Speaker 1: Welcome to The High Strangers Factor with the as you
can probably guess, not Steve Ward, because I'm not Steve,
but I'm sure you do recognize me as Andy Mercery's
co host, And of course I had Susie with you
tonight as well. And unfortunately Steve is not doing so well.
He's come down with some dark, strange, mysterious illness stuff.
You might get cold or flu or something, but in
any case, he can't make it tonight. His voice has
gone a bit cracky and he's being a bit rough.
So tonight it is just myself and my co host,
Susie Bestiel, and I think Susie I'm right in saying
this is probably the first time we've done a show,
this High Strangers Factor show for just the two us.
That's all quite strange, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It is. Yeah, we don't have Steve interfering, so we
can cause a little bit of trouble. It should be
a good time.
Speaker 1: Yes, we are sure talk calmly and succinctly and not
have to worry about dead air, which he always worries about.
It's a real shame because sometimes you have to pause
and breathe a moment. But Steve likes to make sure
everything's flowing, So if there is any dead air tonight,
it' Steve's fault for not being here. So we'll pint out.
Speaker 2: If he's been the one that has been keeping the
dead air away or not.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, well we kind of weren't too sure what
we're going to talk about first, because it's all been
a bit sort of last minute because they Steve's have
to drop out, we weren't able to secure our guests.
So tonight I'm afraid you're gonna have to put out
of Susan and I just talking about various things and
topics that interest us, and one particular one that we
were talking about a little while ago that certainly interests me,
and those who have been listening to show for a
few years know full well I'm interested in this sort
of topic, and that is witchcraft and the occult and
magic and all those sort of strange, wonderful things. And
I thought perhaps we could talk a bit tonight about
possibly like different perspectives of witchcraft and magic that you
have in the UK here compared to over there in America.
So it's well, those topics that often grows comes up
again it can cause a strong response in some people.
Some people aren't happy we've been talking about such things
instantly to be the work of the devil in the
dark and sinister, mysterious and frightening and should be scared
well as others might just say it more as a
it's a folklore, a history or other still as a real,
actual practice that has real world affects and results. So
I think we should really still talk about those kinds
of things. Well, what's your understanding of what witchcraft is
over there? Well, not there in the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, So actually that was going to be one of
the questions they had for you, is how do you
actually define witchcraft? I you know, it's New England. We
had witch trials all over the place here, not just Salem,
we had them in Connecticut too. That was all hogwash, obviously.
I kind of look at witchcraft as kind of people
getting back and reconnecting with the nature and more of
the way maybe we used to live or we were
intended to live, and kind of part of it would
be like, you know, harnessing those energies we're always talking
about that are just occurring in nature. But I think
a lot of it is psychological too, and a way
to focus your energy and kind of like self care
almost yes, yeah, and for me too, Like everyone talks
about focusing and intentions and things like that, I have
a you know, a neurological difference that can make focusing
on something hard or impossible. For I always say, I
don't choose what I focus on. My brain does. My
brain is its own entity. I'm not the one in charge.
But a ritual or something like that that I have
to actually do can help me focus my intentions on something.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's one certain element of working with more broader
to magic would be that you are focusing your mind
and often involves rituals which in themselves, because sometimes see
a little absurd of it, strange, but are either to
generally genuinely create the effect or they're almost like that.
It's the role play you play in. You're part of
what you're trying to create. That you have to do
these rituals, even if in themselves it seemed ludicrous and meaningless,
they generate some kind of connection. But maybe you're quite right.
With Witchcraft itself as a practice has been around for
a very very long time, and it often was a
way of trying to control nature or try to work
with nature. You know how you want to perceive it.
You know, a lot of I mean, modern medicines come
out of a lot of it's come out of herbs
that people worked with, which we have been herbcraft has
been part of the witchcraft, gathering the herbs and preparing
various treatments for illnesses, and often those as you mentioned,
the witchcraft trials. Often those kind of trials and suggestions
of dark deeds. I begin with someone just trying to
cure illness, trying to help a sick child or a
sick animal, even just to make it better, using basically
medical knowledge that they might have had from certain herbs
and plants. But others in the village of the other
locals might have no idea of how you've done that.
You know what this plant has done, How does that
possibly work? It must be something more to it. So
the witchcraft itself kind of develops as a way also
of working with more general medicine, but also became the
person you can turn to for help if there is
a problem, because there was no medical people around, and
even into that the Victorian times there was obviously doctors,
but you couldn't afford see a doctor, so you'd have
to go and see the local magic person, a cunning
woman or the cunning man, or the witch or whatever
t you want to use, to see if they can
help with that. But it was sometimes seen the other
way around as well, that if you perhaps cross this person,
then they would do bad things to you with using witchcraft,
using their magical skills, if it became afraid of it
as well, that it was some kind of apt to
be automatically the work of the devil. Although again it's
that's a very much kind of modern thinking that witchcraft
is eel and it's black and sinister. It wasn't that
unusual in the say again the Victorian times over here,
that someone could be practicing witchcraft maybe on a Sunday evening,
by having into church on Sunday morning. But they had
what used to call the dual observance, this idea that
you could be both a Christian in quotation mark, because
obviously Christianity itself would be against use of witchcraft, but
at the same time using those skills to help and
heal rather than doing things dark or sinister. But the
idea again, as I said, that you could perhaps cross
that person that they would then react negatively and cast
a spell upon you became a fear, became a worried.
So if it would look for other people who would
perhaps be able to help them deal with that kind
of thing, So you might get this kind of division
between black and white witchcraft, which again is a modern thing,
but the idea your turn to one which to combat
or fight the other, which that would happen. That would
be the case. And often sometimes someone was trying to
push themselves as being the person who could help you
deal with black magic, would then find black magic for
you to have to deal with, so they kind of
self fulfilling and self feilling prophecy of this bad things
are happening, therefore you need my help to fix them
for you. So people like cunning men particularly would be
the person you'd turn to because of a witch Often
the woman had done a bad spell against you. It
could just be maybe your cross weren't growing very well.
That the way they had minister good, But you want
to find not only a reason for them being there,
but also a way to combat something you couldn't control.
So witchcraft would be seen as the way in which
you dealt with that, whether which to fight against the
negative stuff or to try and build the crops up again.
So it was a lot of that kind of thing
would go on. I mean, in a book I wrote
for years back, which you surely cave, which is a
collection of witchcraft tales, they are on spells. I should say,
that's what I found. There were lots of examples where
folklore examples where things had gone wrong or gone bad,
and they'd even blamed the woman in the village. At
the end of the village. She was they thought was
a bit strangers to say she was a witch and
she'd cause the problems, the mischief or alternally they turned
to her for help dealing with whatever might happen with
the weather was bad, or crops for failing, all those
kinds of things, you know. I mean, the thing that
I found interesting in those focal of books, I've got
the number of cases where the terms of the witch
for things like finding who the next love was going
to be, who they're going to marry, those kinds of things,
because it's imponderable and you want to know that things
are going to be okay. So often they look for
love spells and that kind of thing, but again a
lot of it was to do with herbs and healing
of ill animals and people, so there was an awful
that was going on as well. So the witchcraft is
in effect, you attempting to alter things around you, alter
the world to try and make it better for you,
try to work with forces of nature, but in a
way that was beyond just observing nature, trying to tap
into it. If you like, control these things to try
and make life better for yourself and those around you.
Speaker 2: I think that the control aspect of it is why
a lot of preteen and teenage girls maybe boys to
get into it. But you that's definitely a part of
your life where you feel like you're lacking control. Yes,
you know your parents are in charge. You can't do
it what you want to do. You feel like you're grown,
but you can't act grown yet. And you see like
a lot of you know, eighth grade girls, it was.
It was seventh eighth grade for us. That was when
the craft had just come out too, so it was
real popular and I was that age. But you see
it too. I see it with my nieces. It's all
around that age.
Speaker 1: That's it. Those kind of influences that the opportunity to
we kind of begin to realize that the world is
bigger than you are, that there's more go on you
don't control when you feel almost lost in it, and
if there's an opportunity or a way in which you can,
as you say, can control what's happening around you, then
you'll turn to it. I mean a lot of people
probably are drawn to things like that, or for the
Vampire Slader, for example, when I was younger, were on
TV that kind of use of magical witchcraft. You think, oh, yeah,
if I can master those powers myself, then I can
cause these things to happen. Well, it doesn't work like that, unfortunately.
It's far more subtle. You don't get like your bo's
going out your hands, you thing like that. But you can,
through experimentation, cause certain effects to occur and go on.
Various stories about things that I've experienced or worked with
years are left me convinced that there's something to this.
Absolutely so I've talked about it on many occasions, get
rid of neighbors that didn't get on with very well.
But you can cause those effects. And one of the
things I think is interesting is there are different forms
of witchcraft. We always tend to think of like there's
one big cover autom of witchcraft, and as if it's
like one harmonious practice. It's certainly not. There are various
different versions around, and perhaps that's something we could really
talk about, is the idea of how witchcraft itself is
perceived based on the various forms you might see around.
But that I mean, the most recognized, most commonly seen
version of witchcraft is of course Wicker, which has become
pretty much a religion now. It's become a c setain
established over here as a religion because enough people put
Wicker on the last census for which ween recognized for
me as a religion in the UK. I don't know
if that's true of America, but certainly he is here.
Speaker 2: I think it's fallen out of favor in America. It
was popular, i'd say, up until the early two thousands,
and I have some grapes with it myself. Okay, in
a it's so. I think that the law of three
where if you do something bad, it comes back to
you threefold, was kind of his attempt to like rebrand,
which often make it not scary. Yeah, So that thing
that you were talking about, earlier where if you upset
the medicine woman and then bad things start happening to you,
Wicka is like, oh no, we don't do that because
it'll come back to us by three. And it's a
nature based religion.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Nature isn't all good. Yes, so a nature based religion
isn't going to be either. And it's also kind of
bs to me. You know, if someone assaults you and
you want to cast some kind of spell on them,
why is that bad?
Speaker 1: Yes, which is a question of what is I mean,
the rule of three itself. I'm not even sure if
it comes from God. And we talked about Garden and
met Becos the founder Wicked whether it was he who
added that later on, But yeah, it's in the way
that that's one way of try and stop doing too
maliferous or anything too dark sinister. But you know, if
you want to use magic to have an effect against
someone who's wronged you, well there is always what we
call karma can come into that as well, so you
can have that. I mean you could say that the
Royal physicxasi of the idea of karmat this in this
notion of what you go out comes back to you
in something or other. I don't know. I mean, I
can't say anything particularly militias against any but other than
getting rid of neighbors who are blood irritating. Beyond that,
I mean, with some ill will just to go the
hell away and say that worked. But just sort of
coming back to the idea of Wicker itself, and it's
found in its origins. As you may well know, it's
called Joel Gardner is the founder of Wicker, who wanted
to have us all believe that he was an ancient
practice that had gone off for generations going back in
the lists of time. But aunfortunately it's not true at all.
It is a modern what I was saying modern, it's
nineteen fifties now, so it's still quite a while ago now,
but it is a relatively modern invention of the primary
dual gardener, who claimed to have been involved in a
covent in New England forest which for the new forest
in England, under the tutors of one called Drive the Clutterbuck,
who's supposed to have taught him the ways of their
clan if you like their magic, which he labeled it
as Wicker. Though it's much older than Wicker, it's not
a modern the terms of one convention. It's just that
he used that particular name for what they were supposed
to be doing. But there's no relevance for every existing
it's been people tried to find her or suggests who
she may be that Dorothy Cutterbucks studed in for somebody else.
But there are a couple of possible examples where he
may have been involved in a group. Certainly, he seems
to have been involved at some point in a group
called the Golden Dawn which are a ceremonial magical organization
that began in the eighteen eighties in London. So he
may have been involved or had connections with the Golden dawnings.
It's some of the suppose wicked rituals. There are elements
that are similar to Golden dor material, but it's changing
enough to say it's his own. But it is a
fantasy to say it's anything other than modern invention. I mean,
the idea that it was older really comes from one
called Margaret Murray, the wrote a book in Well. She
she wrote an article for the Folklore Society of magazine
about basically the idea of this hidden witch culture in
Europe of Western Europe, that spread what far and wire
huge culture of witchcraft. She then went from that to
write the book on this on the topic now it's fantasy,
really is I mean, even soon after you wrote it,
people started to question the sources. Margaret Murray, Doctor Margaret
Murray was a well respected to Ecutologist's written about Egypt,
so she had some credibility certainly, But this particular area
it was it was interesting, but only as a kind
of story, as a myth. I say, soon after you
wrote it was it was being taken apart, and over
years have become more and more clear that is based
on nothing. Really. It's an interesting book to and it
does come across as quite convincing that this history of
witchcraft is very big and very real, is covened. But
when you look at the Folklot Society, their own publications
which I've got quite a few from the eighteen hundreds,
which I say they're the publishers who published her original article,
there's no evidence of covenant at all. There are lots
of loan individuals practicing witchcraft, as I mentioned earlier, but
no obvious coven running anywhere in the UK. I mean,
these people went far and wide to excuse me to
interview the people. They're saying. The Victorian Agent and these
books first came out, people had freedom to do this
kind of research themselves. So they go out in the
middle classes, go out and question these sort of the
local yocals in the village about the village's life and
what was going on. And often so they talk about
these witchcraft experiences where they were trying to get help
or aid from a witch to fixed crops and that
sort of thing. But it was always a lone individual.
There was never a group ever discussed. So I mean,
it may be that they completely missed all the groups
and not one of them, you know, came forward, or
they didn't exist at all. There are some societies which
have witchcraft links. Perhaps the best known of all would
be the Horseman's Word, which is again a group of
ply men and pro but worked with horses, and there
was a they had, like Quasio Masonic rituals all of
their own which involved in blindfolds and all those sorts
of things, so there was something going on there. They
used to use what's called toad magic, which you can
go the whole details. It would involve the views of
a particular toad bone which was said, once you have
the right bone, it has power of the horses to
control them. That sounds pretty dark, but it was the idea,
and the Tobin ritual itself has been reignited, not in
more recent times, is becoming as part of a bigger
picture of other forms of witch golf, which we'll come
back to later. But so there are elements of it
still floating around that are still used. But the idea
of is big, mass organized hidden witch cult around the
world up around Europe should say there's just no evident
for it. But because that was out there, I think
Gardener kind of borrowed that idea that it wanted to
be something that was old and had been around for
a long time. It's a funny thing in the occult wort.
Generally you tend to find people always want to find
antecedents for their ideas. I want to find a big
backstory about hundreds of years of being secret practices that
no one knew about that were kept secrets. I mean,
I mentioned the Golden Dawn earlier on. This is the
organization from the eighteen eighties that really brought the occult
back into the public domain. I for like put back
to the public. They were made up of mainly Freemasons
and people of that sort of sort of middling high
society people. They too had a backstory of where their
rituals came from. In story, a book was purchased in
Portabello Road market in London, which is famous for second
hand book stores and antiques that sort of thing. And
in the back of this book about German restitutions excuse me,
they found series of ciphers that were written in a
special code which were the basics of various rituals where
Goop called the Gutta Dameron something like that is a
German organization that these notes belonged to them. That was
again a society been around for a long time in Germany,
and they found these notes and wanted to use them
to form their own society of Golden Dawn. They wrote
to Fuen Sprangler, who was the woman who's supposed to
have written these ciphers, and she gave them permission to
use them, but they said never contact me again, then
disappeared again. Like Gardener story completely made up. The whole
thing was a complete nonsense. They were brand new rituals.
There's someone that were borrowed from rescution ideas. But they
were written by various people, including the formers, the founders
of the Golden Dawn. They wrote some of them together,
Samuel Roger Maths, William Woodman, and Winning when Westcott brains
blank names, but they were the three founders of the
Golden Dorn, plus the chapter called Frederick Hopley, who sadly
passed away just as a group was. The organisms being
founded are almost certainly the authors of all the Golden
Doll material. Now, the reason why I mentioned that Golden dorms,
I say, going back to Joe Gardner, he was probably
involved with the Golden Doll and certainly had access to
some of the information, and he used some of that
to create the Wicked movement. But there are other elements
of Wicked that are quite fascinated that he very much
put in his own ideas into, including the fact everyone
had to be skyclaid most of the time. Are you naked?
They seemed to be that guard himself. As a natress,
he was very fond of sort of being naked in
the outdoors and brought that into Wicker. Now, most wickeds
I don't think she practiced that anymore, doing naked rituals
outside him or maybe some doing, but most probably don't
do that. But for him that was an important part
of this getting back to nature that we talked about
this before that you were skycad what one with nature,
which okay, fine if you want to do that, but
I think a lot of people were not that comfortable
with the idea with all these elements. Again, there was
the idea of your work, were able to cast spells,
would read terror, all part of that kind of thing.
But as I say, it became much more formulated, became
much more dogma base as a religion, which put some
people off. You know. The idea of this is, I
don't want it. Magic should be a practice. It should
be something you do, not something you just have faith
in belief in. I mean you have belief in faith obviously,
but it's a practical thing, whereas religion is about faith
and belief and sort of giving yourself to the faith,
to the religion or whatever it is. So I think
some people probably get put off now the idea has
become almost mainstream as a religion rather than an idea
of a practice and something that would set you apart
from people on witchcraft, magic about taking a hidden path
if you like, or the lonely roads are sometimes called,
where you are predominantly working on your own you don't
want to be part of a group construction. So that's
really the wicker element of witchcraft, how it's evolved, and
as you say, it comes to go to popularities, I say,
there have been a lot of many American writers really
have built up the the law of Wicker, if you like,
have brought other ideas into it. Was the original ideas
are still very much abound in Gardener's books, which are
off the day and the media of witchcraft. If she
wrote early on, as I say, there's the kind of
foundation books of Wicker, I mean'd be surprised. There's probably
quite a few probably never wrote those books, despite probably
know the name Joe Garden, and we're going to say
I've read these actual books, which is a shame because
they are the real source material for what they're actually practicing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember an author named Silver Raven Wolf who was
real popular in the nineties who I'm not sure why
they have been deemed problematic now, but I think there
was some racism in there from what I understand, ah, right,
which tends to be an issue in the US at
least is I think people and this this goes back
to what you were saying about it should be a
practice I don't think gets cookie cutter, and people seem
to just want to, like, you know, buy a package
set and expect it to work for them. So a
lot of times people are taking things from other cultures
and sometimes there's fine, and I think there is a
way to do that. But you know, as an example,
voodoo is a lot of working with ancestors and calling
on these certain deities and it you know, if you
are not a descendant of a slave, you probably shouldn't
do that. May find something else. And it makes sense
that it would be more individualized because I might have
a better connection with plants and maybe I want to
work with plants. It's one of my pet peeves. You see,
it's you generally women in my demographic doing it on
like TikTok or Facebook reels. But they'll be doing like
a spell jar tutorial with all these herbs and I
can see clearly in the background they have a house
plant that is near death. Yes, I am always thinking
to myself, why would those herbs want to lend you
their energy when you're killing their cousin. Yes, maybe do
a candle spell, you know, get some crystals or something.
Maybe plants aren't for you.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is interesting. An awful of YouTube videos. I
find quite fascinating that. I mean, sometimes they're trying to
grow the craft, add more things into it, and sometimes
you think, well, there's other ways of doing that. They've
been around for a lot longer. What you just do
it the way that is available to you. But since,
as you mentioned, particularly about the race, because it is
a factor, I don't I can honestly say I don't
know a person who's not who's non white, shall we say,
that would call himself a witch. I don't know anybody,
which is a real shame. There's no reason why I
should be. I mean, you could argue always ancestral this
kind of stuff, but which just said Bologne, He's not
in such all at all. Now, wicker is a modern
made up without that term. But there is a constructed religion,
if constructed belief system, constructed faith for everyone to put
it that anyone can really practice they want. There's no
reason why you can't. I also to say the other
side of that, the vooda, the best voodoo practitioner I
know has been involved in it for thirty odd years
is as white as me. That was as bold as
me as well. But he really knows his stuff. And
he said the same thing, you know that he has
experienced some racism from other voodoo practitioners that he's met
in London. He's basically saying, you're not back, you shouldn't
be doing this. But why why should they have to
be the case? You know, you do you can? He
would say, the ancestor spiritual worker with are ancestors of
people as people's rather than individuals or particular culture, that
they can and will work for him with him, So
he has no issue with that. And again the guy
he kind of learned under learnt with it's also white.
You know, it's not he has been actually there's a
correct term for it. When you go to haiti hat
and do the verse riches, you become part of the house.
He's done that. This, my friend's friend has actually done
all that.
Speaker 2: I have heard about people being initiated into voodoo. Yeah, yeah,
I actually I had if this was probably was four
or five years ago at this point. I have a
plant called the Rosa Jericho it kind of looks like
a tumbleweed, and then when you put it in water,
it turns green and it opens up again and it
can stay out of water for years at a time.
They live like eighty years. They're really cool plants. And
I had had a friend over and she looked at
the ball that I had it in and she said,
why do you have five pennies in there? And I said,
because that's what my grandma did, Like this was her plant.
I thought that like the copper and the pennies kept
like algae from growing in the water. So I never
really thought about it. It was always five pennies. And
she says, that's a voodoo thing. My And so my
grandmother's father was adopted and we don't really know anything,
but he was not white. R we don't so, but
you know, where did my grandma it was a coincidence
that she did this, or you know, get something from
her father or you know where where did where did
grammy learn voodoo? So I was like trying to look into,
like what other traditions she had that might be related,
and no one would talk to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes try to get to the roots of your
own family's background can be quite frustrat to my Again,
my friend of mine has just been sure he was
a book. As you know everyone knows about I run
a publishing company now called Ninth Circle Press. The second
book I published is his book on Essex witchcraft. They
say that's his other passion because he's from Essex and
those witchcraft. But that's a family thing for him, you know,
he's his whole family or on his mom's side. I
think has been involved in because there were called Romany
gypsies over here, so that Romanies have very strong connections
to magic. So he was writing about that. So he's
written three books, but the last two one was about
voodoo because of its experiences himself, and the other one
is about Essex witchcalt because that's the experiences of his family.
So those two come together. And again he's a good
example of working more than one path if you like,
at the same time and having no problem or conflict
with the two paths. And as I said previously, these
this is why this gets down to the panel stuff
we talked about before that the energies you're working with
performer called how you're working with them, so you do
get those kinds of experiences. I mean I've worked with
and I go on the terminology bit later on more
call more high magic, ceremonial magic, but different paths. The
ceremony magic from say, the Golden Dawn stuff, which is
traditional solomonic magic, and then a Knockian from John d.
Now they're fundamentally different systems, but they both work. You're
talking with different deities, different terminology, different names, but they
both seem to have an effect, they seem to have
a reality to them. So that brings you back to
what was gonna say. Afterwards, we talked the first about
the idea of what Wicker kind of is that there
is also reaction in a sense against Wicker with what
we call additional witchcraft, which is a different witchcraft path. Now,
whereas Gardener more or less created Wicker and others whom
men followed him who developed it further, traditional witchcraft is
actually more modern in terms of his existence. It's been
around less time, but it is more rooted in historic witchcraft.
A lot of it's based partly in the books that
were talking about before the folklost society, books taining these
real world spells and how to use these things. But
also there are other writers like William Bottrell who wrote
all extensively about witchcraft and magic in Cornwall, and that's
become the basis of what you're called a traditional witchcraft.
It's still a modern system, it's not a religious based one.
It is much more of a practical path now, but
it's still a constructed version of witchcraft, but based in
more junior and historic material that is available. And it's
been kind of codified by a number of writers who've
created what we called modern traditional witchcraft. And there's a
chapter called Robert Cochran Old Roy Bauers as his real name,
was very much part of this founding of traditional witchcraft
in the nineteen sixties. He wrote quite a few, well
a few short books with hisself unfortunately passed away relatively young,
but his ideas became the foundation of a number of
different paths that the tribe of tubal Kane, which is
his organization was called, his group was called. There's one
in an America called seventeen eighty six, seventeen thirty exact number,
but it's it's based on Cochrane like ideas that spread
out to America. So there's an additional path there as well.
So that's always like the second strand of witchcraft, the
more traditional witchcraft path, which again, as I say, is
still a construction, but it is more rooted in traditional
actual witchcraft practices and other major proponents. A good friend
of mine Jim mcarry, who's written a book of Tucial witchcraft,
the Corinchbook of Ways, which has become very popular, and
she's the co founder of Troy Books, which has become
a very large publishing company that's good friends with, which
is very helpful in my business because they helped me
get going. But she's one of the sort of leading
lights in the modern times of traditional witchcraft in her
writings as well. So it's say, it's been not being
around as long and it's stayed more under the radar
than Wicker has. For definitely, you don't tend to get
much of app on TV programs where you had more
of that sort of witchcraft, particularly the sort of eighties.
It was quite a thing to see on TV, which
is being interviewed look at something scary and special.
Speaker 2: Ye, So what is your take on some of these
societies like the Golden Dawn and things like that as
opposed to like an individual practice. Do you think there
is merit to it or does it become just like
a popularity type thing or.
Speaker 1: Are you that would be yes and yes, there is
definitely something to the group men, the group of mind
working together. The I mean back to I say, the
Golden Dawn being found in eighteen eighty eight. That sparked
off the interests more interesting magic. It almost disappeared before then.
It was something that was around obviously in the forty
fifteen sixteen hundreds. But then you have the Age of Enlightenment,
in which science and magic separated completely. Before then, astrology
look at the stars, astronomy looking at stars, and astrology
but it's in your future were one thing. They were
tied together. There were two answered the same thing were
the Age of Enlightenment. Astronomy carried on looking at starts.
Astrology fell apart. It just fell into disuse because it
was seen as I say, disused, disused by science, as
being compute, complete nonsense and fabrication and fantasy and things
that Tara cards have been around since the thirty and
fourteen hundreds in various forms, but really formulated again in
the eighteen hundreds. They too were just a fair ground thing,
but they became much more seen as more serious, more
part of magic with the advent of the Golden Dawn.
So they say you'd have this period were're all fallen apart,
very quiet, and then you have as they get into
the Victorian times, people had more leisure time, more freedom
to do things. The short of working days of the
birth of the middle class. Both here in America or
around that kind of time frame, you have people with
a relatively good wealth, good amount of money. Still worked,
but they had more free time to do stuff and
interesting things that magic and witchcraft would like, as I say,
grew in those time frames. Still you have the country
folk magic, of which we've talk about before, that was
always around. It was just in the background, done quiet
in the rural villages, but in the bigger towns, the cidy.
You have this interest in first of all, spiritualism, contact
in the Dead, et cetera, which was very popularly eighteen
hundreds or mid eight hundreds onwards, as a growth out
of the Theosophical Society, which was the religions of the
East coming to the West. So it's all kind of
going all at the same times. You other things like
the Phisopical Society exploring sort of first Egypt and in
India looking for spiritual masters and leaders and that sort
of thing. And then that grew into, as I say,
this interest in spiritualism, which then grew into influenced things
like freemasonry, all came in together. Where was freemason was
a kind of had religious elements to it. I'm sorry,
I had ritual elements to it. It was still seen
as a gentleman's club, nothing more. The people a fan
of the Golden Dorm wanted to take it a bit further,
wanted to make it also be something that was more
involving that you actually did some practical magic. You didn't
just sit around and discuss it and do almost meaningless rituals.
They actually did something that was practical, that actually had
an effect. And combining that with an interest in what's
called the Kabbala, which is Jewish criticism, which had again
been under the raid of around for centuries, these ideas
kind of combined together to form the Golden Down The
how Much Ordered Golden Dorn were all parts of this
elements brought in together by instead the three people mentioned earlier, McGregor, Mathas, Woodman,
and Win Westcott. They together created the rituals using rescution
material and built a organization together which because they became
the Golden Dawn, which was formed in London, but soon
had offshoots around the country and in fact the spread
around the world in some respectives a few in America,
in Australia, although there were autonomous groups, they weren't directly
run by the Golden Down. In the UK, they would
sort of use the material as handed to them and
would build their own temples as they were called lodges,
and they would attract people from sort of middle class
and wealthier people would get involved, sometimes that a hobby
is something interesting, but sometimes more seriously involved in hoping
to create effects, having ritual magic, actually doing something higher.
Knowledge of secret well communicating with the secret chiefs was
one of the ideas, These ideas of these spiritual beings
that were around us that you could communicate with, which
again comes out of sort of the Indian mysticism. These
beings around us, which we talk about obviously in our
and all world, but they believe they were real, that
they communicate with them, they had anc knowledge that could
tap into. This was the idea of Golden Door magic
was working through these levels of the Kabara to get
to this high live with God and be attuned with
God's power. So they were important in terms of getting
an interest going. They'd use some of the material that
came from a rat called Relifles Levi in France. You've
been around it about twenty years before writing the History
of magic and transcendental magic and broad ideas for him
as well. So all these elements were coming in together
to create the modern revival and modern in those times
revival of the occult and interest in magic. So they
all played a partner. And this is what we call
high magic, ceremonial magic. That is the kind of things
that use the solomonic magic of the Book of Solomon,
the Greater and Less a Key of Solomon, all those
sorts of high rooting texts that have been around since
the Middle Ages and in one form or another, and
they were copied and we created and passed down sort
of hand to hand by hand. With the manuscripts, they
were the source of a lot of the other ideas.
That's sort of high ritual magic, which is what the
gold norm practice. And I say alongside that, you'd have
the folklore witchcraft of the country Bumpkin as low magic
the other side of it. Now let's say one's better
than the other. Just the term large it was used.
The low magic was seen as the risky stuff. High
magic was ceremonial. That's perfectly fine. So you'd have those
cases where people in the village of because are being
witches and maybe you find themselves in big trouble. But
you'll put on trith witchcraft by the very people of
the judge who might have been involved in ceremonial magic,
if you like, and open practicing that kind of stuff
on the slide in the background. So there was a
bit of a snobbery, shall we save you into higher magic,
you would probably get away with it to not be
a chance of doing anything. But if you into working
with low magic, witchcraft and folklore, that you could be
in trouble. So you did have that kind of imbalance.
And whereas you tend to find, as I said before,
witchcraft tend to be loan practitioners on their own. High
magic tended by its alls, but its nature tended to
be a group based thing. What the rituals were group based.
And you find both ideas run inside by saying and
you get some writers who try to combine the two
in very ingenious ways, particularly a fan of called Alexander Sanders.
He's the former of again, what you might call Wicker
also had strong elements of Golden Dawn ritual magic in
it as well, so ammonium stuff. I said before, gard
was influenced by the Golden Dawn stuff but didn't really
directly bring it into Wicker practice. But Sander's form of
magic of witchcraft very much did bring it in. So
he trying to try to middle poper between the two.
And I find that fascinating approach, and that's probably my
I wouldn't say necessarily Alexandria, which but I understand why
he did it, and I like what he did, the
way he's combined the two, and I nus some of
his stuff myself. So you do find people do combine
the two. Again, a lot of those are also covens
now as well. They say Wicking covens that you get
traditional witchcraft covens and Alexander's witchcraft covens, so you do
have them and the Solar practitioners with the Golden Horn stuff.
The Golden Dorn itself as an organization fell apart in
the early nineteen hundreds. There was some infighting and arguing
between who was in charge, and it kind of fell apart,
but the papers were out there because they got published. Now,
the Golden Door material was supposed to be all secret
member to access it, and that was all kind of
healthy in check, but no one thought to copyright it.
No one thought that let's take ownership of these menus,
and one particular member of the Golden Dawn, towards the
end of its life, decided that I'm going to publish
it all in the magazine called The Equinox, which is
by Alista Crowley. So it the crowd is we have
to thank for the fact the Golden Nor material is
out there now readily available, because they actually went to
court because the Golden Dawn leadership tried to suit Crown
for publishing their material, but they judge ruled that you
not copyrighted it, so he can publish it if you
could do about it. So it's thanks to him that
the Golden Dor material became more readily available, and he's
still obviously in print now, it's been in print ever since,
so you do have there. There are good reasons to
work in a group, and good reason to work on
your own. It's really on those up to you don't
have to be involved. I mean, in all my years
of being involved in the occult, I've only recently become
involved in a group which I'm not going to say
anything about, but if very very recently I've been invited
to get involved, and because I have a lot of
respect for that person, I definitely do want to get involved.
But my previous occasions of meeting groups haven't been particularly impressive.
When I first moved to London in the mid nineteen
nineties university, when as a material student, I found a
couple of organizations fac there were three, actually there were
forced thinking about it, I actually met up with only
two of them, and both of them were different high
magic paths and neither particularly pressed by most of the worms.
One group worshiped there the person who was kind of
the founder of their group, like it was some kind
of gold which bit over the top, and the other
one just want to go down the pub and drink basically,
so it was like, no, it's not really for me.
One was a runic basic group which was actually good.
Finally got involved for a while, but they disbanded soon afterwards.
This is a shame, and the other one never got
back to me even on contact them whither you supposed
sources or paths was to contact them. So my own
experience of working groups has been fairly negative up until
very very recently. I haven't been to one group ritual. Recently.
It was quite invigorating. Actually, it really alive in me again,
which is very positive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't I'm sure that it happens here, but
I don't know anyone involved in any kind of group
or coven, you know. I've heard people talk about covens,
but it's really just like witchy women that get together
every once in a while, you know. But I what
I'm noticing is in England there seems to be a
lot more men involved in witchcraft than there are here.
I think of it as a very feminine thing. Or
I do know some men, but they're all gay men. Yeah,
definitely that are involved in witchcraft. But in England it
seems to be like a I don't want to say,
a manly man thing, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean there is I suppose there's
a strong tradition. What we call the cunning man is
how you don't tend to you do obviously get male witches,
but they the term cunning men tends to be more adopted.
One term that you don't hear, which really is understanding
because it's a nonsense term is warlock. That's kind of
a made up thing. It's a specifically a sort of
negative magical practition. So people don't call themselves that. But
people I know are involved with men were probably for
the cunning man term rather than the witch, because there
is Again it's just the way it works. I shouldn't
drinkizy drinks from doing these interviews regions he shows it's
it tends to be more of a feminine term, a
female term witch, but there's no reason we can't be
a male which at all. In fact, I say, people
I mentioned signs would have used the term witch, and
it would have no problem with that at all. But
cunning man has become a term that's useful because it
doesn't define any more specifically. You can be using other
different practices as well. But you know over here it's say,
I know people who definitely involved in covens, and I
know one particular one which there are American members on
that se called the culture sebatitees almost legendary culture Sabatae now,
but there's definitely practices over here which I met, and
I know the practices of the know the guy that
runs the Sabatine in America, who actually runs a whole
thing overall, but he certainly charged to the American branch
of it, and I think he would call some witch
saying that. I'm entirely sure, but I imagine he would do.
But yeah, so there are are definite organizations, but more
often it is tends to be solo practitioners who will
sometimes for whatever reason, you want to clean their parts.
Something bigger that are part of a coven is in
it some kind of means. There's some dark siness to power,
like it's a mathia or something. I don't know, but
people do tend to want to do that. But I
find solo practitions are almost more interesting because if they've
forged in their own path, they won't necessarily follow work
or a particular person. They can buy different ideas together.
And often some of the books that I've purchased recently
have been in particularly one person's loan practitional approach based
in something that they've read that's old ongoing materia, not
just invented themselves, but they are creating their own version,
if you like, finding their own path within that. So
I think I also wonder I think that we kind
of talked about before that America and religion, Christianity particularly
obviously tend to play a much bigger part in day
to day life in America that does over here. So
there's a discomfort. I think there's the saying before you
get this notion of someone calls a Christian witch, which
kind of a contradiction in terms. As I said earlier on,
you can have the dual observance where you might practice
religion but you're a witch in the evening, but you
don't try and combine them into one belief system. And
I find an odd idea because obviously which coin is
an affriaty Christianity, And there's those passions in the Bible
that condemn witches as being even should be burned at
the state, And it's literally in the Bible. You know,
it's there a bitly in the Old test rather than you,
but there's no there's no it's it's still seen as
something that you shouldn't be doing for you a Christian.
So I often find that interesting I think it's because
it's harder to let go of Christian faith in America
is over here, because it is more interwoven into society.
Speaker 2: You're going to face a lot of difficulty if you're
openly not Christian here, especially in certain areas. Even where
I am it's a little bit more progressive. But you know,
like at work functions when you know, people ask me
what I'm doing for Christmas and I say, I'm that Christian.
I don't celebrate Christmas. You know what I's wide. You know,
it's not really something you can say. You could say,
oh no, I'm Jewish, I celebrate Hanikah, but you know,
to not be like one of the few mainstream things.
And there's still the stigma where if you excuse me,
if you are practicing any kind of occult anything, you're
going to be accused of being a devil worshiper. Still.
I mean, we can't hang people anymore, which is great,
but there's still repercussions socially on those things. Are you
familiar with Damien Eccles in the West Memphis.
Speaker 1: Three Full of that story? Quite close to well I
first heard about him. I've got few of Damien's books
just because of they want to support the guy I
thought all that he went through. Yes, yeah, very familiar account.
Speaker 2: And he attributes he was kind of does like a
ritual magic. I would say it would be his style.
He attributes that to the reason he's still alive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I under start reading what he's written as well. Yeah,
I mean he's it's written some brilliant sort of introduction
manuals into ceremonial magic. Definitely. You know that's obviously what
became his bag, which is understandable. But yeah, I mean
the whole stories. I should briefly say about the he
was he and two friends who are accused of mourning
that young kid and there was basically no real evidence
to say it was them at all, but they spent
years in prison and eventually they were released. And it's
really kind of weird technicality. Remember they act still a
bit it was their fault, which is crazy. I must
have been the free part documentary I wrote I watched
had a very very good idea of who really did
carry out the murders and the guys just walking free.
Still that as is very sad. But yeah, as you say,
he kept him sane, kept him alive, now is doing
okay with him when he's a YouTube channel with lots
of followers. I'm sure YouTube works their money from that,
so that's probably helping him as well. And good luck
to the guy who deserves it, of what you've been through.
Speaker 2: He does lectures too. I saw him lecture in New
York once.
Speaker 1: It's okay he is.
Speaker 2: He's very well spoken, especially, you know, for what he's
been through. He was just educating himself. And I think
he has his own ideas on things too. But he
just dressed a little bit weird and got sent to
prison for something he didn't do. Yeah, and that wasn't
that long ago.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So in Salem, Massachusetts is the Satanic Temple building. Yes,
they just had a bomb. It wasn't even a bomb threat.
Someone left a bomb on their front porch and that
their front porch has been lit on fire before and
things like that. And they're not they're not even they're
not sleetin us. It's really just like a bunch of
guys that play dungeons and dragons together, but also they
donate to like play in parenthood and things like that.
Like they're not this horrible, monstrous group that is very
much the attitude that a lot of people here have
towards it.
Speaker 1: It's very sundary that should be. That's one of the
difficult suppose it could be tolerant as a religious person
only to a certainly Greek is Obviously this is an
afthoty your religion. These people are as far as they're
going to say, you're working with evil pounds and the devil.
You're being deceived by the devil, which are against that.
Well it doesn't exist, but well I believe it does exist,
and you're madly with these powers. You don't understand the
common phrases made in the paths. You don't understand how
do you know? I don't understand them.
Speaker 2: You no one understands anything.
Speaker 1: But you've been doing for like forty years. You have
got an idea of what I'm doing. Now you've got
a fairly good idea.
Speaker 2: You could see that about God and Christianity too cool.
What if he's really the bad guy and you've got
tricked me exactly?
Speaker 1: There is the whole idea. But you know, all these
bad things happened, but that was down to God. God.
God made the world's flood and killed everybody. A part
of those in the ark. Well, God did that. The
devil didn't do it. The gods the one that calls
his earthquakes. And because God's controlling these things, so he's
responsible of these things, not the devil. But you still
think God's are good. It's one of those strange things.
It's how faith can be reinforced even despite your experiences.
You know, if you are have a belief in something, fine,
fair enough, allow others to have their own beliefs. If
they're wrong, that's up to them to be wrong. If
they're going to go to hell what they believe, then
so be it. You don't have to say, oh, no,
you're bad or evil because you don't know. I believe.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that a lot of our current
problems are intolerance. Yeah, with grace and religion. Yeah, the
country started that way and we've progressed in a way,
but we still haven't fixed it. But you have the
country that you know, started by being led by a
group of people that were religious, zealous, that couldn't get
along with the Anglican Church.
Speaker 1: Yes. Also, of course they went to America for the
freedom of religion, freedom to priice in belief as they
choose to everybody else as well.
Speaker 2: Then they immediately started killing Quakers. Yeah, yeah, they were
a different religion. They didn't like them. Well, but the Quakers, Uh,
the Quakers believed that anyone could speak directly to God,
so they didn't need a bishop, they didn't need any
kind of leaders, they didn't need anyone else to tell
them what to do. So they didn't follow laws, which
the Puritans didn't like because they wanted the laws for
everyone else to follow. So it was that was you
know about just control in and getting them to pay
taxes too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the Quake is probably the most harmless.
I mean, you could argue not even Christian, because they
don't have a kind of well what over God is God?
You know, you contemplate yourself and who God is, You
can almost argue they're not really Christian. But I say,
the most harmless bunch of all of them. Really, But
the Puritans probably the worst because I say they are Puritans,
they have to be done a certain way, you know.
That's that's really part of the part of the belief.
Speaker 2: And the witch trial, the Salem witch trials specifically, the
more I look into those, the more it seems it
was actually about money in power God.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Again, a lot of these the Foco before the
old wise woman of the village, it was often the
accusicus of the witchcraft, you get their land, you know.
That was that was actually a case you could like,
if you prove they're a witch, you would not get
them killed, but you also train the land as a
compensation for the witchcraft they've done against you. So yeah,
of course, a lot of this is about power and
wealth and control of the people who didn't like being around.
Speaker 2: And the Puritans too, they had laws where if someone
in the village wasn't able to take care of themselves,
everyone else would have to, and that becomes a problem
when you don't like that person you have to take
care of. So one of the women that was executed
in the Connecticut witch trials was she was a widow
and she didn't have any children, so everyone else had
to take care of her as she was elderly. But
she was just unpleasant and she kept going to this
one neighbor's house and demanding she bake her a pie.
And it became like a frequent occurrence, like she would
just come and not leave until this woman agreed to
bake her a pie, so eventually they accused her of
witchcraft over her demanding pies. Yeah, which it's a great
idea to take care of you know, society in your
village and those that can't take care of themselves, but
it didn't work out so well for.
Speaker 1: Them especially you have limited resources anyway, you further say
to get the person out of the way by claim
they were which will well, you can't understand why they
do that because you're talking about very limited resources here.
So of course you know, a chance to remove somebody,
to get their land from them or whatever you can
see not can do onely obviously see why they do it.
That's done, But it is one of those things that
they came back to you saying before about the sort
of the folklor angle. You are talking about that kind
of thing, and then you know, if you think this
person's curse, you employ the cunning man to come and
break the spell. There's one particularly guy who I always
end up mentioning because it is very important fact that
were the two people that just really want that bit
that have played a big part in the faunily, not
just of modern visure which double Wicker as well, that
Joe Gander brought into well, not so much Joey himself,
but those who followed and brought in that it's a
chap called George Pickingill disapposed to be this witch master
of Canudon in Essex. They're supposed to have had this
coven around and him said, but his cover's not real existing,
but a lea of covened with various women involved in
whom the wife of the vicar at one point apparently
had all these power over people, could do all sorts
of spells, and it's largely nonsense, it really is. He's
become this big figure of sort of folkloric magic and witchcraft,
but he he almost didn't exist, not the version that
they talk about didn't exist. There is George picking In fact,
there are three people who have the very similar name
who lived around about the similar kind of time, but
none of them before the nineteen sixties they were talking
about this is the ND eight hundreds, early nine hundreds.
This guy has, remember, But before the nineteen sixties there
was no hint this guy, George picking Gill, was hapant
to do magic at all. The only thing that was
kind of known for us being rather tall, one of
the six foot which is very unusual in those days
for sort of country village man, but also possibly one
of the oldest men in the country, apparently in the nineties,
although his actual date of birth is the mystery in
its debated or he really was and a writer called
Eric Maple became a fellow in Essex. Man was writing
about witchcraft in the nineteen sixties, very sensationalist style of
writing as well. He was writing for the ex stripty
Side magazine and the folk Loost Society magazine and with
acally real evidence other than having spoken to a couple
of people who lived in Canowdon who were quite elderly
at the time, created this whole picture of this George
picking Gill, this mysterious man with these incredible powers and
this covenant he ran. They were based on two people
who he interviewed, who were quite elderly, who talked about
this man. Now, the interesting thing is George picking Gill
had been in the news before because of his great
age and height and his pictures by this very exciting
modern car, and it was became a bit of a
local celebrity because it wasn't his guy just pictured with it,
but became the local celebrity for it. And it seems
that they somehow confused that George picking Gill with someone
who's practiced magic about fIF years before, because not far
away in Essex's and now it's called Hadley, literally about
a dozen and so miles away, Roman called James Cunning
Murrell lived. Now James Murrell definitely was a cunning man.
He was a wizard and did magic, or if you
want to put it, he was born in the early
eighteen hundreds, and he moved at some point to live
in London who worked in Apothegary chemist you like. He
may well have met or knew a man called Francis Barrett.
Now Francis Brett in the late seventeen hundreds had written
a book called The Magus Imaginal Intelligence. He may have
had a school of magic where he talked and picking.
You may have come into contact, sorry, Murrel may have
come in contact with Francis Barrett at some point because
some of the things that were in Barrett's book The Majors,
which is still available now. You said by there is
actual pictures of George keep saying George J. Murrell's own
book of magic, and there are images from France Abrat's
book that are in the pages of Murral's book that
we have left because he's a whole magical book you
like disappeared. Sometimes have a photographs of taking up some
of the pages, and one page of particular shows schedules
and diagrams have clearly come from the majors, so he
definitely had access to that mature at some point before
he returned back to live in Essex, where he was
known as the Devil's Master. You call himself to the
Devil's Master he was. He definitely had a following people
of interesting one he did. He didn't run a cover
as such, but he was the guy you'd contact if
you'd been affected by a malicious witchcraft. He would be
the guy to come along and create these things for
witch bottles, which he would seal various items in place
it on the fire, and when the witch bottle broke,
the spell over you would break. That was the story,
and there are stories of him sitting with a person
who's being cursed and there's a banging on the door
and there's someone outside and there's sort of woman's voice
screaming and shouting. The bottle bursts and then knocking that's quiet,
and either the person's gone or they're dead outside. The
confected story is your stories. We don't know, but those
letters existed. Now there seems to have been some point
the two people got mixed up, George Picking Gill and
James Mrroll got mixed up. But Mrral was around fifty
years before Picking Gill, and books written before Maple only
talk about James Mrrell. There's no mention of anybody else
of being involved. So this picking your thing popped up
later on. In fact, it was an Australian writer whose
name sketch you for a moment, but he wrote various
letters to various magazines about what he knew about Picking Gill,
and it was ridiculously over the top, really fabricated nonsense.
He was supposed to be a leading life in the
Golden Dawn who wrote Golden Dawn rituals. He did this,
He did that. It's nonsense. But unfortunately, because Maple wrote
about it and it was picked up and believed, because
there's no alternative sources, it's become very much part of
the mytho mythology around sort of modern witchcraft. Is George
picking Girl as his famous which you played an important
part in the family and the Wicker nothing of the kind,
but it persists. It isn't helped by the fact that
someone called Professor Rold Hutton, who has become a very
senior leading life in writing about of leading academic, still
holds onto the picking your story. It really does cling
on too, quite desperately event And it's so sad because
he said he actually met with some of the people
that spoke to all the sense of that people maybe
spoke to and they told him the same sort of story. Again,
there was the older people telling this him as a
young man their experiences, but he was fourteen at the time,
so the chances are the old girls have misremembered this stuff.
I was just saying that spinning a yard with these
young teenage school kid he's asking about witchcraft, the magic.
But yeah, he holds onto it now. One of the
things my friend Richard had mentioned earlier in his book
The o Betwixt God and the Devil. He has written
extensively about this mistaken identity. I mean I've written as
well about it too my own book, but also he's
written much more about it. And it's a bit of
a crusaper that both on to get this out there
that James cunning Moral is the real cunning Man of Essex,
the real source of a sub inspecterial that ends up
being part of the say Wicker, not just picking you up.
And it's a bit of a crusade getting this information
out there. But it's important about how myths can develop
way beyond the reality and the truth of something. They
can get bigger and become heart to defeat even if
they're completely untrue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the way I think the practice part
of it is important because we don't know how much
of that has happened over the years. And you might
pick up a book from X person that says, you
know you need to do steps one, two and three.
You might find you need to have a step before
step one for it to work for you. And you know,
who knows where that came from. Who knows you know
if that person was sincere or not. You just kind
of have to figure out what works for you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it is try and error what feels right.
Work with what feels right to you. That's fits of
your expectations, your hope, your desires. I'm fine work with it.
Don't feel you have to tread the path of other people,
are trodden yourself. So work with what's around, but develop yourself.
You know. That's one thing I'm quite keen on is
to say, don't your own understandings of what way of
working things? When I have some practices of my own
that I take it for other elements. I have a
strong interest myself in Icelandic stave magic, which is a
different thing entirely, but I find it fast and I
find again using some of that stuff that actually works.
The more I've dug into Icelaantic stave magic, there's a
strong influence of the Solomonic stuff I mentioned before. Solomonic magic.
There was an influence in stave magic definitely. They've seen
it coming from the same source. They're both involved drawing
your siguls, these patterns and shapes and forms and empowering
the schedules to have an effect. And I say both
Icelantic stave magic and Solomonic magic, which comes originally would
be from the Middle East, but obviously European Central European
seems to work together very nicely. They fit comfortably with
each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know you wrote a book about runs.
What are your thoughts on divination ruins, tarot Pendulumah.
Speaker 1: It's a whole interesting little area as well. First and foremost,
I don't believe the future. I think any of the
pict the future. It's become the way they've been seen
as doing. So. I think they can help, particular Taro
because it's more complex in understanding your current situation. How
these things work. I mean, as you've mentioned many many times,
I'm a young Yin based psychotherapist or was semi retired
now but so young. Very much talks about one talks
about the synchronicities involved in things like Tara and Eigene
as well the Chinese devination system. But there's ways of
tapping into the deep psyche. But there is always this
idea of that they are going to tell the future,
but I don't think they do. The divination itself helps
you understand your own situation and what's going on. They
might give you a point as to where things might
be going, as in you know, if you keep driving
towards that brick wall, you can hit it. You know,
as simple as that it's It could give you warnings
of what might be to come. I think it's also
a very effective means of tapping into one sucking senses
if you'd like, if you're give reading to somebody else,
there are a mechanism to engage with that other person's
thoughts and feelings the ruins fun I'm not a big
fan of using runs, even though my book on Runs
includes divination. In fact, I might have this before, but
the divination section was that the idea of my publisher,
I wasn't going to bother, we should really add something
like that in the having, and I said, okay, well
I'll do that, but I hadn't planned it. But again,
the way I work with him again is very young
gin basis. I think about working in the unconscious ideas
that pulling out the ruins and reading them might give
an insight into your own subconscious processes. So for me,
that's what divination. Those forms of divinations, like said the
Tara and Runs are about hygiene as well. I'm not
big in astrology because asology is very fatalistic. It is
as if these things are setting stone. That they are,
but in the future and the movement on the planet
will this, so what happens next? You know, the classic blood.
So I've never been interested in astrology. Again, it's the
only a personal thing. It's just for me. It's too fatalistic.
It means your path in life is already set and
you can do nothing about it. It's just the way
these blobs in the sky are moving decides you're going
to live. Which you put it like that just sounds
dafter me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Taro specifically, like you mentioned, I think it really
helps you be self reflective and analyze yourself a little
bit better. For people that don't do that naturally, I
need to stop doing that. So I need whatever the
apposite of Taro is. But I think it's great for
people to learn to read Taro. I get suspicious when
it's people charging to read other people. So I think
that takes so of the benefits out of it. And
there's do you guys have a lot of that in
the UK? It's all over the place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you got lots of good affairs and
the sort of sack affairs and the like and do that,
and you can find terrors online almost I mean, very honestly,
I did it one for a period of time. Professional
Tarry excuse me, got paid for Tarran rather than the veteron.
Just was getting bad to do it in a little
shop in my hometown where he is to live. And
I didn't do it a long I quite enjoyed doing it,
but I did realize people were coming to be expecting
me to tell them how to live their lives for them,
you know, kind of tell me what I was supposed
to tell me. What this used to hear my mind
was a young guy who was a security guard keep
seeing basically he was dating to at the same time,
I want me to tell here which one should be
with what I don't blood you know, I can tell
you what I'm getting from these cards as And they
said that, well, the description I'm seeing this person I was.
I was seeing them in mind, this image of a
woman that should we hear then what do you think
it's your girlfriend? So it was that kind of I
want you to have the answers for them. But the
same time you had some very odd experiences. Get the
one that stood out. A woman came to see me
who dog had just passed away, and I was able
to describe the inside of her house in vivid detail,
the layer of everything, even though the rooms looked and everything,
and she was almost one point of you into my
house before. So no, never before there we had never met.
So no, but you're so detailed, say it was just
using terror cards. It's the images I was seeing up
was the fact that I had I could see where
doggor to sleep, the potom, the stairs. I could still
see it now in my mind's eye. You walk in
the front door and the staircases just on the right,
going straight up to the left. There's a lounge at
the front and go through another door where there's kitchen
at the back and dog to sleep the bop the stairs.
So it was like guarding the stairs for her, and
she was like, I don't know, that's all I'm seeing.
Others it was more kind of just bland. Well, you know,
this car means that and means that ends up to you,
so if you feel happy with that. So it's interesting
because obviously for being paid, there's a kind of pressure
to perform if you do it just to be nice,
and there's no pressure so much. But people work coming
with a very definite expectation. I was going to tell
them their future what they're supposed to do with their lives.
Now I can tell them what to do with their
lives and tell them the future something different, you know,
So this is what you're doing. I mean, this is
long before Changingly a psychotherapist, and I can recognize our
elements that are the Tarrorians early twenties. Then that I
can see later on what elements of psychotherapy, you know,
trying to help them question themselves, christ their choices and
what they were doing, what they thought was right for themselves,
and of trying to find somebody else to tell them
what to do. Figure out for yourself. So I'm not
totally against the idea, but when you are having to perform,
it is putting pressure on yourself to produce something that
you could eas just make it out in the future,
just make it up, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no one can be on and accurate one of
the time, even if you are kind of tuned in.
There's probably people that you don't connect with of course,
or you're just you have bad days sometimes, right, Yeah,
But there's people out there too, Because there's so many
people out there. How does you know someone off the
street know that you're sincere or not. Some people will anything.
Someone with a Tarot deck says, and yeah.
Speaker 1: I encountered. I mean, the last time I actually went
to someone for reading is many years ago. And I
remember very vividly because they said they can't get anything.
I'll get nothing from you and actually give my money back,
which is quite nice. But said, that's just said. I'm sorry.
I just I don't I can't get anything from you.
Prior to that, I haven't been to many, he said
another bothered. I just went as curious. But I always
remember one Tara Reado. I met it betually became my
friends with the guy and his wife. I walked in
the little shop he had a little New Age type
shop he had on the market. This is in South
k used to work south in Essex, and I never
forget what he said to me. Walked through the door
and said, you have a flaming pentagram surrounding you, and
there's a figure in the background, but don't worry, there
to protect you. And whatever his name was, Alex, I
think his name was. By the way, He's like, okay,
now I knew what he was talking about, because in
those days I was very much involved in working the
ink nook. You mentioned doctor John d And in a
knock and you come contact with a thing called corons On,
which is called the demon of the Abyss. It's a
stage you have to go through. You have to deal
with it. It's like your own ego basically the idea
and when you get past the ego stage, you move
on to higher levels. Is the idea. But you have
to quote confront corons On and I've been working with
korns On with this energy at that time and learn behold,
this is pretty much what the guy who was seeing
behind me. So it was like, wow, I can see
this figure. And a lot of mediums, if you're like
used to meet through the ghost investigation stuff. I used
to say, well, what do you get from me? And
often more on once a few times say there's a
dark figure around you, but he's perfectly okay, he's looking
after you, or I can't see because he puts his
cloak around and envelops you. Okay, yeah, I know he's
exactly what you're talking about. And it doesn't say that.
I thank God for that. I was really worried then,
So no, I know exactly what you're talking about. Now.
You could argue that, and I often do the mediums
that they're psychic. They're picking up things from your mind
because it was happened with you mine, because you're working
on this stuff even if it wasn't thinking about right
there and then it was there in my mind. They
were picking up on that. And that's how I often
view those people. But some terriers will see you that
the Tarror for them is just the vehicle. It's the
unlocking mechanism for their mind to then communicate with whatever's
going on. It becomes secondary. In fact, before that, when
you give Tarot card reading, the cards I suppose to
have specific meanings. If you're getting meanings different to what
the cards are supposed to be saying, go with what
you're feeling, you know, recognize that maybe you've evolved beyond
those and maybe you're still using it because it's a
it works the way for you. It unlocks of it
for you. But if you're getting meaning it's different to
what the cards say, go with what you're getting because
it's more precise. You're active and alive in situation. The
cards are pieces of the paper basically, they are more inactive.
So if you're getting a different reading and then go.
Speaker 2: For that, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah,
and so I've been saving this. I kind of teased
a little bit earlier, but I had talked about trying
to get my mother to go back to Florida. Oh yes,
So yesterday morning, I woke up right and early, just
determined to end the insanity that has been happening in
my home. And I woke up and I started. I
gathered up all of my things that have any kind
of connection with protection right railroad spike and obsidian and
a hagstone and stuff like that, and I just made
it arts and crafts time, and I started glueing stuff together.
I made a really nice, cute little ornament I could
hang up somewhere focus my energy on that. My mother
comes over and says, you know, I'm really sorry, but
we decided to go up to Vermont and visit that
your sister up there, so we're actually leaving. So I
have no that's what did it fun, But.
Speaker 1: It's about that's good. That's one of the things I've
said to you before. You know, it's will and intent
very important in magic. If you're willing something to happen,
these things, the schedules, whatever, you're working with our vehicles
so enable that will to occur. I will tell the
same story I've told many times, I know, but in
case you've never heard this one before, it's like all
where you've been. But I'll tell it again back in
oh god, ten twelve years ago. Now, it must have
been quite a while ago where I was living in
my old hometown. I won't name it, but it's not
awful place. But we had neighbours either side and across
the road, and each one, for different reasons, were a
bit of a pain in the backside. The guide to
the left of us was a recently retired builder and
he was doing up the house himself, but he was
so slow with it. Every weekend it'll be bang bang, drill,
real sore, all sorts of noise, and then it's stopped
and started having only during the week which was even
worse when you're a home based like a therapist and
study talking with a car and there'll be selling me
drills going off next door. And he said to me, well,
I don't do it at the weekends because everyone's home
from work, so which I said, well, you know, I
work from home and weekends will be fine for us.
Because he wasn't attached the other side was just attached
to us. But no, no, what I want to get
this done. So it's like I don't know loud the
other side of us were young couple who were perfectly fine,
very friendly with and go on well with them until
the woman felt pregnant and we'd already met her mum,
and she was a bit of a bit of a
dragon wre she was an absolute nightmare. The girl herself
was a bit on the sort of shy side of
not even shy. Just mum was in charge. And Mum
the hand its you to come around every single day
of the week again, which was perfectly fine, except you
to park a car in front of our house, which
when you're again as a therapist and you want free
access to your own drive isabe in the backside and more.
One occasion, I've had clients who actually rang me and
said can I come because of someone outside your house?
I said, no, it's a woman next door. She insists
some parking. Now. I've asked him not to because there's
perfectly good space in front of her own daughter's house.
But no, for some reason, she wanted to make sure
her daughter could get her car off the drive trader
awhere she needed, so she's part in front of our house,
make it look like someone's in our house when they weren't.
So that was irritating. Across the road a couple moved
in and the guy was middle aged man who was
trying to catch his youth from board the Harley Davis
and motorbike, which I'm sure you know are very noisy machines.
He'd come home from work sort of five o'clock in
the afternoon, now very in mind. I'd often see clients
well into the evening. In the winter it wasn't quite
so bad, but in the summer he had the windows zones.
It's hot. He'd get his bike out, turn it on
and leave it running for a good ten minutes, just
left running on the drive opposite us. I know, speaking
to the young couple next door every time that the
baby used to wake up and start crying, so she
was paid off with him as well. And it was
just there was no talking to The guy was a big,
beefy bloke. You just you couldn't talk to about anything.
There's no point even trying, you know. So with his
high vaas and big and his leather jacket, he's just
trying to recapture his lost youth I say, probably his fifties,
and they've had enough. It was just getting ridiculous. It
was just so annoying. Had a long chot old friend
of mine also at Practitioner Magic, and between us we
kind of devised a plan. Now the element of it
I did was much more involved in what he did.
But he just idea is we created something I won't
say what it was, and made these items and place
them in strategic places where you're supposed to place these
certain items for them to work. And being very vague
I know, but this I'd rather not say too much
about it. Within six months, all three of them had moved.
The guy had built a guy went first, he went off.
The bloke opposite they decided to move away, and so
there was obviously in their minds to go, but for
whatever reason they were having and then next door felt
pregnant again, second child coming, want a bigger house. But
this all three of them happened within six months, and
each one of them was replaced by much nicer people.
The old guy who left, they're replaced by Italian couple
who we are still friendship today. And there we moved
away from where you used to live. They came visited
last weekend. Were stay in close contact every time we
go back because my dad lives at my old hometown.
We always visit them so they are friends, not just names.
They're good friends. Now a couple of the other side
had no plans for kids in the thirties, perfectly fine, friendly,
got on with them. Fire across the road the block
I bought the house was a computer programmer. We used
to go abroad like months at a time, so he
was even around. He was on his own and the
big when abroad. In fact, we used to house it
for him ocasionally. Use of house insurance works. We will
have one thirty days you have to have someone be
in the house, so you give us the key and
said just go in and sit down a cop coffee
in there. So valu, it's my insurance. Got really well.
The guy you sorry to get well with him, but
he was about this is a nice bloke and that
was a change. And the say one person to move
coincidence two it's impressive, but all three within six months.
Something we did made that work, and I've since used
a very similar theme for other friends who've had issues.
One partner, my friend of mine, her ex partner was
actually asked wouldn't leave her alone, kept calling it every
day and coming around. I gave her one of these
things I'd made, told a way to put it, and
instantly stopped going around. He never came around again after that.
He just stopped. Literally the day she got it, supposed
to to her put it where she supposed to put it,
and it stopped. Another friend who's who's familiar to us.
I can't want to tell her story, it's her story
to tell, but had had years of problems with the
neighbor building it literally built on her land. I gave
one of these items within a couple of months his
house was on the market, he was leaving, So you know,
make of that what you will. They appear to work.
How why, I don't know. Never had any comeback from them,
so at least the three full business. But they're designed
to be done, to do it the right way, they
should not come back on you anyway.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. That plant I mentioned earlier, my grandmother's voodoo plant.
There is a joke in my friend group that that
plant is cursed because every time or so I've since
it has since stopped doing this, but for several years,
every time I reopened that plant, one particular X would
call me within a week, no blomming, and I Actually,
I took that plant to a hoodoo shop near me
and got that woman's advice on it, and now like
I almost use it like it's a ward, but I
i've what happened was I had stopped putting those in it,
and apparently, like the pennies we're telling it bring money
into the home. If they're used for they're called the
resurrection plant because they look dead and then they can
come back to life, so they're used for like new beginnings,
but also prosperity or resurrecting something. So it could be
you know, opening you up to prosperity, or it could
be trying to resurrect an old relationship. And if you
don't put those pennies in there to tell it which
one to do, right, just do what it wants, is
what we think. Because I started putting the pennies back
in and it stopped happening. Oh yeah, I'm scared to
like do an experiment and open it without the pennies
because I don't want to deal with that.
Speaker 1: That's of the things that the nature of magic. It's,
as you've said many times before, it happens too often
to be coincident, but enough to be a provable. You
know it's it's not verified, but it's to scientifically. But
I mean, now I could tell you sorry before about
someone I know who excuse me, basically wanted to have
more time to work on magical stuff. They actually asked
a particular again this is that road demon from the
Goesia for help, and I don't know if it would work.
Within a few months he had a bad accident, was
put in the wheelchair for a period of time, so
it was off work for a period of time. But
he had a very bad back. It was is not
really really wanted, you know, weren't precise. You know, you
didn't really say if you want to have more time
doing something, you've got to sacrifice something else to get
that more time. You have to be careful what you
wish for.
Speaker 2: That reminds me of like the genie and the lamps.
Speaker 1: Mythology, see that comes from these come from somewhere, these
whole myths and legends. I mean, we sort thing you
can talk about another time. You know, sources of myths
and legends because they are based in something. They're not
just made up the story completely. They are generational ideas
that are in there somehow. You know you talk about
the genie in the lamp. That's the gin of course
of Islamic stright Middle Eastern version of demonic forces. They
work a little differently. I mean that's saying not quit
the same as the old fashioned demon. The genians are
something different. But again the genie of the sort of
and the dizzy fire kind of thing of William's doing
the voice, and then you have the gin, which is
something quite different, but one comes from the other. M Well,
I think we've had a good evening of long discussion
about witchcraft and the culture change. So think perhaps you
might because of wrapping things up, we're doing quite well.
Unless you've got anything questions you want to ask or anything.
Speaker 2: But guess what we didn't talk about.
Speaker 1: I know, don't say it. He kept well away. We're
not going to even stray even close to mentioning someone.
This will be a record, I think, I think actually
saying I think you may have done one show before.
We didn't mention his name. I think you and I
may have done it. But yes, in activity tonight, and
though of course it's all trying to draw to Heah,
because we are still talking about we're working with energies now,
whether it is of a panormal form that we're talking
about more normally or a cult my years of experienced
dealing with this stuff, both occult stuff, witchcraft, magic and
supernatural UFOs, we are talking about the same thing, the
same source of energy that can be manipulated and altered.
Whether you do it consciously or not, whether to do
of your belief systems or not, I don't know, but
I think these things are fundamenting the same thing, as
I was saying earlier on working with Solomonic magic and
Anochian two quite different systems which the Golden Dawn tried
to bring together to one system, which I think failed
spectacularly because Golden Dawn's and Nockean magic is so far
removed from the original stuff that John d wrote in
the fifteen hundreds, it's ridiculous. It's a miles away from
it where they tried to combine the two together. But
they are dealing with the same kind of energies, trying personal,
maybe transimensional, but something deep within us that's also out there,
but it's part of us as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, would you have advice for someone that wants
to start practicing but might be scared to end up
in a wheelchair like your friend did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't ask for things like that was read. Try
and find the classics stuff, the older texts. There are
lots of modern book which are absolutely fine, no problem
at all, but you know, look for the earlier stuff,
like say, if you want to get into wi can
look for Joe Gardler's books Witchcraft, The Day and the
Meaning of Witchcraft. Find those, Read those is a good
starting point if that's what we want to get into again,
the judicial witchcraft stuff. Get some of the folkloss aside
and stuff, the old books that catalog and detail these
things you want to get into. The Golden Dawn, start
with amor the Golden Dorm. It's their system of magic.
But authors around those topics. It's it's a mindfield, won't you.
It's one of the difficult things people do. You often
ask me that what would you start with. I've been
doing stuff for to your years. I don't know any
more what i'd start with now, because you know, it's
the books that I would have started with, and I've
probably seen this bit old hat now there was I
just want to think there's a check called David Coley
wrote a book about magic which is absolutely brilliant and
I can't even see it. How's it gone? Yes, David
Conway's Magic and O Cult Primer. Yeah, Magic and a
Cult Primer or David Conway one of the first books
I started with and was brilliant, really really was impressive
that that's one of the things I first started with.
Books like that. Howce Houston's Mastering Witchcraft. I'm looking my
shelf wich over read these titles. Another great book, sort
of a Houston Mastering Witchcraft. These are the early ones
that came out, you know, with the real kind of
revival of magic in the eighties. These are ones that
definitely look into, but don't be afraid to try a
pass that might not see the ones that would normally
go to, as I say, if you're sort of a
North American white guy, try things like Voodo, have a
look at it, you know, look at some time. Magic
high a cult that is very tired. In Thailand is
quite a big thing at the moment. There is a
guy called Peter Gents written a number of books on
the topic that has made it quite popular.
Speaker 2: There's also I have a tie Sigel tattoo.
Speaker 1: Ah, yeah, exactly, yes, yeah, ceremonial.
Speaker 2: Tattoo. Yeah he is tie, but he kind of meditates
and works with these deities to come up with the sigils.
Then he does a cleansing and a whole ceremony to
do the tattoo.
Speaker 1: Creating your own path, but based on some of the
already exists, is a great way of doing things. Is
a good way of moving forward and exploring. Donald Michael
Craig wrote these seven lessons in Modern Magic. The title again,
I've worked on my stats away an early book I
read as well that was very good. So there are
good titles out there. I mean, I don't just decry anything.
Some books are better than I was, obviously, but trying
to find the you look for the classics, look them up,
you know, see what good books to start with? Are
those ones as time ones I've been in print for decades,
you know they there must be something to just be
in printing and that kind of thing. They obviously have value,
but it is prepared to experiment and explore that. I
found Islandic magic by chance. It was an exchange of
the room stuff. But more you look into Icelandic staye
for magic. It's quite different to ruining magic. There's a
real difference there, but you wouldn't necessarily realize.
Speaker 2: So in my advice would be don't pay people on
TikTok or Facebook for terror readings.
Speaker 1: Yes, being an advocate of not doing that sort of
thing online. I know people say that they get on
my wings are really good, but there's a thing about
the personal direct connection of someone sitting in front of
you that is more important than what we might get online.
If you get find a great reader online, it works
you fine, no problem, It's up to you entirely. But
I think at least once or twice see one face
to face, work with them directly, and see you get
from that. My advice at the school, well, I think
we'll do the old closing out. As Steve likes to say,
so hold tight always makes you laugh. Why he says that.
At the end, you have been listening to myself, Andy
Merse and my wonderful co host Civestil discussing witchcraft and
magic tonight. So it's the topic that we've covered before,
but I'll find it fascinating. It's a default topic we
can dropped into whenever he's ting to talk about. So
I hope you may have learned something interesting time on
what you've been talking about, and it's just like to
say we were back in a couple of weeks with
probably our glorious leader, the old Steve Ward. I hope
you back into his healthful I see him as our
glorious leader. That makes him feel better to say that.
So I like to think everybody's involved, of course, as
Steve likes to mention, Irian a Blocker, and Mark Johnson
and myself for the co founders, if you like, are
the co managers of the station. I lo I am
the moment, I'm just charging me on a little bit
doing because both Mark and if Differents have taken a
bit of a step back, so I'm sort of the
head ho choke at the moment. She is quite nice
and not sure he's a everything. I'm sure, but well,
we will be back in a couple of weeks time
with a guest I suspect and talking about something else
I suspect. But until then, I hope you've enjoyed this
discussion of witchcraft magic and we'll see you again soon.
Bye for now. Oh sorry, and my co host did
he says goodbye as well? Bye good night. I