November 20, 2019 • 37 mins
We’re all familiar with the spooky, stereotypical witch depicted in film, fiction and folklore – a creepy crone with a pointy hat, riding a broom through the sky and cackling at the moon, often accompanied by her animal sidekick. But how accurate are these depictions? Were there ever really any covens, any infernal Black Masses and secret rituals dedicated to the powers of darkness? Join Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know as the guys explore fact, fiction and controversy around the real-life stories of witches and covens.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, everyone,
(00:24):
welcome to the pre show introduction. Yeah, the sort of
the the lobby or the foyer to the actual show. Yes,
I'm glad we have that door opening, the you know,
the beginning, the ding dong doorbell, just lets you know
you're walking into the four you now, the proper worlds doorbell,
not the ding dong ding You six there for a second. Yeah,
(00:46):
it's true, it's true. The three of us recently went
to New York City, just like you've heard about the
salsa commercials, and we did an episode on real life covens. Yeah,
looking at the history of really what a which is
what it you know, what it is in popular culture,
(01:07):
How it's how the concept has been viewed over the centuries,
as well as what what an actual group um um,
people who would be who would consider themselves to be,
which is how they functioned together. Yeah, and this was
something we were asked to do um at our home
offices at I Heart Media headquarters in Midtown, New York.
(01:29):
And it was a pretty tight little affair. I think
we did about thirty five minutes on the subject and
then we're out to light bites and cocktails and schmoozery.
And it was a very nice evening. And we had
a lovely intro by a friend of the show, Comal Burne,
which you will not hear, but um it was. It
was filthy. It was filthy but glowing. Yeah. Yeah, like
Bob Saget stand up set. Uh. Yeah, we were. We
(01:52):
were very excited about this. We wanted to share it
with you. We also want you to know that we
did this, of course, right before Halloween. So here is
hyping up the Halloween that was past. So travel back
there with us. Uh, and let us determine between fiction
and fact, which which is the most accurate? Yes, and
(02:16):
Ben is right, Your your calendars are correct. It is
not Halloween. But but let's let's have some how about
some early nostalgia for Halloween. I can't wait without further ado.
Here we go. Hello, welcome back to the show. My
name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call me Ben.
That's our super producer, Paul mission controlled dec and on
(02:38):
the figure of ones and two's give it up for him.
But most importantly, you are here. You are you, and
that makes this stuff. They don't want you to know.
Live at I Heart headquarters here in New York. So
give it up for yourself. Yes, yeah, we are in
fact recording this. This will be a real episode of
the show. So you are part of podcast history, or
(03:00):
at least part of our podcast feed. Right, So you're
sort of you're all co host with us tonight, and
we're standing a very surreal place that most of you
just think is normal now but it most certainly is not.
And there's like a hologram in the hallway. They change
the lights, there's smoke. That's a smoke machine in the
conference room that we've been posted up at lasers. It's bonkers,
and we almost just stayed and played with that. Uh
(03:21):
this it's true. As you're hearing this out there in
podcast lands, it is almost Halloween, one of the very
most wonderful times of the year according to us, at least,
you know, we've got a cavalcade of potential monsters that
are going to be strolling the streets. We think of vampires, right,
we think of werewolves and of course we think of,
(03:42):
which is now modern science has pretty much conclusively proven
that vampires and werewolves didn't exist, at least in the
way that we popularly think about them or the way
we imagine them and portray them. However, which is are
a little bit different. It's true. So what is this
stereotip coal kind of type of which that we think of?
Where does it come from? And most importantly, are any
(04:05):
of those strange stories actually true? So we have to
start addressing that question the way we always start addressing
any question, which is which is sorry, which is with
the facts. So here are the facts. It's fair to
say that we're all pretty familiar with at least the
stereotype of the Western European witch, right, we know the
(04:26):
traditional witch and filmed fiction folklore. They'll typically be a woman,
they're often older. They've got for some reason, a wide
brimmed pointy hat. Yeah, they might have warts, are like
weird green skin like in the Wizard of Oz or
or some kind of at least jaun disappearance or whatever.
And they've got talent like nails. Uh. They dress very
goth dark clothing. Um, they have wicked cackles and after all,
(04:50):
that they might fly through the sky, usually with the
aid of some sort of household um appliance, like a
like a broom or a mortar and pestel, or to
modernize it, maybe a vacuum cleaner. So, I don't know,
says a bust A lot. And they also a lot
of times we'll have a demonic sidekick called a familiar,
which is, you know, a rat and an owl or
something to that effect, maybe a cat. Yeah, we should
(05:11):
note the stereotype of familiars in Europe, uh came about
before Europeans knew what chihuahuas are. Those are the most
demonic of household pets. I'm sorry, I wait, some enemies. Yeah,
I think they look at like evil little blueberry muffins
with their weird, dead black eyes. It's it's absolutely shivering.
(05:31):
It's a different, it's a different. But okay, so we're talking.
So that's a witch singular individual. But what happens when
we get to the idea of a group of witches? Yeah? Yeah,
So according to these stories, very seldom would you see
a witch who was acting alone. A lot of times
you would see them colluding and conspiring with like minded
(05:52):
other practitioners of sorcery and these things that were called
and are called covens, at least within the popular culture.
And these were secretive groups that would meet together to
you know, worship a certain deity or an evil entity
or um and a lot of times try and make
the infernal powers that exist within that realm happened on
(06:13):
the mortal plane. And as a secretive groups tend to do,
they would meet in secretive places like old standing stones
in the woods, cemeteries, ancient sites outside of town, abandoned buildings,
and sellers uh and uh. At coven's, witches were engaged
in perverse mockery's or parodies of religious rights, Christian rights specifically.
(06:34):
The most famous coven um right, was something that's called
the Black Mass. Yeah, yeah, come on, yeah, it all
sounds scary. And as we're going through here, we're gonna
we're kind of weaving this tail right of what of
what this stuff was like or what the way we
think about it. So we're getting into a tale now
that's not for the faint of heart. True. Oh yeah,
(06:56):
we should have said that at the top. But these
are adults. I think we're gonna we can handle this together. Okay.
So the descriptions of black masses. This was a popular
scary news story of the day, right, And we have
found genuine descriptions, or what purport to be genuine descriptions
of a black mass. One in particular that spoke to
(07:19):
us was from a book written in fifine seven. It
was called, in a burst of creativity, the Antichrist. It
was written by a guy named Floramond Day Raymond. And yeah,
and let's names were just better back then. And let's
just let's set the stage. Uh there, there's a tale
of a woman who is going to potentially be a witch, right,
(07:43):
she's she's in the recruitment process, kind of like that
guy at the beginning of Lost Boys. And so she
has taken to a field out in the wild, and
in d Raymond's account, a mysterious specifically a talent man.
Drew draws this ring with a rada Holly, he reads
(08:04):
a spell from a black book, and the whole the
whole description, by the way, just harps on the fact
that this guy was Italian. Come on, and it's oddly specific.
And I quote. Thereupon appeared a large, haunted goat, all black,
accompanied by two women as well as a man dressed
as a priest. The goat asked who this girl was,
and when the Italian man Weird replied that he had
(08:27):
brought her to be his, the goat made him make
the sign of the cross with his left hand. That's right, um,
And then he commanded all of them to come and
greet him, which they immediately did. And another odd detail,
kissing his his rear, his his haunches, his his backside. Okay,
here's where it gets row. Remember I am reading a quotation. Okay,
(08:50):
here we go, we can do this quote. The goat
had a lighted black candle between its two horns, from
which the others lit their own candles. The goat took
the woman aside, laid her in the woods, and carnally
knew her. What is that? I don't understand. We're just
gonna breeze. We're gonna keep going here, to which she
took an extreme displeasure. Okay, obviously suffered much pain. God,
(09:14):
this is horrible, and felt his seed as cold as ice.
Why is it cold? I don't know. It's infernal powers.
I don't understand why it's the way it's icy. Well,
maybe because this is like pre Dante's inferno. Okay, but
that wasn't the culmination of the party. After that, all
the witches began to dance in circles, their backs turned
to one another. The person performing the service was clothed
(09:36):
in a black robe, but he didn't have a cross.
He would raise I still don't understand this part. He
would raise like a round slice of turnip and it
would be died black. They would use that instead of
the host. And then when he had it at elevation,
he would scream out, Master, help us. And they put
water in the change instead of wine to make holy water.
(09:56):
They had somehow trained this goat to urinate in a
hole in the ground. And honestly, out of that whole description,
the turnip is the most confusing part to me. I
have a theory a turn up is like a very
pure kind of white, as the driven snow vegetable, and
when you diet black, it's sort of like a putrification
of purity. I wonder if they just didn't have a budget,
you know, like if they just found a turn up.
(10:25):
So in this group, these folks would perform these acts
of witchcraft, and everyone gave a story as to how
the things they were doing were aiding in the infernal
causes of hell. Right, this is very important. Yeah, and
supposedly they were doing this at least twice a week,
uh and with at least sixty other people gathered together.
(10:46):
So imagine what we just described. Imagine doing that twice
a week. It's like Wednesdays and Fridays. A serious commitment
of a building community is really important though, you know,
well yeah, but it also it's going to get into
later like why these why these descriptions are you know
there there are a lot of issues with them, so
let's let's just continue going. You can't deny that it's
spooky stuff though, But but the idea is if you
(11:08):
were imagine you're in the fift hundreds and you've read
an account like that, and maybe perhaps you believe that
some of this could be true. If even a small
portion of the stuff we just described was true, you know,
which is conspiring and doing these evil things, then European
Christianity as it stood as a as an institution was
basically in deep trouble. And what what could the righteous
(11:31):
and upstanding citizens, the institutions, the governments that were meant
to protect those citizens, what could they do to stand
against some something so insidious and hellish as this. Well,
nowadays we like to say, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, right,
it's not nerds anybody, it's just But back in the day,
(11:53):
the thing is, the Inquisition, especially the Spanish one, was
very much expected because they were real pills. These were
dangerous dudes who saw themselves, at least ostensibly as agents
of the divine and they thought their ultimate goal was
not just a root out wickedness, but to save souls.
And if a few bodies had to be broken or
(12:13):
a few people had to be tortured for the greater good. Yeah, Well,
like russ Cole says in True Detective, sometimes you need
bad men to keep the other bad men from the door.
So how how did these inquisitions work? Right? So, contrary
to popular belief, the Inquisition wasn't just created to hunt
down witches. It was much broader than that. Beginning in
the twelfth century, the Catholic Church set up the Office
(12:33):
of the Inquisition to punish anyone that was even remotely
speaking out against Catholicism um and and they saw it
as heresy, which was literally any religion or belief system
that was not uh Catholicism. Yeah, so, so they weren't
just hunting witches. That's not what it was about. They
were also persecuting, torturing, and murdering people of other faiths, Muslims,
(12:57):
people of Jewish faith. They were It was the worst manifestation,
or let's say, the worst manifestation of the Inquisition occurred
when the Spanish Inquisition executed over thirty two thousand people
over the course of two d years. I'm not a
math scholar or anything, but those are those numbers are troubling,
I would say, I mean, so, yeah, they were very
(13:18):
much expected, you know what I mean? And we also
see all sorts of allegations like what so, no, what
were they actually looking for. They were looking for things
like well poisonings, poisonings of of the well, which I
think is as an emo band, which is a great name.
Um influencing the weather for nefarious purposes, because that was
a big deal. I would, you know, wipe out people's crops.
(13:39):
You blamed the witches, right, and there wasn't any meteorology,
so why not blame a witch? Also practicing any sort
of thing that could be remotely considered magic, even innocuous magic,
even early medical science, like healing people with herbs that
would get you hanged, or making prophecies, engaging in any
kind of thing that looked like a ritual that also
(14:01):
didn't look super catholic. Oh I forgot my favorite. There
was this big thing about people transforming dudes into horses
and riding them around at night. It was like as
like a punishment. Yeah, that sounds so much fun. Okay, alright, anyway, Um,
they will also be accused of seducing other members of
(14:21):
their community. They were accused of messing with livestock, making
cows milk go bad, or or just turn them inside
out like the aliens. It's just bad milk. Yeah, yeah.
Or they would just out and out kill them. They
would curse people. Sometimes they'd be accused of murdering and
assassinating people. Um they were, they were. They were accused
of all kinds of things. Okay, okay, So magic aside,
what whatever you may believe. Um, did anyone actually do
(14:45):
any of these absolutely bonkers things that we've we've just
laid out. Here's where it gets crazy. So yes, yes,
sort of we're not saying magic works, but there were
real people genuinely doing at least some of the stuff
that witches were accused of doing. The problem is the
people accused of witchcraft and on these dastardly things. These
(15:08):
people generally just fell into like a few very much
non evil witch necroom answer categories. They were like midwives,
traditional healers. I mean, if you think, not to get
to topical, but if you think that healthcare stinks nowadays,
thank your lucky stars you were not alive during the
Middle Ages. It was terrible. Infections ran rampant. Things that
(15:29):
can be cured with a pill nowadays could be a
death sentence. Back then, infant mortality was cartoonishly high, and
many women also died in the process of Childbirth was
a dangerous, dangerous time. So let's just imagine that you're
a grieving spouse UM or a parent who has recently
lost a loved one in childbirth. You know that you're
a good Christian um spiritually speaking, God has no reason
(15:52):
to to smite you or or your loved ones. Right. Um,
So someone must have put their proverbial finger on the
proverbial scale, flipping it in a very tragic direction. Right.
So what does that all mean? Well, it means that
your immediate suspect is the midwife, right, because she's already
sort of on the fringes of society. As you mentioned earlier,
(16:12):
she is a practitioner of these cures that involve herbs
and some of these more esoteric remedies. Right. So if
she has the ability to use things to heal, surely
she must also have the ability to use these things
to kill. Yeah. So we found something written by Lee Whaley.
She wrote Women and the Practice of Medical Care in
(16:35):
Early Modern Europe, And I'm just gonna read a quote
from that to you, guys. Um It says, during the Renaissance,
a number of strategies were taken to eliminate women and
other popular healers from the medical profession. Uh. And this
was the period when medicine and science lost their spiritual dimensions. Uh,
So healers as healers magicians and wishes wishes lost their
(16:57):
claim to manipulate the spiritual forces of the world. So
now this is important, right, that that idea that the
spiritual and medicine just were completely divorced from one another,
and no longer can the herbs or anything make me
feel better. It has to be something that a doctor
tells me and here's why that's important. The exclusion took
two paths. One the new requirement for people practicing medicine
(17:20):
to have a license. And here's the catch. If you
were a woman, you couldn't get the license. It was
almost like they were purposefully or they was as though
they were purposefully creating turning it into a male dominated
so much misogyny wrapped up in all of this stuff
and in the middle Age. Yeah, because because women couldn't
go to university to get the training necessary to get
(17:42):
that license, so then therefore they cannot work in that field.
And the other thing here is that if there is
a traditional healer, you could literally just say, oh, well,
well that's a witch. Yeah it was. It sounds silly nowadays,
but if you had a problem with someone, you could
just accuse them of being a witch. That that flew
like people believed it. Calum a witch. Then you just
(18:03):
have things, and you have like folks like sears or
other practitioners of fortune telling or the like that had
a strong connection to the other side, right, people like
um you You researched this matt Ursula south Hile, also
known as mother shipped in and she was believed by
many of her contemporaries in the seventeenth century in England
to be a witch because of her belief that she
(18:25):
could foresee the future things like executions, fires, and plagues.
She actually uh predicted or foretold rather that the end
of the world would come in eighteen eighty one, and
she also supposedly predicted that the internet would be a thing.
Ever predicts the internet except al Gore kind of did
that well in the seventeenth century. She was talking about
(18:46):
how one day soon information will just be in the ether,
will be everywhere, which is it's WiFi absolutely whatever cloud.
So luckily she was not persecuted in the same way
that many women of her ilk were. Um, she was
never tortured, she was not killed, and thankfully the end
also did not comment eight one, so she may have
(19:08):
been off the mark on that particularly. Also like side
note though, uh, how many people predict the end of
the world every year? Like does anybody else have an
end of the world fatigue? You know, Like I'm a
nineties baby and I can't recall a year that wasn't
supposed to be the last. I'm ready for it to
happen at this point. Sorry, we'll finish the show, we'll
(19:29):
finish this. She genuinely thought it was gonna be December twelve,
I think, or what was it, two thousand twelve. Joe
Rogan had a show that night. I thought it was
gonna be over. He's a witch bro. So other people
would be as we mentioned before, uh, doctors, medical practitioners
of some sort, but also people who were practicing not
(19:50):
just the non Christian religion, but a non Catholic religion.
Because we have to face it. Despite the best efforts
of the Church at the time, everybody knew Christianity was
far from the first religion on the block, and Catholic
churches had sought to subvert, supplant, and suppress pre existing
belief systems. But when you have a tradition and it's
(20:10):
deeply rooted, people are going to continue to practice it
to the best of their abilities. So they'll just go underground.
And these weren't evil beliefs by any means. These are
things like ancestor worship, animus beliefs, polytheism, and so on.
And because the Church, because that clashed with social control,
they conflated all of these practices with things like sorcery, necromancy, etcetera.
(20:35):
And then you have the category of folks with legitimate
mental illness. Mental illness or what is today referred to
as a neuro atypical behavior um existed during that time
as well, of course, and in some cases folks with
mental illness or cognitive conditions might have actually been considered
blessed by God are capable of receiving visions from on high.
(20:56):
I don't know if anyone's seen Midsummer, but one of
the characters that sort of is the village He here
is someone that clearly has a condition of this sort um.
But then it would there would be the flip side
of it, right where that was much more absolutely yeah no,
And then there'd be the flip side of it where
they were absolutely victimized and used as scapegoats because it
was an easy way to say which devil? Yeah, speaking
(21:19):
of scapegoats. Uh, this has been a running theme of
this entire episode. Another group of people who were victimized
were vulnerable members of society, like widows, the disabled. And again,
what's the main thing you've been hearing probably that's just
been kind of hitting the back of your head is
the misogyny that was involved in all of this stuff.
(21:41):
In fact, the largest demographic of people persecuted for witchcraft
were actually elderly women, and a lot of that had
to do with well, there's a lot of it that
had to do with misogyny just at large. But hold
on a second. We were talking about the individuals, right,
We're talking about each individual person, what their role was,
why they were persecuted. But what about the whole idea
(22:03):
of them getting together and working together? Right? Yes, so
we did stereotypes of witches and we just we just
busted that, hopefully, right, Hopefully we did. And we did
stereotypes of covens. But what we're real covens. See, that's
the thing. History is. History is funny, and history is
a lot more dynamic than people would sometimes have us believe.
History is a conversation, right, William Faulkner said, the past
(22:25):
isn't over, it's not even past. And what we look
at when we dig into covens and the concept of
coven's is that the idea that a coven was a
name for a group of witches came way, way, way
afterward after any of these events. The word coven first
came around sometime in twenty so there had already been
witch hunts, uh, And it wasn't used to describe meetings
(22:48):
of witches until a trial in sixteen sixty two for
a woman named Isabel Goudi. Before then, it was just
like meet up. Yeah, it was just a hangout. And
and it wasn't until ninety one that that term became
popular really associated with the gatherings specifically of witches. And
this association was made within an author, Margaret Murray's work,
(23:10):
The Witch Cult in Western Europe and yes, oh me too,
And this work also helped solidify there's a common idea
that within a coven there would be thirteen members, exactly
thirteen members, and there are some accounts that say that's
twelve actual what you would call witches, as well as
either a leader or the devil or deity themselves. So
(23:33):
you'd have actually like twelve apostles and then one leader
or one deity, right, And Murray actually believed that having twelve,
which is was a mockery of Jesus's twelve disciples. And
while it's true that the number thirteen does hold significance
within certain Wicken belief systems, the number of members of
a coven was generally not a requirement. There was no
(23:54):
like hard and fast rule. But we have also found
several modern covens that that do only allow thirteen members.
So why did people bother hunting witches in the first place.
I think partially it was because they genuinely believe they
were doing God's work, fighting the infernal and insidious forces
of of hell, of darkness. Yes, yeah, that's what it's
(24:17):
said on the label. But there's a dirty truth to this.
You see, the way the laws usually worked said that
if someone was convicted of witchcraft, whoever they were, the
person who convicted them got their possessions, all of their
worldly possessions, like, good job you uh. And this means
that in many cases witch hunters were working on commission basically. Yeah,
(24:43):
so like you have some bills to pay, you're a
witch hunter, you probably have three or four victims picked out.
And now you know, Fortunately for history, br anthropology, for science,
for humanity at large, these inquisitions and these other persecution
programs did not white about every non Catholic religion, and
you can still find modern groups identify as UH covens
(25:07):
or witches or or pagans of some sort today. So
let's get a little bit closer to modern day and
talk about witchcraft occurring right now. We've got some further
examples a little bit further down here, but we do
know that a lot of groups within the United States
(25:28):
and across the whole world practice a range of religions.
If if you're imagining witchcraft is one thing, you are
just dead wrong, because it's there's so many different belief
systems that can be or that are commonly described in
that way. UM. And it's all stuff that might even
fit the old Catholic definition of witchcraft, even though it
(25:49):
is not that UM. We also know that some of
the most historically prominent versions of a coven or a
witchcraft witchcraft group, such as this guy, Gerald Gardner's New
Forest Covin, they have been soundly debunked by research that's
occurred in the modern day and later research that does
continue into the modern day. So let's think about the
(26:09):
adventures of an American anthropologist by the name of T. M.
Lerman uh In nineteen eighty five, T. M. Luhrmann moved
to London and kind of embedded herself in what you
could consider a contemporary British form of witchcraft and magic
which is very much still around today. And she asked herself, why,
(26:30):
um would anyone take up the practice of magic something
as weird is magic, especially since, according to observers that
she interviewed, it doesn't necessarily work. So she she she
to find out. She attended hundreds of secret meetings. And
this is a quote from an article from The New
York Times reviewing a work that she did called Covens
and Chaos Groups. She enacted dozens of rituals, and she
(26:54):
actually wrote some herself, which kind of shows you how
open ended. Yeah, it's absolutely improv um as she read
tarot card, she sewed her own magic robes. She even
would ingest psychotropic substances to get into some sort of
fugue like reverie state, the type that the Druids would
have put themselves into in order to conduct their magic
(27:17):
right allegedly. And one of the main things she discovered
that was occurring within a lot of these groups was
cognitive dissonance. This this idea that the people who were,
you know, magicians, and which is the people that um
that she was associating with, often remember their magical successes.
So if they're going to do a ritual or something
they remember that time. Then something kind of worked out
(27:38):
a little bit better, uh than than the failures. The
ones were absolutely nothing occurred, and the definition of success
ended up becoming so broad and subjective. And um, it's
just that you you realized or she realized that there
was a lot of generous interpretation that was occurring within
the group and within the with individuals. Yeah, so like
(27:59):
for very compared since um, some of us probably work
with metrics and things in our day jobs. Right, we
have a way to measure success. This this way of
measuring success was a lot less like let's look at
the facts and a lot more like, well and did
a ritual with water yesterday, and uh I saw some
water the next day, so boom, you know. But it's
(28:21):
also not to completely discount it, right, that's not what
we're saying. We're just we're just saying it was easier
to believe it if you were within the group and
you had those beliefs already. That's the same way when you,
you know, design an algorithm and you say this is
the end all be all of something, there's somebody else
that says, no, mine, mine is the end all be all.
It's the same with anything when you interpret data and information,
(28:42):
it's a lot of it is kind of happenstance, and
it's hard to know exactly which one is the right answer. Right, Yeah, Yeah,
here's the thing. Okay, so we're talking about um, a
specific version of of witchcraft. But it is very very
important to note here that there are still human beings
across the planet right now in some very particular areas
that are being accused of witchcraft still and uh, they
(29:06):
are being hunted for that reason. Uh, and there are
these are isolated cases, but it's true. Again we're not
saying magic works, but there are more people, uh than
you might believe who are practicing what they would call
this left hand magic stuff. Let's let's talk about something
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but
(29:27):
narco cults. Right, we know what cartels are, we know
what the narcos are, Right, there are actual narco cults.
There was this sort of black magic that was happening
in Mexico, and we wanted to give you a specific
case of this. In nine Mexican authorities stumbled across a
(29:47):
genuine human sacrifice cult that was related to the drug cartels.
They were led by a guy named Adolfo Costanzo, who
was only twenty six. By the way, he's a cult lead.
Twenty six. That's pretty good. Yeah, I mean kind of yeah.
I don't know. I mean. It wasn't a good cult though,
is the thing. It wasn't like a friendly Mr. Rogers type.
(30:09):
I'm just saying, I'm I'm thirty six and I feel
I fell asleep trying to put on my pants once,
so like this this thing is, uh, this is weird.
He and his followers were called the Narco Satanists. They
committed multiple acts of human sacrifice, adopted from non Satanic
Caribbean religions up to and including cannibalism, because they thought
(30:33):
it would render them invisible, invincible, immune to bullets, and
they you know, we have to ask did they really
believe this? The answer I would argue is yes, because
they were killing people. They were literally weary necklaces of
human vertebrae. When when authorities caught them, you go through
they have to have believed it. I think at this
all goes down to the power of belief for sure.
(30:55):
And they were eventually caught, thank god, during an investigation
into the death of an America can by the name
of Mark Kilroy, who is one of their final victims.
So at least at the end their covens, magic didn't
didn't just save them from from being found out. And
it turns out that magic motivated murders are popular across
(31:15):
the entire globe. You've got areas of South Asia, some
parts of Europe, the Middle East, and several African countries
where people are genuinely absolutely being murdered for perceived reasons
that are magical related. Yeah. I think we're all familiar
with albinism or you know, um being an albino. UM.
(31:36):
A lot of people with who suffer from albinism are
hunted in places like Tanzania and Malawi or um, sorry,
how do you say it? Malawi? Uh? They are They're
murdered because their organs are being harvested for magical purposes.
I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. Their hair
and their body parts were a lot of times or
(31:57):
throughout history the subject of folklore of madical interest UM
specifically in those regions, but recently they've been touted as
a crucial component of any shorefire potion making. So if
if there's some witch doctor in a in a tribe
somewhere and they want to make a potion. They will
seek out this stuff money, wealth, power, true love, you know,
(32:21):
all the all the basic ones. And in in Saudi
Arabia and in the Islamic State, multiple people have been executed,
like very recently for the crime the perceived crime of witchcraft. Now, now, okay,
we've been yeah, we've been going over all the historical stuff,
the scary stuff. Let's let's talk about if you're going
(32:41):
to go out right now and try and find a
coven here in Manhattan. Uh, here's the cool thing. You
can do it and and they exist, and you can
actually probably go to a greeting or to a gathering.
You could probably if it's a full moon or a
new moon, you can go right now. There's a website
if you aim your browser at which vox w I
(33:02):
T C h v o X dot com, you can
find all of the locally or a lot of at
least the locally run covens, clans and coves. You got
an example for us, I do do you wanna? Can
you go over it a little where I can tell
you it's it's called um Hecate. That's one way to
say it's other. Heck, it is another way to pronounce it.
But Hecate is Sacred Temple, torchbearer of the Crossroads. This
(33:25):
is self described as a group of those who are
devotees or followers of the goddess Hecate that wish to
belong to a temple that honors and worships her. And uh,
who was Hecate? It's the it's the Greek goddess, right, Yeah,
it's the ancient Greek Hecate, as described on Wicca spirituality
dot com as the goddess of all doors and gates,
(33:46):
all transitions from one place to another or a state
of being um and the original hedge sitter, the hag,
the hex mistress. I'm a fan of people with multiple
superlatives like that, and she's described as like the queen
of witches in a lot of places. In this this
particular group, Hecate Sacred Temple offers classes and other opportunities
(34:07):
for the curious to learn about their organization and believe,
I don't want to downplay anything, but it almost feels
more like a community group or like a like a
nice kind of like knitting circle or something more than
it is some sort of like devil worship, he sacrificing
rotarian vibe or something you toastmasters. That's the whole point.
It's it's a place for people to hang out and
(34:27):
worship the way they want to worship. Yeah, that's that's
what I don't want to skip. There are modern witches,
there are modern covens. None of them are out to
get you know, you probably just want to hang out
with really quickly. I just met somebody a little while.
I'm not gonna out anybody, but it was like, yeah,
I had a coworker who was who was a witch. Um.
She was super cool. I loved hearing the stories about
her beliefs. Didn't like her as a person. Kind of
(34:48):
creeped me out, because people are people. We met them,
we all we absolutely all. Yeah, but Um had nothing
to do with the belief system more just kind of
a creepy person. Absolutely. But my hairdresser who just moved
away sadly of a hairdresser or salon person, a person
who does my hair, she's amazing. She's she's wicked and
(35:10):
she just moves away and I'm and I'm just so sad.
But she, uh, she was incredible because she could touch
my head and then tell me things about my son's life. Dude,
do you think she just looked on your Facebook? So,
but but it is true. People tend to just be people,
and that's like, maybe maybe that's a disappointed spoiler for
(35:32):
some folks. But the vast majority of ancient witches and covens,
just like the vast majority of the ones around today,
they were not after you either. You know, the more
we dig into this question, the more apparent it becomes
that the allegations of some vast, shadowy conspiracy of individuals
in league with infernal powers, we're just not true. They
(35:54):
there may have been, and they're likely were isolated groups
of people in communities practicing pre Chris spiritual traditions, but
they weren't out to like take over the world for Satan.
And I know that's gonna be kind of rough news
for some heavy metal fans out there personally sat about. Yeah,
I mean, it's a bummer, but it's true port Tenacious Dye,
So you know, there you have it. There. There really
(36:16):
are real, real life witches and real life groups identifying
themselves as covens, But as Ben said, the vast majority
are harmless practitioners of spiritual beliefs that they hold deep
and dear um. And they're certainly not not out to
get you. Yeah, or are they? I think they're I
think they're probably not. They're probably done. But that is
(36:40):
our show. Thank you so much for coming, everybody. We
we hope that you enjoyed it. Yeah, we hope, so.
Thank you, Thank you O'Connell, thanks to Paul, Thanks to
you you m h. Stuff They Don't Want You to
(37:14):
Know is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, everyone,
(00:24):
welcome to the pre show introduction. Yeah, the sort of
the the lobby or the foyer to the actual show. Yes,
I'm glad we have that door opening, the you know,
the beginning, the ding dong doorbell, just lets you know
you're walking into the four you now, the proper worlds doorbell,
not the ding dong ding You six there for a second. Yeah,
(00:46):
it's true, it's true. The three of us recently went
to New York City, just like you've heard about the
salsa commercials, and we did an episode on real life covens. Yeah,
looking at the history of really what a which is
what it you know, what it is in popular culture,
(01:07):
How it's how the concept has been viewed over the centuries,
as well as what what an actual group um um,
people who would be who would consider themselves to be,
which is how they functioned together. Yeah, and this was
something we were asked to do um at our home
offices at I Heart Media headquarters in Midtown, New York.
(01:29):
And it was a pretty tight little affair. I think
we did about thirty five minutes on the subject and
then we're out to light bites and cocktails and schmoozery.
And it was a very nice evening. And we had
a lovely intro by a friend of the show, Comal Burne,
which you will not hear, but um it was. It
was filthy. It was filthy but glowing. Yeah. Yeah, like
Bob Saget stand up set. Uh. Yeah, we were. We
(01:52):
were very excited about this. We wanted to share it
with you. We also want you to know that we
did this, of course, right before Halloween. So here is
hyping up the Halloween that was past. So travel back
there with us. Uh, and let us determine between fiction
and fact, which which is the most accurate? Yes, and
(02:16):
Ben is right, Your your calendars are correct. It is
not Halloween. But but let's let's have some how about
some early nostalgia for Halloween. I can't wait without further ado.
Here we go. Hello, welcome back to the show. My
name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call me Ben.
That's our super producer, Paul mission controlled dec and on
(02:38):
the figure of ones and two's give it up for him.
But most importantly, you are here. You are you, and
that makes this stuff. They don't want you to know.
Live at I Heart headquarters here in New York. So
give it up for yourself. Yes, yeah, we are in
fact recording this. This will be a real episode of
the show. So you are part of podcast history, or
(03:00):
at least part of our podcast feed. Right, So you're
sort of you're all co host with us tonight, and
we're standing a very surreal place that most of you
just think is normal now but it most certainly is not.
And there's like a hologram in the hallway. They change
the lights, there's smoke. That's a smoke machine in the
conference room that we've been posted up at lasers. It's bonkers,
and we almost just stayed and played with that. Uh
(03:21):
this it's true. As you're hearing this out there in
podcast lands, it is almost Halloween, one of the very
most wonderful times of the year according to us, at least,
you know, we've got a cavalcade of potential monsters that
are going to be strolling the streets. We think of vampires, right,
we think of werewolves and of course we think of,
(03:42):
which is now modern science has pretty much conclusively proven
that vampires and werewolves didn't exist, at least in the
way that we popularly think about them or the way
we imagine them and portray them. However, which is are
a little bit different. It's true. So what is this
stereotip coal kind of type of which that we think of?
Where does it come from? And most importantly, are any
(04:05):
of those strange stories actually true? So we have to
start addressing that question the way we always start addressing
any question, which is which is sorry, which is with
the facts. So here are the facts. It's fair to
say that we're all pretty familiar with at least the
stereotype of the Western European witch, right, we know the
(04:26):
traditional witch and filmed fiction folklore. They'll typically be a woman,
they're often older. They've got for some reason, a wide
brimmed pointy hat. Yeah, they might have warts, are like
weird green skin like in the Wizard of Oz or
or some kind of at least jaun disappearance or whatever.
And they've got talent like nails. Uh. They dress very
goth dark clothing. Um, they have wicked cackles and after all,
(04:50):
that they might fly through the sky, usually with the
aid of some sort of household um appliance, like a
like a broom or a mortar and pestel, or to
modernize it, maybe a vacuum cleaner. So, I don't know,
says a bust A lot. And they also a lot
of times we'll have a demonic sidekick called a familiar,
which is, you know, a rat and an owl or
something to that effect, maybe a cat. Yeah, we should
(05:11):
note the stereotype of familiars in Europe, uh came about
before Europeans knew what chihuahuas are. Those are the most
demonic of household pets. I'm sorry, I wait, some enemies. Yeah,
I think they look at like evil little blueberry muffins
with their weird, dead black eyes. It's it's absolutely shivering.
(05:31):
It's a different, it's a different. But okay, so we're talking.
So that's a witch singular individual. But what happens when
we get to the idea of a group of witches? Yeah? Yeah,
So according to these stories, very seldom would you see
a witch who was acting alone. A lot of times
you would see them colluding and conspiring with like minded
(05:52):
other practitioners of sorcery and these things that were called
and are called covens, at least within the popular culture.
And these were secretive groups that would meet together to
you know, worship a certain deity or an evil entity
or um and a lot of times try and make
the infernal powers that exist within that realm happened on
(06:13):
the mortal plane. And as a secretive groups tend to do,
they would meet in secretive places like old standing stones
in the woods, cemeteries, ancient sites outside of town, abandoned buildings,
and sellers uh and uh. At coven's, witches were engaged
in perverse mockery's or parodies of religious rights, Christian rights specifically.
(06:34):
The most famous coven um right, was something that's called
the Black Mass. Yeah, yeah, come on, yeah, it all
sounds scary. And as we're going through here, we're gonna
we're kind of weaving this tail right of what of
what this stuff was like or what the way we
think about it. So we're getting into a tale now
that's not for the faint of heart. True. Oh yeah,
(06:56):
we should have said that at the top. But these
are adults. I think we're gonna we can handle this together. Okay.
So the descriptions of black masses. This was a popular
scary news story of the day, right, And we have
found genuine descriptions, or what purport to be genuine descriptions
of a black mass. One in particular that spoke to
(07:19):
us was from a book written in fifine seven. It
was called, in a burst of creativity, the Antichrist. It
was written by a guy named Floramond Day Raymond. And yeah,
and let's names were just better back then. And let's
just let's set the stage. Uh there, there's a tale
of a woman who is going to potentially be a witch, right,
(07:43):
she's she's in the recruitment process, kind of like that
guy at the beginning of Lost Boys. And so she
has taken to a field out in the wild, and
in d Raymond's account, a mysterious specifically a talent man.
Drew draws this ring with a rada Holly, he reads
(08:04):
a spell from a black book, and the whole the
whole description, by the way, just harps on the fact
that this guy was Italian. Come on, and it's oddly specific.
And I quote. Thereupon appeared a large, haunted goat, all black,
accompanied by two women as well as a man dressed
as a priest. The goat asked who this girl was,
and when the Italian man Weird replied that he had
(08:27):
brought her to be his, the goat made him make
the sign of the cross with his left hand. That's right, um,
And then he commanded all of them to come and
greet him, which they immediately did. And another odd detail,
kissing his his rear, his his haunches, his his backside. Okay,
here's where it gets row. Remember I am reading a quotation. Okay,
(08:50):
here we go, we can do this quote. The goat
had a lighted black candle between its two horns, from
which the others lit their own candles. The goat took
the woman aside, laid her in the woods, and carnally
knew her. What is that? I don't understand. We're just
gonna breeze. We're gonna keep going here, to which she
took an extreme displeasure. Okay, obviously suffered much pain. God,
(09:14):
this is horrible, and felt his seed as cold as ice.
Why is it cold? I don't know. It's infernal powers.
I don't understand why it's the way it's icy. Well,
maybe because this is like pre Dante's inferno. Okay, but
that wasn't the culmination of the party. After that, all
the witches began to dance in circles, their backs turned
to one another. The person performing the service was clothed
(09:36):
in a black robe, but he didn't have a cross.
He would raise I still don't understand this part. He
would raise like a round slice of turnip and it
would be died black. They would use that instead of
the host. And then when he had it at elevation,
he would scream out, Master, help us. And they put
water in the change instead of wine to make holy water.
(09:56):
They had somehow trained this goat to urinate in a
hole in the ground. And honestly, out of that whole description,
the turnip is the most confusing part to me. I
have a theory a turn up is like a very
pure kind of white, as the driven snow vegetable, and
when you diet black, it's sort of like a putrification
of purity. I wonder if they just didn't have a budget,
you know, like if they just found a turn up.
(10:25):
So in this group, these folks would perform these acts
of witchcraft, and everyone gave a story as to how
the things they were doing were aiding in the infernal
causes of hell. Right, this is very important. Yeah, and
supposedly they were doing this at least twice a week,
uh and with at least sixty other people gathered together.
(10:46):
So imagine what we just described. Imagine doing that twice
a week. It's like Wednesdays and Fridays. A serious commitment
of a building community is really important though, you know,
well yeah, but it also it's going to get into
later like why these why these descriptions are you know
there there are a lot of issues with them, so
let's let's just continue going. You can't deny that it's
spooky stuff though, But but the idea is if you
(11:08):
were imagine you're in the fift hundreds and you've read
an account like that, and maybe perhaps you believe that
some of this could be true. If even a small
portion of the stuff we just described was true, you know,
which is conspiring and doing these evil things, then European
Christianity as it stood as a as an institution was
basically in deep trouble. And what what could the righteous
(11:31):
and upstanding citizens, the institutions, the governments that were meant
to protect those citizens, what could they do to stand
against some something so insidious and hellish as this. Well,
nowadays we like to say, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, right,
it's not nerds anybody, it's just But back in the day,
(11:53):
the thing is, the Inquisition, especially the Spanish one, was
very much expected because they were real pills. These were
dangerous dudes who saw themselves, at least ostensibly as agents
of the divine and they thought their ultimate goal was
not just a root out wickedness, but to save souls.
And if a few bodies had to be broken or
(12:13):
a few people had to be tortured for the greater good. Yeah, Well,
like russ Cole says in True Detective, sometimes you need
bad men to keep the other bad men from the door.
So how how did these inquisitions work? Right? So, contrary
to popular belief, the Inquisition wasn't just created to hunt
down witches. It was much broader than that. Beginning in
the twelfth century, the Catholic Church set up the Office
(12:33):
of the Inquisition to punish anyone that was even remotely
speaking out against Catholicism um and and they saw it
as heresy, which was literally any religion or belief system
that was not uh Catholicism. Yeah, so, so they weren't
just hunting witches. That's not what it was about. They
were also persecuting, torturing, and murdering people of other faiths, Muslims,
(12:57):
people of Jewish faith. They were It was the worst manifestation,
or let's say, the worst manifestation of the Inquisition occurred
when the Spanish Inquisition executed over thirty two thousand people
over the course of two d years. I'm not a
math scholar or anything, but those are those numbers are troubling,
I would say, I mean, so, yeah, they were very
(13:18):
much expected, you know what I mean? And we also
see all sorts of allegations like what so, no, what
were they actually looking for. They were looking for things
like well poisonings, poisonings of of the well, which I
think is as an emo band, which is a great name.
Um influencing the weather for nefarious purposes, because that was
a big deal. I would, you know, wipe out people's crops.
(13:39):
You blamed the witches, right, and there wasn't any meteorology,
so why not blame a witch? Also practicing any sort
of thing that could be remotely considered magic, even innocuous magic,
even early medical science, like healing people with herbs that
would get you hanged, or making prophecies, engaging in any
kind of thing that looked like a ritual that also
(14:01):
didn't look super catholic. Oh I forgot my favorite. There
was this big thing about people transforming dudes into horses
and riding them around at night. It was like as
like a punishment. Yeah, that sounds so much fun. Okay, alright, anyway, Um,
they will also be accused of seducing other members of
(14:21):
their community. They were accused of messing with livestock, making
cows milk go bad, or or just turn them inside
out like the aliens. It's just bad milk. Yeah, yeah.
Or they would just out and out kill them. They
would curse people. Sometimes they'd be accused of murdering and
assassinating people. Um they were, they were. They were accused
of all kinds of things. Okay, okay, So magic aside,
what whatever you may believe. Um, did anyone actually do
(14:45):
any of these absolutely bonkers things that we've we've just
laid out. Here's where it gets crazy. So yes, yes,
sort of we're not saying magic works, but there were
real people genuinely doing at least some of the stuff
that witches were accused of doing. The problem is the
people accused of witchcraft and on these dastardly things. These
(15:08):
people generally just fell into like a few very much
non evil witch necroom answer categories. They were like midwives,
traditional healers. I mean, if you think, not to get
to topical, but if you think that healthcare stinks nowadays,
thank your lucky stars you were not alive during the
Middle Ages. It was terrible. Infections ran rampant. Things that
(15:29):
can be cured with a pill nowadays could be a
death sentence. Back then, infant mortality was cartoonishly high, and
many women also died in the process of Childbirth was
a dangerous, dangerous time. So let's just imagine that you're
a grieving spouse UM or a parent who has recently
lost a loved one in childbirth. You know that you're
a good Christian um spiritually speaking, God has no reason
(15:52):
to to smite you or or your loved ones. Right. Um,
So someone must have put their proverbial finger on the
proverbial scale, flipping it in a very tragic direction. Right.
So what does that all mean? Well, it means that
your immediate suspect is the midwife, right, because she's already
sort of on the fringes of society. As you mentioned earlier,
(16:12):
she is a practitioner of these cures that involve herbs
and some of these more esoteric remedies. Right. So if
she has the ability to use things to heal, surely
she must also have the ability to use these things
to kill. Yeah. So we found something written by Lee Whaley.
She wrote Women and the Practice of Medical Care in
(16:35):
Early Modern Europe, And I'm just gonna read a quote
from that to you, guys. Um It says, during the Renaissance,
a number of strategies were taken to eliminate women and
other popular healers from the medical profession. Uh. And this
was the period when medicine and science lost their spiritual dimensions. Uh,
So healers as healers magicians and wishes wishes lost their
(16:57):
claim to manipulate the spiritual forces of the world. So
now this is important, right, that that idea that the
spiritual and medicine just were completely divorced from one another,
and no longer can the herbs or anything make me
feel better. It has to be something that a doctor
tells me and here's why that's important. The exclusion took
two paths. One the new requirement for people practicing medicine
(17:20):
to have a license. And here's the catch. If you
were a woman, you couldn't get the license. It was
almost like they were purposefully or they was as though
they were purposefully creating turning it into a male dominated
so much misogyny wrapped up in all of this stuff
and in the middle Age. Yeah, because because women couldn't
go to university to get the training necessary to get
(17:42):
that license, so then therefore they cannot work in that field.
And the other thing here is that if there is
a traditional healer, you could literally just say, oh, well,
well that's a witch. Yeah it was. It sounds silly nowadays,
but if you had a problem with someone, you could
just accuse them of being a witch. That that flew
like people believed it. Calum a witch. Then you just
(18:03):
have things, and you have like folks like sears or
other practitioners of fortune telling or the like that had
a strong connection to the other side, right, people like
um you You researched this matt Ursula south Hile, also
known as mother shipped in and she was believed by
many of her contemporaries in the seventeenth century in England
to be a witch because of her belief that she
(18:25):
could foresee the future things like executions, fires, and plagues.
She actually uh predicted or foretold rather that the end
of the world would come in eighteen eighty one, and
she also supposedly predicted that the internet would be a thing.
Ever predicts the internet except al Gore kind of did
that well in the seventeenth century. She was talking about
(18:46):
how one day soon information will just be in the ether,
will be everywhere, which is it's WiFi absolutely whatever cloud.
So luckily she was not persecuted in the same way
that many women of her ilk were. Um, she was
never tortured, she was not killed, and thankfully the end
also did not comment eight one, so she may have
(19:08):
been off the mark on that particularly. Also like side
note though, uh, how many people predict the end of
the world every year? Like does anybody else have an
end of the world fatigue? You know, Like I'm a
nineties baby and I can't recall a year that wasn't
supposed to be the last. I'm ready for it to
happen at this point. Sorry, we'll finish the show, we'll
(19:29):
finish this. She genuinely thought it was gonna be December twelve,
I think, or what was it, two thousand twelve. Joe
Rogan had a show that night. I thought it was
gonna be over. He's a witch bro. So other people
would be as we mentioned before, uh, doctors, medical practitioners
of some sort, but also people who were practicing not
(19:50):
just the non Christian religion, but a non Catholic religion.
Because we have to face it. Despite the best efforts
of the Church at the time, everybody knew Christianity was
far from the first religion on the block, and Catholic
churches had sought to subvert, supplant, and suppress pre existing
belief systems. But when you have a tradition and it's
(20:10):
deeply rooted, people are going to continue to practice it
to the best of their abilities. So they'll just go underground.
And these weren't evil beliefs by any means. These are
things like ancestor worship, animus beliefs, polytheism, and so on.
And because the Church, because that clashed with social control,
they conflated all of these practices with things like sorcery, necromancy, etcetera.
(20:35):
And then you have the category of folks with legitimate
mental illness. Mental illness or what is today referred to
as a neuro atypical behavior um existed during that time
as well, of course, and in some cases folks with
mental illness or cognitive conditions might have actually been considered
blessed by God are capable of receiving visions from on high.
(20:56):
I don't know if anyone's seen Midsummer, but one of
the characters that sort of is the village He here
is someone that clearly has a condition of this sort um.
But then it would there would be the flip side
of it, right where that was much more absolutely yeah no,
And then there'd be the flip side of it where
they were absolutely victimized and used as scapegoats because it
was an easy way to say which devil? Yeah, speaking
(21:19):
of scapegoats. Uh, this has been a running theme of
this entire episode. Another group of people who were victimized
were vulnerable members of society, like widows, the disabled. And again,
what's the main thing you've been hearing probably that's just
been kind of hitting the back of your head is
the misogyny that was involved in all of this stuff.
(21:41):
In fact, the largest demographic of people persecuted for witchcraft
were actually elderly women, and a lot of that had
to do with well, there's a lot of it that
had to do with misogyny just at large. But hold
on a second. We were talking about the individuals, right,
We're talking about each individual person, what their role was,
why they were persecuted. But what about the whole idea
(22:03):
of them getting together and working together? Right? Yes, so
we did stereotypes of witches and we just we just
busted that, hopefully, right, Hopefully we did. And we did
stereotypes of covens. But what we're real covens. See, that's
the thing. History is. History is funny, and history is
a lot more dynamic than people would sometimes have us believe.
History is a conversation, right, William Faulkner said, the past
(22:25):
isn't over, it's not even past. And what we look
at when we dig into covens and the concept of
coven's is that the idea that a coven was a
name for a group of witches came way, way, way
afterward after any of these events. The word coven first
came around sometime in twenty so there had already been
witch hunts, uh, And it wasn't used to describe meetings
(22:48):
of witches until a trial in sixteen sixty two for
a woman named Isabel Goudi. Before then, it was just
like meet up. Yeah, it was just a hangout. And
and it wasn't until ninety one that that term became
popular really associated with the gatherings specifically of witches. And
this association was made within an author, Margaret Murray's work,
(23:10):
The Witch Cult in Western Europe and yes, oh me too,
And this work also helped solidify there's a common idea
that within a coven there would be thirteen members, exactly
thirteen members, and there are some accounts that say that's
twelve actual what you would call witches, as well as
either a leader or the devil or deity themselves. So
(23:33):
you'd have actually like twelve apostles and then one leader
or one deity, right, And Murray actually believed that having twelve,
which is was a mockery of Jesus's twelve disciples. And
while it's true that the number thirteen does hold significance
within certain Wicken belief systems, the number of members of
a coven was generally not a requirement. There was no
(23:54):
like hard and fast rule. But we have also found
several modern covens that that do only allow thirteen members.
So why did people bother hunting witches in the first place.
I think partially it was because they genuinely believe they
were doing God's work, fighting the infernal and insidious forces
of of hell, of darkness. Yes, yeah, that's what it's
(24:17):
said on the label. But there's a dirty truth to this.
You see, the way the laws usually worked said that
if someone was convicted of witchcraft, whoever they were, the
person who convicted them got their possessions, all of their
worldly possessions, like, good job you uh. And this means
that in many cases witch hunters were working on commission basically. Yeah,
(24:43):
so like you have some bills to pay, you're a
witch hunter, you probably have three or four victims picked out.
And now you know, Fortunately for history, br anthropology, for science,
for humanity at large, these inquisitions and these other persecution
programs did not white about every non Catholic religion, and
you can still find modern groups identify as UH covens
(25:07):
or witches or or pagans of some sort today. So
let's get a little bit closer to modern day and
talk about witchcraft occurring right now. We've got some further
examples a little bit further down here, but we do
know that a lot of groups within the United States
(25:28):
and across the whole world practice a range of religions.
If if you're imagining witchcraft is one thing, you are
just dead wrong, because it's there's so many different belief
systems that can be or that are commonly described in
that way. UM. And it's all stuff that might even
fit the old Catholic definition of witchcraft, even though it
(25:49):
is not that UM. We also know that some of
the most historically prominent versions of a coven or a
witchcraft witchcraft group, such as this guy, Gerald Gardner's New
Forest Covin, they have been soundly debunked by research that's
occurred in the modern day and later research that does
continue into the modern day. So let's think about the
(26:09):
adventures of an American anthropologist by the name of T. M.
Lerman uh In nineteen eighty five, T. M. Luhrmann moved
to London and kind of embedded herself in what you
could consider a contemporary British form of witchcraft and magic
which is very much still around today. And she asked herself, why,
(26:30):
um would anyone take up the practice of magic something
as weird is magic, especially since, according to observers that
she interviewed, it doesn't necessarily work. So she she she
to find out. She attended hundreds of secret meetings. And
this is a quote from an article from The New
York Times reviewing a work that she did called Covens
and Chaos Groups. She enacted dozens of rituals, and she
(26:54):
actually wrote some herself, which kind of shows you how
open ended. Yeah, it's absolutely improv um as she read
tarot card, she sewed her own magic robes. She even
would ingest psychotropic substances to get into some sort of
fugue like reverie state, the type that the Druids would
have put themselves into in order to conduct their magic
(27:17):
right allegedly. And one of the main things she discovered
that was occurring within a lot of these groups was
cognitive dissonance. This this idea that the people who were,
you know, magicians, and which is the people that um
that she was associating with, often remember their magical successes.
So if they're going to do a ritual or something
they remember that time. Then something kind of worked out
(27:38):
a little bit better, uh than than the failures. The
ones were absolutely nothing occurred, and the definition of success
ended up becoming so broad and subjective. And um, it's
just that you you realized or she realized that there
was a lot of generous interpretation that was occurring within
the group and within the with individuals. Yeah, so like
(27:59):
for very compared since um, some of us probably work
with metrics and things in our day jobs. Right, we
have a way to measure success. This this way of
measuring success was a lot less like let's look at
the facts and a lot more like, well and did
a ritual with water yesterday, and uh I saw some
water the next day, so boom, you know. But it's
(28:21):
also not to completely discount it, right, that's not what
we're saying. We're just we're just saying it was easier
to believe it if you were within the group and
you had those beliefs already. That's the same way when you,
you know, design an algorithm and you say this is
the end all be all of something, there's somebody else
that says, no, mine, mine is the end all be all.
It's the same with anything when you interpret data and information,
(28:42):
it's a lot of it is kind of happenstance, and
it's hard to know exactly which one is the right answer. Right, Yeah, Yeah,
here's the thing. Okay, so we're talking about um, a
specific version of of witchcraft. But it is very very
important to note here that there are still human beings
across the planet right now in some very particular areas
that are being accused of witchcraft still and uh, they
(29:06):
are being hunted for that reason. Uh, and there are
these are isolated cases, but it's true. Again we're not
saying magic works, but there are more people, uh than
you might believe who are practicing what they would call
this left hand magic stuff. Let's let's talk about something
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but
(29:27):
narco cults. Right, we know what cartels are, we know
what the narcos are, Right, there are actual narco cults.
There was this sort of black magic that was happening
in Mexico, and we wanted to give you a specific
case of this. In nine Mexican authorities stumbled across a
(29:47):
genuine human sacrifice cult that was related to the drug cartels.
They were led by a guy named Adolfo Costanzo, who
was only twenty six. By the way, he's a cult lead.
Twenty six. That's pretty good. Yeah, I mean kind of yeah.
I don't know. I mean. It wasn't a good cult though,
is the thing. It wasn't like a friendly Mr. Rogers type.
(30:09):
I'm just saying, I'm I'm thirty six and I feel
I fell asleep trying to put on my pants once,
so like this this thing is, uh, this is weird.
He and his followers were called the Narco Satanists. They
committed multiple acts of human sacrifice, adopted from non Satanic
Caribbean religions up to and including cannibalism, because they thought
(30:33):
it would render them invisible, invincible, immune to bullets, and
they you know, we have to ask did they really
believe this? The answer I would argue is yes, because
they were killing people. They were literally weary necklaces of
human vertebrae. When when authorities caught them, you go through
they have to have believed it. I think at this
all goes down to the power of belief for sure.
(30:55):
And they were eventually caught, thank god, during an investigation
into the death of an America can by the name
of Mark Kilroy, who is one of their final victims.
So at least at the end their covens, magic didn't
didn't just save them from from being found out. And
it turns out that magic motivated murders are popular across
(31:15):
the entire globe. You've got areas of South Asia, some
parts of Europe, the Middle East, and several African countries
where people are genuinely absolutely being murdered for perceived reasons
that are magical related. Yeah. I think we're all familiar
with albinism or you know, um being an albino. UM.
(31:36):
A lot of people with who suffer from albinism are
hunted in places like Tanzania and Malawi or um, sorry,
how do you say it? Malawi? Uh? They are They're
murdered because their organs are being harvested for magical purposes.
I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. Their hair
and their body parts were a lot of times or
(31:57):
throughout history the subject of folklore of madical interest UM
specifically in those regions, but recently they've been touted as
a crucial component of any shorefire potion making. So if
if there's some witch doctor in a in a tribe
somewhere and they want to make a potion. They will
seek out this stuff money, wealth, power, true love, you know,
(32:21):
all the all the basic ones. And in in Saudi
Arabia and in the Islamic State, multiple people have been executed,
like very recently for the crime the perceived crime of witchcraft. Now, now, okay,
we've been yeah, we've been going over all the historical stuff,
the scary stuff. Let's let's talk about if you're going
(32:41):
to go out right now and try and find a
coven here in Manhattan. Uh, here's the cool thing. You
can do it and and they exist, and you can
actually probably go to a greeting or to a gathering.
You could probably if it's a full moon or a
new moon, you can go right now. There's a website
if you aim your browser at which vox w I
(33:02):
T C h v o X dot com, you can
find all of the locally or a lot of at
least the locally run covens, clans and coves. You got
an example for us, I do do you wanna? Can
you go over it a little where I can tell
you it's it's called um Hecate. That's one way to
say it's other. Heck, it is another way to pronounce it.
But Hecate is Sacred Temple, torchbearer of the Crossroads. This
(33:25):
is self described as a group of those who are
devotees or followers of the goddess Hecate that wish to
belong to a temple that honors and worships her. And uh,
who was Hecate? It's the it's the Greek goddess, right, Yeah,
it's the ancient Greek Hecate, as described on Wicca spirituality
dot com as the goddess of all doors and gates,
(33:46):
all transitions from one place to another or a state
of being um and the original hedge sitter, the hag,
the hex mistress. I'm a fan of people with multiple
superlatives like that, and she's described as like the queen
of witches in a lot of places. In this this
particular group, Hecate Sacred Temple offers classes and other opportunities
(34:07):
for the curious to learn about their organization and believe,
I don't want to downplay anything, but it almost feels
more like a community group or like a like a
nice kind of like knitting circle or something more than
it is some sort of like devil worship, he sacrificing
rotarian vibe or something you toastmasters. That's the whole point.
It's it's a place for people to hang out and
(34:27):
worship the way they want to worship. Yeah, that's that's
what I don't want to skip. There are modern witches,
there are modern covens. None of them are out to
get you know, you probably just want to hang out
with really quickly. I just met somebody a little while.
I'm not gonna out anybody, but it was like, yeah,
I had a coworker who was who was a witch. Um.
She was super cool. I loved hearing the stories about
her beliefs. Didn't like her as a person. Kind of
(34:48):
creeped me out, because people are people. We met them,
we all we absolutely all. Yeah, but Um had nothing
to do with the belief system more just kind of
a creepy person. Absolutely. But my hairdresser who just moved
away sadly of a hairdresser or salon person, a person
who does my hair, she's amazing. She's she's wicked and
(35:10):
she just moves away and I'm and I'm just so sad.
But she, uh, she was incredible because she could touch
my head and then tell me things about my son's life. Dude,
do you think she just looked on your Facebook? So,
but but it is true. People tend to just be people,
and that's like, maybe maybe that's a disappointed spoiler for
(35:32):
some folks. But the vast majority of ancient witches and covens,
just like the vast majority of the ones around today,
they were not after you either. You know, the more
we dig into this question, the more apparent it becomes
that the allegations of some vast, shadowy conspiracy of individuals
in league with infernal powers, we're just not true. They
(35:54):
there may have been, and they're likely were isolated groups
of people in communities practicing pre Chris spiritual traditions, but
they weren't out to like take over the world for Satan.
And I know that's gonna be kind of rough news
for some heavy metal fans out there personally sat about. Yeah,
I mean, it's a bummer, but it's true port Tenacious Dye,
So you know, there you have it. There. There really
(36:16):
are real, real life witches and real life groups identifying
themselves as covens, But as Ben said, the vast majority
are harmless practitioners of spiritual beliefs that they hold deep
and dear um. And they're certainly not not out to
get you. Yeah, or are they? I think they're I
think they're probably not. They're probably done. But that is
(36:40):
our show. Thank you so much for coming, everybody. We
we hope that you enjoyed it. Yeah, we hope, so.
Thank you, Thank you O'Connell, thanks to Paul, Thanks to
you you m h. Stuff They Don't Want You to
(37:14):
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