#witchstorian

[lozziestardust]

HOLY MOLY GUYS THIS IS INSANE MY HEART IS SO HAPPY.

wjen i graduate and they strip me of my free database access im literally going to walk into the ocean

[breelandwalker]

Friendly reminder that if you cannot explain, discuss, or celebrate your beliefs without shitting on someone else's, you neither understand nor truly believe in your chosen path.

Yes, even if you have trauma.

And no, you don't get to claim the suffering of people who died during witch trials because those were not secret pagan witches.

Also, learn your history. Not everything was originally a pagan sex festival, the Wheel of the Year is a recent invention, Christians did not steal our holidays, and cultural development doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Don't be a pick-me witch. You're better than that. So do better.

[hexpositive]

Hex Positive, Ep. 049 - Satanic Panic? In MY Witchcraft Community? (with Trae Dorn)

Now available on the Nerd & Tie Podcast Network and your favorite podcatcher!

(It’s more likely than you think….)

Welcome back, witches! We’re diving back into things with another classic collaboration between your friendly neighborhood Witchstorian and everyone’s favorite curmudgeon and host of BS-Free Witchcraft, Trae Dorn. Feeling the weight of our years just a LITTLE bit, we sit down to discuss the stubborn traces of Satanic Panic rhetoric that still linger in the modern witchcraft movement. Not in external gossip or talking-head suppositions, but in the internal discussions that witches maintain in live spaces and especially on social media. Tune in to hear a couple of weary elder millennials ramble about alleged devil worship, community paranoia, and how much it irritates us when people don’t know their own history. 

Remember, witches – you are not immune to propaganda.

Check out the new Upcoming Events page!

Read the Mia Graves series by Trae Dorn!

Visit the Willow Wings Witch Shop on Shopify and check out this month’s featured items. Make sure you also visit the Redbubble page for even more cool merch!

Check my ⁠⁠Wordpress⁠⁠ for full show notes, as well as show notes for past episodes and information on upcoming events. You can find me as @BreeNicGarran on TikTok, Instagram, and WordPress, or as @breelandwalker on tumblr. For more information on how to support the show and get access to early releases and extra content, visit my ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠.

Proud member of the ⁠⁠Nerd and Tie Podcast Network⁠⁠.

MUSIC CREDITS

Intro & Outro – “Spellbound” & “Miri’s Magic Dance” Host-Read Ads – “Danse Macabre – Violin Hook” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

[breelandwalker]

-puts on Witchstorian hat- Go ahead and nap, buddy, I gotchu.

The whole "saying the Lord's Prayer backwards" thing is a product of the same thinking that imagined witches' sabbats as backwards or inverted church services. Because to the proponents of the witch trials, during the heyday of such things (1550-1700), there was literally nothing else they could think of to describe the height of blasphemy. To their thinking, the rites involved with devil worship (since this was the alleged hallmark of witchy doings at the time) must needs be the inversion of Christian rites of the equivalent type.

So if standard practice involved opening a prayer meeting or church service with the Lord's Prayer, or congregants recited the same as proof of their understanding of Christianity and membership in the Church, then the opening of a demonic meeting or devil's gathering would likely begin with the backwards recitation of the prayer. The idea of signing one's name in the Devil's book also comes from an inversion of the Christian concept of one's name being figuratively "written in the Book of Life" upon their acceptance of the Word and baptism and initiation into the Church.

These ideas were later incorporated into folk beliefs about witchcraft that became their own magical tradition, especially in areas where folk beliefs and Christianity heavily overlap. Appalachia is an excellent example.

There's a marked presence of "doing things backwards" in folk beliefs associated with the summoning of demonic powers (or Old Scratch himself). Some examples include saying prayers or psalms backward, walking backward around a church a certain number of times, walking backward to a given destination (such as a crossroads), turning certain relics or items of clothing upside down or inside out, and so forth. Then again, there are upside down / inside out rituals associated with confounding or escaping from evil powers, so it does depend on context.

ALL THAT BEING SAID.

The idea that witchcraft and Christianity are diametrically opposed goes back before Wicca, but that doesn't mean that it's not still a fallacy. The adoption of modern witchcraft by mid-1900s counter culture as an act of rebellion against cultural Christianity and the established order of the day popularized the idea in modern witchcraft and pagan literature, and it was certainly helped along by the number of people who turned to (and continue to turn to) witchcraft and paganism as a response to ostracization or abuse by the Church and/or its' congregants and officials. None of that changes the fact that Christian witchcraft exists and in fact predates the modern religion of Wicca by several centuries.

Margaret Murray's popular writings on the thoroughly debunked witch-cult hypothesis were in no small part responsible for this as well. This is where we get the pseudohistorical idea that the victims of witch trials were, in fact, actual members of a secret pagan cult by actively hunted by the Church and that the contents of confessions given under torture or threat thereof reflected actual beliefs and practices of said cult. (Of course, we understand now that this is completely false, that the victims of these trials were NOT witches as we understand the term today and would never have identified themselves as such, and that to identify them so in an attempt to claim some relation to their fictionalized martyrdom is incredibly disrespectful.)

It's a separate thread, but it's another avenue by which the idea of Christianity vs Witches: The Eternal War entered the conversation for modern practitioners, and given that Murray's description of witchcraft was printed in the Encyclopedia Britannica up until the late 1960s, it certainly had an influence on the culture of the time. Which, of course, informs the culture of today.

And don't even get me started on the Satanic Panic.

So to bring it back around, the concept of saying the Lord's Prayer backward as an initiatory rite or summoning measure certainly exists in folk magic and could be used thus if one were personally inclined, but it's not an ancient witchcraft tradition. It originates with the witch trials and with Christian ideas of What Witches Do made up out of wholecloth and paranoia.

Regarding the self-initiation of saying the lord's prayer three times backwards, the general consensus among people I've talked to is that it doesn't do shit for you if you were never baptized.

It doesn't work as a general initiation into witchcraft, because it's really more about breaking off any existing bonds to Christianity.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

i really like your vibes. i've seen you mention mutuals, but do you have other magic blogs you recommend?

Hey there, anon! In fact, I do!

@crazycatsiren aka Lorelei is a very common-sense-first Hellenic hearth witch. Cat provides valuable insight and incredible shitposts. She's also physically disabled and a witch of color, so fae is often talking about a lot of appropriation, racism, and ableism that crops up in magic spaces.

@breelandwalker aka Bree is our local witchstorian, author, and podcast host. Her ability to dig out sources to debunk bullshit is almost unparalleled.

@popwitch-astralae aka Astra is a good friend of mine and another pop culture magic practitioner. Hē is focused on Kingdom Hearts and other specific fandoms.

@will-o-the-witch aka Rabbit shines a light on a lot of antisemitic bullshit in magic spaces. You may know her best for xer tomato soup sigil. Ve also talks about different types of divination.

@faustianfandums aka Faust, the owner of @strixhaven-biblioplex, is my fellow MTG mage. We're currently trying to work together on an introduction to MTG-based magic and how that works. Needless to say, a shared Google Doc is a war zone.

@crimsondawnsdevotionals aka Crimson and @the-fox-jawed-witch aka Foxen are my fellow co-owners of the Coven of Cards, where we provide several magic services including divination, devotional writing, spell searching and casting, and more. We're starting to build it up into an even bigger project and love any assistance people can give us. You can see a lot of their respective works on their blogs!

@windvexer aka Fool Chicken is an absolute terror on my dash, and I mean that lovingly. Fool has made me rethink my approach to magic and how I interact with non-physical entities, along with being my strongest supporter as I carefully dip my toe into spirit work.

@alabaster-the-crow aka Uncle Alabaster is my future platonic husband and fellow cohost of the Jasper and Crow show here on Tumblr, where you guys get to see our DMs in real time, especially over my lack of cooking skills and my advocacy of microwave tea. He does a lot of cartomancy and we co-wrote a whole book on tarot, cartomancy, and dice divination in five days.

@serpentandthreads aka Runa is my pal who is helping me carefully dip a toe into folk magic. Her practice is incredible to see snippets of and I recommend having a look at her blog and folk magic Discord server.

And finally, the newest blog to reach my following page, we have @creature-wizard. Creature (I can call you that, right?) cuts through a lot of conspiracy theorist BS both past and present. I definitely recommend giving them a follow because the skepticism is tasty and needs to be appreciated more.

I hope this gives you a few new blogs to follow, anon!

~Jasper

[breelandwalker]

Gearing up for the yearly presentation on why the date of Easter has nothing to do with the modern Wiccan holiday of Ostara like

[lia-witchcraft]

Your project sounds VERY interesting! My Witchstorian heart loves things that explore the intersections between major historical events and concurrent popular thought on witchcraft. Just did a whole project exploring the history of witchcraft-related law in Western Europe and the US last year, which definitely included a lot about witch trials, so I'm PRIMED for this. Definitely following for updates!

I'm so glad you are as interested as I am! Any insights or recommendations would be really appreciated.

[breelandwalker]

Oh darling, you KNOW I do.

First, I'd like to reiterate everything Christo and the tags said above. And I'd like to point out that the very fact that every "holy text" ever written has been created by human hands and human understanding, which are inherently imperfect, so Anon, there's your first citation right there. And if you think for one second that anyone has ever recorded a religious tenet or created a religious law without there being cultural and political reasoning behind it, you are fooling yourself.

Now let's move into the history, shall we?

Let's talk about biblical canon. The Catholic Church has, over the course of many hundreds of years and dozens of synods an ecumenical councils (beginning in 382 CE with the Council of Rome), continuously revised and adapted the content of the Holy Bible. During this time, there was prolonged debate about what material to include or exclude, how to define the nature of God (and by extension Jesus and the Holy Spirit), and what exactly constituted orthodoxy. Quite a number of factions broke off and formed sub-orders within the Church, some of which were reabsorbed. Others were excommunicated or prohibited from teaching.

The fact that there have been so many schisms in the Church over the course of its' existence indicate two things: first, that even the highest-placed and most-educated religious scholars cannot agree on everything in Biblical canon or canon law; and second, that both Biblical canon and canon law have CHANGED over time in response to the changing needs of the Church and its' congregants.

The Bible as we first see it in history comes from a Greek translation of an old Hebrew text called the Septuagint, with the New Testament (letters from the apostles and so forth) being added later. Translation of a text often means words are changed to fit the translator's understanding of a certain passage, and they may not directly reflect the original meaning. This is a pattern we see repeated as Biblical canon evolved and as the text was translated into Latin and later English. And over that time, scholars and monarchs continually argued about what various passages meant, often contradicting each other while using certain verses or chapters as justification for their position or their actions.

And SPEAKING of English translations of the Bible, let's talk about good old King James. Because that man is a PERFECT example of how the Bible was changed to fit the views and goals of a king. James, son of Mary Queen of Scots, grew up terrified of Catholics, women, and witches. All his life, he was told by advisors that Catholics were plotting to seize his throne, that his mother was an evil scheming shrew, and that because he was ordained by God, the Devil had sent witches to cast spells against him.

The King James Bible contains an oft-cited verse, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18) It's not the only reference to witches in the Bible, but it's certainly the most well-known. And it's present because of a deliberate change made by James.

The original context of the passage states, "You shall not suffer a poisoner / one who creates poison to live among you." (The Latin text uses the term maleficos, but in the Greek translation of the Septaugint, the word pharmakeia is used, being the Greek word for both one who makes herbal medicine and one who makes and sells poisons. The original Hebrew term MIGHT mean something like "witch," but scholars are divided on this point.) But since King James was obsessed with witches, he changed the wording on this verse and several others to bolster his agenda to eradicate suspected witches. And this rhetoric DID go on to influence policy and public thought and cost many innocent people their lives.

(See Also: The North Berwick Witch Trials and Daemonologie. Suggested Reading: God's Secretaries, Adam Nicolson, HarperCollins, 2003.)

And let's go even further forward to the 20th century, when conservatives began to point to the verse, "Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman, it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)" as justification for their hatred of the LGBTQ community. HOWEVER. Previous and more direct translations of the verse in context indicate a prohibition against incest and sexual assault, not consensual same-sex relationships. But since the bigots needed holy justification for their behavior, they conveniently ignored this and have been for some time. It's the same reasoning used to pre-emptively pardon the sin of murder for the knights of the Crusades.

So to conclude, Anon, fuck you and your demand for CREDIBLE sources. Crack open a history book sometime, you useless week-old breadstick. Holy texts and religious rhetoric have ALWAYS been used to justify the actions of rulers, ever since there were texts and rhetoric to cite. In many cases, that was the entire point of having them in the first place.

If you don't understand that scripture written by human hands will always have inherently human fallibility and that the ruling class will always use the excuse of Divine Right to prop up unjust actions, there's just no hope for you.

“If you go into reading the Bible without the realization that it has been edited and changed by men in power to use it to control the masses and to justify their own sins” That’s a bold claim. I’m going to need to see CREDIBLE sources.

The.. crusades?… king James?… literal history? Every single religious based war where they disregard thou shalt not kill and murder people? Like.. if history and how it repeats itself isn’t a credible source I’m not sure what to tell you. You can look up the translations of the Bible and literally see where words have been changed to suit peoples ideologies. I don’t know what to tell you..

[hexpositive]

Hey Friends and Neighbors

Sorry the pod is late this month. Quite understandably, my mental health has not been great the past couple of weeks. (Also my laptop cord broke yesterday because WHY NOT KICK A WITCH WHEN SHE'S DOWN.)

The new episode will be out just as soon as I can get a new cord and finish editing. For a little sneak peek, you'll want those notebooks handy, because I had my new friend Mara Levy come on the show to talk about the history of ogham and its' applications in modern magic. The research rabbit hole potential of the kennings alone will blow your mind!

I'll have the shop newsletter out later this week as well, and there will be merch drops on schedule. Just wait til you see the new varieties of Full Moon jars, they're really stunning!

Thank you for your patience. I'm going to get back into my work and try to keep moving forward and surviving out of sheer spite. If anybody wants to come with me, you're more than welcome.

Love from Your Friendly Neighborhood Witchstorian,

Bree

[breelandwalker]

I'm just gonna go ahead and say it.

Y'all need to stop comparing Wicca to Christianity.

Stop claiming that a pagan religion that's not even a full century old has the same level of influence or the same cultural and historical impact as one that has existed for more than two thousand years, spending a good deal of that time as the official faith of multiple countries.

Stop transferring your issues with cultural Christianity onto a pagan religion that, until very recently, was the ONLY pagan religion publicly and legally recognized as a religion at all, and which laid the groundwork for ALL of the positive perception and freedom of practice that we enjoy as witches today.

Stop pretending that religions and people don't change and that problematic foundations automatically mean problematic followers. If that were true, there's not a single one of us that would escape being tarred with that brush. ALL of us have been problematic at some point. The point is not to Never Ever Be Problematic At All; it's to abjure what is most egregious (racism, sexism, LGBTQ-phobia, etc) and to correct and improve the parts of yourself that need it in an ongoing process. Purity culture is poison and it will destroy us all.

If you really want to get away from the "problematic" ideas connected with the origins of Wicca and the widespread presence of Wiccan ideas extent within the modern witchcraft community, stop going on about unbroken lines and secret goddess cults and the Burning Times, and start examining and decolonizing your own ideas and practices.

Learn to identify the difference between Wiccan ideas and New Age ones. Yes, there is a difference and yes, it matters. And learn your history. We would not be where we are without Wicca. The modern witchcraft community simply would not exist.

[breelandwalker]

October 2024 Newsletter - Willow Wings Witch Shop

Happy Spooky Month, witches! It’s time for pumpkins and cider and crunchy leaves and haunted houses and all the tricks and treats we can squeeze into our schedules. And for those of us doing a bit of spiritual housekeeping this October, the shop is featuring items designed to help clear unwanted visitors and disruptive energy from your home!

Whether you’re removing that which no longer serves your purposes, banishing something unwanted, fending off baneful intentions, or just trying to keep sneaky spirits from following you home, there’s something for everyone this month. And don’t forget about the Spirit Work Mini Bottle Charms for augmenting your divinations, invocations, and ancestor work while the veil is thin!

Use code CAULDRON for 20% off featured items and new arrivals all month long, and watch for a new merch drop later this month!

Happy Witching! 🎃

Upcoming Events:

First Friday Moon Market (First Friday of each month) Next Event – Friday, Oct 4 2024, 6-9pm Historic Hilton Village 10369 Warwick Blvd, Newports News VA (USA) Hosted by Styx & Stones

Samhain Witch Market Sunday, October 13 2024, 12pm-6pm Diversity Richmond 1407 Sherwood Ave, Richmond VA (USA) Hosted by River City Witch Markets

Nighttime Witches Market Saturday, October 26 2024, 6-10pm Alewerks Taproom 189 B Ewell Rd, Williamsburg VA (USA) Hosted by Alewerks Brewing

Hex Positive, Ep. 049 - Satanic Panic? In MY Witchcraft Community? with Trae Dorn Premieres October 7th

Welcome back, witches! We’re diving back into things with another classic collaboration between your friendly neighborhood Witchstorian and everyone’s favorite curmudgeon and host of BS-Free Witchcraft, Trae Dorn. Feeling the weight of our years just a LITTLE bit, we sit down to discuss the stubborn traces of Satanic Panic rhetoric that still linger in the modern witchcraft movement. Not in external gossip or talking-head suppositions, but in the internal discussions that witches maintain in live spaces and especially on social media. Tune in to hear a couple of weary elder millennials ramble about devil worship, community paranoia, and how much it irritates us when people don’t know their own history. Remember, witches - you are not immune to propaganda.

Featured Products:

[breelandwalker]

I do indeed! I did a pretty extensive dive into witch trials in Western Europe and North American back in 2021 as part of a study on the history of witchcraft-related laws and how they changed over time.

The thing about witch panics and witch trials is that they are, historically speaking, never about witches as we would define the term today. (This also holds true for current issues facing many countries in South America, Africa, and South Asia today.) Sure, we have the witch-cult hypothesis that Margaret Murray popularized, which claimed that Western European witch trials were the result of the Church trying to stamp out the remnants of a pre-Christian feminist pagan cult, but that was fringe theory even in its' heyday and has since been thoroughly debunked.

What we do know from the historical record is that charges of witchcraft were often bound up in superstition, religious zealotry, politics, or some combination thereof. There was never one single cause of a witch panic, only prevailing factors such as hardship, war, famine, poverty, or political instability that made conditions ripe for fear and scapegoating. While it's true that the victims of the most well-known trials were largely women, and that superstitions regarding witchcraft sometimes skewed along gender lines, any social or political other and anyone disadvantaged by poverty, illness, disability, or reputation was at risk.

One might point in particular to the Bamberg Witch Panic in Germany (1627-1632) and the "Great Noise" in Sweden (1668-1676) wherein men and women alike were accused of and executed for alleged witchcraft, with no protection given for gender, class, or age. Even in the famous Salem witch trials in the United States (1692-1693), six of the twenty people who were executed were men. (Personally, I consider Giles Corey's death by torture an execution.)

Many witch trials between 1500-1700 were also bound up in ongoing political struggles between the Catholic and Protestant churches. During this time, we often see accusations witchcraft bundled in with charges of heresy or treason, particularly in high-profile cases. Many times, the alleged crime of the accused person wasn't the practice of witchcraft or the observance of pagan customs as we know it today, but simply being part of a religious denomination that was out of favor or in conflict with the current monarchy in their country, with the prevailing opinion gradually shifting to a firmly anti-Catholic stance.

And, because it needs to be said, rampant anti-semitism played a role in these trials as well, just as colonization and the intrusion of evangelists have played a role in modern witch panics. (These things are not the same, but they bear mentioning.)

The modern witchcraft movement began around the same time as first-wave feminism, so the cultural and political tenets of the modern witchcraft community have been bound up with it from the start. This intensified when both movements gained speed around the mid-20th century and revisionist pseudohistory sought to make feminist pagan martyrs of thousands of people who never would have identified themselves as witches.

Until the rise of modern paganism, the word "witch" was pretty much universally regarded as a pejorative, an insult, something one would never want to be called. There were actual legal statutes that allowed people to take their neighbors to court for slander over being called a witch in public, since the word was so heavily charged with negative associations that it could lead to social ostracization, harm to a business, or even legal charges. (In the case of Grace Sherwood in 1705, prior accusations of witchcraft were considered as evidence during her trial, even though she'd sued for slander on three separate occasions and won twice.) In much of the world, the word retains a negative connotation.

As OP noted above, there is a lot of terfy bullshit wrapped up in the view of past victims of witch trials as mostly or entirely female, and the idea that witchcraft accusations were something that only happened to women as a tool of patriarchal oppression. "We Are The Granddaughters Of The Witches You Couldn't Burn" is a catchphrase that grates on me like sandpaper on a sunburn, as is the ridiculous insistence by certain bigoted sections of the community that only "real women" can be witches.

So to bring it back around to Anon's original question, the victims of witch trials are now, as they were then, not actual witches. They're just whoever is convenient. Whoever is ostracized, whoever is othered, whoever is not in favor, whoever makes the best scapegoat for a community's fear and paranoia.

Like I said at the top of the post, witch trials are never about witches.

(If you'd like to know more, I've talked about the history of witch trials and the witch-cult hypothesis a few times on my podcast, Hex Positive. You can check out Eps. 20-21, "Witchcraft and the Law" / "Witchcraft and Modern Law" and Ep. 36, "Margaret Effing Murray" for more information.)

Hi miaro... I wanted to ask you about witch craft...

I was reading a book on feminism recently, I read something on how women where harmed in the europe during medieval times as "witches and evil" And beaten up and killed by a mob, and how even in these days especially in South Asian countries people harm women and kill them calling they are "witches" And harm people and stuff...

But the book tried to dismantle it by saying how due to extreme poverty and food shortages and climatic conditions, people were not capable of providing themselves and their families basic necessities and in order to reduce the competition they used to target women esp who are old and single, widowed, sick by calling them witches and by spreading fake news about how they harm others....

The book didn't focus on the witch craft but only on exploitation of women...

So who are these "witch" Like what's their true identity like? You have mentioned in your bio that you are training so i thought you would be a better person to answer??

Most likwly these witches were never witches. If you take England for example, King James had a huge thing agaisnt witches, to the point of altering the bibles translation.

Just as the book said, they were likely harming widowed, older women or spinsters. Especially if those were of a different religion (think catholics vs protestants, folklore believers etc).

I dont know about South Asia, but currently in Madagascar , there is quite an ambivalence about witchcraft. There are thee types of witches (healers, astrologers/divinatory, maleficient) in our folk beliefs. But with colonization, poverty etc opinions have shifted towards a more Christian one, so people can become more and more reluctant to follow their traditions of asking a witch to check the the ghosts of your ancestors are okay withvyou moving in for example. There is a real fear about witchcraft.

There is a lot of misinformation about the subject in general, as it has been altered a lot by white witches, terf witches etc.

I think @breelandwalker must know more about this ?

[breelandwalker]

The Witchstorian Is Down For The Count

Okay so full disclosure, y'all - I may have caught the Rona again. It's hard to tell because it's been a few days so the test was inconclusive and my symptoms are outside the normal lot. (Although I've been told that the main indicators of the new Omicron strain match what I'm dealing with - continuous migraine, crushing fatigue, vertigo, body aches.)

I'm currently taking a little time off of work so I can heal and not spread this around, but the bills are stacking up, the cats need to be fed, and we don't get paid again until the end of the month.

So if anybody wants something from the shop, now would be an EXCELLENT time to place an order! (I'll wait until my symptoms fade to pack things, just for safety. Hopefully it'll just be a few more days.) And if you let me know here on tumblr that you made a purchase, I'll slip a little something extra in with your goodies!

Hope you're all keeping well and staying safe! Remember to wash your hands, get your boosters if you can, and keep practicing safe hex!

[breelandwalker]

2024 Free Spirit Gathering Program Book

The program book for Free Spirit Gathering 2024 is now available! Over 70 workshops, rituals, and other events are planned for this year's gathering, that’s almost 20 more than last year. It's a really exciting line-up with many notable names, friendly people, and fabulous vendors to check out! The book contains detailed descriptions of everything that's happening, presenter profiles, and a full day-by-day schedule of events.

Bree NicGarran (author of Grovedaughter Witchery, host of Hex Positive, and your favorite Witchstorian) will be presenting three workshops during the festival -

Creating Correspondences for Local Plants

Rediscovering Your Inspiration

Writing Your Own Spells

Registration will be open all the way through festival.   But rates will go up on site, so why not register today?

Use my referral link to sign up!

Free Spirit Gathering August 6-11, 2024 Camp Ramblewood, Darlington MD Free Spirit Gathering website Free Spirit Gathering Policies (Please read if you plan to attend!)

[hexpositive]

Ep. 019 - The Trouble With Tarot

Original Air Date: Aug 01 2021, Nerd and Tie Podcast Network

Following the recent release of the cartomancy-themed horror movie "Tarot," I'm putting this episode back in front of the community's eyes, just in case. So if anyone happens to find themselves in need of talking points regarding the origins of tarot cards, the symbolism contained in the Rider-Waite deck, or the ability of the cards to summon or attract supernatural trouble, I've already done the hard work for you.

Tarot and tarot-reading have been a part of the modern witchcraft movement since the 1960s. But where did these cards and their meanings come from? Are they secretly Ancient Egyptian mystical texts? Do they have their origins among the Romani people? Are they a sacred closed practice that should not be used by outsiders?

Nope, nope, and nope.

This month, we delve into the actual history of tarot cards, discover their origins on the gaming tables of Italy and France, meet the people who developed their imagery and symbolism into the deck we know today, and debunk some of the nonsense that’s been going around lately concerning their use. The Witchstorian is putting on her research specs for this one!

[breelandwalker]

I think that hits the nail on the head - when Your Average Dudebro talks about Being Interested In History, the general subtext is Literally Just Early 20th Century Warfare And Nothing Else.

Meanwhile we're over here with a stack of brick-sized books on European church shenanigans and court intrigue circa 1400-1700, having Spirited Discussions about the Affair of the Poisons and whether King James I/VI was gay.

Bro, we do not give two airborne shits whether you can cite six different types of artillery stats from the 1930s. Come talk to us when you can extemporize on the War of the Roses.

Why don’t girls like history? No no, I mean like, watching YouTube videos about the Wehrmacht, not actually studying history, that’s stupid and is for girls.