 13 months for a really reasonable, like that's that's awesome. And that's how long it needs to be. Like, you can't, it's really hard. I've tried so many times to teach 101s, and they ended up having to be very surface level because I did four or eight weeks and I was limited. Sometimes I do them in person and sometimes online, and then eventually I feel bad and I create like a Discord or something for the group afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

So we continue it, we continue it on there. It's sometimes more like 14 or 15 months because like if I get sick and cancel a class, yeah. Sometimes that pushes things back. Like I try and reschedule them in the same month, but that doesn't always work. Um, the truth is, like, I too have tried teaching weekly, but I really want for people to have enough time to like percolate between lessons and like really integrate and pick out and like actually do things between lessons. And I'll say honestly, like there's a lot in that class. Like, if you actually do everything, like if you do all the homework, that's a lot, honestly. Like, it's probably 20 hours a month worth of stuff. So, what I actually recommend to almost everybody is to like move through the material, whether you do it with the book or the course, to just like move through it twice. And like the first time, just kind of like go through and have fun and do like whatever seems cool. And then if you're still into it when you get to the end, go back and like deep dive it and really like take notes and like do all the homework and everything. I think that's actually I mean, I will say, as a teacher, I think that's generally a better way to learn most things. The way we have people learn in school, where you're like, Things really have not a natural way for humans to learn things. Now that we're freed as in adult learning, which is we are freed from those artificial school contracts. I think the advice principle, I understand why schools have to run that way because there aren't enough teachers. Everything that's shitty about school is because there aren't enough teachers, and they don't have the resources that well, we don't have resources, but also like I, as a human being teacher, can only teach one class at once. So they have to be kind of on this like rigid schedule to like move people around. Having been on the other side of the curtain. Yeah, but I will say I spent a lot of time in school as a kid being like, if I was in charge of a school, it'd be very different from this. And when I was in charge of a school, it was very different from that.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

That's awesome though. But wait, when you were younger, you you thought about that. Like you actually were like, I I could do this better.

SPEAKER_02 50:25

Yeah, I mean, I actually assumed everybody in school was like, This is bullshit. Why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_00 50:31

I mean, that's where mine ended.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

It will be better. I mean, I now know, I will say, having been a teacher, I now know not everybody is thinking that in school. But yeah, for sure, I spent a lot of time at school being like this teacher of stupid. Sometimes I would strategically ask questions that I knew the answer to because I didn't think the teacher had explained it very well. And I put up my hand and be like, Do you mean blah blah blah blah blah blah? And then I was re teaching because I was bored.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

Well, you politely did that to me, and I appreciated it. You're like, uh, let's back up, Caitlin, and tell people what this means because I do a lot of assuming.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

I'm now very like aware of an invisible audience. That I'm like, I know you knew all those things I was saying, but there's also like an invisible audience that isn't even here. Like, at least in a classroom, you can see the students, so you know whether they get it or not. But this invisible audience teaching into the void, I find a particularly difficult form of teaching, like much harder than teaching in person.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Yeah, you remind me so much of one of my teachers. Like, do you have any do you have any Gemini placements? Or do are you not into astrology?

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Thinking, do I have any Gemini placements? Surely I must. My rising sign is in Gemini.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

Okay, because you remind me so much of one of my favorite teachers.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

I think my Jupiter's possible.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Okay, that that totally makes a lot of sense. I saw that you were a Pisces, and I was like, oh, that's really interesting. And I was like, because I don't get that vibe very much.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

And then that's because people say that a lot to me. Like, people at Matt Oren just like two weeks ago, and I had this conversation where he's like, oh, because it came up. Convocation, that convention I'm going to in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is my birthday week. Like it's always my birthday weekend. So it count it like comes up in conversation when my birthday is. And several people are like, Oh, you're a Pisces, and then they think about it for a while. And some people like, you don't seem like and then other people who know me, like who've known me for longer, like, oh why that is, because I think I seem very much like a Pisces to me.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

Well, you are. I mean, that's your sun sign, right? But like you're with your with your rising, that's how you show up. That's that's the that's how, like, right now, my perception of you, even with the internet stalking, base level, like this is the first time we've spoken face to face, very much Gemini.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

Gemini for a living for sure.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

I think it's awesome. I think that Gemini's are some of the best teachers.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Yeah, but yeah, no, my my sun signs in Pisces, and also my Mercury, and also my Venus, and also my mid-heaven are like all clustered up at the Pisces Aquarius.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Ooh, oh yeah, the Aquarius, okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

And then they are directly opposed by my Leo and my Saturn and my some of the outer planets, I must say Pluto. Okay. And if astrologers look at my chart, they like make a face and then find me with a face. Like, I think it's that those two big clusters in opposition. I don't know. Seems like it's working out great for me. So, like, I understand that is traditionally understood to be like a difficult placement, but oh, seems like it's going great for me.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

I got no complaints about it.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

I mean, you could say difficult or you could say focused, you know, it's focused in that area. We could rebrand it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

Spring that has a lot of potential energy to it.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

I was going to ask because I know that you do a lot of work. I was gonna ask if you only work with classical astrology or if you do at all.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Shamefully bad astrologer. Uh obviously, I'm better at astrology than like a random person on the street. But of like classic magician skills, astrology is the one I'm worst at, which I don't know why. You'd think as a mathematician, I'd be good at it, but I'm not. Um I do, I mean, I do think about the outer planets as well, but I I do primarily work with the classical stuff. I almost never work with the outer planets, and I'll tell you when I really need astrology for something, like I'm gonna sell my house in preparation for moving, and I'm gonna hire an astrologer to elect the day when I do that. Like, I hired an astrologer to pick a day. I'm a big believer in like just paying an astrologer to elect a date for like the for big things, you know what I mean? Yeah, I I I'm surprised that more of my magician colleagues don't do that because even though I can do it myself, I think it's just like any other kind of divination for yourself. Like when it matters, it's maybe better to get like an outside opinion that's like not as like emotionally wrapped up in it. Yeah, because those big things, like I am by nature an anxious humor. Thinking about something in my house makes me anxious. So when I look at the astrology for it, I'm just inclined to like see all the problems because that's just the sort of Jewish warrior that I am, right? And so I I think it's that's a that's a thing I only started doing, I will say, in the last like 10 years, like hiring an astrologer. I really recommend it. Uh I will say the astrologer I almost always hire is Andrew Watt, who like like that when I hire an astrologer, that's who I hire. And I've been extremely yeah, really.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

Well, that's good to know. It's always good to have recommendations.

SPEAKER_02 55:53

But that's not like because I don't approve of other people, that's just who I tend to hire.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

I can't thank you enough. You are so much fun. One more thing that I have on my list of in chapter nine, uh, you talk about malefica and curse breaking, and the opening line again made me laugh. And it's so true that we live in a culture of ubiquitous cursing. So everybody's cursing everybody else without knowing it.

SPEAKER_02 56:21

Knowing it.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

Like sometimes knowing it, yeah. Sometimes it's on purpose. But you talk about sloppy magic. You said that sometimes we curse ourselves, our loved ones, our livelihoods with sloppy magic and indiscriminate intimacy with monsters.

SPEAKER_02 56:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

Could you tell me a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Different ways. First of all, there is a kind of like wicked magic for wicked ends that when people do a lot of it, it eats them up from inside. Anybody who's been a magician for a long time, we know that there's certain people who like went off the deep end with that kind of stuff and it is not good for them. Like you can watch it being bad for them. But I also mean human monsters. We all also have a friend who like just dates the same terrible abusive person over and over. Either they keep going back to the same abuser or like it's a different abuser, but they might as well be the same one, right? Or an abuse, it doesn't have to be just romantic relationships, right? Employers that people get intimately entangled with people who are bad for them, and that is also bad for your magic. Yeah, right. So that's what I mean by indiscriminate intimacy with monsters. Like I mean it both magically and in a very human way.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

Yeah, that's that's what I assumed. And I also agree that that's one of the most difficult things because in in a non-judgmental way, some of us are working through trauma or have experienced, you know.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

Yeah, like I would say everybody, like everybody, like I am not immune. I also make the same stupid, sloppy mistakes where I curse myself over and over, just like all other people, right? So it's it's not like I don't mean it in a judgmental way, but I'm just saying it's bad for people, and it'd be better if they didn't do it. And when you combine that with cursing, you know, tell you I have never once cursed an ex. Never. And I know some people who curse everybody they've ever dated at one point or another. And I have to imagine that once you have a track record of exes that you need to curse, either you're picking the wrong people or you are cursing people who don't deserve it. Yeah, you know, like at a certain point, at a certain point, I realize that the problem in my relationships has to be me, because it's not the same problem with every human on earth. Obviously, I'm the one doing, right? Which I mean like in romantic sense, but also in every other sense, right? And so I think that like once you throw cursing magic, malefic magic into the mix with that, it can really exacerbate a lot of those problems, which are not magical in their origin.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

Definitely, but you talk about diagnosing curses, so people tend to be paranoid too. I don't know if you've ever worked with someone who is insisting that someone is working magic against them so much so that they have effectively cursed themselves or hexed themselves or whatever because they're so fearful of it. And a lot of times it's it's that I and I hey, I've been there, right? Like I'm an anxious person too. Um, but when you're giving advice to someone, how do you tell them how to diagnose whether or not the the energy is coming from outside or if it's something that they're ex they're bringing in themselves?

SPEAKER_02 59:49

So the first thing I tell them is that they are almost certainly cursed. Everyone is cursed. We live in a culture of rampant, miasmic, ubiquitous cursing.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Who my experience is that people who have like a genuine curse on them are pretty much always wrong about who cursed them. Because unless you're very bad at cursing, right, it's very easy to cover your traps. Like when I curse people, they can't track it back to me. I definitely deflect it off, right? And so does everybody else who knows how to curse. So that's my experience is that people are often correct about having been cursed, but incorrect about who and why. Yeah, right? Like everybody, like, yeah, they definitely have been cursed, everybody's been cursed. So the first thing I tell people to do is write like a timeline of the symptoms. Okay, approximately half of people, their timeline is just like a regular amount of bad stuff happening to them. Like, I regret to inform you this is not a curse, this is just a normal amount of bad luck in like a wide variety of areas, right? I would almost never diagnose someone as cursed if they're not having repeating nightmares. Like to me, repeating nightmares are really a and there are other things that cause repeating nightmares. But almost everybody, if they're cursed, we all have like these built-in detector systems, right? Like we have a magical like immune system, the same way of a physical immune system, right? One of the warning signs, just like infections cause fevers, though there are infections that don't cause fevers and ways to induce fever that aren't an infection, for the most part, being cursed causes nightmares. So, like that's one thing that I'm honestly skeptical about. Like, like when I see somebody who's cursed, they're almost certainly having nightmares about it. And when they look at that timeline, there is going to be a clearly identifiable moment when things started to go bad. And if you can't identify when you got cursed, chances are you didn't like that what you are experiencing is not a curse. Or it's some kind of broad spectrum. Sometimes I have to tell people, like, I'm really sorry. I think the curse you are suffering from is structural racism. There is a limited amount that can be done about that in a curse-breaking way, but here are some strategies, yada, yada, yada, right? Yeah. And some people are cursed by their own bad decision, right? And I feel like making people write a timeline. So that's my first piece of advice for anybody who thinks they've been cursed is what are the symptoms you are experiencing? Physical symptoms, things in your life that make you suspect you are cursed, and then write a detailed timeline of them. And when people do that, uh, sometimes I think they can start to see that this isn't a curse. It's just a snowballing effect from like a bad decision. But that doesn't mean that that situation can't be remedied magically. Like the fact that the problem isn't a curse doesn't mean that we can't solve the problem. It's just about like diagnosing things before they go. That being said, I would also say that like anybody who's worried about cursing, there are just basic things to do. Like salt baths. I personally, my roommates are gonna laugh, my roommate can hear me and they're gonna laugh at me because I actually believe hot salt baths cure everything. If anybody in the house has a cold or had a bad day, like magically or not, I'm like, you should take a hot salt bath because I just believe they cure everything. Like that old man in um a big fat Greek wedding with the Windex. That's when you have hot salt baths. But that's a really like just detailed instructions in the book. But that kind of like basic sort of curse cleaning, or I wouldn't just call it like general spiritual hygiene, take care of a lot of stuff, especially if little curse, like the evil eye, like malinky is what we would call it. Right, you got malloinked, you can feel it when it hits you. When you feel that instead of making excuses and like dismissing it, just go to the bathroom and wash your hands and wash your face. If you get a curse off of you as soon as it lands, like before you go to sleep, it unless the person who threw it is good at it, it's not gonna stick if you get it off before you go to sleep. When you sleep, you're more spiritually or psychically or magically, whatever we want to say, like open. And I think they can kind of get inside that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

Right? And that's especially important for people who work in like high miasma environment, like a mental health. I will say the people I know who get cursed the most often are people who work in mental health hospitals or like addiction halfway houses. Those people are getting cursed all day, every day, basically. And so for that kind of person in that kind of high curse environment, I encourage them to just come home with a hot salt scrub every day before you go to bed. That's that's maybe overkill for most people in most environments. So, like I would say, like once a week, even once a month, is a good sort of like prophylactic. Because curses typically aren't a problem until they fester. Like once you have been cursed. Because a lot of curses, once they're on you, you like don't really want to break it. Like, as a woman who's smart in public without a properly authorized penis, I get cursed a lot. Like a lot, a lot. And public figure, right? Like, I just get cursed a lot. It's just like a hazard of the business that I am in, especially now that I'm more politically active. I can watch white supremacists like whip up people to curse me. And I'm like, oh, what are you doing? Right. But once it's on you, I can feel it. I'm like, I should take a bath. And I'm like, I don't want. Um, but I actually love a hot salt bath. What am I talking about? Oh no, I have to take a bubble bath. But it once it gets in you, there's like a part of you that it's harder to get it off. So I really encourage people like as soon as you feel it, right? Return to sender, right? I'll rubber your glue, everything you say bounce off me and sticks to you as a very effective, like return to sender charm when people are cursing you, and then just get it off.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

That's awesome advice. It's a tell, you know, for someone who's who's around a lot of magical people or a lot of people who do know how to curse, and it just happens, you know, it just happens. Anytime you're willing to stand in front of people and talk, it it doesn't matter. No matter if they think you're wonderful or if they think that you're terrible, you you're at risk, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

Um, yeah, sure. Sometimes I have am I-cursed like divination clients, and they send me a photo and they're so beautiful that as soon as I see that photo, I'm like, oh, it's gonna be evil eye.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

That person is getting evil eyed every day, they are so pretty. You know what I mean? Like, it's not even like that's the thing. It's not even when people don't like you. Like, if they like you too much, they still end up cursing you. Yes. Because we can live in a terrible, sloppy culture of cursing with like no because people are taught that those feelings of jealousy and hatred and rage that they don't have any impact. People are taught that ill-wishing people that like screaming curses at people while you're driving doesn't mean anything, but it does. It's bad for you, the person doing it, and also bad for the world. But our culture doesn't really acknowledge that. So, like everybody and like it's not people's fault when they are evil eyeing because they don't even know they're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

That's true. A lot of times they don't know that they're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

You know what I mean? Like, I mean, some people definitely know that they're doing it, like some people are definitely like cursing people on fucking purpose for not good reasons, yep. Right, but mostly I think it's not that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Yeah, I also think they're little tells that if if someone got you, whether or not it was intentional or if it was even good, they're thinking like I don't realize that I'm not wearing my protective bracelet, like I just stopped wearing it, or I haven't been using my, you know, my whatever, my dill soap or whatever I have, like to get rid of whatever. You've stopped doing like the regular maintenance of of your energy field or whatever. So I think that's a valid point.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:09

It's so important to have co-magicians because once you're in that hole, you kind of need somebody else to be like, yo, Sarah, you're all cursed up. Go take a fucking salt bath. What is wrong with you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

Yeah, like this doesn't sound like you. Yeah. Yeah. Right on, I agree with that. It's it's nice to have trusted people around you, and I'm I'm really grateful that I do because we do call each other out, and it's like, hey, uh, when was the last time you warded? Because holy shit, this doesn't sound like you at all. You're kind of freaking me out. Well, I've I I've successfully kept you longer than I was supposed to. Thank you so much for this book. Thank you for coming on. Um, it was really delightful to meet you, and uh I'm gonna bother you after this. I'm I'm really excited about your courses online, and I'm definitely gonna take one.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

Well, I'd say intro is the one to take right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:13

Because Pentacles doesn't have a live cohort right now, like it's not gonna restart until spring, probably. Working with the dead is running right now, but lesson four of six is coming up. This is the second time I've taught. I'm not saying that course is bad. It's not, it's good. I'm proud of that work. Yeah, but I am especially proud. Like, you know, the intro book, I've been teaching it for 10 years. The text this is the first session that I've taught after the textbook is out, so it's I don't know, I think especially good this year. It's also a particularly good group of people, and we just started, like lesson two is on Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:53

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:55

There are occasionally classes that I don't think are good, and I don't keep selling those. Like there are course classes that I've done that I have a video of, but I just made it record sacred trees of north and of eastern north of the eastern woodland. You'd like that one. That's a very like Pennsylvania plant magic one. So yeah, the little one-shot lessons are are awesome. But and I'm always if people have ideas for things they want to see, like one-shot lessons on, I'm down in the spring. I'm gonna, once dead, the dead lessons are over, I'm gonna probably reteach pinnacles.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

Nice. Well, I also help. Um, well, I I'm on the board of a an earth-centered group out of a Unitarian Universalist congregation full of a bunch of delightful beginners. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna book you for something because they would love it so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:45

So yeah, awesome. Like that'd be easy. You know, I have family out that way, so I'm generally easy to get to like Central Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

Oh, that would be fun. We could hang out and go get whoopee pies together and birch beer and do weird magic stuff together.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

So let me know if you want me to come back and talk about something else at some point.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

Um, I would love that. Thank you again.