October 26, 2021 • 46 mins
William interviews Stacy Salpietro - Babb Tarot card reader and professional Witch. Stacy sheds light on the ways and crafts of the Witch while overturning misconceptions.
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Intro Voice (00:05):
Welcome to a place where we're thinking together
and thinking deeper about who weare and what we do in this
world. Welcome to the philosophypodcast.
William Forchion (00:18):
Hello, I am William Forchion. And I would
like to welcome you to theBillosophy 101 Podcast. Today,
my guest is
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (00:27):
I am Stacy Salpietro Babb, and I am a
tarot card reader andprofessional Witch,
William Forchion (00:34):
wow, okay, my jaw drops, even though I know
who you are. To hear you saythat you're a professional,
Witch, is, there's so much inthat there's a pictures of what
a witch is. And for those of yousince we're on the podcast, you
can't actually see Stacy infront of you. But I would say
(00:55):
you are not the media depictionof a witch.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (01:01):
Oh, the the green faced and the warts
and the all of that.
William Forchion (01:08):
All of that, yes, all that I don't you're not
wearing a hat. You know, Idon't, I can't see your feet.
But your boots, you know, youdon't have to lace up boots to
go.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (01:15):
I have a lot of lace up boots. I just
just full disclosure. I'mcurrently wearing slippers
actually.
William Forchion (01:25):
So, but we're gonna just go there with the
with the professional, Witchpart of this as a professional,
Witch, I mean, there's been somany things, one of the things
because I'm a professionalclown, and I have to deal with
more of the negative parts ofthat than the positive, which
is, you know, clowns are mirthmakers, and a Witch is, you
(01:47):
know, if I put things clown andwhich you are the, you're
depicted as the opposite,there's, you know, dark magic
and magic and spells. What doesit entail to be a witch?
Unknown (02:00):
To actually be a witch?
Well, you know, for me, it's a,it's a series of Crafts you
know, which ... it's calledwitchcraft, because there's a
number of crafts that all cometogether to create the witch.
But the thing is, is it'sdifferent for every, you know,
for every witch, and, you know,we're a stubborn group, and we
don't have any, you know,central organized system or
anything. And so, you know,let's say most witches will be
(02:24):
seers of some sort, well,they're, you know, they'll,
they'll read cards, or they'lldo runes, or astrology or, you
know, herbalism, or, you know,there's a lot of different ways
that witches work too, to helpthe world and I guess some of
our skills are a little or alittle obscure, but um, you
know, but really, it's a bunchof crafts that come together.
(02:44):
And and I think there's acertain spiritual witchcraft to
that part that wants to helppeople and that wants to think
around corners, and, you know,and find ways to find solutions
for people who are strugglingand such, you know,
William Forchion (02:59):
Do you when you go out in the world... do
you identify and you say, Hey,I'm a witch? you know, some
people go, I'm a doctor, I'm alawyer. I'm a do you say that?
'Cause I under I imagine thatyou will get some pushback or
some cheeky offhand remark.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (03:16):
Oh, yes.
Well, I have been saying, I'vebeen very publicly a witch since
since 1996. And that, you know,right now, I work in a world
where, you know, luckily,everybody expects me to act like
a witch now, because that's whatI do. That's my lifestyle. It's
my job. I'm a witchcraftteacher. I you know, but I was
publicly a witch, when I worked,let's say in the mental health
(03:39):
system, I'm a I have a degree inpsychology and counseling. And
so I and that caused all sortsof chaos. I mean, I taught my
first Tarot class was toteenagers in town, right? And I
was only 23 years old. I was Iwas kind of, I guess, unaware of
some of the pushback that Iwould get, you know, you're
(04:02):
teaching all the kidswitchcraft, which I'm like, what
was be so wrong with that? Youknow, and I think part of it is
that people don't know whatwitchcraft is. But I have gotten
any number of difficultreactions, actually. I mean,
some people like just straightlaugh at me, which is an
interesting reaction, but Ialways say I laugh back at them,
because I'm really happy. Ienjoy my life.
William Forchion (04:25):
You get the do you get the comments of like,
oh, no, really? What do you do?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (04:30):
If you would be surprised if you saw
some of the things people say tome, people will say like, so do
you eat children? Like I'm avegetarian, first of all, like,
you know, so I've had people askme some pretty outlandish things
over the years, and there's alot of fear of witchcraft. I
mean, recently, I was teaching aKitchen Witch, witchcraft class.
(04:53):
And while advertising for it,somebody got in touch with me to
ask if the class would beovertly witchy Which, I mean, it
was called into the cauldronkitchen. We're gonna you know,
I'm pretty overtly witchy nomatter what I do, it's kind of
like, I mean, I don't turn itoff or on and that way, you
know. And she said she's afraidof witches. So she wasn't okay
(05:16):
being taught by a witch andreally wouldn't hear anything I
had to say, would usually, to behonest, I have in my life been
able to, I guess, talk a lot ofpeople around corners and out of
some of their stereotypes. Andpeople will say like, well,
like, you know, the thingsyou're saying makes sense. You
know, I mean, most witches arepretty practical.
William Forchion (05:38):
Right? Well, it's funny because I, I will use
the same with being a clown is.
So often people say I'm afraidof clowns. And then I'll say,
are you afraid of me? And I waslike, because everything that
I'm doing right now is theclown. It's just who I am. It's
not because I it's not because Ipunched a ticket at nine o'clock
(05:59):
and stepped into the job andsaid, I'm now clowning. It's who
I am.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (06:06):
Yeah, I don't know how to. Like when
when people it's funny.
Sometimes people will say, Well,you know, are you gonna, you
know, Halloween is coming? Areyou gonna, like dress up like a
witch or which kind ofwitchcraft things? I mean, I
that's what I, this is just howI dress. This is just do like, I
do this all the time. It's not,you know, but I consider that to
be a luxury actually. Because alot of people I work with and
teach say that they can't bereally open about who they are.
(06:27):
And they do have to, like, kindof take it off and on in a way
that I don't I don't have to,you know, right. But let's say I
really kind of an answer to thequestion you had asked I really
stubbornly as a professional wasvery vocal about being a witch.
It got a lot of differentreactions. Some people
definitely had a problem with melike, why do you want to teach
kids black magic was one of myfavorite questions. I was like,
(06:50):
I don't that would be stupid. Ibelieve in black magic. Beach, a
bunch of teenagers black magic,like no, that's not, you know,
um, so I got a lot of reallynegative reactions. But I think
to be honest, the most hurtfulone is either just being laughed
at or not believed in wherepeople say, Oh, well, I don't
believe in witches. And it'slike, Well, hey, like, that's
(07:11):
what I am.
William Forchion (07:15):
It's like saying, I don't believe in air.
I can't see it. I don't believeit's here. It's not real. This
is not air.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (07:20):
like clowns. It's like, well, that
doesn't change the fact thatclowns are so strange reaction,
but it's the one that gets to methe most. And I think what
people are saying is that theydon't believe in the stereotype
of witches. They don't believein the witch riding around on
the broomstick and castling and,you know, throwing you know,
potions at people and cursingthem, you know, that they don't
(07:42):
believe in that. And that'sgood, I guess.
William Forchion (07:45):
I mean, when you said before about teaching
the kitchen, which kitchenwitchery class, and I got to be
over overtly witchy what werethey expecting? Were you going
to be teaching, like, recipesand cackling and recipe, you
know, like, I'm going to takehouse pets and make a stew or,
you know, what is what isovertly witchy?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (08:06):
That's a valid point, because I kind of
just laughed at the time becauseit was like, that's a really
strange question. Like, you're,you're on a page called Path of
the witch, looking into a classcalled kitchen witchery into the
cauldron. There's going to besome witchcraft going on. But it
didn't. It didn't occur to me toactually wonder what she meant
by that. Because, right, maybeshe meant that, you know, we
(08:26):
were going to be, you know,taking the claws off of cats,
and, you know, eyeball them,putting them into our cauldron.
Yeah, it's it's hard to knowwhat people's stereotypes are.
And, but it has been a funnything all these years being kind
of unwilling to hide being awitch. I walked around carrying
a pentacle at reallyprofessional jobs. You know,
(08:49):
like I said, stubbornly. So justright, just like, This is who I
am. And I don't think there'sanything wrong with it. And I,
you know, it's nice now, though,like, hide that in any way. And
like I said, it's the first timea long time anybody's actually
asked me if I was going to beovertly witchy. It's like,
people like it when I do that.
Kind of
William Forchion (09:09):
know, you as a professional which you spread
your, you're an ambassador forwitches, period. And were in the
I'm trying to form this questionin a way that makes sense. There
are people who say, Oh, I'mafraid of witches are afraid of
witchcraft. Are there places ineveryday life where we use
(09:31):
witchcraft, or spellcasting? Orthat we you know, that the
normal person wouldn't evenidentify it as witchcraft?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (09:39):
Well, take the fact that every day of
the week is connected to aplanet, right? We have Sunday,
right? The sun we have Monday,that's the moon actually
Tuesday's connected to Mars.
And, you know, so on Saturn'sday, you know, Ray is that, you
know, so there's all these oldthere's a lot of magic first of
all, moving in with thedifferent planets, and you know
(10:00):
how to work with it well that wecould say, well, you know, today
is Thursday, also known asThursday, which is connected to
the planet Jupiter, actually,which is the planet of luck and
expansion, maybe that's whywe're talking today, right? You
pick something and evolve it andgrows that. So there's
definitely that. But I wouldalso say, um, you know, I'm a
(10:21):
really practical, which I thinkof, you know, let's say
everything we do is a spell ifwe consider it correctly, you
know, let's say, if you want tosleep well at night, well, it's
smart to set up your setup yourbed, well set up your space,
well have it be clean and calmand have it smell nice. And, you
know, so you're setting up thespell for good sleep? You know
(10:42):
what I mean? And if in themorning, sleep, well, then you
need to adjust your spell, whatdid you need to do to, you know,
to tweak that, you know, I thinka lot of magic is action, you
have to actually do things. So Ithink it's a, it's a bit of a
mindset, that, you know, thatyou that you kind of look at
things with, but I would say,people are casting magic all the
time, you know, even with likeintentions and such. And,
(11:04):
although intention out actionsdon't get you much
William Forchion (11:10):
different. And this is this one just popped up
in my head as well. Howdifferent is spellcasting and
prayers.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (11:21):
I mean, as far as I know, um, prayers
would be a request, usually,which spellcasting has as an
element. And it's a cooperation,which I think also has, um, I
guess with spell casting, we addin little fun elements that
maybe don't get added in withprayer, you know, being like,
(11:42):
you know, potions and powdersand such. That sort of, you
know, where there's kind of morethings added, I would suppose it
would probably be directed indifferent ways, right? You know,
a lot of times if I'm castingspells I'm considering I'm
working with kind of the spiritsof my home and the spirits of
the land were usually prayer bemore to a deity of some kind,
right? Okay. Which some witches,Some Witches are involved with
(12:07):
another witches aren't. Thefunny thing about witchcraft is
that we don't agree. You know,there's, I always tell people in
my classes, the first thing Isay is like, if you ask three
witches for an opinion, you'regoing to get four, right? No,
anything. And that's fine,because it's core witchcraft is
that everybody has their ownindividuality and way of doing
things, then there's, you know,to just differentiate, then
(12:29):
there's Wicca, which is more ofthat, that would be the more
organized form of witchcraftthat came about in the 1950s. So
that's more of a tradition wherethere's an organization and
rules. But when people aresaying they're a witch, it's
complicated. They can mean anynumber of things, I can usually
guess that they practice anumber of crafts.
William Forchion (12:48):
And do you as a witch, you know, like, with
any profession, do you have aspecialty? Is there something
you enjoy more like one part ofaspect of it more than others?
Or do you just kind of feel itout? And
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (13:01):
so me or everybody, would you say,
William Forchion (13:04):
you personally,
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (13:05):
I am. So I was drawn into witchcraft by
by SEER ship by predictions. SoI was always fascinated from the
time that I was a kid. I was,you know, I was the kid that was
reading everybody's horoscopesat them and making everybody
take the tests and the thequizzes and all the kids
magazines, the teenagemagazines, you know, I was
(13:28):
always interested inunderstanding people in that
way. And so when I was 12,actually, my mother got me the
Encyclopedia of prediction, andin it was everything from palm
reading to Taros, to runes,dream interpretation, and I, I
still have it, it's fallingapart. And I just loved it at
(13:48):
the time, I wanted to learneverything, you know, I wanted
to learn all of it. And, andironically, Taros my specialty,
actually, but ironically, thatwas the one thing in the book
that I said, Oh, that looks toohard. Like I'm going to learn
palm reading. I'm going to learnastrology. I'm going to learn
graphology which isinterpretation of handwriting,
which is really fascinating. ButI look tarot and thought, oh my
(14:10):
goodness, that's it. 78 cards,you know, I mean, I'm not going
to be able to that lookscomplicated. was my first
instinct but so see, your shiphas always been my specialty. I
I did get to the flip. You know.
Now when I look at that book,it's like, like, Yes, I did it.
I learned how to do every singlething in that book from tea leaf
reading to palm reading, youknow, Taro is my specialty
though. That's, that's my,that's my comfort. I have a
(14:33):
tarot deck front of me.
William Forchion (14:36):
I was at the wayfarer deck. It is. You
actually created your own tarotdeck. You and a partner, an
artist Tell me about that.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (14:46):
I worked with Margaret Shipman, who is a
who is a good friend and localartists and she had taken I
teach a class called 78 days ofTarot where we spend a day with
each card and really kind ofsink into the meaning Of the of
each card and she had taken a 78days class and at the end of it,
she approached me and asked if Iwanted to create a tarot deck.
(15:08):
And my background is that I, Ilove tarot, I always wanted to
create a tarot deck, I am reallycreative book, if I had created
this deck, it would look reallydifferent. I am not terribly
artistic when it comes to kindof fine art that that sort of
thing. I wouldn't even attemptit, I had always wanted somebody
like Margaret to come along. Andof course, her art is just is
just beautiful and fantastic. Sowe kind of went on this, what I
(15:32):
would call kind of almost amellow journey together to
create this, you know, we didn'treally push each other, we would
just get together and talk aboutcards and talk about how that
might be depicted in a picture,you know, teros and it's a
picture language, you know, sowould have a concept and how are
we going to put this out there?
So it's yeah, she created 78works of art and I wrote the
guidebook to it
William Forchion (15:54):
is no is that a daunting task to step into
making your own tarot deckbecause there are other decks
out there. There are some thatare pretty, I would say ancient.
They've been around for quitesome time. And you're you're
making a new version of thatwith imagery. And meaning that
(16:15):
has been passed down from theancients.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (16:17):
Yeah, well, tarot. So what I think of
as a living tradition, it's kindof you know, so So we've got our
old decks, I have a 14th centurytarot deck that I love working
with, you know, so we have ourreally, really old tarot decks.
But that, you know, there areliterally 1000s of decks out
there. And as we change aspeople, as our culture changes,
and shifts, you see those shiftsin the deck. And that's like,
(16:40):
let's say where we went with thewayfarer Taros we wanted to make
it a little bit moreapproachable. Like, you know, we
made our hero fun, which isusually a pope, we made him into
a professor, you know, becausepeople don't have a local hero
fan that they go talk to youanymore. You know, that used to
make sense. And like the 14thcentury, people were like, oh,
yeah, the hero fan, you know,whereas now that means, like the
keeper of knowledge and wisdom,I mean, that, you know, so we
(17:03):
were trying to make it morerelatable to the, to the modern
reader, so you could look at itand read the symbolism and have
it make sense.
William Forchion (17:10):
And how long would process is it to create
your own deck working withMargaret, was it five months was
a two year?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (17:16):
No, I think it was four years. It's I
mean, it's 78 works of art.
Margaret had the hard part of itin my opinion, you know, I mean,
she you know, if you look at thespec and like quickly pull a
couple cards, but like she shecreated everything from like
kind of drawings, I'm sorry,this is the star that I held up
and then I just held up the theaid of air and I was just
(17:37):
showing the difference becauseshe created some of the cards as
paintings and some S Pendrawings. Um, you know, so So
anyways, hurt for a job was muchmore daunting than mine, I wrote
the book, kind of over thecourse of teaching a lot of
Tarot classes, because wouldfocus on a car today. So I kind
of wrote along with that. Andthen kind of did it all at once
(17:58):
in the end and had like, areally stressful six months. But
the, you know, the work thatreally came into effect was I
mean, Margaret worked on thisfor four years. And so
William Forchion (18:11):
this is a great spot for how if somebody
wanted to get one of thesedecks, where would they find
what are they available instores? Or that you have a
website? Do you have a way ofgetting one of these
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (18:22):
Wayfarer taro calm is where you would
find where you would find theducks in the guidebooks. And I
know that we have decks inKeene, New Hampshire. Yep. I'm
sure. And then like, there, it'skind of we have we went to a
trade show the New Age tradeshow in Boulder, Colorado, and
(18:42):
we're spread out all over thecountry. You know, and it's
funny there's, we have we haveless stores around here that
carry us than we have out west,we have a lot less that carry
our, our stuff
William Forchion (18:55):
in your teachings of witchcraft. Is
there anything that you do teachthat that isn't being taught?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (19:01):
I, I mean, there's there's a lot of
teachers out there. So it's hardto say. You know, I think one of
my specialties in witchcraftteaching that not a lot of
people touch as much on is, isworking with familiar spirits
and spirits of the land. A lotof witches don't really don't
really talk about that as muchin witchcraft. And it's
interestingly due to, from whatI gather an argument between two
(19:26):
old men a long time ago, so it'slike this repeating theme in the
worlds but it was Harold Gardnerwhen he created Wicca, right,
which became kind of known as,you know, witchcraft. He was
kind of taking all thesedisparate elements and putting
them together into some sort ofform. He left out or didn't
really emphasize whatsoever, thewitches familiar. And that was a
(19:48):
big part. If you if you lookback at historical witchcraft,
though, it was always the witchand her familiar, you know, she
always heard of a spirit thatcould go out and travel in her
stead, etc. And he left that outand it was a big part of
witchcraft and so there was thisother old white man Cecile
Williamson who argued that hesaid, Why are you leaving us
out? That's a big, you know,that's kind of the witches
connection to her power. So ifyou felt that that's the that's,
(20:14):
you know,
William Forchion (20:14):
dig a little deeper, because I imagine that I
don't know anything about witchis what is the witches familiar?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (20:20):
Well, that would be some, you know,
again, like ask three witchesfor an opinion and you'll get
four I have to put that outthere. But um, the witches
familiar would be a spirit thatthe witch works with and usually
shows itself in some sort of ananimal form. Right? I am kind of
the bird girl and hang out. Ohmy god, like all the all the
(20:40):
birds at the museum because Ihave a, I have a focus on
working with animal spirits.
William Forchion (20:48):
Do I? Do I hear a bird in the background?
Right?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (20:52):
Yeah, I have parakeets. They're there.
They're endlessly chatty.
William Forchion (20:58):
Okay. All right, just to make sure so that
when we're hearing people, ormaybe in the podcast, we'll hear
the chirping that's going onjust a bit. That's
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (21:06):
not That's not owls and eagles. They
don't sound you know, but itwould be working with like,
let's say, you know, so if I canwork with a hawk and get to
understand hawks, right, then Ican learn how to use the eyes of
a hawk and the Hawk can seemiles like a mile away, the Hawk
is able to be in detail, youknow? So how can I learn
something from what's wild? Youknow, we have a real big
(21:28):
disconnect with nature. Somepeople work with live familiars
being like, this is my cat, sheis my familiar. This is where
which is really it's a if youput this up, which is we'll
argue about this, there's littlethings which we'll argue about.
And I don't work with livingfamiliars I work with with, with
spirit familiar, so let's sayI'd see owls in my dreams. And
(21:50):
so I got to know owls inreality, so I could see what
that was about, you know, why?
Why was I seeing this? Well, youknow, and then you start to
learn from the actual creatureitself, you know, like, wow,
elves have this incrediblehearing, like, do I have to
sharpen my own hearing? So it'skind of about like trying to get
your your wild skills back, wedon't really have as much
connection to
William Forchion (22:10):
so with your spirit familiars, is that like a
spirit guide?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (22:15):
You know, it's funny, there's a,
it's complicated. It always is,right? Because there's a lot of
different words out there andcultures that are kind of mixed
together and confused. Let's saya lot of people talk about totem
spirits. And they asked, so isit kind of like a totem? And
it's like, I'm not sure I can'treally speak to that I, you
know, I'm not a part of thatculture. Spirit guides, I think
(22:38):
is kind of like a broad term,you know, for like, kind of any
sort of, like, kind of spiritualenergy that's working with you.
And people could mean anythingfrom like, a familiar to
ancestor to different people,you know, to, you know, your
grandmother who's died or to,you know, like, some kind of
spirits that watch over you, youknow, yeah.
William Forchion (22:59):
If you could demystify anything about
witchcraft, what would whatwould it be?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (23:05):
I mean, I don't know, I kind of like the
mystical side of witchcraft. SoI don't know. There's things
that simply aren't, aren't truethat I would try to take away
you know, and seriously, likethe, you know, the cackling
witch putting children intoovens and such, it would be nice
to see that sort of stereotypego away like that, that like is
kind of tiring by this point. Socan we stop having, you know,
(23:28):
right. But there's a lot ofconfusion in witchcraft, a lot
of things are confused in termsof the history of witchcraft.
You know, let's say, take, as aword, you know, people didn't
identify themselves as witches.
Until really recently inhistory, you know, we're looking
at different crafts and saying,like, Yes, that sounds like
witchcraft to me. But the peopleof you know, the 1400s. They
(23:50):
didn't walk around callingthemselves a witch, they were
accused of that. You know what Imean? So there's a big confusion
about what witchcraft is in thehistory. And there's a lot of
what we call fake lore, woven in
William Forchion (24:04):
and is, is witchcraft. Hopefully, I'm not
offending you by mentioningthis. But you know, the Harry
Potter series, which became oneof the more famous of them,
there's many different books foryoung adult fiction for on
witchcraft. But from that,there's this idea that some
(24:24):
people, it's past within themthat they're witches in lineage,
are there is that something thatwe're all accessible to is?
Witchcraft and the witchiness orwhatever that is?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (24:36):
Yes. And in fact, one of my one of my pet
peeves actually is the you know,a lot of which is true or false
like to have a long story likeoh, the, my grandmother taught
me witchcraft from from long agoconnected to the old age of
witches and I don't know I thinklike a lot of people have made
(24:59):
some stuff up. To be honest, andit's kind of it's kind of
confused things. If you thinkabout it, you know, I mean, so I
think what happens is thatpeople think, for example, that
Tarot is a gift, right? It'ssome gifts that was just blessed
upon me. And it's like whenpeople say that, I always laugh
because it's like I obsessedabout Tarot. That's why I'm good
(25:19):
at it. I studied it obsessive.
Oh, other like, you know, thisperson might have studied
carpentry. I studied Tarot thatas as a teacher, I think it
stops people from from learningbecause they think that they
just have to be perfect ateverything. When they start,
they pick up a deck of tarotcards, and they're like, I'm not
good at this, like
William Forchion (25:36):
you're saying, it's just like, if I wanted to
be a stellar athlete, I wouldapply myself and I would do the
work that was necessary. Being awitch is the same thing as that
you take the skills and thetechniques, and you work at them
to gain proficiency and mastery.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (25:51):
Right.
So you know, I didn't start offbeing a good tarot card reader.
You know, I mean, I had to learnthat I had to learn the cards, I
had to practice reading. So Ihad to stumble through it, I had
to be really basic at first andgrow it I mean, just like you
would with anything else. Butpeople have this myth that it's
this, that it's this gift, Ithink it stops people from
learning because they don'tthink that they're good at it.
William Forchion (26:12):
I need to say I at this point, I have to say,
you have read done a tarotreading for me on multiple
occasions. And the first time Idid not know you, our kids were
at the same preschool together.
And you did a reading for me.
And I, my socks came off, I wasblown away. Because you are
(26:35):
reading wasn't, it was so indepth. And it wasn't without it
was without question. It wasn'tthat you question and you pulled
from me? The answers that youwere giving is that you saw
within the reading informationthat to me was remarkable that
no stranger should have about me
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (26:59):
of that moment. I have a picture of that
that somebody had taken of youlooking at me a little bit like
I was terrifying.
William Forchion (27:08):
As if you had two or three heads.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (27:11):
You're giving me quite the look. Whoa.
William Forchion (27:14):
Yeah, I was absolutely floored. And each
reading you've done for me hasbeen similar. It just I'm just
like, what, how are you seeingthis? How are you knowing this?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (27:24):
I blame it on the tarot cards, you know,
honestly, it's not and then talkabout another place of
controversy, because a lot ofpeople would say that it's me,
and that my cards are just,they're just a tool, you know,
but let's say I just did areading right before this call
for a woman. She said she wantedto know about her relationship
in the cards right away. I mean,it only took a second to be
(27:48):
like, Okay, there's somethingwrong here. What's wrong with
the relationship? There's aproblem. And then it you know,
the card showed me it was likeit was the devil, the guy had an
addiction, you know, this womanwas in a whole different place,
it was showing the woman as theson, right. And him as the
devil. The cards are beingreally clear. So my cards helped
me right, because that showingme it's like, well look, this
woman's like, full of thisenergy in life. And then she's
(28:10):
with this person who's drainingher energy because he's got this
problem, right? I didn't knowthat. You know, picking up the
phone and talking to her. I knewthat because the cards gave me
that hint. And I think once workreally well with the cards they
work with you or any skill thatyou're working with. For Sears
ship, it works with you kind ofseamlessly. And so my cards
just, they lay it right out onthe line. They're like, look,
(28:32):
this woman's in a relationship.
It's draining her she needs towalk away from it looks like the
person has an addiction. It'snot good for her. It amusingly
said, if she continued on thepath, that she would gain the
skill of patience, you know, sothey're a little snarky. They
make her laugh. I'm sure shewill gain patience. Taro, that's
very funny. Have you you know,but it's, it's giving. It's the
cards that are telling me this.
(28:53):
It's not I didn't walk up tothis woman with like, you know,
instincts about her life. And infact, some people will do that
with me. They'll be like, I justmet this guy. What's your,
what's your instinct on that?
And it's like, I don't know, youknow, I can pull it out of you.
I mean, cuz that's, that's how Iwork.
William Forchion (29:08):
Are you familiar with the book, The
Golden Compass, and it's about agirl and she has an Elisa
ometer, which is like a compass,it looks like a compass. And
when she sees it, when theaverage person sees it, there's
ways that they can read it. Andpeople have told told, Oh, this
means this and this means thatand that means that and she
says, when I see it, I seethat's the that's the first
(29:31):
level and then there's anotherlevel and then there's another
level and then there's anotherlevel and she has to then decide
on which level she is readingfrom in order to discern what
the information is that that isnecessary in that moment. Is
that how you read your tarotcards? Are there level like is
there like, if I go deeper, Isee this and I see this and
(29:53):
superficially This means onething, do you read it with a
levels or do you just come toyou?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (29:58):
I read it in levels like I will See,
that's really accurate. I reallylike that as a description
actually, that she has there it,I read it in different levels
here, here's a good example isthe reading that I just did. I
was, I was helping the womanout, you know, she, it's not my
job to tell somebody what to do,right, it's there. Um, she
already had other people tellingher what to do in the cards were
(30:18):
clear about that. So she gotfrom me, um, what she needed was
like, some sympathy, someunderstanding, and like, hey,
like, maybe there's some waysfor you to not get so drained
through this, like, you know, Isee a stay with the sky like,
alright, so like, is there waysto protect yourself? She said to
me after she said, you know, ourreading sometimes more mean than
(30:39):
this. And I said, I could haveread this in a completely
different way. I could havesaid, Get the hell out of this
relationship. It's draining yourenergy. And it's stopping you
from being able to accomplishthe things you're wanting to
accomplish. Like don't do it,right. But I'm looking at it at
a way I'm looking at it like,because I'm looking at the
person run is hurting. Right?
And I didn't feel like it was myplace to yell at her or tell her
what to do, though. Like, I'mlooking at the cards, like, you
(31:00):
know, what's the answers? Yougot to get out of this, it's not
going to work. He's not going tochange, right. But I could look
at it from different angles anddifferent levels, depending on
how I looked at the situation.
But I had to look at her firstand see that this is a hurting
person, you know, how can I helpher given where she's at? You
know, and so I think indifferent levels in that way,
but it is true, like every cardI call them projection holders.
(31:24):
So there's the the image andthere's the meaning and then
like it's like a doorway, right?
William Forchion (31:33):
If you like what's going on here on
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(31:57):
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Billosophy101. I am talking withStacy Salpietro - Babb which,
yes, which one? That one? And Iknow I've known Stacy for years,
(32:22):
and just amazing person with anamazing family. You I mean,
there's so many thingswitchcraft teacher this year,
and predictions aspect of thingsthere. I want to go there. I
also want to talk about theaverage everyday person in which
there is the witchiness of everyevery everybody. There are
(32:46):
certain things that we do on aneveryday basis when we have gut
instincts or we can we havepremonitions or deja vu moments.
How much of that can be honed inor trained through witchcraft?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (33:02):
I mean, I think that I think that a
quite a bit of it. Actually, youknow, I mean, because it's all
about taking, you know, what Itell my new witches is
witchcraft is about finding thethread you're supposed to follow
and then following it. So let'ssay for me, it was Taro. And so
I followed that, that particularthread to get to where I was
going in witchcraft, but otherpeople have different things
(33:25):
that they follow, you know,they're like, I've always been
intuitive, or I've been able totalk to the dead my whole life.
So they go in in that way, orI've always been a person who
wants to make herbal, you know,concoctions for my friends to
heal them. Or, you know, youknow, a lot of people say that
they feel like they were alwaysa witch. And for me, a lot of
the things that I learned aboutthat were witchcraft. It's like,
(33:48):
jeez, I thought those were justweird quirks of mine. Let's say
take animism, a lot of witches,some not all are animists, which
means that you believe thatthere's a spirit to things other
than people, right. So there's aspirit to animals, there's a
spirit to trees, there's aspirit to a storm. I always
thought that as a child andthought it was just a weird
(34:08):
quirk of mine that I, you know,let's say worried about food
that hadn't been eaten, becauseit was being wasted. And I felt
sad about that. And, you know,um, so there's a lot of stuff I
think that that people have islike hints that they might be
interested in practicingwitchcraft. But witchcraft does
it as its own right is a is areal specific path. And in fact,
(34:29):
I get a little grumpy sometimeswhen, like, they say, well, all
women are witches. Because itwould be like saying, All people
are clowns. Right. Now, like youdid a lot of work together.
Everybody's a martial artist.
And it's like, you know, becausethey move and it's like, well,
not really like. So I think thatthere's there's some inner
witchiness and everybody thatthey could choose to follow, and
(34:50):
then they could choose to followthat path and that that could
become what they are. But it'salways funny to me at this time
of year when all of a suddeneverybody is Which, right? So
for me, it's a practice. It's acraft. So when you tell me
you're a witch, I say, Well,what do you do? Like what do you
like? Do? Are you an herbalistyou make potions? Do you make
magical powders? Do you, youknow, work with the seasons and
(35:12):
the moon cycles? And you know,what do you mean, when you say
you're a witch has ever beensomething kind of different?
William Forchion (35:19):
My other question for you is, tend to
gender which, which is ourwomen? Are their male witches?
Are there men who are witches?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (35:29):
There sure are. In fact, one of my
best friends is a is a malewitch in the middle of Kansas, I
guess that's stereotypical towitches. But yes, I've worked
with quite a few witches who arewho are men, I usually just call
them which, if that's what theyidentify themselves, as other
people call themselves warlocks.
Instead, I've heard thatalthough not as commonly, to be
(35:51):
honest. And then there's peoplewho do the same practice I do.
And they call it the cunningcraft. So they'll call
themselves a cunning man, or acunning one, and cunning as
meaning, you know, it's not anasty kind of connotation, I
think in our culture. But whatcunning meant, historically was
what I call the ability to thinkaround corners, right? If
(36:13):
somebody has a problem, you'reautomatically like, How can I
help? What can I do? Can I makesomething can I give you
something? Can I give you areading? Like that's kind of the
cunning mind that's always kindof ticking and working? Right?
And that I've heard a lot of menwho practice witchcraft call
themselves a cunning man. Andhonestly, probably because they
have to do a lot of annoyingexplaining to people who are
(36:33):
like, What do you mean, you're awitch, you're a guy, you can't
be a witch. But you mostcertainly can.
William Forchion (36:39):
As you said, there are many different voices,
every every witch has theirvoice, which is the voice of
witchcraft. But the the, thewhen you just mentioned cutting
the cutting man, and it'stalking about witchcraft, I
think of when people use theterms to to describe somebody,
oh, that person is very cunning,or that person is very crafty.
(37:02):
And all of a sudden, it has avery different meaning to me
when I think of, you know, areyou sliding them by say, call
them cutting and crafty? Are youhonoring them by calling them
cunning and crafty? Because bothof those have, you know, the
idea of cutting was like, Oh,he's sly, he's cutting.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (37:20):
You know, but if you're manipulating
things to work better, right?
Yeah. I mean, what's wrong withthat? You know,
William Forchion (37:27):
and also both, both of them are slights in that
if you call somebody crafty, youknow, oh, they're very crafty.
It's not like they're skilled,or masterful, they just managed
to get through that with acraft.
Stacy Salpietro - (37:42):
Interesting, because, you know, it's funny
how we hear words differently,because I would hear that as
being artistically skilled,right, yeah. Some sort of craft
or be skilled in some sort of adifferent way. You know what I
mean? So it's funny howdifferent words have different
meanings. The cunning one reallygot me actually because I
automatically thought of that asa negative rating. But if
(38:02):
you're, you're coming to thinkaround corners to solve problems
to you know what I mean to maketo make things a little better
unity in the world around you,however you do it.
William Forchion (38:14):
I think that's a bad just like, boom, I am
coming. Thank you. That's,
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (38:19):
you know what, I think a lot of the the
compliments that witches get arekind of funny, though. Like,
let's say like, somebody told metoday that I was I was in a
compliment for him that I wascreepy. And she meant that my
Tarot reading was good. I have astrange job. So being creepy is
actually a compliment. It'slike,
William Forchion (38:36):
creepy and being that wait a minute, you
were just inside my head.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (38:44):
Yeah, I take it as a compliment. I don't
I don't hear it is bad. Butlike, think about how many I
mean, if somebody tells you,you're creepy, it's like,
William Forchion (38:51):
no, no, thank you. There's so much meat here.
There's so much and you're avegetarian. Sorry about that.
There's so much here that towork with him to chew on. What
if I one of the questions I askeach of my guests. If you could
go back to yourself in the past,which you probably can. But if
(39:12):
you could go back and tellyourself pass on some
information to just help heralong at any any point in time
where this young girl teenagerin your 20s new mother some
point in time of your life, thatyou can just say I want to I
want to hand this to you, justto get you through this hump or
get you through this time. Whatwords of advice would you give
(39:32):
yourself? Well, I
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (39:33):
have some that come to mind around
around witchcraft, if thathelps. Um, when I was a new
witch, I remember saying that Inever wanted to, to work with
any kind of large groups, right?
I didn't want to work under any,any famous witch or anything
like that. And later, I changedmy mind and I chose to work
under some famous switches. If Icould go back, I would tell
(39:55):
myself to keep doing my ownthing. To not go out. Yes and
not go following some famousperson to not go following
somebody tradition or way. I'vebeen happiest as a witch doing
things my way. And in fact thatkind of defines witchcraft is
doing things your own way. Imean, if you think about it, the
Witch back in the day was theold woman with one eye on the
(40:16):
field on the woods, likerefusing to do things everybody
else's way.
William Forchion (40:22):
Right, right.
And I hear you in that because Istudied in San Francisco under a
master in Chinese acrobatics,and I was so dead set on doing
it exactly as I was taught andpassing on that information
because I was passing on alineage, and it was being paid
and even handed down from him tome, and I was gonna pass it on.
And I knew about theregimentation very much like
(40:44):
martial arts. And when I got toVermont, I continued to do
exactly as he had done, he cameto visit. And this is not a
common thing. But he came whenhe came to visit, he said, What
are you doing? And I said, I'mdoing it exactly as you taught
me. And he said, why? And Isaid, because that's the way he
said, No, the way he sayschange, and it needs to evolve,
(41:04):
and that evolves with you, I'vegiven you the information for
you to change that informationon how you present it.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (41:13):
Yes, my friend, Margaret, the creator of
the artists of the Tarot deck,she always says, You have to
learn the, let's say, as anartist, you have to learn the
skills of the master so that youcan learn to break the rules,
you learn the you look at allthe different artists masters,
and what they've done, and thenyou figure out their way you get
comfortable with it, and youbreak the rules and find your
way. And, in fact, it'sinteresting that you bring that
(41:35):
up, because I think that that's,you would ask, like, what I
offer that's different. And Iwhen I teach, which is, I have
no ulterior motive. As ateacher, I don't have a
tradition that I'm trying tomake them follow. I don't want
them to do things my way I amspecifically trying to help
people find their way. We'regonna like, kind of help them
(41:56):
find their threads. And then tofollow it. I don't you know, I
guess, you know, I worked underpeople who had a book to sell.
So everybody does things thisway. And I don't do that I, you
know, let's say a lot of mywitches are interested in
crystals, I'm not much furtherwith. But that doesn't mean that
I won't teach somebody what Iknow about, like how to work
(42:16):
with crystals, if that's theirthing, I'm not going to try to
teach them to be me, I want themto find their way. And I think
that that makes me different asa witch because I don't or as a
witch teacher, let's say becauseI don't, I don't have an
ulterior motive. I have peoplego in directions all the time
that I would never take. Andthat's fine. My path to take
that's theirs. And I'm justwatching them, like, you know,
(42:37):
kind of excited to see what theyfind. It's not about me and what
I'm trying to make them learn.
William Forchion (42:42):
Before we finish up with the world, the
state of the world, and we're inan odd state, there's upheaval,
there's, there's separation,there is bully tactics that are
being passed on as the way thatwe need to move. What insight
what information could you sharewith the world? If you were
(43:02):
you're now just made the leaderof the world? And you could say
something that would bring ustogether again? What would you
say?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (43:11):
I mean, you know, from a witch
perspective, you know, what Isay? Is that, like, it's a
really funny thing, how we'veall drawn these imaginary lines
between ourselves betweencountries, and we've called
ourselves something different.
Whereas really, what we are isone, I mean, not to sound Ultra
hippy on you here. But we're oneplanet here, right? Like one
organism back to animism, right,who I was talking about, I
(43:32):
believe that the Earth has aspirit to it too. Right? All of
us. It's everything alltogether. And I think that that
spirits a little challengedright now, let's say because
we're all fighting with eachother. But it's one of that when
you look at the Earth on alarger perspective, how silly it
is that we're this little dotright in the middle of the solar
system, battling ourselves, justgrowing the planet. I mean,
(43:56):
we're a mess. You know, and Ithink we've gotten that we're
all you know, that everything isconnected, you know, and that
nature is important and that itmatters. If we take care of the
planet around us. It matterswith the footprint we put out
into the world is, you know, soI guess like, my only wisdom is
that, like, we've forgotten thatwe're all a part of the same
thing.
William Forchion (44:15):
We have forgotten. We've forgotten who
we are, we've forgotten ourconnection. And I'm so grateful
for you in my life. I'm gratefulthat you could share what you
have your wisdom, your insight,your opinions with this, the
philosophy podcast audience. Itis I mean, I'm, I'm just I mean,
the folks who are watching thisvideo could see I'm hugging
(44:36):
myself. So it's fantastic tohave you here. And it's so
fantastic. That you arefollowing your witchy ways and
you are guiding others on apath. If someone wanted to take
one of your courses, how wouldthey find you?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (44:54):
I'm keen I'm most easily found on
Facebook. To be honest. I've apage called Iris X readings
That's Iris x as a separateletter their readings and I also
have a page called Path of thewitch. And at this point I've
become friendly on my personalpage two, which is Stacy sell
Pietro Bab you know so any ofthose ways you can connect with
(45:16):
me I also have a an emailaccount that makes me pretty
easy to find too. So our effectsTarot that@gmail.com.
William Forchion (45:23):
Okay, that you've just said, Thank you so
much. And Stacey cell PietroBab, thank you so much for just
for taking some time with us forsharing what you have to bring
to the world and your yourwisdom, your insight and your
offerings. Thank you so much.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (45:40):
You're quite welcome. Thank
William Forchion (45:41):
you for having me. You're welcome. And thank
you all for joining theBillosophy 101 podcast.
Remember, to move forward withpassion and purpose. And every
morning and every night. Lookinto the mirror and say I am
enough and know it, because youare enough. I am enough. Thank
(46:06):
you very much. I'm WilliamForchion. This is Billosophy
101.
Intro Voice (46:17):
Thank you for listening to the Billosophy
podcast. Keep checking in as wewill be regularly releasing new
episodes.
Welcome to a place where we're thinking together
and thinking deeper about who weare and what we do in this
world. Welcome to the philosophypodcast.
William Forchion (00:18):
Hello, I am William Forchion. And I would
like to welcome you to theBillosophy 101 Podcast. Today,
my guest is
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (00:27):
I am Stacy Salpietro Babb, and I am a
tarot card reader andprofessional Witch,
William Forchion (00:34):
wow, okay, my jaw drops, even though I know
who you are. To hear you saythat you're a professional,
Witch, is, there's so much inthat there's a pictures of what
a witch is. And for those of yousince we're on the podcast, you
can't actually see Stacy infront of you. But I would say
(00:55):
you are not the media depictionof a witch.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (01:01):
Oh, the the green faced and the warts
and the all of that.
William Forchion (01:08):
All of that, yes, all that I don't you're not
wearing a hat. You know, Idon't, I can't see your feet.
But your boots, you know, youdon't have to lace up boots to
go.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (01:15):
I have a lot of lace up boots. I just
just full disclosure. I'mcurrently wearing slippers
actually.
William Forchion (01:25):
So, but we're gonna just go there with the
with the professional, Witchpart of this as a professional,
Witch, I mean, there's been somany things, one of the things
because I'm a professionalclown, and I have to deal with
more of the negative parts ofthat than the positive, which
is, you know, clowns are mirthmakers, and a Witch is, you
(01:47):
know, if I put things clown andwhich you are the, you're
depicted as the opposite,there's, you know, dark magic
and magic and spells. What doesit entail to be a witch?
Unknown (02:00):
To actually be a witch?
Well, you know, for me, it's a,it's a series of Crafts you
know, which ... it's calledwitchcraft, because there's a
number of crafts that all cometogether to create the witch.
But the thing is, is it'sdifferent for every, you know,
for every witch, and, you know,we're a stubborn group, and we
don't have any, you know,central organized system or
anything. And so, you know,let's say most witches will be
(02:24):
seers of some sort, well,they're, you know, they'll,
they'll read cards, or they'lldo runes, or astrology or, you
know, herbalism, or, you know,there's a lot of different ways
that witches work too, to helpthe world and I guess some of
our skills are a little or alittle obscure, but um, you
know, but really, it's a bunchof crafts that come together.
(02:44):
And and I think there's acertain spiritual witchcraft to
that part that wants to helppeople and that wants to think
around corners, and, you know,and find ways to find solutions
for people who are strugglingand such, you know,
William Forchion (02:59):
Do you when you go out in the world... do
you identify and you say, Hey,I'm a witch? you know, some
people go, I'm a doctor, I'm alawyer. I'm a do you say that?
'Cause I under I imagine thatyou will get some pushback or
some cheeky offhand remark.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (03:16):
Oh, yes.
Well, I have been saying, I'vebeen very publicly a witch since
since 1996. And that, you know,right now, I work in a world
where, you know, luckily,everybody expects me to act like
a witch now, because that's whatI do. That's my lifestyle. It's
my job. I'm a witchcraftteacher. I you know, but I was
publicly a witch, when I worked,let's say in the mental health
(03:39):
system, I'm a I have a degree inpsychology and counseling. And
so I and that caused all sortsof chaos. I mean, I taught my
first Tarot class was toteenagers in town, right? And I
was only 23 years old. I was Iwas kind of, I guess, unaware of
some of the pushback that Iwould get, you know, you're
(04:02):
teaching all the kidswitchcraft, which I'm like, what
was be so wrong with that? Youknow, and I think part of it is
that people don't know whatwitchcraft is. But I have gotten
any number of difficultreactions, actually. I mean,
some people like just straightlaugh at me, which is an
interesting reaction, but Ialways say I laugh back at them,
because I'm really happy. Ienjoy my life.
William Forchion (04:25):
You get the do you get the comments of like,
oh, no, really? What do you do?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (04:30):
If you would be surprised if you saw
some of the things people say tome, people will say like, so do
you eat children? Like I'm avegetarian, first of all, like,
you know, so I've had people askme some pretty outlandish things
over the years, and there's alot of fear of witchcraft. I
mean, recently, I was teaching aKitchen Witch, witchcraft class.
(04:53):
And while advertising for it,somebody got in touch with me to
ask if the class would beovertly witchy Which, I mean, it
was called into the cauldronkitchen. We're gonna you know,
I'm pretty overtly witchy nomatter what I do, it's kind of
like, I mean, I don't turn itoff or on and that way, you
know. And she said she's afraidof witches. So she wasn't okay
(05:16):
being taught by a witch andreally wouldn't hear anything I
had to say, would usually, to behonest, I have in my life been
able to, I guess, talk a lot ofpeople around corners and out of
some of their stereotypes. Andpeople will say like, well,
like, you know, the thingsyou're saying makes sense. You
know, I mean, most witches arepretty practical.
William Forchion (05:38):
Right? Well, it's funny because I, I will use
the same with being a clown is.
So often people say I'm afraidof clowns. And then I'll say,
are you afraid of me? And I waslike, because everything that
I'm doing right now is theclown. It's just who I am. It's
not because I it's not because Ipunched a ticket at nine o'clock
(05:59):
and stepped into the job andsaid, I'm now clowning. It's who
I am.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (06:06):
Yeah, I don't know how to. Like when
when people it's funny.
Sometimes people will say, Well,you know, are you gonna, you
know, Halloween is coming? Areyou gonna, like dress up like a
witch or which kind ofwitchcraft things? I mean, I
that's what I, this is just howI dress. This is just do like, I
do this all the time. It's not,you know, but I consider that to
be a luxury actually. Because alot of people I work with and
teach say that they can't bereally open about who they are.
(06:27):
And they do have to, like, kindof take it off and on in a way
that I don't I don't have to,you know, right. But let's say I
really kind of an answer to thequestion you had asked I really
stubbornly as a professional wasvery vocal about being a witch.
It got a lot of differentreactions. Some people
definitely had a problem with melike, why do you want to teach
kids black magic was one of myfavorite questions. I was like,
(06:50):
I don't that would be stupid. Ibelieve in black magic. Beach, a
bunch of teenagers black magic,like no, that's not, you know,
um, so I got a lot of reallynegative reactions. But I think
to be honest, the most hurtfulone is either just being laughed
at or not believed in wherepeople say, Oh, well, I don't
believe in witches. And it'slike, Well, hey, like, that's
(07:11):
what I am.
William Forchion (07:15):
It's like saying, I don't believe in air.
I can't see it. I don't believeit's here. It's not real. This
is not air.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (07:20):
like clowns. It's like, well, that
doesn't change the fact thatclowns are so strange reaction,
but it's the one that gets to methe most. And I think what
people are saying is that theydon't believe in the stereotype
of witches. They don't believein the witch riding around on
the broomstick and castling and,you know, throwing you know,
potions at people and cursingthem, you know, that they don't
(07:42):
believe in that. And that'sgood, I guess.
William Forchion (07:45):
I mean, when you said before about teaching
the kitchen, which kitchenwitchery class, and I got to be
over overtly witchy what werethey expecting? Were you going
to be teaching, like, recipesand cackling and recipe, you
know, like, I'm going to takehouse pets and make a stew or,
you know, what is what isovertly witchy?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (08:06):
That's a valid point, because I kind of
just laughed at the time becauseit was like, that's a really
strange question. Like, you're,you're on a page called Path of
the witch, looking into a classcalled kitchen witchery into the
cauldron. There's going to besome witchcraft going on. But it
didn't. It didn't occur to me toactually wonder what she meant
by that. Because, right, maybeshe meant that, you know, we
(08:26):
were going to be, you know,taking the claws off of cats,
and, you know, eyeball them,putting them into our cauldron.
Yeah, it's it's hard to knowwhat people's stereotypes are.
And, but it has been a funnything all these years being kind
of unwilling to hide being awitch. I walked around carrying
a pentacle at reallyprofessional jobs. You know,
(08:49):
like I said, stubbornly. So justright, just like, This is who I
am. And I don't think there'sanything wrong with it. And I,
you know, it's nice now, though,like, hide that in any way. And
like I said, it's the first timea long time anybody's actually
asked me if I was going to beovertly witchy. It's like,
people like it when I do that.
Kind of
William Forchion (09:09):
know, you as a professional which you spread
your, you're an ambassador forwitches, period. And were in the
I'm trying to form this questionin a way that makes sense. There
are people who say, Oh, I'mafraid of witches are afraid of
witchcraft. Are there places ineveryday life where we use
(09:31):
witchcraft, or spellcasting? Orthat we you know, that the
normal person wouldn't evenidentify it as witchcraft?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (09:39):
Well, take the fact that every day of
the week is connected to aplanet, right? We have Sunday,
right? The sun we have Monday,that's the moon actually
Tuesday's connected to Mars.
And, you know, so on Saturn'sday, you know, Ray is that, you
know, so there's all these oldthere's a lot of magic first of
all, moving in with thedifferent planets, and you know
(10:00):
how to work with it well that wecould say, well, you know, today
is Thursday, also known asThursday, which is connected to
the planet Jupiter, actually,which is the planet of luck and
expansion, maybe that's whywe're talking today, right? You
pick something and evolve it andgrows that. So there's
definitely that. But I wouldalso say, um, you know, I'm a
(10:21):
really practical, which I thinkof, you know, let's say
everything we do is a spell ifwe consider it correctly, you
know, let's say, if you want tosleep well at night, well, it's
smart to set up your setup yourbed, well set up your space,
well have it be clean and calmand have it smell nice. And, you
know, so you're setting up thespell for good sleep? You know
(10:42):
what I mean? And if in themorning, sleep, well, then you
need to adjust your spell, whatdid you need to do to, you know,
to tweak that, you know, I thinka lot of magic is action, you
have to actually do things. So Ithink it's a, it's a bit of a
mindset, that, you know, thatyou that you kind of look at
things with, but I would say,people are casting magic all the
time, you know, even with likeintentions and such. And,
(11:04):
although intention out actionsdon't get you much
William Forchion (11:10):
different. And this is this one just popped up
in my head as well. Howdifferent is spellcasting and
prayers.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (11:21):
I mean, as far as I know, um, prayers
would be a request, usually,which spellcasting has as an
element. And it's a cooperation,which I think also has, um, I
guess with spell casting, we addin little fun elements that
maybe don't get added in withprayer, you know, being like,
(11:42):
you know, potions and powdersand such. That sort of, you
know, where there's kind of morethings added, I would suppose it
would probably be directed indifferent ways, right? You know,
a lot of times if I'm castingspells I'm considering I'm
working with kind of the spiritsof my home and the spirits of
the land were usually prayer bemore to a deity of some kind,
right? Okay. Which some witches,Some Witches are involved with
(12:07):
another witches aren't. Thefunny thing about witchcraft is
that we don't agree. You know,there's, I always tell people in
my classes, the first thing Isay is like, if you ask three
witches for an opinion, you'regoing to get four, right? No,
anything. And that's fine,because it's core witchcraft is
that everybody has their ownindividuality and way of doing
things, then there's, you know,to just differentiate, then
(12:29):
there's Wicca, which is more ofthat, that would be the more
organized form of witchcraftthat came about in the 1950s. So
that's more of a tradition wherethere's an organization and
rules. But when people aresaying they're a witch, it's
complicated. They can mean anynumber of things, I can usually
guess that they practice anumber of crafts.
William Forchion (12:48):
And do you as a witch, you know, like, with
any profession, do you have aspecialty? Is there something
you enjoy more like one part ofaspect of it more than others?
Or do you just kind of feel itout? And
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (13:01):
so me or everybody, would you say,
William Forchion (13:04):
you personally,
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (13:05):
I am. So I was drawn into witchcraft by
by SEER ship by predictions. SoI was always fascinated from the
time that I was a kid. I was,you know, I was the kid that was
reading everybody's horoscopesat them and making everybody
take the tests and the thequizzes and all the kids
magazines, the teenagemagazines, you know, I was
(13:28):
always interested inunderstanding people in that
way. And so when I was 12,actually, my mother got me the
Encyclopedia of prediction, andin it was everything from palm
reading to Taros, to runes,dream interpretation, and I, I
still have it, it's fallingapart. And I just loved it at
(13:48):
the time, I wanted to learneverything, you know, I wanted
to learn all of it. And, andironically, Taros my specialty,
actually, but ironically, thatwas the one thing in the book
that I said, Oh, that looks toohard. Like I'm going to learn
palm reading. I'm going to learnastrology. I'm going to learn
graphology which isinterpretation of handwriting,
which is really fascinating. ButI look tarot and thought, oh my
(14:10):
goodness, that's it. 78 cards,you know, I mean, I'm not going
to be able to that lookscomplicated. was my first
instinct but so see, your shiphas always been my specialty. I
I did get to the flip. You know.
Now when I look at that book,it's like, like, Yes, I did it.
I learned how to do every singlething in that book from tea leaf
reading to palm reading, youknow, Taro is my specialty
though. That's, that's my,that's my comfort. I have a
(14:33):
tarot deck front of me.
William Forchion (14:36):
I was at the wayfarer deck. It is. You
actually created your own tarotdeck. You and a partner, an
artist Tell me about that.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (14:46):
I worked with Margaret Shipman, who is a
who is a good friend and localartists and she had taken I
teach a class called 78 days ofTarot where we spend a day with
each card and really kind ofsink into the meaning Of the of
each card and she had taken a 78days class and at the end of it,
she approached me and asked if Iwanted to create a tarot deck.
(15:08):
And my background is that I, Ilove tarot, I always wanted to
create a tarot deck, I am reallycreative book, if I had created
this deck, it would look reallydifferent. I am not terribly
artistic when it comes to kindof fine art that that sort of
thing. I wouldn't even attemptit, I had always wanted somebody
like Margaret to come along. Andof course, her art is just is
just beautiful and fantastic. Sowe kind of went on this, what I
(15:32):
would call kind of almost amellow journey together to
create this, you know, we didn'treally push each other, we would
just get together and talk aboutcards and talk about how that
might be depicted in a picture,you know, teros and it's a
picture language, you know, sowould have a concept and how are
we going to put this out there?
So it's yeah, she created 78works of art and I wrote the
guidebook to it
William Forchion (15:54):
is no is that a daunting task to step into
making your own tarot deckbecause there are other decks
out there. There are some thatare pretty, I would say ancient.
They've been around for quitesome time. And you're you're
making a new version of thatwith imagery. And meaning that
(16:15):
has been passed down from theancients.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (16:17):
Yeah, well, tarot. So what I think of
as a living tradition, it's kindof you know, so So we've got our
old decks, I have a 14th centurytarot deck that I love working
with, you know, so we have ourreally, really old tarot decks.
But that, you know, there areliterally 1000s of decks out
there. And as we change aspeople, as our culture changes,
and shifts, you see those shiftsin the deck. And that's like,
(16:40):
let's say where we went with thewayfarer Taros we wanted to make
it a little bit moreapproachable. Like, you know, we
made our hero fun, which isusually a pope, we made him into
a professor, you know, becausepeople don't have a local hero
fan that they go talk to youanymore. You know, that used to
make sense. And like the 14thcentury, people were like, oh,
yeah, the hero fan, you know,whereas now that means, like the
keeper of knowledge and wisdom,I mean, that, you know, so we
(17:03):
were trying to make it morerelatable to the, to the modern
reader, so you could look at itand read the symbolism and have
it make sense.
William Forchion (17:10):
And how long would process is it to create
your own deck working withMargaret, was it five months was
a two year?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (17:16):
No, I think it was four years. It's I
mean, it's 78 works of art.
Margaret had the hard part of itin my opinion, you know, I mean,
she you know, if you look at thespec and like quickly pull a
couple cards, but like she shecreated everything from like
kind of drawings, I'm sorry,this is the star that I held up
and then I just held up the theaid of air and I was just
(17:37):
showing the difference becauseshe created some of the cards as
paintings and some S Pendrawings. Um, you know, so So
anyways, hurt for a job was muchmore daunting than mine, I wrote
the book, kind of over thecourse of teaching a lot of
Tarot classes, because wouldfocus on a car today. So I kind
of wrote along with that. Andthen kind of did it all at once
(17:58):
in the end and had like, areally stressful six months. But
the, you know, the work thatreally came into effect was I
mean, Margaret worked on thisfor four years. And so
William Forchion (18:11):
this is a great spot for how if somebody
wanted to get one of thesedecks, where would they find
what are they available instores? Or that you have a
website? Do you have a way ofgetting one of these
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (18:22):
Wayfarer taro calm is where you would
find where you would find theducks in the guidebooks. And I
know that we have decks inKeene, New Hampshire. Yep. I'm
sure. And then like, there, it'skind of we have we went to a
trade show the New Age tradeshow in Boulder, Colorado, and
(18:42):
we're spread out all over thecountry. You know, and it's
funny there's, we have we haveless stores around here that
carry us than we have out west,we have a lot less that carry
our, our stuff
William Forchion (18:55):
in your teachings of witchcraft. Is
there anything that you do teachthat that isn't being taught?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (19:01):
I, I mean, there's there's a lot of
teachers out there. So it's hardto say. You know, I think one of
my specialties in witchcraftteaching that not a lot of
people touch as much on is, isworking with familiar spirits
and spirits of the land. A lotof witches don't really don't
really talk about that as muchin witchcraft. And it's
interestingly due to, from whatI gather an argument between two
(19:26):
old men a long time ago, so it'slike this repeating theme in the
worlds but it was Harold Gardnerwhen he created Wicca, right,
which became kind of known as,you know, witchcraft. He was
kind of taking all thesedisparate elements and putting
them together into some sort ofform. He left out or didn't
really emphasize whatsoever, thewitches familiar. And that was a
(19:48):
big part. If you if you lookback at historical witchcraft,
though, it was always the witchand her familiar, you know, she
always heard of a spirit thatcould go out and travel in her
stead, etc. And he left that outand it was a big part of
witchcraft and so there was thisother old white man Cecile
Williamson who argued that hesaid, Why are you leaving us
out? That's a big, you know,that's kind of the witches
connection to her power. So ifyou felt that that's the that's,
(20:14):
you know,
William Forchion (20:14):
dig a little deeper, because I imagine that I
don't know anything about witchis what is the witches familiar?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (20:20):
Well, that would be some, you know,
again, like ask three witchesfor an opinion and you'll get
four I have to put that outthere. But um, the witches
familiar would be a spirit thatthe witch works with and usually
shows itself in some sort of ananimal form. Right? I am kind of
the bird girl and hang out. Ohmy god, like all the all the
(20:40):
birds at the museum because Ihave a, I have a focus on
working with animal spirits.
William Forchion (20:48):
Do I? Do I hear a bird in the background?
Right?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (20:52):
Yeah, I have parakeets. They're there.
They're endlessly chatty.
William Forchion (20:58):
Okay. All right, just to make sure so that
when we're hearing people, ormaybe in the podcast, we'll hear
the chirping that's going onjust a bit. That's
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (21:06):
not That's not owls and eagles. They
don't sound you know, but itwould be working with like,
let's say, you know, so if I canwork with a hawk and get to
understand hawks, right, then Ican learn how to use the eyes of
a hawk and the Hawk can seemiles like a mile away, the Hawk
is able to be in detail, youknow? So how can I learn
something from what's wild? Youknow, we have a real big
(21:28):
disconnect with nature. Somepeople work with live familiars
being like, this is my cat, sheis my familiar. This is where
which is really it's a if youput this up, which is we'll
argue about this, there's littlethings which we'll argue about.
And I don't work with livingfamiliars I work with with, with
spirit familiar, so let's sayI'd see owls in my dreams. And
(21:50):
so I got to know owls inreality, so I could see what
that was about, you know, why?
Why was I seeing this? Well, youknow, and then you start to
learn from the actual creatureitself, you know, like, wow,
elves have this incrediblehearing, like, do I have to
sharpen my own hearing? So it'skind of about like trying to get
your your wild skills back, wedon't really have as much
connection to
William Forchion (22:10):
so with your spirit familiars, is that like a
spirit guide?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (22:15):
You know, it's funny, there's a,
it's complicated. It always is,right? Because there's a lot of
different words out there andcultures that are kind of mixed
together and confused. Let's saya lot of people talk about totem
spirits. And they asked, so isit kind of like a totem? And
it's like, I'm not sure I can'treally speak to that I, you
know, I'm not a part of thatculture. Spirit guides, I think
(22:38):
is kind of like a broad term,you know, for like, kind of any
sort of, like, kind of spiritualenergy that's working with you.
And people could mean anythingfrom like, a familiar to
ancestor to different people,you know, to, you know, your
grandmother who's died or to,you know, like, some kind of
spirits that watch over you, youknow, yeah.
William Forchion (22:59):
If you could demystify anything about
witchcraft, what would whatwould it be?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (23:05):
I mean, I don't know, I kind of like the
mystical side of witchcraft. SoI don't know. There's things
that simply aren't, aren't truethat I would try to take away
you know, and seriously, likethe, you know, the cackling
witch putting children intoovens and such, it would be nice
to see that sort of stereotypego away like that, that like is
kind of tiring by this point. Socan we stop having, you know,
(23:28):
right. But there's a lot ofconfusion in witchcraft, a lot
of things are confused in termsof the history of witchcraft.
You know, let's say, take, as aword, you know, people didn't
identify themselves as witches.
Until really recently inhistory, you know, we're looking
at different crafts and saying,like, Yes, that sounds like
witchcraft to me. But the peopleof you know, the 1400s. They
(23:50):
didn't walk around callingthemselves a witch, they were
accused of that. You know what Imean? So there's a big confusion
about what witchcraft is in thehistory. And there's a lot of
what we call fake lore, woven in
William Forchion (24:04):
and is, is witchcraft. Hopefully, I'm not
offending you by mentioningthis. But you know, the Harry
Potter series, which became oneof the more famous of them,
there's many different books foryoung adult fiction for on
witchcraft. But from that,there's this idea that some
(24:24):
people, it's past within themthat they're witches in lineage,
are there is that something thatwe're all accessible to is?
Witchcraft and the witchiness orwhatever that is?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (24:36):
Yes. And in fact, one of my one of my pet
peeves actually is the you know,a lot of which is true or false
like to have a long story likeoh, the, my grandmother taught
me witchcraft from from long agoconnected to the old age of
witches and I don't know I thinklike a lot of people have made
(24:59):
some stuff up. To be honest, andit's kind of it's kind of
confused things. If you thinkabout it, you know, I mean, so I
think what happens is thatpeople think, for example, that
Tarot is a gift, right? It'ssome gifts that was just blessed
upon me. And it's like whenpeople say that, I always laugh
because it's like I obsessedabout Tarot. That's why I'm good
(25:19):
at it. I studied it obsessive.
Oh, other like, you know, thisperson might have studied
carpentry. I studied Tarot thatas as a teacher, I think it
stops people from from learningbecause they think that they
just have to be perfect ateverything. When they start,
they pick up a deck of tarotcards, and they're like, I'm not
good at this, like
William Forchion (25:36):
you're saying, it's just like, if I wanted to
be a stellar athlete, I wouldapply myself and I would do the
work that was necessary. Being awitch is the same thing as that
you take the skills and thetechniques, and you work at them
to gain proficiency and mastery.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (25:51):
Right.
So you know, I didn't start offbeing a good tarot card reader.
You know, I mean, I had to learnthat I had to learn the cards, I
had to practice reading. So Ihad to stumble through it, I had
to be really basic at first andgrow it I mean, just like you
would with anything else. Butpeople have this myth that it's
this, that it's this gift, Ithink it stops people from
learning because they don'tthink that they're good at it.
William Forchion (26:12):
I need to say I at this point, I have to say,
you have read done a tarotreading for me on multiple
occasions. And the first time Idid not know you, our kids were
at the same preschool together.
And you did a reading for me.
And I, my socks came off, I wasblown away. Because you are
(26:35):
reading wasn't, it was so indepth. And it wasn't without it
was without question. It wasn'tthat you question and you pulled
from me? The answers that youwere giving is that you saw
within the reading informationthat to me was remarkable that
no stranger should have about me
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (26:59):
of that moment. I have a picture of that
that somebody had taken of youlooking at me a little bit like
I was terrifying.
William Forchion (27:08):
As if you had two or three heads.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (27:11):
You're giving me quite the look. Whoa.
William Forchion (27:14):
Yeah, I was absolutely floored. And each
reading you've done for me hasbeen similar. It just I'm just
like, what, how are you seeingthis? How are you knowing this?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (27:24):
I blame it on the tarot cards, you know,
honestly, it's not and then talkabout another place of
controversy, because a lot ofpeople would say that it's me,
and that my cards are just,they're just a tool, you know,
but let's say I just did areading right before this call
for a woman. She said she wantedto know about her relationship
in the cards right away. I mean,it only took a second to be
(27:48):
like, Okay, there's somethingwrong here. What's wrong with
the relationship? There's aproblem. And then it you know,
the card showed me it was likeit was the devil, the guy had an
addiction, you know, this womanwas in a whole different place,
it was showing the woman as theson, right. And him as the
devil. The cards are beingreally clear. So my cards helped
me right, because that showingme it's like, well look, this
woman's like, full of thisenergy in life. And then she's
(28:10):
with this person who's drainingher energy because he's got this
problem, right? I didn't knowthat. You know, picking up the
phone and talking to her. I knewthat because the cards gave me
that hint. And I think once workreally well with the cards they
work with you or any skill thatyou're working with. For Sears
ship, it works with you kind ofseamlessly. And so my cards
just, they lay it right out onthe line. They're like, look,
(28:32):
this woman's in a relationship.
It's draining her she needs towalk away from it looks like the
person has an addiction. It'snot good for her. It amusingly
said, if she continued on thepath, that she would gain the
skill of patience, you know, sothey're a little snarky. They
make her laugh. I'm sure shewill gain patience. Taro, that's
very funny. Have you you know,but it's, it's giving. It's the
cards that are telling me this.
(28:53):
It's not I didn't walk up tothis woman with like, you know,
instincts about her life. And infact, some people will do that
with me. They'll be like, I justmet this guy. What's your,
what's your instinct on that?
And it's like, I don't know, youknow, I can pull it out of you.
I mean, cuz that's, that's how Iwork.
William Forchion (29:08):
Are you familiar with the book, The
Golden Compass, and it's about agirl and she has an Elisa
ometer, which is like a compass,it looks like a compass. And
when she sees it, when theaverage person sees it, there's
ways that they can read it. Andpeople have told told, Oh, this
means this and this means thatand that means that and she
says, when I see it, I seethat's the that's the first
(29:31):
level and then there's anotherlevel and then there's another
level and then there's anotherlevel and she has to then decide
on which level she is readingfrom in order to discern what
the information is that that isnecessary in that moment. Is
that how you read your tarotcards? Are there level like is
there like, if I go deeper, Isee this and I see this and
(29:53):
superficially This means onething, do you read it with a
levels or do you just come toyou?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (29:58):
I read it in levels like I will See,
that's really accurate. I reallylike that as a description
actually, that she has there it,I read it in different levels
here, here's a good example isthe reading that I just did. I
was, I was helping the womanout, you know, she, it's not my
job to tell somebody what to do,right, it's there. Um, she
already had other people tellingher what to do in the cards were
(30:18):
clear about that. So she gotfrom me, um, what she needed was
like, some sympathy, someunderstanding, and like, hey,
like, maybe there's some waysfor you to not get so drained
through this, like, you know, Isee a stay with the sky like,
alright, so like, is there waysto protect yourself? She said to
me after she said, you know, ourreading sometimes more mean than
(30:39):
this. And I said, I could haveread this in a completely
different way. I could havesaid, Get the hell out of this
relationship. It's draining yourenergy. And it's stopping you
from being able to accomplishthe things you're wanting to
accomplish. Like don't do it,right. But I'm looking at it at
a way I'm looking at it like,because I'm looking at the
person run is hurting. Right?
And I didn't feel like it was myplace to yell at her or tell her
what to do, though. Like, I'mlooking at the cards, like, you
(31:00):
know, what's the answers? Yougot to get out of this, it's not
going to work. He's not going tochange, right. But I could look
at it from different angles anddifferent levels, depending on
how I looked at the situation.
But I had to look at her firstand see that this is a hurting
person, you know, how can I helpher given where she's at? You
know, and so I think indifferent levels in that way,
but it is true, like every cardI call them projection holders.
(31:24):
So there's the the image andthere's the meaning and then
like it's like a doorway, right?
William Forchion (31:33):
If you like what's going on here on
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(31:57):
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Billosophy101. I am talking withStacy Salpietro - Babb which,
yes, which one? That one? And Iknow I've known Stacy for years,
(32:22):
and just amazing person with anamazing family. You I mean,
there's so many thingswitchcraft teacher this year,
and predictions aspect of thingsthere. I want to go there. I
also want to talk about theaverage everyday person in which
there is the witchiness of everyevery everybody. There are
(32:46):
certain things that we do on aneveryday basis when we have gut
instincts or we can we havepremonitions or deja vu moments.
How much of that can be honed inor trained through witchcraft?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (33:02):
I mean, I think that I think that a
quite a bit of it. Actually, youknow, I mean, because it's all
about taking, you know, what Itell my new witches is
witchcraft is about finding thethread you're supposed to follow
and then following it. So let'ssay for me, it was Taro. And so
I followed that, that particularthread to get to where I was
going in witchcraft, but otherpeople have different things
(33:25):
that they follow, you know,they're like, I've always been
intuitive, or I've been able totalk to the dead my whole life.
So they go in in that way, orI've always been a person who
wants to make herbal, you know,concoctions for my friends to
heal them. Or, you know, youknow, a lot of people say that
they feel like they were alwaysa witch. And for me, a lot of
the things that I learned aboutthat were witchcraft. It's like,
(33:48):
jeez, I thought those were justweird quirks of mine. Let's say
take animism, a lot of witches,some not all are animists, which
means that you believe thatthere's a spirit to things other
than people, right. So there's aspirit to animals, there's a
spirit to trees, there's aspirit to a storm. I always
thought that as a child andthought it was just a weird
(34:08):
quirk of mine that I, you know,let's say worried about food
that hadn't been eaten, becauseit was being wasted. And I felt
sad about that. And, you know,um, so there's a lot of stuff I
think that that people have islike hints that they might be
interested in practicingwitchcraft. But witchcraft does
it as its own right is a is areal specific path. And in fact,
(34:29):
I get a little grumpy sometimeswhen, like, they say, well, all
women are witches. Because itwould be like saying, All people
are clowns. Right. Now, like youdid a lot of work together.
Everybody's a martial artist.
And it's like, you know, becausethey move and it's like, well,
not really like. So I think thatthere's there's some inner
witchiness and everybody thatthey could choose to follow, and
(34:50):
then they could choose to followthat path and that that could
become what they are. But it'salways funny to me at this time
of year when all of a suddeneverybody is Which, right? So
for me, it's a practice. It's acraft. So when you tell me
you're a witch, I say, Well,what do you do? Like what do you
like? Do? Are you an herbalistyou make potions? Do you make
magical powders? Do you, youknow, work with the seasons and
(35:12):
the moon cycles? And you know,what do you mean, when you say
you're a witch has ever beensomething kind of different?
William Forchion (35:19):
My other question for you is, tend to
gender which, which is ourwomen? Are their male witches?
Are there men who are witches?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (35:29):
There sure are. In fact, one of my
best friends is a is a malewitch in the middle of Kansas, I
guess that's stereotypical towitches. But yes, I've worked
with quite a few witches who arewho are men, I usually just call
them which, if that's what theyidentify themselves, as other
people call themselves warlocks.
Instead, I've heard thatalthough not as commonly, to be
(35:51):
honest. And then there's peoplewho do the same practice I do.
And they call it the cunningcraft. So they'll call
themselves a cunning man, or acunning one, and cunning as
meaning, you know, it's not anasty kind of connotation, I
think in our culture. But whatcunning meant, historically was
what I call the ability to thinkaround corners, right? If
(36:13):
somebody has a problem, you'reautomatically like, How can I
help? What can I do? Can I makesomething can I give you
something? Can I give you areading? Like that's kind of the
cunning mind that's always kindof ticking and working? Right?
And that I've heard a lot of menwho practice witchcraft call
themselves a cunning man. Andhonestly, probably because they
have to do a lot of annoyingexplaining to people who are
(36:33):
like, What do you mean, you're awitch, you're a guy, you can't
be a witch. But you mostcertainly can.
William Forchion (36:39):
As you said, there are many different voices,
every every witch has theirvoice, which is the voice of
witchcraft. But the the, thewhen you just mentioned cutting
the cutting man, and it'stalking about witchcraft, I
think of when people use theterms to to describe somebody,
oh, that person is very cunning,or that person is very crafty.
(37:02):
And all of a sudden, it has avery different meaning to me
when I think of, you know, areyou sliding them by say, call
them cutting and crafty? Are youhonoring them by calling them
cunning and crafty? Because bothof those have, you know, the
idea of cutting was like, Oh,he's sly, he's cutting.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (37:20):
You know, but if you're manipulating
things to work better, right?
Yeah. I mean, what's wrong withthat? You know,
William Forchion (37:27):
and also both, both of them are slights in that
if you call somebody crafty, youknow, oh, they're very crafty.
It's not like they're skilled,or masterful, they just managed
to get through that with acraft.
Stacy Salpietro - (37:42):
Interesting, because, you know, it's funny
how we hear words differently,because I would hear that as
being artistically skilled,right, yeah. Some sort of craft
or be skilled in some sort of adifferent way. You know what I
mean? So it's funny howdifferent words have different
meanings. The cunning one reallygot me actually because I
automatically thought of that asa negative rating. But if
(38:02):
you're, you're coming to thinkaround corners to solve problems
to you know what I mean to maketo make things a little better
unity in the world around you,however you do it.
William Forchion (38:14):
I think that's a bad just like, boom, I am
coming. Thank you. That's,
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (38:19):
you know what, I think a lot of the the
compliments that witches get arekind of funny, though. Like,
let's say like, somebody told metoday that I was I was in a
compliment for him that I wascreepy. And she meant that my
Tarot reading was good. I have astrange job. So being creepy is
actually a compliment. It'slike,
William Forchion (38:36):
creepy and being that wait a minute, you
were just inside my head.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (38:44):
Yeah, I take it as a compliment. I don't
I don't hear it is bad. Butlike, think about how many I
mean, if somebody tells you,you're creepy, it's like,
William Forchion (38:51):
no, no, thank you. There's so much meat here.
There's so much and you're avegetarian. Sorry about that.
There's so much here that towork with him to chew on. What
if I one of the questions I askeach of my guests. If you could
go back to yourself in the past,which you probably can. But if
(39:12):
you could go back and tellyourself pass on some
information to just help heralong at any any point in time
where this young girl teenagerin your 20s new mother some
point in time of your life, thatyou can just say I want to I
want to hand this to you, justto get you through this hump or
get you through this time. Whatwords of advice would you give
(39:32):
yourself? Well, I
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (39:33):
have some that come to mind around
around witchcraft, if thathelps. Um, when I was a new
witch, I remember saying that Inever wanted to, to work with
any kind of large groups, right?
I didn't want to work under any,any famous witch or anything
like that. And later, I changedmy mind and I chose to work
under some famous switches. If Icould go back, I would tell
(39:55):
myself to keep doing my ownthing. To not go out. Yes and
not go following some famousperson to not go following
somebody tradition or way. I'vebeen happiest as a witch doing
things my way. And in fact thatkind of defines witchcraft is
doing things your own way. Imean, if you think about it, the
Witch back in the day was theold woman with one eye on the
(40:16):
field on the woods, likerefusing to do things everybody
else's way.
William Forchion (40:22):
Right, right.
And I hear you in that because Istudied in San Francisco under a
master in Chinese acrobatics,and I was so dead set on doing
it exactly as I was taught andpassing on that information
because I was passing on alineage, and it was being paid
and even handed down from him tome, and I was gonna pass it on.
And I knew about theregimentation very much like
(40:44):
martial arts. And when I got toVermont, I continued to do
exactly as he had done, he cameto visit. And this is not a
common thing. But he came whenhe came to visit, he said, What
are you doing? And I said, I'mdoing it exactly as you taught
me. And he said, why? And Isaid, because that's the way he
said, No, the way he sayschange, and it needs to evolve,
(41:04):
and that evolves with you, I'vegiven you the information for
you to change that informationon how you present it.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (41:13):
Yes, my friend, Margaret, the creator of
the artists of the Tarot deck,she always says, You have to
learn the, let's say, as anartist, you have to learn the
skills of the master so that youcan learn to break the rules,
you learn the you look at allthe different artists masters,
and what they've done, and thenyou figure out their way you get
comfortable with it, and youbreak the rules and find your
way. And, in fact, it'sinteresting that you bring that
(41:35):
up, because I think that that's,you would ask, like, what I
offer that's different. And Iwhen I teach, which is, I have
no ulterior motive. As ateacher, I don't have a
tradition that I'm trying tomake them follow. I don't want
them to do things my way I amspecifically trying to help
people find their way. We'regonna like, kind of help them
(41:56):
find their threads. And then tofollow it. I don't you know, I
guess, you know, I worked underpeople who had a book to sell.
So everybody does things thisway. And I don't do that I, you
know, let's say a lot of mywitches are interested in
crystals, I'm not much furtherwith. But that doesn't mean that
I won't teach somebody what Iknow about, like how to work
(42:16):
with crystals, if that's theirthing, I'm not going to try to
teach them to be me, I want themto find their way. And I think
that that makes me different asa witch because I don't or as a
witch teacher, let's say becauseI don't, I don't have an
ulterior motive. I have peoplego in directions all the time
that I would never take. Andthat's fine. My path to take
that's theirs. And I'm justwatching them, like, you know,
(42:37):
kind of excited to see what theyfind. It's not about me and what
I'm trying to make them learn.
William Forchion (42:42):
Before we finish up with the world, the
state of the world, and we're inan odd state, there's upheaval,
there's, there's separation,there is bully tactics that are
being passed on as the way thatwe need to move. What insight
what information could you sharewith the world? If you were
(43:02):
you're now just made the leaderof the world? And you could say
something that would bring ustogether again? What would you
say?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (43:11):
I mean, you know, from a witch
perspective, you know, what Isay? Is that, like, it's a
really funny thing, how we'veall drawn these imaginary lines
between ourselves betweencountries, and we've called
ourselves something different.
Whereas really, what we are isone, I mean, not to sound Ultra
hippy on you here. But we're oneplanet here, right? Like one
organism back to animism, right,who I was talking about, I
(43:32):
believe that the Earth has aspirit to it too. Right? All of
us. It's everything alltogether. And I think that that
spirits a little challengedright now, let's say because
we're all fighting with eachother. But it's one of that when
you look at the Earth on alarger perspective, how silly it
is that we're this little dotright in the middle of the solar
system, battling ourselves, justgrowing the planet. I mean,
(43:56):
we're a mess. You know, and Ithink we've gotten that we're
all you know, that everything isconnected, you know, and that
nature is important and that itmatters. If we take care of the
planet around us. It matterswith the footprint we put out
into the world is, you know, soI guess like, my only wisdom is
that, like, we've forgotten thatwe're all a part of the same
thing.
William Forchion (44:15):
We have forgotten. We've forgotten who
we are, we've forgotten ourconnection. And I'm so grateful
for you in my life. I'm gratefulthat you could share what you
have your wisdom, your insight,your opinions with this, the
philosophy podcast audience. Itis I mean, I'm, I'm just I mean,
the folks who are watching thisvideo could see I'm hugging
(44:36):
myself. So it's fantastic tohave you here. And it's so
fantastic. That you arefollowing your witchy ways and
you are guiding others on apath. If someone wanted to take
one of your courses, how wouldthey find you?
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (44:54):
I'm keen I'm most easily found on
Facebook. To be honest. I've apage called Iris X readings
That's Iris x as a separateletter their readings and I also
have a page called Path of thewitch. And at this point I've
become friendly on my personalpage two, which is Stacy sell
Pietro Bab you know so any ofthose ways you can connect with
(45:16):
me I also have a an emailaccount that makes me pretty
easy to find too. So our effectsTarot that@gmail.com.
William Forchion (45:23):
Okay, that you've just said, Thank you so
much. And Stacey cell PietroBab, thank you so much for just
for taking some time with us forsharing what you have to bring
to the world and your yourwisdom, your insight and your
offerings. Thank you so much.
Stacy Salpietro - Babb (45:40):
You're quite welcome. Thank
William Forchion (45:41):
you for having me. You're welcome. And thank
you all for joining theBillosophy 101 podcast.
Remember, to move forward withpassion and purpose. And every
morning and every night. Lookinto the mirror and say I am
enough and know it, because youare enough. I am enough. Thank
(46:06):
you very much. I'm WilliamForchion. This is Billosophy
101.
Intro Voice (46:17):
Thank you for listening to the Billosophy
podcast. Keep checking in as wewill be regularly releasing new
episodes.
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