Hello, and welcome to Blurry Photos. I am David Flora and I am
David Stacho. I hope you're doing well, and welcome to the padcast.
I don't know where that game fro's. That's what it's going to be all
night great. So for this episode, we're gonna talk about which is and
which craft? That's right, there is nothing more specifically Halloween e than which
is their craft the accoutrument surrounding which I would say that the which is the
back bone of the Halloween season does the heavy lift. I'll fall in line
with that. I'm fine with that. And we're doing this again for blanktober
yea. And if you have a suggestion for what to fill in that blank,
maybe something that that's that's punny, yeah, or something that just makes
sense. Yeah, that would be awesome. We will crown a king or
queen of Halloween. Whoever comes up with something to fix it, we will
declare you to be Halloween Royalty. And not like the Jack Skellington King of
Halloween. Was he king or was he just hero of it? Was just
like outstanding member of the community. Wasn't even the mayor? Right, Okay,
so that mayor head more than one face, right, yep, may
or may not that was his name. That's great, that's great. There,
they're pretty good. That's pretty good. I haven't seen that in a
long time. I'll have to rewatch that because the season it is, it
is indeed, and we are drawing not to hollow miss. Oh yes,
sweet sweet hollow miss. How is your costume coming along? Good? Good?
I had a rivet setback, which is a common occurrence, but undaunted,
I've gone forward with number six machine screws. Wow. Yeah, So
if I knew it that, then I might be more I know. That's
how you know I'm not lying. The specificity sells it. So today with
the witchcraft and the witches, we hope to enlighten you about the history of
witches and witchcraft. And I mean this is witches. We're handling the Himalayan
mountain range of the occult here, so like we're just gonna try to We're
gonna give you the basic, the broad strokes of it. We're gonna get
into some some items of current, you know, witches of now versus witches
of your true the subject of witches is huge. I mean we could we
could sit here and talk all night about witches and witchcraft and all the good,
good goody goodies about it and get into, you know, real specific
things. But we think you look great and you're better than that, so
we respect you too much to do that too. We're not going to waste
your time with boring you on on super details. We're just going to give
you the juiciest cuts of the ease. Yeah you stole it right out of
my house, and the tenderest cuts of lore. I'll try well, we'll
try to hit on some some of the specifics and some good things, but
again we're not going to keep you, which I think we're doing right now,
so let's go on and jump into it. Yea, let's do it.
Witchcraft, simply put, it's just the use of supposed supernatural and magical
powers or spells. There is a stigma, I guess now about witchcraft being
something that that is inherently bad, and it was not always the case that,
which is we're we're bad or witchcraft was bad. We'll get to when
and how that changed throughout history, but in general, whiches are pretty prevalent
in most cultures throughout the world, and the histories of those those cultures and
just today it's it's fascinating when you look at the history of which is that
you almost want to laugh because there are there's so much to learn that there
are really specific definitions of what constitutes a witch versus a sorcerer. Yep,
those are two completely different groups of people, true, And here I have
been putting them all in the same bucket. Well, I'll tell you the
thing that I've been doing is putting I've always heard, you know, which
is a female practitioner of magic a warlock is a male practitioner of magic,
so that you don't have male witches, you know, But in researching this
stuff, it seems like that's not the case for much of history. It's
mostly just the term which can be appli to male or female. And where
does wizard fit into that? Then the difference between a wizard and a warlock
and a sorcerer, Well, if you play D and D then you have
a start on the difference. I do not, sir, I have.
Yeah, I'm very in these differences are the matter like as far as the
history, as far as people who study the anthropology of this, oh yeah,
definitely. And as I said, in most cultures there is a witch
or a which type figure present, though though not always called which. Like
you said, you know you have wizard sorcerers. There are shaman's blessers.
Even a popular thing. I think in Europe people were called cunning man.
The cunning man put a spell on you or healed or I've never heard of
a cunning man hunting man. And I've also never heard of a blesser,
a blesser, look out, blessers common blases common. It kind of sounds
like the guy from a pet cemetery. Yeah, blass commons. No,
don't cross the road down now they're gonna get blessed. You're gonna get blasted.
Yeah no, no, no pat cemetery. I've never heard of a
blesser, blesser. I hope that they have lisps. It almost it's almost
a character from Harry Potter, I think, or something that he uses.
I think that absolutely everything we're going to discuss has some reference in Harry Potter.
Sticks in the Potter where there's no way we're getting out of that.
That so Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter. Okay, now we're
done. Like like I said before, they weren't exclusively negative. To be
called a witch or to practice healing mostly was what many of these people did
throughout history, and they were they were pretty well liked in their communities,
mostly because you know, they knew how to cure the sick and treat a
the old tummy ache and you know, just commune with nature, be a
nice. Yeah. There's a huge amount of actual for life of butter and
scientific knowledge that these people had about roots and herbs and basic first aid um.
And people brought their sick people, their kids to these people right there.
You know, it didn't it wasn't always this bubbling miserable caulge or in
a fury and and and cats and familiars and things like that. I mean
there was These were like the local healers. This is where you went if
something went wrong. You You didn't go to the priests, You didn't go
to church to pray it away. You some owned dude. Well, those
people took themselves out of the equation quite quickly. So what what you mentioned
before with it not being scientific, that's sort of why the which has this
supernatural connotation is because people couldn't explain it, so then it must be magic,
right, They didn't have the science to be able to explain why things
happened or why somebody got better after the cunning man of them a ginger root
drink to you know, settle their stomach. So so they just they made
a potion and it was magical and that's what what cured them, even though
it all just boils down to you know, what happens when you put some
ginger in your stomach. Yeah, so they weren't always bad guys. They
weren't always deonized. When do we turn a corner on that, Well,
we turned it a while ago. It's not a very recent corner that that's
to be turned. But witchcraft also has been said to be practices that influence
the mind and the body or the property of others against their will, or
to be actions that that deliberately go against a social or religious order. So
that's sort of where you can start seeing the roots of where the corner is
turned. When you start going up against you know, the ideas of a
religion that's taken over, you're you're going to come up against some resistance.
Yeah. Once once people start being afraid that your your mind take there's there's
going to be some resistance. They and the belief that witchcraft is bad,
even somewhat to this day, may be specifically a Christian construct. Now it's
not necessarily in stone that because Christianity's influence demonized witchcraft that's why it has this
this hugely bad connotation, but that certainly helped it throughout the ages become this
this demonized thing. Well, and the uh, the Christian expansion, the
way that the Catholic Church, you know, utilizes new areas to take over
when they expand that they incorporate local belief systems and then kind of take their
time and sort of subvert them. Then yeah, and I think you could
see this that patterned with local healers, like I said, shaman um,
you know, even you know Mother Matilda, maybe no one ever just calls
her a witch or anything that, like, oh, that's just Mother Matilda.
She lives over there and if if you you need foxglove or digitalis,
you go see her, right. And that's that's sort of what we touched
on with the History of Halloween episode with how the church sort of sucked up
Sawin and and then they were like, oh, by the way, here's
here's all saints a day right after it, so don't don't worry about celebrating
that pagan So they treated it like fall sweeps, like, oh well,
we we too. I understand that your sawin is is Thursdays at seven.
But now we've got new episodes of the West Wing, you know, watch
so so yeah, you're you're right. They they kind of got sucked up
into the machine and then just turned into another cog basically, and if they
resisted at all, then they were in league with the devil and they had
to be destroyed. The Old Testament's pretty clear on how you handle that.
Yeah, so what does it suffer? No, which to live is in
there in the Old test and also in the Old Testament, which is pretty
cool. I thought I hadn't heard of this before. But King Saul consults
a witch by the name of the Witch of Indoor about an upcoming battle.
Could it be the battle against the Empire? Yes? King Saul noticed that
there was a second I mean it was too big be a space about a
battle station. I mean had to be a moon, right, had to
be a moon. That's no moon exactly, And that's what happened to Mesopotamia
incurred the wrath of the empires, right, the battle against the stormtroopers,
that's all bright. So this happens in First Samuel, chapter twenty eight,
verses three through twenty five for those of you. Yeah, if you're falling
along in the old Bible, which which you should have for every episode of
always have a Bible out before you push play. The Witch of the Indoor
used necromancy whoa which which is the conjuring of spirits of the dead for divination
or prophecy. That's definitely in the bad witch bucket to call up the ghost
of the prophet Samuel to let King Saul know how that battle is going to
turn out. Um, spoiler alert, it turns out poorly. He dies.
Did he know that ahead of time? Did he know that he was
going to die? Yes? Yeah, I mean he was there when the
spirit of Samuel comes up and it's like, dude, you pissed off God,
You're gonna die tomorrow, so bye? See h see you sup?
Yeah exactly, Yeah, he knew, and I guess he went anyway.
So now see why why would you go find the Witch of Endor ask her
to dig up the ghost of a prophet and then not listen to the ghost
of the prophet I have yeah, exactly, And then you get into the
argument of where is it fate or people have a choice, and you know
what, I get into that argument. I don't know it. Saul is
so irritating that he doesn't even give it the opportunity to go down that Oh
does he does he run across his fate on his path to avoid it.
No, he just hears the the oh, if you go do this,
you're gonna die. He's like, all right, well, what do you
know, your ghost, I'm gonna go do it. Yeah. I mean,
if he didn't do it, would have lived the stuff? Ever know
this stuff, the stuff that I read, I didn't. I didn't see
his reaction to do what the ghost. It wasn't a postgame review. I
can only assume that he was like, Man, if your ghost, I'm
gonna I'm gonna fight my own waf man. I don't know why. He's
a gangster and got too long ago. See this is my wall, my
action. I'm gonna go in my way. I'm gonna I'm gonna protect us.
Rum Yeah, now out of my way, which of end off?
I gotta clean house? He call me anymore? Wait? It was everything
about that was awful and great at the same time, what are we going
to do dancing? Shout up yea flappa, which that's awesome. That's see,
that's the Bible. We should have the Boardwalk Empire Bible. So the
let's let's talk about the name, which, as as we know at the
term which comes from the Old English wicca, which I've heard a number of
meanings for the word wicca from craft of the wise or or you know,
yeah, and you too a man who practices magic, I mean, who
knows and you get It's it's easy to get confused because the current belief system
of Wicca takes its name from witchcraft. Again. So so just just in
case you were confused by this, the current wick like the thing that the
people that you see in drum circles and at Renaissance fairs, which are awesome
them those folks fairly new on the scene. We're going to get to that.
Yeah, But witchcraft, as far as like the word wicca is very
very old. The belief system known as Wicca is very very new. Right,
we'll get into that. But just just to alleviate any confusion, yeah,
I mean, which is we're more often than not outcasts or kind of
the weirdos of a of a town or village. You know, they were
commonly just you know, the disheveled woman that is walking around barefoot, you
know, being loud, proclaiming this and that, or sometimes not not loud.
That's probably that. I can't prove that at all. But but the
thing is, But that's it's an interesting thing though, because it is it's
usually a sort of an outcast person. Are they raised with this, with
this knowledge base about woods craft and herbs and remedies and how you cure fevers
and things like this, with a huge amount of other extra not necessarily necessary
editions, but with spirits and fairies and ghosts and all these things incorporated into
it. Now, were these people selected? I mean, because it takes
a long time to learn these skills. So were they selected young and brought
brought in over time or as they grew up they're like, oh, well,
you got a weird one on your hands. They're working. Yeah,
that's how that's gonna go. Hmm. I don't know. That's a good
question. And because it's such a hyper regionalized thing, maybe one village is
which is just a crazy woman, yeah, or a crazy guy who lives
out. He's just a hermit at the edge of town and rants and raves.
But you know, you go a mile away and this village is like,
oh no, our which is this lady and she was able to save
our baby. Yeah, you know. Yeah, and then that's that's a
thing. Since every culture in town is as a little unique snowflake, then
you get all kinds, but they all just basically boiled down to the same
base thing, yeah, which is just it's just somebody who who can can
help or they know, like you said, woods craft and herbalism, things
like that, stuff that other people don't know. And because they don't know,
they fear it in a way. Yeah, I imagine everyone's terrified at
the witches. Yeah. During medieval Europe, this is when you start seeing
the rise of some of the worst aspects that's associated with witchcraft and witches.
The Catholics, the Protestant Southern secular religious leaders of the day helped vilify witches
and they basically sparked a period of fear and violence that lasted for centuries.
I mean this is going from at least six hundred years ago. This is
going from the fourteenth century to like the eighteenth century, and in some cultures
it still goes on today. Oh absolutely, yeah. You still see headlines
about people are are killed for witchcrafted parts of the world people. I mean,
it's it's it's amazing, yeah, that that does not ended. And
the way they helped vilify witchcraft was kind of doing a stereotype of what a
witch was generally was a woman old, broken down, crony, you know,
maybe a little disfigured warts, things like that, just somebody that wasn't
pleasant to look at again, you know, disheveled, like I said before,
things like that, someone who knew something that you might not know,
you know, and it seemed like magic. And then they go even further
to say that which is consorted with the devil, and any anything bad that
that might have happened was blamed on a witch, but especially if it couldn't
be explained, maybe the crops filled in a in a particular year, maybe
maybe a cow died after you know, somebody got got mad, you know,
and had a spat and then just cursed cursed the cow or curse the
family or something. You know, it's a spell, and that person was
then tried as a as a witch. So they they really fashioned kind of
the the stereotypical which image that we have today with the old crone consorting with
the devil, things like that, and was that and that was used primarily
as it was it was a political weapon, Yeah, it was. It
was a way for the local church in a region to focus power. They
could eliminate people who were you know, if if if I if my job
is to save souls and to to bring in money and people, and something
goes wrong and they're going to see this this woman at the edge of town
or this man at the edge of town, if I can get that person
out of the picture, I mean, that's that's that's a it's a political
maneuver. Yeah, and it was was broadly employed. And the thing that
helped them was it was cross class hatred. Everybody from the aristocracy all the
way down to the to the peasants living on what they could scrape by with
hated witches and knew that you know, if if they suffer a witch to
live, than it could cost them their soul, right, And it's and
so and that you get this this black market in witches witch hunters. And
yeah, I mean I mean because these people still have these skills. And
as much as people will pray, you know, in church on Sundays,
they are the ones working in the fields, and when when one of their
hands stops working, they will still seek out a person with that medical ability.
So these witches don't don't cease to exist right. As a matter of
fact, I would imagine that most of the people who were accused of witchcraft
weren't even these people in the village. They weren't the people who were who
were the village, which, for lack of a better chick, it comes
to that for sure. And that's that's the worst part. That's the height
of what happens to the with the persecution of witches. In fourteen eighty six,
a clergyman named Heinrich Kramer wrote a little book called the Malleus malth Acarum,
which is which was a witch hunting manual for people. It it basically
gave easy to understand instructions on how to identify a witch, putting a witch
on trial, the punishment of the witch, and how to set the VCR
clock, which in turn made him a witch. And and he was killed
board And now we're witches because we know of them, burn us, send
us an email, burn us just a gift of a fire that'll do.
Oh that's so awful. But this this manual Malus maleficarum, by the way,
means hammer of the witches. Nice, And it's not hammer of the
witches, like, oh, witches have this awesome hammer. Man they're like
four. It's like the hammer that exactly, like saying the hammer for nails.
Yeah. This book, while while it wasn't officially accepted by churches,
it was used by religious officials for centuries basically, and and people people used
it. It was a number two, number two most popular book besides Yield
Bible, which I'm which you're looking at, racis a. It's a companions
part of the expanded Bible universe, not necessarily canon, but how to pre
order your Bible to right. Yeah, but you know what, when you
read the Bible, you're gonna be at the end like, now, how
do I go about hunting witches? Yeah? Good news, people, good
news everybody. Part of the vilification of witches in these villages and things was
taking what was was telling people what tools they used, you know, uh,
some of the things to look out for besides the wart and the chrony,
the old chrone looking look in general, one of which our friend the
broomstick. Ye, broomsticks were popular for witches, especially you here for them
to fly on. Now. They would use broomsticks to fly to their midnight
sabbaths with the devil because it was, you know, the fastest way to
get there and and they could fly. Why not? Also the broom may
have swept away their tracks in the sky skytracks projects. Now I've actually there
was recently a series of articles that I read that were really interesting about the
idea of a witch and where we get you know, like, how does
how does society arrive at this universal kind of idea of a witch? Sure?
And one of the articles I read was about the broom and the flying
broom and where that where that whole idea came from? And uh, there
was this these these anthropologists in England were kind of tracing it back and their
theory is this, and it's fascinating and weird. The the cauldron that there
was there was a people who would mix um hallucinogens. They would they learned
how to homebrew hallucinogens. They would take these hallucinogens. The women vaginally yeah,
they would. They would apply it, they put on their skin and
they would they would actually in order to administer it, they would actually apply
it to an item, in some cases a broomstick. Insert said item.
Wow in this and I I cannot emphasize how weird this is to me,
like reading this article. But that's then they would they would go on flights,
they would, and so there was the mind Yeah. Absolutely. Obviously
at no point did anyone fly, but this was they were saying, this
is where you get that that cauldron, broomstick, flight need that these people
would would would join together, these covens. They would they would have these
late night parties where they would cauldron up a batch of of hallucinogen and take
it and then just trip balls. All right, need, Yeah, that's
need. And the thing is and the cauldron again is another tool of a
witch. The thing is with with these these are household items. These are
things that housewives had. These these are things that most women had access too,
had used on a day to day basis. So it's only natural,
you know, for because the majority of witches that that we're accused of being
witches were female. Uh, this these naturally fall into into place I've even
heard pitchworks. Um, we we're used in place of brooms things like that
too, and and and it's and it is. It's one of those things
that you see historically over and over whenever you have a list, Oh,
these are the things that this group of people that we're trying to suppress have
in common. Yeah, nine times out of ten, it's things that everyone
has. Yeah, but they're like, oh, look he's got it.
It's like, oh, you know what, we're trying to suppress people who
like television, and we broke this guy's door, and sure enough, a
TV right there got him. I mean, our TVs are different than his.
He had the bad kind of you know what I mean. That's it's
one of those those things. Whenever one group of people is trying to persecute
another, it's easiest to pick a commonly found item, yea, yea.
And then then you're then you're going to find what you're looking for. That's
how you do it. And another thing that is a common thing with people
across the board domestic animals. Yep. And this is where we get the
cat. The black cat that was a witch is familiar. Yeah, it's
just a minion. To do her bidding. Also, she could shape shift
into a cat, so a cat may may itself be a witch who knows,
which, further I think highlights how ridiculous this is, because no cat
will ever do what a human wants, ever, ever, ever. That's
how you know it's a ridiculous thing, right. There were other examples of
familiars as well. Oh thank god, you know that. I mean,
it could be anywhere from a dog to an owl to a horse, pretty
much, any any halfway domesticated animal, or do you see them and an
animal within an hour? That's how you're going to nail them. That's that's
it. And then the things like wands, candles, complicated knots, herbs,
bones, I mean, almost anything could be traced as as an implement
that a that a witch could use. That article that I read also mentioned
the wand the wand yeah, without going back into that, I just had
to get that part out. But yeah, a little time device. If
you're having fun, then you're worshiping the damil. I should also mention the
conical hat, which, yeah, there's not a very clear origin of the
conical hat, that type of hat, or or a conical hat in general,
It's seen in many cultures in one shape or another. They think maybe
it could be from an ancient depiction of the goddess Diana from a coin that
they found in Italy wearing a conical hat, and Diana was one of the
I think goddesses that that influenced witchcraft a lot in the old ancient days.
Or it could be could be a dunce cap, you know, if they
want to to vilify, which is well, they're they're stupid, so you
know, put put them in dunce cap. Has history ever made a conical
hat that was considered to be good for the person wearing it? The Chinese
I think they did the rice the rice paddy hats that that they wear,
you know, to protect them. But those are like broad it's charging about
serious point. Maybe you know there's a geometry to that. But because between
dunce caps, which is hats plans, send us an email if you know
of an excellent historical point he had, Yeah, something that that's actually useful
or there's a reason that that is pointy asterisk Pope hats don't count. I
wouldn't. I wouldn't father them under that though, because they somebody was gonna
they're weird, and that's a perspective thing. You like the pope, you
don't like the pope, Let's just take him off the table. That's why
I'm saying, it's off the table. It's off the table. Ups off
the table. Hello, pumped off the table. The pomps off the table.
Fully worked by Dave'steco thunder sound. Yeah, did you like the thunder
sound in the Tesla episode? I love the thunder sound. The thunder sound
is one of my favorites because it's and it'll get you. It'll get you.
You think everything's all cool, and then we sneak it in there.
Yeah. Yeah, because you know, as a matter of fact, while
thunder sound, you can't be ready for this. I hope you weren't driving,
Which is back to witches. I should stop laughing now because I'm going
to talk about some some pretty pretty horrible stuff about to get real serious.
Here we go, you guys. Um, we get into the height of
the witch scare, the fear, the fear and the ignorance of which is
it's a it's a time at the end of the sixteen hundreds, beginning of
the seventeen seventeen hundreds, mostly in Europe, although it spreads spreads everywhere,
including America and the American colonies. This is called the Burning Times, and
it's just when witch hunts just exploded all over the place. People were people
were crazy trying to find witches and get rid of them. It was influenced,
I think a lot, by the Spanish Inquisition, and you know how
they searched for heretics and things like that, and you know, and their
methods of torture and stuff kind of kind of bled over into witch hunts.
They would accuse a witch or someone of of practicing witchcraft, and they couldn't
by law, they couldn't kill them just because they were accused of witchcraft.
The person actually had to confess to being a witch and then they were killed.
But yeah, there's there's a pretty astoundingly terrifying butt to this, right.
They tortured victims, They tortured them horribly until they either confessed, in
which case they were killed or they died from being tortured to die. It's
the biggest damned if you do, damned if you don't. There there's no
one gets away from being accused of being being accused. Is the sentence right,
you know, and one of those one of the classic witch tests.
Uh, throw a witch in a lake. Yep, if she floats,
she's a witch, and then you kill her. If she sinks, not
a witch. Yeah, so so terrible. What what I want to know
is, well, how did they go about their daily lives after that?
Are they just like, oh, well, when a witch my bad?
Uh? You you what the partners? Yeah? Is that what they did?
Or are they just like, well, let's ask God to forgive us
for killing this person and keep hunting witches. Right? Well, I think
that you were, you were doing God's work and if if, if you
if, if that person was supposed to live, there would have been an
intervention, something would have happened, Lightning bolts, good points, you know.
And I think I think these things gods will like any like. Even
in the colloquial witch hunt, it's it's a mob mentality. There's there's no
individual person, uh you know, really arbiting when these things are happening.
It's it's people who are whipped into a frenzy by by fear, um,
just by the heat of the moment, doing terrible things and then and then
afterwards. I think that like any mob, it's always someone else in the
mob who did it, Yeah, you know, and the one and so
all these people go about their lives, maybe a little quietly for a few
weeks, until the crops fail again and there's a stranger in town. You
know, those those those awful situations that that replay themselves infinitely into humanity's future.
Yeah, yeah, that's badly enough. Yeah, we will continue to
live out that cycle, just with different variations of what scares us. The
one one interesting thing I found those in the early sixteen hundreds, England actually
did have a witch hunter general or a witch hunter appointed to oversee finding and
killing. And which chief of witch hunting? Yeah, look up the name
Matthew Hopkins. Okay? Or is it which? Which finder General? Which
finder General? So Matthew Hopkins. Uh. I think this was actually an
actual thing that was appointed by the King of Queen. That's amazing. So
he had had the singular job of doing that. But I'm sure he incited
mob mentality. Oh yell, yeah, because you're not going to keep the
job of which finder general if you're not finding witches? Which which what a
terrible situation, because if I found myself in a time portal back then and
someone said, hey, do you want the job of which finder general?
I'd be like, that sounds like an awesome job. That's the coolest job
title on earth, I think so. But actually your job is just to
torture and kill innocent people. Horrible, the worst. But in all the
while, I mean, these people are whistling because they're doing God's work,
that's right. And this last, the Burning Times in particular lasts it was
like two hundred years long, and it got to be the worst in France
and Germany. Germany, there were there's there's stories just of of towns that
almost wipe themselves out because everybody's accusing everybody of being which they they killed men,
women and children for this stuff. And they they estimate, I mean,
you can't know for sure, but they estimate that there were hundreds of
thousands of people who died from this, most of which were women, some
of which were children. But this brings us then to sixteen ninety two and
the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts. One hundred and fifty people are arrested during
this time or imprisoned, and at least twenty four of them were killed and
or died from being imprisoned, and points points to the colonies, points to
the New World for establishing at least a somewhat formal court. I mean they
were local magistrates and stuff, you know. They Yeah, they managed to
put a lot of spit polish on a terrible, terrible act. And it
supposedly started with a couple of girls doing an ancient sort of scrying technique with
a makeshift crystal ball where they had a glass of water and they broke an
egg and dropped it inside there, and then they were supposed to see like
who they were going to marry, right, you know, who's going to
It's like those foldy paper four corners things like. That's that's literally what they
were doing. And uh and six months later, twenty four people are dead,
exactly exactly. And one of the girls apparently saw a coffin in there
and like broke down in hysterics, and and it just exploded from there.
Now that's how what the story, how the story goes. But it stopped
finally when the governor's wife was accused of witchcraft, and then it was they
put the WHOA, yeah, there there's a thought that the Salem witch trials
may have been a political ploy too, because there was one family in particular
who was accusing much of another family of witchcraft, and and it was it
was pretty one sided in a way. And I'm sure that that's out nine
out of ten of these things. These towns that lose their minds, these
this this is not this is not even a question of religious belief. It's
these are these are it's it's a political weapon, yeah, it is.
It is a very easy and you don't have to do much to prove anything
because you can just say it. The first person to claim witchcraft wins.
That's It's a simple. It's just a gun sitting on a table, and
the first person to point it and pull the trigger gets to walk out of
the room. Yep. And that's how it happened. Now, with the
advent of science, witchcraft and and the hysterics, the you know about it,
yeah, really started severely lessening. It got much better once people were
able to explain things, and the fear that people felt could start being alleviated.
And then, which is worn't weren't so fearful, although you know,
still the idea of the witcher persisted, but you didn't have the convenient excuse
of somebody put to curse on our crops, So let's go out burn them
at the steak. Right It's where you find out that's where a separation of
church and state comes in really handy, that right there, when the people
who are in charge of the burning steaks and the people who are in charge
of finding people to burn are not the same entity. I didn't mention this,
but I'm so certain that you guys can draw the parallel between burning at
the steak and the title of the Burning Times. I'm not even going to
mention it, not even you didn't even hear that. Nope. So science,
science helps out a lot, and the whole witch hunt epidemic dies dies
out finally. But as we mentioned earlier, which which hunts are still carried
out today, especially India I read is pretty bad for parading accused witches in
the street naked and killing them in Sub Saharan Africa a huge amount of accusations.
If the end results weren't so terrifying, they would be hilarious stories of
men claiming spontaneous penis theft. Oh I think I've heard this where yeah,
a guy will just hysterically decide his penis is gone and blame a witch and
that which is killed. And then he's like, oh, it's back.
I mean it, you say, how, but I mean you have to
you know, it's in a lot of parts of the world. You know,
the belief systems rule everything. There is, there's you know, that's
a it's a difficult thing. Uh And and yeah that and even even here
in our lofty perch in the United States, no one calls them witch hunts
because we're we know that those aren't real anymore. But instead will say,
oh, well, you know that heavy metal, you know that if you
play it backwards, you're going to get like there's still that that creature's still
alive in in Western culture. Um, even though we've put the brakes on
people getting killed from it for the most part, but it still happens in
abuse of homes sure, um, you know. Yeah, And and it's
it's kind of like that, just the relabeling of stuff, you know,
and then then they can kind of get away with it a witch hunt anymore.
It's called liberating America from the tororists. And oh yeah, you know,
whatever whatever label you want to put on it, it's they get away
with it the government of I believe it was Thailand. Let's just say a
government recently released a book on how to spot the gay kids in elementary school
so that they can be quickly located and removed before they you know. And
that's that's right, and that's no different. Now you've got oh, here's
a list of things you have to look out for because these kids are witches,
you know, like it's it's absolutely no different, right, And it
all boils down to blatant ignorance. Right. If you can focus fear,
you get to consolidate your power and people will play that card through the history
until we're finally all robots, and that's coming soon. Hopefully that singularity is
right on the horizon. But blurry photos now available to completely in binary So
one zero zero one zero, oh program laugh. Does witchcraft exist today in
any way, sheet or form. Yes, it does. And this is
what we mentioned earlier with wicka modern day pagan religion, that it's it's a
nature worshiping religion and the divine feminine and divine masculine. Yeah. I've already
gone on the record in this podcast of being very pro old timey witch and
very against new timey one. You don't like you don't like the Wicka.
No, okay, no I do not. It's I mean like I it's
like saying, oh, you don't you don't like hard metal. But imagine
a new hard metal is just a tambourine, and the old hard metal had
all the guitars, like Wicka lost all the guitars and they just kept the
damn tambourine. Man, well, is that vague enough? No, No,
it's pretty. And if you had said a band name, maybe maybe
I'll showing anybody aligne there. No, I just know I I'll tell you
what I appreciate, how they they appreciate nature and the forces of um doing
good and not worrying about material things. I think. I mean one thing
that I was actually very surprised about. No, my before doing the research,
my understanding of modern Wicca that these people were just carrying the torch from
from previous pagan beliefs and this is just like these people are keeping a live,
very old relief system. And that's not the case. Wicka is barely
older than scientology. I mean, it's got like it's like fifteen and twenty
years older than the scientologists. Yeah, it was what the fifties or sixties
that they really started crystallizing what Wicka was absolutely, I mean, and the
furthest fact they can go is the late twenty es. I mean, this
is a twentieth century belief system, and it is just you know, you
kind of cobble together the things you like from other you know, from the
from the classical pagan right people. Yeah, they you know, they use
the pentagram of the pentacle as they call it, represents earth, air,
fire, water, and spirit see and then when you put all the points
together you get your Captain planet right. Um. But you know it's it
is, it is. It is a semi manufactured belief system for people who
pre who already wanted to believe in something like that, which is fine.
I just the one thing that I the one credit I was giving the Wickens
is that they had this this ancient pedigree, this lineage, and my I
was really astounded to learn that that that it is a newer construct. Do
you did you see what the the creed or or basically the main thought,
do no harm? You know what I've actually even seen harkening back to our
discussions of mister Alister Crowley, UM, which is a do what you will
harm none. Yeah, I saw coming up and do what you will,
but harm none. Yeah. So that's that's pretty that's pretty fun. Huh.
We're getting self referential. Yeah. That means we've arrived, brother,
we are we have enough out there that Yeah, so watch this now.
If you'd like to hear more about Alister Crowley, please check out episode zero
zero one in our series and block out a lot of time because we like
to talk about him. Yeah. We've hopefully gotten better about the the editing
over ramblings. But but yeah, Crowley had had a big influence on there.
Um. I also like they for for their sabbaths, they use the
Wheel of the Year, um, which is it's basically a cycle of of
earth seasons. Uh. And I think there's like there's there's maybe eight of
these and a couple of them you might be be familiar with. Solwin is
one, Midsummer is one. Do they go with Solon or sam Haney with
Solomon as we referenced in the History of oh Man so good at this uh.
And and another one that I thought was cool, Yule is one of
the times of year. Yeah, that they that they like to celebrate and
gather on. Not that I have a log and the way you think I
do. I mean, I don't know. Wow, everybody has a log.
There's a little uh well Clark w Griswold. Therefore you we'll save it
for Christmas. It's about um but you know we still call it the Yule
Tide, you know, and Yule Log and all this stuff. That's that's
the time of the year. It's it's uh, it's like saying the summer
solstice or you know, win winter Solstice, things like that. And that
is the last one that's going to sound familiar. Yeah, everything kind of
like that's where the wheels fall off the wagon for you. But we're going
to tell you the rest of them. But yeah, I mean that's that's
Wicked. It's it's a recognized religion today and uh yeah, quite quite a
few people celebrate that. Interestingly enough, they just recently in the last year,
a Wicked military won the right to have the pentacle on headstones in the
Arlington National Cemetery. They've they've recently been awarded the right to have the pentacle
on there the great stones. Well you've arrived wicka scientologist take a number.
So so that for you is is kind of what witchcraft is about. Yeah,
there's there's there's your primer that's gonna that's gonna get you through anything you
need to discuss at the office. And if you if you want to learn
more about mister Matthew Hopkins or the Burning Times or any of that stuff,
look it up yourself. Yeah, or write to us and say we'd I'd
like another episode that further focus. Is because I cannot emphasize what a giant
bucket of information witchcraft is. Yep, we could. We could spend hours
and hours and hours on any area of it. So if you want to
hear more about it, let us know. Yeah, we'll dive into that
stuff. Yeah, we'll douse it. We'll crack an egg into that cup
and look for the coffins. Yeah. So I think it's high time for
some pun. Oh man, I love puns. All right, what do
you what do you have for us this week? Mister? I'll start us
out. So, so we're doing businesses that are witch or witchcraft themed.
My first one is a bakery called Fresh from the Coven. I like that.
I like that a lot. All right, I've got one. It's
a discount ritual suppliest were called deal Wicket. I get it. Yeah.
Um. Number two for me is a home furnishing store called bed Sabbath and
Beyond oh or bed Sabbath in the wand Oh. I like with the wand
I like the wand even more. I thought I might have to lay the
foundation there first. I've got a I've got a product, Crackling Crone brand
Bony hand cream to make sure your hands are as bany and bony as they
can be. You don't have witch's hands till you have Crackling Crone hands.
We love puns, pounds, pounds, puns, puns. So we got
one more, one more email from a listener that's about some superstitions that were
that were pretty cool. Um. One of which is if someone comes in
the front door of a house, you also have to leave by that door,
or vice versa. You can't come in the front and leave at the
back, or come in the back and leave at the front. I do
that all the time from shafted crazy. Huh. Think of all that luck
you could be getting if a picture falls from from whence it's hung, there's
going to be a death. You heard of that one. I work at
an auction house. Everyone I know is going to die. Pictures fall from
walls, never at all. I just realized. I added that sometimes find
paintings fall from walls. That part has to be deleted. I believe it
did a way to kind of act the punishment of or the bad stuff that
happens to you when a black cat crosses your path, to have a white
cat cross your path afterwards, that's well, I didn't know about that.
Then. That's why I keep one in a backpack. Anybody sense, because
I've been smelling something, all right. I put a roller skate on it.
Also, it's a roller blade, so it doesn't go there. Young.
Um, this one's pretty cool. It's bad luck to hang a picture
on a Sunday. Lots of stuff with pictures. Yeah, don't sweep across
a doorway at night. It's bad luck. Fun all right? Okay,
Oh, I think the listener says, I think it's something about spirits getting
in. Um, how do people get anything done? I know? And
how do they ever hang a picture? I don't know. Any anything in
the home is bad luck. I think it is a veritable minefield. It's
of superstitious torment. Tread care lest you let bad spirits. I think you
think we've left let enough bad spirits in tonight. We think we've thank you,
thank you for sending us an email. Please send us a pun.
You guys, we we left the witch pun door wide open. It just
come on in, root through the cellar, see what you find. Don't
touch the demand rake root Nope, I think, screams Harry Potter, thank
you and hurry, but more fully work that's probably coming through as that might
come out to be a real bad idea of my fully work of smacking the
table right next to the mike. Yeah, that's uh, that's what we
got for you for this episode. And next episode is gonna be our our
Halloween episode. Man. I hope, I hope that you are prepared yourself.
And if you haven't, start now, it's gonna take time. We
uh, we're just we're gonna tell you some some spooky stories. It's it's
not gonna be too informational, but it should be a hell of a lot
of fun. You know, we are warning you now you cannot sue us
for lack of sleep, nausea, epilepsy, narcolepsy, making fun of you,
clepto, Metsy, make that one up. Let's Clepto Metsy, you
steal the mets, stealing Sleep, Tomancy come to Mancy, you raise Sleep
from the dead. But you can't blame us for anything that happens to you
for listening to us. That's right now, or then, before this or
in days to come. You burn warm thunder sound. We probably need to
find a new sound effect that one might get old soon. Horse of Terror.
So we'd like to plug a podcast from a friend of ours. Yeah,
speaking of the paranormal. There's a podcast called An Hour with Your X
That is a podcast from our friend Mel Evans and Mark Colam And what they
do is one of them will give the other one movie that the first person
has seen and likes or maybe you know, doesn't like, but you've been
there, you've got them. You're one of your favorite movies, and it's
time to make someone watch it, right, And the second person either hasn't
seen it or hasn't seen it in a long time, and so they kind
of are like, here, you watch it this one this week. We'll
watch one of your choosing next week. And then they take it apart,
they dissect it, talk about it and hilarity and sus absolutely, and it's
such an egalitarian system. One wonders how they ever broke up. I mean,
if they can achieve this kind of cooperation, what can't be done.
So yeah, So if you've ever wondered what it's like to spend time with
your ex and talk about movies, Yeah, I love it. I'm a
big fan and I think it's a great podcast. Yeah. I think the
last week's episode was an American werewolf in London. They actually took that one
apart and talked about it. But yeah, it's a good time an hour
with your X. Check it out on the iTunes or just google it in
there and you'll find it. Oh, by the way, you guys,
go to blurry photos dot org. Look at all the cool stuff that's on
there. It's not much. It's just a podcast right now on some pictures.
And if you're trying to explain to people how cool it is, make
sure to point out, yeah, it's dot org. They don't just they
just hand those out, Okay, they got to earn that. Also,
if you're going to talk to other people about blurry photos, tell them to
like our Facebook page and follow us on the twitters. Listen to the podcast,
we're on iTunes. You might have been listening through iTunes right now.
Ever heard of it. Yeah, So if you like what we do and
can get this far in each episode, give us a good rating. Why
not do it? Comment on there be like these guys are nuts and it's
great and there are so few. Again, this is your chance for immortality.
You want to have your review on iTunes? Give you you know,
you download a Black Keys album. You're like, my review will never get
red. There's so many here thissiness. Or do it now and tell everyone
else to don't tell them not to do it, but Chiller Bales to do
it, and then you can be like, I remember the day when people
could read my exactly know I've read in the community. So that's that's our
our plug for our sales. This has been blurry photos. I am David
Flora and I am also David Flora. I was just kidding. Shame shifter.
Good by,